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1869
A79
THE POPE
THE KINGS AND THE PEOPLE
A HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT TO MAKE
THE POPE GOVERNOR OF THE WORLD
BY A UNIVERSAL
-8194
RECONSTRUCTION OF SOCIETY
FROM THE ISSUE OF THE SYLLABUS TO THE CLOSE OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL,
BY WILLIAM ARTHUR
'Take thou the tiara adorned with the triple crown, and know that thou art the Father of
princes and of kings, and art the Governor of the world.'
VOL. I.
LUX EX
LITER
Coronation Service of the Pontiff's

WILLIAM MULLAN & SON
34 PATERNOSTER ROW LONDON
4 DONEGAL PLACE BELFAST
1877
{
Printed by Hazell, Watson, and Viney, London and Aylesbury.
PREFACE.
HE sources of the information contained in this work are,
THE
1. Official documents; 2. Histories having the sanction of
the Pope or of bishops; 3. Scholastic works of the present pon-
tificate, and of recognised authority; 4. Periodicals and journals,
avowed organs of the Vatican or of its policy, with books and
pamphlets by bishops and other Ultramontane writers; 5. The
writings of Liberal Catholics.
Of the official documents the greater part have been offici-
ally published. The list of authorities, and the references in
each particular case, will sufficiently indicate where these are
to be found. Besides these, the Documenta ad Illustrandum of
Professor Friedrich are a store of documents of special value,
both in themselves and as throwing light upon those officially
published. They came into his hands as an official theologian
at the Vatican Council, and he published them on his own
responsibility. The Sammlung of Friedberg is a vast store,
combining the documents of the Vatican with those of Courts,
public bodies, and important individuals.
The official history of Cecconi, now Archbishop of Florence,
though professedly that of the Vatican Council, is really occu-
pied with the secret history of the five years preceding the
iv
Preface.
Council. That very curious narrative throws a light back on
the foregoing years, and a light forward upon the Council,
by aid of which many things otherwise indistinct become well
defined. I have waited in hope that a second volume would
appear, but in vain. The eight superb folios of Victor Frond
come out with an assurance, under the Pope's own hand, of
being preserved by due oversight from error, and with a guar-
antee of divine patronage. They contain a life of the Pope,
biographical notices of the Cardinals and prelates, a full account
of ceremonies, authentic portraits of men and vestments, with
pictures of 'functions,' and so contribute to enable one to set
events in their frames, and to invest them with their colours.
Except military annals, perhaps, no history ever had more colour
than this portion of Papal history, and perhaps in no history
whatever has the action been more deeply affected by the
The Civiltà Cattolica fulfils the invaluable office of a
serial history, in the pages of which official documents and the
chronicle of events illustrate one another, and at the same time
discussions often prepare the way both for documents and for
events, and always follow and elucidate any that are of con-
sequence. The same office is in a less degree also fulfilled by
the Stimmen aus Maria Laach.
scenery.
To appreciate the height of authority on which the Civiltá
stands, the reader should bear in mind the fact that in 1866,¹
after it had already for sixteen years been recognised as the
organ, at one and the same time, of the Pope himself and
of the Company of Jesus to which its editors belonged, his
Holiness in a brief and by a declared exercise of apostolic
authority, formally erected in perpetuity the Jesuit Fathers
who composed the editorial staff into a College of Writers,
1 See Civiltà, Serie VI., vol. vi. pp. 5-15.
!
Preface.
V
which college should be under the General of the Society of
Jesus, but, it is added, so as to Us and to Our successors
shall seem most expedient.' In this brief the Pontiff recorded,
as to the past, the 'exceeding gladness of soul' he had
felt in witnessing the labour, erudition, zeal, and talent with
which the Civiltá had 'manfully protected and defended
the supreme dignity, authority, power, and rights' of the
Apostolic See, and had set forth and propagated the true
doctrine.' He also recorded the fact that all this had day
by day more and more merited the 'goodwill, esteem, and
praise,' not only of the hierarchy, but of men of the greatest
eminence, and of all the good. This, coming at a time when
the expositions of the Encyclical and Syllabus given by the
Civiltú had awakened among Liberal Catholics serious opposi-
tion and even alarm, was decisive as to what was, at Rome,
held to be the true doctrine, and as to who were held to be its
real teachers. As to the future, the Pontiff, adopting the
well known motto of the Company of Jesus, decreed that,
for the greater glory of God, the writers should, as we have
said, constitute in perpetuity a college possessing peculiar
rights and privileges. As if formally to claim some share of
this glory, the Jesuit editors of the Stimmen aus Maria Laach,
when in 1869 commencing a new series, notified on their
title-page the fact that they availed themselves of the labours
of the Civiltá,—a liberty which no Jesuit durst have taken
without the highest sanction.
All the numbers of the Civiltá and of the Stimmen being
under my hand, they have yielded a steady light by which to
examine opinions relating to the movement of reconstruction,'
whether those opinions were hostile or sympathetic. The Italian
journal, the Unità Cattolica, and the French one, the Univers,
1
vi
Preface.
written with a consciousness of the highest favour on the one
hand and of an overwhelming influence among the clergy on
the other, comment upon the operative clauses of official docu-
ments-generally intelligible only to the initiated-in forms
more popular than those of the two great magazines. But it
is only by the still clearer comment of daily narratives and
polemics that the elucidation becomes complete.
The Roman work of the Marchese Francesco Vitelleschi
(Pomponio Leto) has now appeared in English-Eight Months at
Rome (Murray). This is welcome, as enabling one to refer the
English reader to his pages, of which even Ultramontanes in
Rome do not impugn the accuracy. Quirinus is also happily in
English. Professor Friedrich's Tagebuch ought to be, but is not.
Those and smaller works by Liberal Catholics, compared with
the sparkling volumes of M. Louis Veuillot and the Ultramon-
tane serials and pamphlets, and with the Old Catholic writers
in the Rheinischer Merkur, the Literaturblatt of Bonn, the
Stimmen aus der Katholischen Kirche, and so forth, slowly bring
home to our English understanding the strange principles and
wonderful projects which at first we either fail to apprehend,
or else imagine that they cannot be seriously entertained.
On those principles and projects four distinct controversies
have shed a steadily increasing light-the controversy on, 1. The
Syllabus; 2. The Vatican Council; 3. The Old Catholic Move-
ment; 4. The Falk Laws. The last two do not come within
the scope of this work, but very much of the light by which we
gradually come to understand the preceding stages of the move-
ment, is due to the keen discussions to which these two contro-
versies have given rise.
Having subscribed for the Civiltà Cattolica for years before
the Syllabus appeared, I was not wholly unprepared for the
Preface.
vij
controversy which followed. The Civiltá also enabled me to see
how Liberal Catholics connected the Vatican Council with a
movement in the past, dating from the Pope's restoration, and
with a plan of vast changes for the future. While the hopes of
the Ultramontanes seemed visionary, and the fears of the Liberal
Catholics seemed exaggerated, it did nevertheless appear possible
that great events might come out of a deliberate attempt, made
by a large and organised force, to reconstruct the world. Soon
after the close of the Franco-German war, a visit to Paris,
Munich, Vienna, Berlin, Brussels, and other centres, supplied
me with much material, casting light on the enterprise in which
the Vatican Council was the legislative episode, and from which
the Old Catholic movement was the recoil.
It was while engaged in studying such material that I threw
off the translation of the discussion held in Rome on the question
whether St. Peter had ever visited that city. Soon after broke
out the controversy on the Falk Laws. Six weeks spent in a
German country town, reading journals and pamphlets, and also
in collecting, added to my light, and to the means of getting
further light. In the course of the time employed upon the
study of growing material was thrown off the review of the
Pope's Speeches, under the title of The Modern Jove.
Though conscious that I had not yet the groundwork for a
well connected account of the whole movement, I began to
write, not with any intention of publishing for a long time,
should I live, but under the feeling that, should I be called
away, it would be right to leave behind me information which
had not been gained without cost and labour. After a while
appeared the official history of Cecconi. His authentic if in-
complete disclosure of the secret proceedings of five years was
a stem for many hitherto perplexing branches. A plan now
viii
Preface.
began to shape itself, and I commenced to recast all I had done.
Shortly afterwards came out the great work of Theiner, the
Acta Genuina of the Council of Trent. This settled many points
keenly debated between Catholic and Liberal Catholic, affecting
the rights of kings, of bishops, of the divinity schools, of the
lower clergy, of the laity, and affecting the relations of all these
to the Pontiff.
While I was working with these additional helps appeared
Mr. Gladstone's Expostulation. The great amount of know-
ledge it betrayed contrasted with one's previous idea of the state
of information on the subject among our public men. The con-
troversy which followed might have brought some temptation
to haste, had it not also brought proof that it was even more
necessary than I had supposed to beware of assuming that
phrases, modes of conception, and projects, well understood in
Italy or Germany, were at all understood here. Some of those
who reviewed Mr. Gladstone took for strange what in all
countries in the south or centre of Europe would have been
taken as familiar, and for doubtful what in Rome or Munich
was as clear as day. Accredited terms and phrases were treated
as inventions; by some as inventions of genius, by others of
animosity. It was often more than hinted that principles and
designs habitually proclaimed at the Vatican were ascribed to
priests only by opponents. Not unfrequently a gentleman
would seem to think it more generous to attribute his Pro-
testant ideas to Ultramontanes, than to take it for granted
that they preferred their own. It was incredible how political
questions pregnant with future controversies, perhaps with
future wars, were evaded as theology!
The replies to Mr. Gladstone placed the ignorance of the
English public on the subject in a different but a very impres-
"
Preface.
ix
sive light. It is often said abroad, by those who know us, that
no nation in Europe is so liable as we are to treat gravely
statements from priests or their advocates which any reasonable
amount of information would render entertaining. The reviews
of these replies showed a growing sense of the interests involved,
but intensified one's feeling that the elements of clear under-
standing were wanting. Men did not know the terms, the facts,
the publications, or the political doctrines of the movements
under discussion. Had what has been written in our best
journals during the last twenty years from Italy, or even during
the last five from Rome and Berlin, been well read, it would
have led to study, and in that case Dr. Newman and others
would not have had so cheap a laugh at our ignorance of what
is meant because of our false interpretation of what is said.
While this controversy proceeded, a stay of nearly three months
in Rome, employed in seeking material and information, added
considerably to my stores, which were further increased by two
subsequent visits to Munich and one to Bonn.
I have often been reminded of an incident which occurred
in Rome. One of our celebrated scholars, hearing what I was
engaged in, exclaimed 'Oh, Theology!' Of course, he was fresh
from home. Not many minutes before, a resident diplomatist,
in whose house this took place, having heard me say 'I began
the study of this subject as a religious question, but—' smiled
and said, 'Yes, but—you find it is all politics, and the further
you get into it the more purely political will you find it.'
The controversy which had sprung up at home showed that a
book written as this one had been begun would be frequently
misunderstood. In that controversy it was often taken for
granted that when an Ultramontane disclaims Temporal Power,
he disclaims power over temporal things; and that when he
X
Preface.
writes Spiritual Power, he means only power over spiritual
things; that when he writes Religious Liberty, he means freedom
for every one to worship God according to his conscience; that
when he writes the Divine Law, he means only the Ten Com-
mandments and the precepts of the Gospel; that when he writes
the Kingdom of God, he means righteousness and peace and joy
in the Holy Ghost; and that when he writes the Word of God,
he simply means the Bible. One reasoning with false interpreta-
tions like these in his mind must reason in such a fog as Dr.
Newman, in his letter to the Duke of Norfolk, cleverly depicts.
Ambiguity similar to that now indicated prevails over the whole
field of phraseology-theological, political, and educational.
English Ultramontanes are doubtless in part responsible for
these misapprehensions, but only in part. If their writings are
studied, they will be seen to use such terms differently from
their fellow-countrymen. But certainly the Papal press of
Rome, and even that of France, is not in any degree responsible
for our illusions, but has, on the contrary, left us without excuse.
The consequence of all this is that in this book, where a mere
allusion would have been made, a fact is now often related;
where the sense of some particular utterance would have been
condensed, that utterance is verbally recited; and where one
sentence would have been culled out, more are given. Very
often, where a statement of the principles of the Papal move-
ment would have been accompanied only by a reference to a
contemporary authority, that authority is made to speak for
himself, and occasionally at some length. Terms and phrases,
which might have been left to the chance of being understood,
are either coupled with narratives or discussions, to bring out
their sense, or else they are explained. When I do give expla-
nations, let me not be trusted, but watched. Much will be
Preface.
xi
found of the language both of Catholics and of Liberal Catholics,
and with it the reader can confront my strange-looking explana-
tions. In the end he will be able to do what, thank God, every
Englishman is inclined to do-form an opinion for himself as to
the real sense in which the speakers employed their own words.
It need not be said that this change of method rendered
necessary a larger book than was at first planned. It was also
unfavourable to the flow and unity of the narrative. Perhaps it
compensated for that disadvantage by more fully showing the
grounds on which statements are made, and by bringing the
reader frequently, almost continuously, into communication with
Italian, Frenchman, or German, each expressing his own views,
whether those of statesman or priest, of journalist or magistrate,
of Catholic or of Liberal Catholic.
•
My thanks are due to many who have forwarded my re-
searches. The kindness of Count Cadorna, then Italian Minister
at our Court, procured for me valuable facilities in Rome. My
true gratitude was deserved by the distinguished Minister of
Education, Signor Bonghi, especially for his personal introduc-
tion of me to the great library of the Collegio Romano, not
then open to the public. Our own Ambassador, Sir Augustus
Paget, and the German Ambassador, Baron Keudell, both
rendered me real service, with all possible courtesy. The
Marchese Francesco Nobili-Vitelleschi, himself author of a his-
tory on which I must often draw, took pains to procure for
me valuable material. Among many benefits received from
our own countrymen, I must specify that derived from the vast
information on all Italian matters possessed by Mr. Montgomery
Stuart, and also that arising from the constant kindness of the
Rev. H. J. Piggott. Those two gentlemen have kindly read
on the spot certain sheets containing local observations. Two
xii
Preface.
German scholars were constant and practical friends, Dr.
Benrath and Dr. Richter. Other gentlemen who, by literary
or official position, were able to give information, uniformly
showed the greatest readiness in doing so.
The difficulty of procuring in Rome pamphlets and other
minor helps surprised me, though somewhat prepared for such
results by experiments made under the old régime. The great
libraries of the Collegio Romano and the Casanatense contained,
one might say, nothing published during the Vatican Council, or
respecting it. I cannot, however, mention these establishments
without recording my thanks to Signor Castellani, of the Collegio
Romano, for his very great personal attention.
In Munich the National Library, with its clear catalogue and
good collection, contrasted with the great libraries of Rome.
The kindness of Dr. Döllinger was great and eminently prac-
tical. He had kept all pamphlets, bearing on the subject, which
had come into his hands. He not only gave me free access to
this collection, but, where he had duplicates, presented me with
them. Dr. Reusch, Professor of the University of Bonn, with
a collection at least equal, though without duplicates, gave me
similar facilities. The lists thus procured, and the energy of
the German booksellers, enabled me to get almost everything
contained in either collection, including Italian and Latin pub-
lications which I had in vain sought in Italy, and even French
ones which I could not find in Paris. Many an obscure pamphlet
or fugitive article has laid me under real debt to the author,
and that not unfrequently, by illustrating the true meaning of
terms on which-fancying it was charitable—I had long tried to
put a false English sense.
The weakness of my own eyesight has increased the obligation
which, in any case, I should have felt to my two valued friends
Preface.
xiii
Dr. Moulton and Dr. H. W. Williams, who have kindly read
the proofs. Dr. Moulton also compared the translation of the
speech of Darboy with the original, and suggested improve-
ments. Dr. Karl Benrath, of Bonn, whose long residence in
Rome and whose study of the subject lent to his judgment a
special value, has laid me under great obligation by examining
every sheet as it passed through the press.
The very frequent translations rendered necessary by the plan
of letting men speak for themselves are as close as I knew
how to make them. Most of those from the Latin have been
revised by my neighbour, Mr. Henry Jefferson; those from
the German by Fräulein Weinhagen; many of those from the
French by the Rev. C. A. Chastel de Boinville; and most of
those from the Italian by Signor Schiapparelli. To each of
these am I indebted for hints and amendments. Even where
marks of quotation are not used, and yet I profess to give the
sense of some utterance, those who can go to the originals will
find that the language, though condensed, is preserved, and, in
any important matter, closely rendered.
Reversing the ordinary practice as to quotations, where the
italics were in the original, I generally mention that it was so.
It would have been tedious to say that they were my own in
every case where they seemed necessary to direct attention to
a phrase or a term having a meaning different from ours, or to
one the full significance of which might easily escape notice.
Nothing but a conviction that the movement here traced is
of an importance for which ordinary terms are not an adequate
expression would have justified me, in my own view, in giving to
the study of it years of a life now far advanced. If the authors
of the movement are not deceived, the generations that will come.
up after I am no more will witness a struggle on the widest
xiv
Preface.
"
scale, and of very long duration, during which will disappear
all that to us is known as modern liberties, all that to Rome
is known as the Modern State, and at the close of which the
ecclesiastical power will stand alone, presiding over the destinies
of a reconstituted world. Not at all believing in the possibility
of this issue, I do not disbelieve in the possibility of the struggle.
To avert any such repetition of past horrors, to turn the war
into a war of thought, a war with the sword of the writer and
of the orator, instead of that of the zouave and the dragoon, is
an object in attempting to serve which, however humbly, a good
man might be content to die. Had I at any time during my
preparations seen the same work undertaken by some one whose
position or whose name would have commanded a degree of
attention to which I have no claim, gladly should I have buried
the fruit of my labour. Such as that fruit is, I now submit it
to the public, in humble hope that the very absence of titles
to consideration by which a work on the subject should have
been recommended, will turn to a plea for more indulgence
in weighing the only claims I have to put forth, those of
hard work and honest intention.
May He who has given to our nation the blessings of free
prayer, free preaching, free writing, free speech, and free
assembly, with their wholesome fruit of equal laws, tempered
power, and moderated liberty, grant that this humble labour
may in some measure contribute to make those inestimable
boons dearer than ever to the hearts of our people, and that
it may contribute also to place them in a position more readily
to foil every endeavour to snatch those boons or to steal them
away from us and from mankind!
CLAPHAM COMMON, 1877.
XV
POSTSCRIPT TO THE PREFACE.
June 6th, 1877.
ON CARDINAL MANNING'S "TRUE STORY OF THE
VATICAN COUNCIL.'
HAD not the time occupied in bringing out this work far
exceeded my expectations, it would have appeared as early as
the first portion of Cardinal Manning's 'True Story of the
Vatican Council,' in the pages of the Nineteenth Century. As
it is, I have been able to read the fourth paper, in which the
Cardinal concludes his narrative of the Council itself, though
he intimates an intention of hereafter adding comments on
extraneous matters. I cannot but feel that, in more respects
than one, the appearance of the True Story immediately before
that of this book is an advantage. The general reader is thus
supplied with means of checking many of my statements,
and of estimating the value of my authorities. Although
this advantage is limited to such ground as is common to
the 'True Story' and to my history, that ground is a
portion of sufficient importance to afford some criterion for
judging of the whole. One of my fears, arising from the way
in which, both in recent controversies and in former ones,
authorities have been dealt with before the English public,
was that we might find it soberly intimated that Cecconi was
not a writer of high credit, that the Civiltà Cattolica was a
private magazine, that the Acta Genuina of Theiner was a
publication brought out in an obscure place, and so on through
the list. Now, however, the reliance placed by Cardinal
Manning on authorities which supply essential features of my
narrative, and the importance unwillingly assigned by him to
xvi
Postscript to the Preface.
others frequently cited by me, will act as a restraint on those
who might have made light of them.
Another considerable advantage is this. It almost seemed
as if it would prejudice Englishmen against a writer to state
what from time to time it was needful to intimate-how histories
issued from official or semi-official sources systematically with-
held information on the points of chief importance. Such
points, so far as the Council was concerned, were the actual
differences of opinion between prelate and prelate, the tenor
of the debates, the arguments employed on one side or the
other, the written memoranda of bishops on the questions
disputed, their printed pamphlets, their speeches, their truly
important petitions, recording complaints against the Rules of
Procedure imposed upon them, and against the disabilities under
which the Pope had placed them. Those petitions recorded,
further, their personal disbelief in the new dogma, with the fact
that they had always taught in opposition to it, and that they
anticipated from its adoption grave perils of collision between
Church and State. Other matters kept out of view comprised in-
teresting facts credibly alleged and circumstantially detailed
relating to personal acts of the Pope, to proceedings of the Curia
and of the Presidents of the Council. Still more interesting, and
of graver import, were the reasons assigned by Ministers of State
and others, for regarding with more than ordinary jealousy the
projected changes in the Papal system. It seemed even more
invidious to note the practice of adopting, in order to cover all
these suppressions of facts, and of alleged facts, an air of giving
information by entering into details of ceremonies, enlarging
on unimportant matters, telling, as if it was of great moment,
how many meetings of this sort were held, how many of that,
how many spoke, at what time this Decree was proposed, and
On Cardinal Manning's 'True Story."'
xvii
how many votes were taken on another, without in all this allow-
ing a word to transpire of what was said or thought. I am
now relieved of all fear about those features of my narrative.
Any one who has a relish for the curiosities of literature may
match, and perhaps overmatch, what I have told of French
priests and Italian Jesuits, by what an Englishman has done.
I had never, however, to accuse the Italian Jesuits of keeping
out of sight the political, or, as they generally say, the social
aspects of the movement, and of covering them up in theolo-
gical disquisitions. They did, indeed, use wondrous theological
phrases with political meanings, but any one who studied their
writings soon penetrated that veil. They also invariably used
theology as the motive power of all their politics. But from
1850, when the movement which has characterised the present
pontificate began, to 1870, when it reached its legislative
climax, they set forth prominently as their object the recon-
struction of society, on the model of what, in their own dialect,
they call the Christian civilisation. They loudly proclaimed,
as the elements of that Christian civilisation, the revocation
of constitutions, the abolition of modern liberties, especially
those of the press and of worship, with the subjection to canon
law of civil law, and, above all, the subjection to the juris-
diction of the Pope of all nations and their rulers, whatever
the title of those rulers might be. They justly conceived the
ills they had to repair, as, having begun with the bad teach-
ing of John Wyclif, in which his doctrine of 'dominion'
was the head and front of all his offending, and of that of
every succeeding age. As he had striven for the emancipation
of kings from the Pope, of legislatures from the ecclesiastical
powers, and of the individual from the priest, so did they set
themselves to bring back again the dominion of the priest over
156
VOL. I.
b
xviii
Postscript to the Preface.
the individual, the dominion of the ecclesiastical authorities
over lawgivers, and above all, the dominion of the Pope over
kings. Of this the reader will meet with evidence from their
own lips, at almost every stage of our narrative. Those Italian
Jesuits did not expound the Syllabus, according to the new
and naïve notion of Cardinal Manning, as a code containing
very little to which any sincere believer in Christian revela-
tion would, if he understood the Syllabus, object. The Italian
Jesuits, ay, and even the German ones, on the contrary,
made a boast of its diametrical opposition to every form of
Liberalism, and in particular to Liberal Catholicism, of its
efficacy as an instrument for overturning the Modern State,
and of its solidity as the foundation-stone on which was to be
reared the fabric of reconstructed society. In all their writings
society was taken as meaning, not families, nor Churches, but
nations, and each one of the nations was to form a province
within a Church ruling over it and over all other nations in
every one of their laws and public institutions.
In speaking of the idea that all believers in revelation would
accept nearly all of the Syllabus, I have assumed that Cardinal
Manning, writing for an English audience, uses the term
'Christian revelation' in the English and not in the Papal
sense. To a sincere believer in Christian revelation in the
Papal sense, the Syllabus, if not in form, yet in substance, is
an infallible and 'irreformable' portion of that revelation. And
so it would very simply come to pass that a sincere believer
in Christian revelation would admit, not merely most of it,
but all of it so far as it contains any teaching. And to such
a believer the kingdoms of the world will never become the
kingdom of God, and of His Christ, but by ceasing to be
kingdoms at all in any independent and proper sense, and by
On Cardinal Manning's 'True Story.'
xix
merging into provinces under the Priest and King, or, as in
phrases still more mystic they style him, the Shepherd-King
of the Vatican.
Now a True Story of the Vatican Council, in which, to the
apprehension of an ordinary reader, all these topics are kept out
of view, though to an adept they are not wholly kept out, seems
to me to be constructed as if a True Story of the controversy
on free trade said much about principles of political economy,
but covered up all allusion to the corn laws under recondite
phrases not plain either to millowner or landowner, unless one
who was specially trained. Or, to take a more recent case, it
seems like a True Story of the civil war in the United States
which should largely dwell upon State rights, forgetting all
about slavery, or speaking of it only in an esoteric dialect.
The True Story affords us some foretaste of what history is to
be after dogma has completed the conquest over it which has been
promised. Had my narrative been written after its appearance,
the topics totally ignored, and those virtually ignored, in the True
Story, might easily have been thrown into stronger relief. As
it is, however, the succession of events necessarily brings them
again and again into view, and perhaps the effect of the outline
may be rendered more distinct to the English reader through
the contrast with the True Story.
Of the prelates on this side of the Alps, Cardinal Manning
was not the one from whom we should have expected that in an
account of the five years preceding the Vatican Council, with a
brief retrospect of the whole of the present pontificate, and a his-
tory of the Council itself, scarcely one clear utterance should be
made as to the bearing of the movement on those governments,
liberties, and institutions which to the Vatican are very evil and
to us are very dear. It was not so in 1867 and 1869. Iv
XX
Postscript to the Preface.
both of those years the Cardinal indicated the political rela-
tions of the movement in words of warning which, if only
echoes of those of the Jesuits in Rome, were perhaps more
intelligible and vehement than those of any other prelate on
this side of the Alps.
Statements of mine will frequently be found to conflict with
statements made in the True Story. In most of those cases- ·I
hope in all-the materials from known sources furnished to the
general reader will suffice for a not unsatisfactory comparison,
while the authorities indicated will enable the scholar to form a
judgment. In very many of these cases statements of Cardinal
Manning, made in previous works and virtually amounting to
the same as the most material of those made in the True Story,
will be found side by side with the statements of other authori-
ties, with official documents, or with facts no longer disputable.
Of these statements, one to which the Cardinal seems to attach
much importance is his assertion that none of the prelates, or
at most a number under five, disbelieved or denied the dogma
of Papal infallibility, and that all their objections turned on
questions of prudence. This is not a slip, nor a hasty assertion,
and it is very far from being peculiar to Cardinal Manning. It
is now the harmonious refrain of all that hierarchy of strange
witnesses of which he has made himself a part. The point is
one on which illustrations will occur again and again, in events,
in words, and in those documents which, in spite of all precau-
tions, have been gained to publicity.
Notwithstanding the method adopted in the True Story, the
fact crops out at every turn that the modern strife of the Papacy
is not to make men and women, as such, godly and peaceable,
but to bring kings as kings, and legislatures as legislatures, and
nations as nations, into subjection to the Pope. It crops out
XX1
On Cardinal Manning's 'True Story."'
sufficiently, at least, to be obvious to all who know the difference,
in the Cardinal's phraseology, between the two sets of terms em-
ployed to indicate those two distinct objects. For instance, what
an excellent description of that Catholic Civilisation which, in
the great contest of the Vatican, is ever signalised as the goal,
does the Cardinal give when, picturing the 'public life and laws
and living organisation of Christendom' in the times when all
these, according to his ideas, were 'Christian,' he says, 'Princes
and legislatures and society professed the Catholic faith, and were
subject to the head of the Catholic Church.' Cardinal Manning
does not here use the word 'society' in the domestic but in the
political sense. He means, not families or social parties, but
nations as the Jesuit writers almost always do. Any one
may, therefore, possess himself of a key to the true meaning
of many pious phrases which occur in the following pages, if
he will first of all clearly realise in his own thoughts just what
it would involve for England and for us were the conditions
stated by the Cardinal fulfilled by our princes, our legislature,
and our society." One seeking to do this must realise the fact
6
that the prince and the legislature not as individuals, and the
'society' not in its separate members, but the prince as a
prince, the legislature as a legislature, and the nation as a
society, shall profess the Catholic faith. Ordinary Englishmen do
not realise all that is meant by that formula. But beyond that,
the prince as a prince, the legislature as a legislature, the nation.
as a society, are not only to believe in the Pope, but to be sub-
ject to him. What fulness of meaning that formula possesses will
gradually open up to the reader as the narrative unfolds. He will
often hear ecclesiastical politicians of the school to which Cardinal
Manning belongs, talking in their native dialect, not modu-
lating their voice to win the ear of Protestants. This national
xxii
Postscript to the Preface.
-
:
profession of the faith, and this subjection of kings, law-givers,
and nations to the Pope, constitute in one word the Civiltá
Cattolica (the Catholic civilisation); or, in plain English, the
Catholic civil system; or, in other terms, the true Catholic
constitution, the reign of Christ over the world, to establish
which in all nations the Vatican is to move heaven and earth.
In his first paper Cardinal Manning seeks to impress us with
the belief that the raising of Papal infallibility to the rank of
a dogma was not a chief object of the Pontiff, much less his
only one, in convoking the Vatican Council. On that point the
narrative will often incidentally present the expressions of pre-
lates, official writers, and others, so that the reader will be able
to form an opinion of his own. In his second paper the Cardinal
shows that throughout the whole of the present pontificate the
dogma has been kept in view as an essential object. Of that
position illustrations will frequently occur. In the second paper,
also, the Cardinal repeats his old allegation that it was Janus
who invented the fable of an acclamation.' The course of the
tale will tell whether it was or was not Janus who originated
the talk of a design to get up an acclamation, and whether that
talk was or was not a fable.
The Cardinal, while attempting to justify, though for the
most part keeping out of sight, the disabilities imposed upon
the bishops by the Pope, disabilities of which they loudly com-
He says
plained, glances at one out of many of the real ones.
that the Commission which was empowered to say whether
any proposal emanating from a bishop was worthy to be re-
commended to the Pope for consideration, without which
recommendation it could not come before the Council, was
6 a representative commission.' The fact is that it was a selec-
tion of prelates made by the Pope, who excluded from it all who
On Cardinal Manning's 'True Story.' xxiii
had avowed themselves opponents of his infallibility, and in-
cluded in it creatures of his own, who had nothing of the bishop
but the orders and the pay which the favour of the Court had
given to them.
The Cardinal, after ample time for correction, repeats his old
declaration that in the Vatican Council the liberty of speech
was as perfectly secured as in our Parliament.' That assertion
has the merit of being free from all ambiguity, and moreover
is one on which plain men can judge. As I have told the story,
the readers will over and over again meet with facts, equally
free from ambiguity and equally patent to plain men, which will
show whether the assertion is true or not.
On the great question of secrecy the Cardinal risks a state-
ment which exceeds what Italian Jesuits, if writing for a
periodical of the rank of the Nineteenth Century, would be
likely to hazard. He says: 'At the beginning of the Council
of Trent this precaution (of secrecy) was omitted; wherefore,
on the 17th of February, 1562, the legates were compelled to
impose the secret upon the bishops.' The Cardinal would seem
to imagine that there was at least a substantial agreement, if
not an actual identity, between the acts by which silence was
enjoined, and also between the extent of the silence demanded
in Trent and at the Vatican; and that indeed from the 17th of
February, 1562, forwards, the Council of Trent was laid under
a bond something like that by which the Vatican Council was
from the beginning fettered. Was it so? Was there a substan-
tial agreement in the two acts by which silence was enjoined?
Was there a substantial agreement in the extent of silence
imposed? Was there at Trent a formal decree? Was there
an oath imposed on the officers? Was there an exclusion of
the theologians from debates, and of the public from the debates
xxiv
Postscript to the Preface.
of the theologians? Was there any vow required, any threat
held out? And does even Cardinal Manning fancy that there
was at Trent a new mortal sin made on purpose for the benefit
of the bishops? Of all this there was nothing. The act of the
legates was simply what it is described as having been by
Massarellus, the Secretary of the Council, who says: "The
Fathers were admonished not to divulge things proposed for
examination, and in particular Decrees, before they were pub-
lished in open session.' 1 That Massarellus, when he wrote
admonished, meant exactly what he wrote, is proved by the
terms of the 'admonition,' which he immediately subjoins, and
of which we give the original below. In this the legates do
not 'impose,' do not 'decree,' nay, they do not even ‘enjoin'
secrecy: they only 'admonish and exhort.'
The Cardinal is apparently also under an impression that the
extent of silence imposed in the two cases was at least sub-
Theiner, Acta Genuina, i., 686. Admonitio ad Patres ne evulgent Decreta
et alia quæ examinanda proponuntur, antequam finientur. Rmi patres. Sciunt.
Dominationes vestræ quam indignum sit quamque indecens, ut decreta et alia,
quæ patribus examinanda proponuntur, antequam firmentur, et in publica
sessione edantur, evulgentur, et extra hanc civitatem ad extraneos mittantur.
Quo fit, ut alias sæpe vidimus, ut decreta ipsa sub ea qua dici forma primum
concepta, et (ut ita dicam) informia, pro decretis firmis, et a s. Synodo appro-
batis disseminentur. Quare illmi dñi legati et presidentes admonent, atque
etiam hortantur dominationes vestras, ut pro honore et existimatione hujus sacri
Concilii, et ad obviandum scandalis, quæ oriri possent, tam decretum, quod modo
a me lectum fuit, quam cetera decreta, et alia quæcunque, quæ in futurum
examinanda vobis proponentur, non evulgent, neque eorum exemplum alicui
extra gremium Concilii exhibeant, neve extra civitatem ad aliquos transmittant.
Idque ne a suis familiaribus fiat, severissime prohibeant. Quod ut commodius
fiat, dominationes vestræ cum miserint ad me pro exemplis presentis decreti,
simul mihi per cedulam eorum manu subscriptam significent nomen ejus, cui
voluerint, quod tam hoc exemplum, quam alia, quæ suo tempore proponentur,
exhibeantur. Hæc pro nunc visa sunt expedire. Si quæ alia commodior via
alicui ex patribus occurrerit, ut ea, quæ proponuntur, secreto retineantur, de ea
poterit illmos dños legatos privatim admonere.
On Cardinal Manning's 'True Story.'
XXV
stantially the same. Was that so? Did the legates censure the
admission of laymen to hear the theologians argue? Did they
censure the permission given to theologians who were not bishops
even by the fiction of a see in partibus, to dispute in presence
of the Council? Did they censure any remarks made out of
doors on speeches, opinions, or projects? Did they censure
anything but the one indiscretion of circulating proposed De-
crees, or other things proposed, while yet the formulæ were,
'so to speak, unshaped,' but were in their inchoate condition
made public as if they had been passed? Did the legates
suggest that the duty of secrecy extended further than that
of not publishing such tentative formulæ, of not sending them
out of the city, and of forbidding persons attached to the house-
holds of bishops to commit those indiscretions? At Trent there
were faults and causes of complaint in no small number. But
what Cardinal Manning calls 'the secret' which would shut up
every mouth as to all subjects proposed, as to all opinions ex-
pressed, as to all speeches made, as to all designs mooted,—' the
secret' which forbad men to print their own speeches, to read
the official reports taken of them, to read those of their brother
bishops, and other extravagances besides, of which the True
Story has not one syllable to tell,—that 'secret,' or any such, is
not hinted at in the admonition of the legates at Trent. The
extent of silence imposed at the Vatican would seem to have
been as original as the mortal sin there invented.
Still further, the Cardinal would appear to be under an
impression that the reason why at Trent certain inconvenient
publications occurred was because that, at the outset, the strict
precautions had been there omitted which at the Vatican were
not only taken in time, but, with manifold forethought, were,
before the time, as our story will tell, tied and bound by edict
xxvi
Postscript to the Preface.
and by oath. As to disclosures, however, that occurred at the
Vatican, which most Romans would tell any Englishman, except
a priest or a convert, would be certain to occur, namely, that the
'pontifical secret' would be dealt in as a thing to be sold. Did
the precautions omitted at Trent, but adopted at the Vatican,
prevent so much from transpiring as compelled the Pope to
loose from the bond four selected prelates, including the emi-
nent author of the True Story, in order that they might disabuse
the outside world? Did it prevent the famous canons which
opened the eyes even of Austrian and French statesmen from
making a quick passage to Augsburg and to Printing House
Square?—of which canons, by the way, as of most essential
matters, the True Story tells not a word.
It would be very tempting to select for remark other asser-
tions of the Cardinal, but this may suffice to do all that I here
wish to do; that is, to set the reader upon intelligently watching
and sifting statements of my own; for what is to be desired on
this subject is that the public shall cease to be easily contented
with what is said on one side or the other. My statements,
like those of others, are sure to contain a fair proportion of
mistakes, but when all these are winnowed away, there will
remain a considerable peck of corn.
Not content with formally vouching, in his title, for his
own truthfulness, the Cardinal formally impeaches that of others.
Both of these proceedings would be perfectly natural in a priest
in Rome, and especially in one attached to the Jesuit school.
If such proceedings are to be introduced among us, we may
hope that so long, at least, as England is not ruled by priests,
the language employed will be tempered to suit our Protestant
atmosphere in some such degree as that in which the Cardinal
has tempered his own, and that we shall not have it flung about
On Cardinal Manning's 'True Story.' xxvii
red hot from the hearth, as is the wont in Rome and in other
places where bishops and editors emulate the masters. Had I
foreseen the cautious beginning of such habits that was so soon
to be made by high authority, certainly I should not have so far
yielded to the repugnance one feels to put specimens of priestly
imputations into our language, a language which had for
ages, up to the date of the Tracts for the Times, been steadily
acquiring an antipathy to all the arts of untruthfulness, and con-
sequently to all the forms in which other languages habitually
insinuate or openly allege it. But I cannot regret that my
story purposely excludes full specimens, and only by force of
frequent necessity admits morsels, of the style in which in
Rome every shade of untruthfulness, from suppression and
equivocation to the worst kinds of perjury and forgery, is on
the one hand charged upon heretics, on Liberal Catholics, on
statesmen, and is on the other hand in return, and with extreme
good will, charged upon bishops, cardinals, and popes.
The veracity of Pomponio Leto-that is, as all Italy knows,
of the Marchese Francesco Vitelleschi, brother of the late Car-
dinal Vitelleschi-is openly impugned by Cardinal Manning.
We already know, on more points than one, the opinion of
Vitelleschi as to the eminent author of the True Story; and
retaliation would have been natural had it only been fair
If Vitelleschi wrote English, and if he cared to compare his
truthfulness with that of such a competitor, it would be in-
teresting to hear him fairly fight out the question, Which
of us two has, to the best of his power, tried just to tell
what he knew, inventing nothing and concealing nothing? it
does not seem at all certain that the Englishman would bear
away from the Italian the palm of straightforwardness. The
Cardinal is evidently not aware that certain alleged particulars
1
#
xxviii
Postscript to the Preface.
6
of the famous Strossmayer scene, which he ascribes to Pom-
ponio Leto, are not in his description of it either in the Italian
or in the English version. From where the Cardinal gets them
I do not know. But his picture of Schwarzenberg 'carried
fainting from the ambo to his seat,' his idea that Pomponio
professes on that day to have been outside the Council door and
to have seen the servants rushing,' and his other idea that aț
the fourth session Pomponio professes to have been inside and
consequently forgot that many of those who were outside could
see through the great door which was wide open, are all alike.
He certainly did not get any of them from Vitelleschi. As it is
after stating these errors, that his Eminence cries, 'Such melo-
dramatic and mendacious stuff!' we must imagine how Vitelleschi
will smile at this new display of certain qualities which did not
escape his keen eye.
Professor Friedrich is slightingly spoken of by the Cardinal.
Here again retaliation, if fair, would have been natural; for
Cardinal Manning has already felt the steel of Friedrich.
Judging from my own impression that under the slashes of
Friedrich what the Cardinal had employed as if he took it for
argument appeared perfectly helpless, I should expect that if
the learned professor should think it worth while to try his
strength on the sort of history, theology, and logic which the
Cardinal thinks may pass in England, they would in his hands,
at almost every debatable point, fly to pieces. As to veracity,
however, Friedrich has already, on that score, as our story
will show, crossed swords with more bishops than one; and
whether on that or other matters, certainly he is not the
man to turn his back on Cardinal Manning, whose measure
he has long ago taken, as, even under the eyes of the Papal
police, he did not fear to show.
On Cardinal Manning's 'True Story.' xxix
Cardinal Manning occupies pages with imputations, and with
quotations which he apparently thinks warrant the imputations.
Does he, or do the witnesses he calls, disprove any of the specific
facts alleged? Yes, he does disprove one. Vitelleschi, in de-
scribing the great session of the Council, said that Cardinal Corsi
and other discontented Cardinals pulled down their red hats
over their eyes. Now, Cardinal Manning properly says that on
that occasion they had no hats of any colour, meaning that they
wore the mitre. Therefore a real blot is hit. And it is curious
how exactly this is the same kind of blot as the Jesuits of the
Civiltá were able to hit in the early part of Vitelleschi's book,
when, like the True Story, it first appeared in a periodical.
They clearly convicted the author, then unknown even to them,
of saying that in certain solemnities the robes were red, whereas
in fact they were white. We must, however, do the Roman
Jesuits the justice to say that from this tremendous error
they did not attempt to prove that the writer was given to
mendacious stuff,' though they did argue that he was wanting
in reflection.
6
But it is a well-known fact that grave matters-very grave
matters were with sufficient particularity alleged against the
Pope, against the Presidents, against the Rules of Procedure,
against the authorised press, against the favourites of the Court
among the bishops, against the secret way in which 'the Council
was made beforehand,' and above all against the political designs
which were entertained; and, one must ask, with what single
fact of all these is any manly attempt made to grapple by the
Cardinal, or by the bishops whom he cites in his support?
Besides these facts, of which some were amusing, some absurd,
some discreditable, there were others which for all good men
except Papists, in the proper sense, were seriously alarming,
XXX
Postscript to the Preface.
and these were alleged by Catholic and Liberal Catholic, by
men in opposition and by men in all places of authority up
to the highest,—by Vitelleschi, by Friedrich, by Veuillot, by
Guérin, by Frond and his contributors, by Ce Qui se Passe
au Concile, by Hefele, by Kenrick, by Darboy, by Rauscher,
by Place, by Dupanloup, by the hundred and thirty bishops
who signed the protest against even discussing infallibility, by
the groups of bishops who signed that against the Rules of
Procedure, by those who signed the solemn one against the new
Rules, by those who petitioned for the A B C of deliberative
freedom, by the scores who signed the historical petition of
April 10th, 1870, by those who protested against the unfair and
arbitrary attempt of the 5th of July, and by those fifty-five who,
the day before the final session, placed in the hands of the Pope
their protest, saying that if they voted in the public session.
they could only repeat, and that with stronger reasons, their
previous vote, that is, of Non placet; a protest of which
Cardinal Manning has taken a strangely inaccurate and mis-
leading view. Such facts were alleged by La Liberté du Concile,
by La Dernière Heure du Concile, by Mamiani, by Bonghi, by
Beust, by Daru, by Arnim, by Acton, by Montalembert, by
Döllinger; and still more by the Civiltà Cattolica, the Stimmen
aus Maria Laach, the Univers, the Monde, and the Unitá
Cattolica; and most of all were they embodied in the words
and official manifestoes of Pope Pius IX. What one of these
alarming or discreditable or equivocal facts is disposed of by
the passages which Cardinal Manning in his need has cited?
He cites Hefele to prove that people who were outside of the
Council told falsehoods as to what passed inside. But with the
wonted sequence of his logic, what he proves out of the mouth
of Hefele is that people who were inside of the Council sold the
On Cardinal Manning's 'True Story?' xxxi
secret, though in doing so they incurred the pains of mortal sin.
The proof is quite as apposite as many of those relied upon by
Cardinal Manning, and it is no wonder that such a habit of
reasoning should have landed him where he is. He cites of all
men Ketteler. Now supposing that Ketteler was the person to
invalidate serious testimony, what particular fact is disproved by
the passage cited? The only one it affects to touch is the ques-
tion as to whether, in substance, the anti-infallibilist doctrine of
Döllinger was not also that of the majority of the German
bishops. That question is not faced in front. Ketteler only
raises a side issue. He denies that on some certain occasion,
certain bishops had in a certain way made a statement to that
effect. Cardinal Manning has not lived so long in Rome, and
learned so much there, without knowing something of the value
of such contradictions. But if he means-as, however reluc-
tantly, one must take him to mean-to use Ketteler to prove to
Englishmen that the majority of the German bishops were not,
before July 1870, opposed to that as a doctrine which is now a
dogma of their creed, then let Ketteler by all means stand on
one side, but pamphlets, memoranda, speeches, petitions, votes,
protests stand on the other. Ketteler is cited against Döllinger,
and agreeably to the all but infallible felicity of the Cardinal's
logic, about the most definite thing Ketteler says against the
Provost is that Janus, for falsification of history, can hardly be
compared to anything but the Provincial Letters of Pascal. Had
the Cardinal cited the whole body of the German bishops, he
might, indeed, with English Catholics have gained some show of
authority; but how would it have been with the fellow-country-
men of those prelates? or with any who, like their fellow-
countrymen, had, in the two Fulda manifestoes of 1869 and
1870, and in other words and deeds of those mitred diplomatists--
xxxii
Postscript to the Preface.
; at
words and deeds which cannot be erased-learned at what rate to
prize statements signed by their episcopal crosses? There are
in Europe few bodies of functionaries who stood in sorer need
than did these German bishops of something to rehabilitate the
credit of their Yea and Nay; not that even yet it seems to have
fallen quite so low as that of their superiors of the Curia
least, not quite so low in matters of purely personal reputation,
when no official obligation exists to make a public impression
which is contrary to the facts, and when dissimulation, if prac-
tised, arises from a habit partly professional, partly personal, and
one sometimes indulged in as an exercise of cleverness. Car-
dinals hardly do prudently to raise on English soil questions
about truthfulness; for the English public will not much longer
be content to take information at haphazard or at second-hand,
but will go to the fountains, and learn about things in Rome as
things in Rome in reality have been.
LIST OF WORKS QUOTED OR REFERRED
TO AS AUTHORITIES.
The titles and editions being here given, the references in each particular
instance will be no longer than is sufficient to identify the work.
Some works cited only once are not here entered, their titles being given at
full in the body of the book. The few English writers quoted are not inserted
here.
Acta et Decreta Sacrosancti Ecumenici Concilii Vaticani. Romæ Impensis
Paulini Lazzarini Typographi Concilii Vaticani: 1872.
Acta et Decreta Sacrosancti et Ecumenici Concilii Vaticani cum permissione
Superiorum. Friburgi Brisgoviæ: Herder, 1871. Contains the Encyclical
and Syllabus of December 8th, 1864, and some other useful documents not
published in the Roman edition; but does not contain its brief historical
notes of the public sessions.
Acta Genuina SS. Ecumenici Concilii Tridentini, nunc primum integra edita
ab Augustino Theiner. Zagrabia Croatia: 2 vols., small folio, 1874.
Always referred to as Theiner.
Acta Sanctæ Sedis in Compendium Opportune Redacta. Romæ S. C. De Pro-
paganda Fide. A volume has appeared annually since 1865.
Actes et Histoire du Concile Ecumenique de Rome, 1869. Publiés sous la
direction de Victor Frond. Paris: Abel Pilou. 8 vols., large folio, with
numerous illustrations. A brief of the Pope warrants to the Editor the
'counsel and approbation of the Holy Apostolical See;' and also gives
him the Apostolic Benediction as a guarantee of the divine patronage.'
The references are always to Frond.
Acton, Lord-Zur Geschichte des Vaticanischen Conciles. München: 1871.—
Sendschreiben an einen Deutschen Bischof des Vaticanischen Concils.
Nördlingen: September, 1870.
Annuario Pontificio, 1870. Roma Tipografia della Rev. Cam. Apostolica.
Bibliothèque Universelle et Revue Suisse. Lausanne. Montalembert's L'Espagne
et la Liberté is contained in Nos. 217-221, from January to May, 1876.
Ce Qui se Passe au Concile. Paris: 1870. Condemned by the Council.
Cecconi, Eugenio (now Archbishop of Florence)-Storia del Concilio Vaticano
scritta sui documenti originali. Parte prima Antecedenti del Concilio.
Vol. I. Roma: A Spese di Paulini Lazzarini, Tipografo del Concilio Vati-
cano, 1873. The official history of the secret proceedings of five years.
Civiltà Cattolica (La), Anno Vigesimottavo. Serie X., vol. i. Quaderno, 641.
Firenze: 3 Marzo, 1877. This is the title of the latest number. It has
appeared fortnightly since the year 1850. It is quoted as Civiltá (e.g.) X.,
VOL. I.
C
xxxiv
List of Authorities.
i., 5-the first numeral noting the series, the second the volume, the third
the page.
Concile du Vatican, le, et le Mouvement Anti-infaillibiliste en Allemagne.
2 vols., octavo. Brussels: 1871.
Concile Ecuménique, le. Par Mgr. l'Evêque de Grenoble. Paris: 1869.
Dernière Heure du Concile. München: 1870. Condemned by the Council;
said by Quirinus to be by a member of the Council, possessing almost
unique opportunities.'
Desanctis, L.-Roma Papale descritta in una serie di Lettere. Firenze: 1871.—
Il Papa, osservazioni Dottrinali e Storiche. Firenze: 1864.
Deschamps, Archbishop of Malins (now Cardinal).—Réponse à Mgr. l'Evêque
D'Orléans. Paris: 1870.
Documenta. See Friedrich.
Documenti (i) Citati nel Syllabus edito per ordine del Sommo Pontifice Pio
Papa IX., Preceduti da Analoghe Avvertenze. Firenze: 1865. Like the
French Recueil, contains the documents cited in the Syllabus, but with
Italian notes, and without any translation.
Döllinger, D.-Erwägungen für die Bischöfe des Concilium's über die Frage
der päpstlichen Unfehlbarkeit. München: October, 1869.-Die neue
Geschäftsordnung des Concils und ihre theologische Bedeutung, Augsburg:
1870.-Erklärung an den Erzbischof von München-Freising. München:
1871.
Dupanloup-Lettre de Mgr., L'Evêque D'Orléans au clergé de son Diocése
relativement a la définition de l'infaillibilité au prochain Concile.
Paris:
1869. The original is reprinted with the English version of Vitelleschi,
Eight Months at Rome.-Réponse de Mgr. L'Evêque D'Orléans à Mgr.
Deschamps. Paris: Duniol, 1870.-Réponse de Mgr. L'Evêque D'Orléans
à Mgr. Spalding, Archevêque de Baltimore, accompagne d'une lettre de
plusieurs Archevêques et Evêques Américain à Mgr. l'Evêque d'Orléans.
Naples: 1870.
Fessler, Dr. Joseph, Bishop of St. Pölten-Das letzte und das nächste allgemeine
Concil. Freiburg-in-Brisgau : 1869.
Friedberg, Dr. Emil, Professor, Leipsic-Sammlung der Aktenstücke zum ersten
Vaticanischen Concil. Tübingen: 1872. Always quoted as Friedberg.
Friedrich, Dr. J., Professor, Munich-Tagebuch während des Vaticanischen
Concils geführt. Zweite vermehrte Auflage. Nördlingen: 1873.-Docu-
menta ad Illustrandum Concilium Vaticanum, anni 1870. Both the first
and second Abtheilung are of Nördlingen, 1871. Quoted as Documenta.—
Der Mechanismus der Vaticanischen Religion. Bonn: 1876.
Fromman, Theodor-Geschichte und Kritik des Vaticanischen Concils. Gotha:
1872. A Protestant writer, therefore scarcely ever cited.
Frond, Victor-Actes et Histoire, etc. 8 vols., fol. See 'Actes,' etc.
Gury, P. Joanne Petro-Compendium Theologiæ Moralis, S. I. editio in Ger-
mania Quarta. Ratisbon: 1868.-Casus Conscientiæ in Præcipuas Quæs-
tiones Theologiæ Moralis editio in Germania prima. Ratisbon: 1865.
Guérin, Mgr., Paul Chamberlain to Pius IX. -Concile Ecuménique du Vatican
son Histoire ses décisions en Latin et en Francais. Professes to give all
the documents, but gives only a portion even of those officially published.
Bar-le-Duc: 1871. 2nd ed.
Gregorovius, Ferdinand.-Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter vom V. bis zum
XVI., Jahrhundert. Zweite Auflage: 1869. 8 vols. octavo.
List of Authorities.
XXXV
Hefele, Carolus Josephus Episcopus Rottenburgensis-Causa Honorii Papæ.
Neapoli: 1870.
Hergenrother, Dr. Joseph, Professor, Würzburg-Katholische Kirche und Christ-
licher Staat in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwickelung und in Beziehung auf
die Fragen der Gegenwart. Freiburg-in-Brisgau: 1873.-Kritik der v.
Döllingerschen Erklärung vom 28 Marz d. I. Freiburg-in-Brisgau : 1871.
Holtgreven, Anton, Königl. Preuss. Kreisrichter-Das Verhältniss Zwischen
Staat und Kirche. Berlin: 1875.
Kenrick, Archbishop of St. Louis in America-Concio Petri Ricardi Kenrick,
Archiepiscopi S. Ludovici in Statibus Fœderatis America Septentrionalis in
Concilio Vaticano Habenda at non Habita. Neapoli: 1870. This invalu-
able pamphlet is reprinted with Friedrich's Documenta, and is always
cited as there found, the pamphlet itself being within the reach of but very
few.
Ketteler, von, Wilhelm Emmanuel Freiherr, Bishop of Mainz-Das Allgemeine
Concil und seine Bedeutung für unsere Zeit. Mainz: 1869.-Die Un-
wahrheiten der Römischen Briefe vom Concil in der Allgemeinen Zeitung.
Mainz: 1870. Several other pamphlets by Bishop von Ketteler not re-
ferred to are of value.
Langen, Dr. Joseph, Professor, Bonn-Das Vaticanische Dogma in seinem
Verhältniss zum Neuen Testament, etc. Bonn: 1873.
Liverani, Monsignor Francesco, Prelato Domestico e Protonotorio della Santa
Sede. Il Papato, L'Impero e Il Regno D'Italia. Firenze: 1861.
Maret, Mgr. H. L. C., Bishop of Sura, Dean of the Theological Faculty of
Paris-Le Concile Général et la Paix Religieuse. 2 vols., octavo. Paris:
1869.
Martin, Conrad, Bishop of Paderborn.―Omnium Concilii Vaticani Quæ ad
doctrinam et Disciplinam pertinent Documentorum Collectio. Paderbornæ:
1873. A very incomplete collection, but very useful.—Katechismus des
Römisch-Katolischen Kirchenrechts. Zweite Auflage: 1874.
Menzel, Professor-Ueber das Subject der Kirchlichen Unfehlbarkeit (als
Manuscript gedruckt). Braunsberg: 1870.
Menzel, Wolfgang-Geschichte der neuesten Jesuitenumtriebe in Deutschland.
Stuttgart: 1873.-Die Wichtigsten Weltbegebenheiten vom Prager Frieden
bis zum Kriege mit Frankreich (1866-1870). 2 vols. Stuttgart: 1871.
Michand, L'Abbé-De la Falsification des Catéchismes Francais. Paris, 1872.
Many other works of Michaud, not cited, are of great value.
:
Michelis, Dr. F., Professor, Braunsberg.-Kurze Geschichte des Vaticanischen
Concils. Constanz 1875.-Der Neue Fuldaer Hirtenbrief in seinem
Verhältniss zur Wahrheit. Braunsberg: 1870.-Der häretische Charakter
der Infallibilitätslehre. Eine Katholische Antwort auf die Römische
Excommunication, 1872.
Observationes Quædam de Infallibilitatis Ecclesiæ Subjecto. Vindobonæ :
1870. Cardinal Rauscher (see Friedberg, 111). Also published in Naples,
without name of printer or publisher.
Phillips, George-Kirchenrecht. 7 vols., octavo. Regensburg: 1855-72.
Pope Pius IX.-Discorsi del Sommo Pontefice Pius IX. Pronunziati in Vaticano
ai fedeli di Roma e dell' Orbe; raccolti e pubblicati dal P. Don Pasquale
de Franciscis. Roma: 1872; and the second volume, 1873. It is to be
regretted that these curious and instructive volumes are not translated into
English.
xxxvi
List of Authorities.
Recueil des Allocutions Consistoriales Encycliques et Autres Lettres Apostolique
des Souverains Pontifs Clement XII., Benoit XIV., Pie VI., Pie VII.,
Léon XII., Grégoire XVI., et Pie IX., citées dans l'Encyclique et le Syllabus
du 8 Décembre, 1864. Octavo, p. 580. Paris: 1865. Every document
cited in the Syllabus is given at full, with a French translation.
Reform der Römischen Kirche an Haupt und Gliedern. Leipsig: 1869.
Reinkens, Dr. Joseph Hubert, Bishop-Revolution und Kirche Beantwortung
einer Tagesfrage mit Rücksight auf die gegenwärtige Tendenz und Praxis
der Römischen Curie. Bonn: 1876.-Ueber päpstliche Unfehlbarkeit.
München: 1870.
Rheinischer Merkur. Erscheint jeden Samstag, Köln. A weekly journal, organ
of the old Catholics. Now published in Munich as the Deutscher Merkur.
Sambin, Le R. P. de la Compagnie de Jesus-Histoire du Concile Ecumenique
et Général du Vatican. Lyon: 1871.
Schrader, P. Clemens, S. I.-Pius IX. als Papst und als Koenig. Wien: 1865.-
Der Papst und die Modernen Ideen. Wien: 1865.
Sepp, Professor Abgeordneter-Deutschland und der Vatikan. München:
1872.
Soglia-Septimii M. Vecchiotti, Institutiones Canonicæ ex operibus Joannis
Card. Soglia excerptæ et ad usum seminariorum accommodatæ. Editio
decimasexta ad meliorem formam redacta et additamentis locupleta. In
3 vols., octavo. Turin: 1875. Sold at Milan, Venice, Naples, and Romæ
apud Tipographiam de Propaganda Fide.
Stimmen aus der Katholischen Kirche München. A series of pamphlets con-
taining writings of Döllinger, Friedrich, Huber, Schmitz, Reinkens, Liano,
and others of great value.
Stimmen aus Maria Laach, Katholische Blätter-Freiburg-in-Brisgau.
The
first number appeared in 1865, after the publication of the Syllabus; the
Neue Folge, commenced in 1869, has on the title 'Unter Benützung
Römischer Mittheilungen und der Arbeiten der Civiltà.’
Summi Pontificis Infallibilitate Personali (de). Naples: 1870. Friedberg (p.
111) says that this tract was distributed by Cardinal Prince Schwarzenberg,
but written by the Cistercian Franz Salesius Mayer.
Tarquini, Camillo E., Societate Jesu (Cardinal)-Juris Ecclesiastici Publici In-
stitutiones. Editio quarta. Roma S. C. de Propaganda Fide.
1875.
Theologisches Literaturblatt. Erscheint alle 14 Toge. Bonn, herausgegeben
von Prof. Dr. F. H. Reusch. A fortnightly publication, of great value to all
who wish to understand the literature of the modern phases of Romanism,
and also of the old Catholic movement.
Unità Cattolica, edited by Don Margotti, appears daily in Turin. Holds in
Italy a position similar to that of the Univers in France.
Univers, edited by M. Louis Veuillot, appears daily, Paris. Veuillot is a
layman.
Veuillot, Louis-Rome pendant le Concile. 2 vols., octavo. Paris: 1872.
Contains important matter dating from 1867.
Vitelleschi, Marchese Francesco-Otto Mesi a Roma durante il Concilio Vati-
cano per Pomponio Leto. Firenze: 1873. An English translation has
now appeared entitled Eight Months at Rome, by Pomponio Leto. Always
referred to as Vitelleschi. The real authorship of the work is no secret in
Rome, nor is it treated as such.
2
ན ་
CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
FROM THE ISSUE OF THE SYLLABUS TO ITS SOLEMN CONFIRMATION,
DECEMBER 1864 TO JUNE 1867.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
The First Secret Command to commence Preparations for a General Council,
December 6th, 1864-Meeting of Congregation-All but Cardinals
sent out― Secret Order-Events of the Sth-Solemn Anniversary—A
historical coup de soleil
CHAPTER II.
The Encyclical Quanta Cura, December 8th, 1864-Causes of the Ruin of
Modern Society rejection of the 'force' of the Church-Religious
Equality-Pretensions of Civil Law and of Parents to Control Educa-
tion-Laws of Mortmain-Remedies-Restoration of the Authority of
the Church-Connecting Links between Encyclical and Syllabus--
Retrospect of Evidences that all Society was in Ruins-The Move-
ment for Reconstruction
1
4
CHAPTER III.
Foundation of a Literature of Reconstruction, Serial and Scholastic-The
Civiltà Cattolica: its Views on Education and on Church and State
-Tarquini's Political Principles of Pope and King-Measures Prepara-
tory to the Syllabus
CHAPTER IV.
Further Measures Preparatory to the Syllabus-Changes in Italy since
1846-Progress of Adverse Events-A Commination of Liberties-
A Second Assembly of Bishops without Parliamentary Functions—
The Curse on Italy-Origin of the phrase 'A Free Church in a Free
State -Projected Universal Monarchy
•
CHAPTER V.
The Syllabus of Errors, December 8th, 1864-Character of the Propositions
condemned-Disabilities of the State-Powers of the Church
CHAPTER VI.
•
The Secret Memoranda of the Cardinals, February 1865
•
14
35
54
76
Xxxviii
XX
Contents.
CHAPTER VII.
A Secret Commission to prepare for a Council, March 1865-First Sum-
mons-Points determined-Reasons why Princes are not consulted-
Plan for the Future Council
PAGE
84
CHAPTER VIII.
Memoranda of Thirty-six chosen Bishops, consulted under Bond of Strictest
Secrecy, April to August, 1865-Doctrine of Church and State-An-
tagonism of History and the Embryo Dogma-Nuncios admitted to
the Secret And Oriental Bishops
CHAPTER IX.
Interruption of Preparations for Fourteen Months, through the conse-
quences of Sadowa-The French evacuate Rome-Alleged Double
Dealing of Napoleon III.-The Civiltà on St. Bartholomew's-Change
of Plan-Instead of a Council a Great Display-Serious Complaints
of Liberal Catholics
88
·
95
CHAPTER X.
Reprimand of Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, for disputing the Ordinary
and Immediate Jurisdiction of the Pope in his Diocese-Sent in 1864,
Published in 1869
CHAPTER XI.
Great Gathering in Rome, June 1867-Impressions and Anticipations-
Improvements in the City-Louis Veuillot on the Great Future
CHAPTER XII.
The Political Lesson of the Gathering, namely, All are called upon to re-
cognise in the Papal States the Model State of the World-Survey of
those States
CHAPTER XIII.
Solemn Confirmation of the Syllabus by the Pope before the assembled
Hierarchy, and their Acquiescence, June 17th, 1867
101
•
109
116
•
•
163
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 26th to July
>
1st, 1867-Consistory-Acquiescence in the Syllabus of the assembled
Bishops-The Canonised Inquisitor-Questions and Returns prepa-
ratory to Greater Centralisation - Manning on the Ceremonies
O'Connell on the Doctrines of the Papists-The Doctrine of Direct
and Indirect Power
165
Contents.
CHAPTER II.
xxxix
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
•
•
PAGE
194
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
CHAPTER IV.
Princes, Ministers, and their Confessors-Montalembert's part in the Revival
-His Posthumous Work on Spain-Indignation against the New
Assumptions-Debate of Clergy in Paris on the Lawfulness of Absolv-
ing a Liberal Prince or Minister-Wrath at Rome-True Doctrines
taught to Darboy and his Clergy
CHAPTER V.
What is to be the Work of the Council-Fears caused by Grandiose Pro-
jects-Reform of the Church in Head and Members-Statesmen evince
Concern
•
208
222
237
CHAPTER VI.
Agitation in Bavaria and Germany-The Golden Rose-Fall of Isabella—
The King of Bavaria obtains the opinion of the Faculties-Döllinger
-Schwarzenberg's Remonstrance
CHAPTER VII.
254
Intention of proposing the Dogma of Infallibility intimated-Bavarian
Note to the Cabinets, February to April, 1869-Arnim and Bismarck. 261
CHAPTER VIII.
Indulgences-Excitement The Two Brothers Dufournel
g
Senestrey's
Speech-Hopes of the Ruin of Germany-What the Council will do-
Absurdity of Constitutional Kings-The True Saviour of Society-Lay
Address from Coblenz-Montalembert adheres to it-Religious Liberty
does not answer-Importance of keeping Catholic Children apart from
the Nation-War on Liberal Catholics-Flags of all Nations doing
Homage to that of the Pope
·
CHAPTER IX.
Publication of Janus-Hotter Controversy-Bishop Maret's Book-Père
Hyacinth-The Saviour of Society again-Dress-True Doctrine of
Concordats not Contracts but Papal Laws-Every Catholic State has
Two Heads-Four National Governments condemned in One Day-
What a Free Church means-Fulda Manifesto-Meeting of Catholic
Notables in Berlin-Political Agitation in Bavaria and Austria-
Stumpf's Critique of the Jesuit Schemes.
. 267
285
x1
Contents.
CHAPTER X.
Conflicting Manifestoes by Bishops-Attacks on Bossuet-Darboy—Dupan-
loup combats Infallibility-His relations with Dr. Pusey-Deschamps
replies-Manning's Manifesto-Retort of Friedrich-Discordant Epis-
copal Witnesses
PAGE
322
CHAPTER XI.
Diplomatic Feeling and Fencing in Rome, November 1869-Cross Policies
on Separation of Church and State-Ollivier, Favre, De Banneville-
Doctrines of French Statesmen ridiculed at Rome-Specimens of the
Utterances approved at Court-Forecasts of War between France and
Prussia-Growing Strength of the Movement in France for Universities
Canonically Instituted
CHAPTER XII.
Mustering, and Preparatory Stimuli-Pope's Hospitality-Alleged Political
Intent-Friedrich's First Notes-The Nations cited to Judgment-
New War of the Rosary-Tarquini's Doctrine of the Sword-A New
Guardian of the Capitol-November and December, 1869
CHAPTER XIII.
Great Ceremony of Executive Spectacle, called a Pro-Synodal Congrega-
tion, to forestall Attempts at Self-Organisation on the Part of the
Council The Scene-The Allocution-Officers appointed by Royal
Proclamation-Oath of Secrecy-Papers Distributed-How the Nine
had foreseen and forestalled all Questions of Self-Organisation-The
Assembly made into a Conclave, not a General Council-Cecconi's
Apology for the Rules
CHAPTER XIV.
The Eve of the Council-Rejoicings-Rome the Universal Fatherland-
Veuillot's Joy-Processions-Symbolic Sunbeams-The Joy bells-The
Vision of St. Ambrose-The Disfranchisement of Kings
341
. 353
369
. 286
APPENDIX A.
The Syllabus with the Counter Propositions of Schrader
. 401
APPENDIX B.
Relation of the Church to the Baptized, and especially to Heretics
• 421
BOOK I.
FROM THE ISSUE OF THE SYLLABUS TO ITS SOLEMN
CONFIRMATION.
(December 1864 to June 1867.)
CHAPTER I.
The First Secret Command to commence Preparations for a General Council,
December 6th, 1864-Meeting of Congregation-All but Cardinals sent out
-Secret Order-Events of the 8th-Solemn Anniversary-A historical
coup de soleil.
ON
N the 6th of December, 1864, Pope Pius IX. held in
the Vatican a memorable meeting of the Congregation of
Rites. That body consists of some eighteen or twenty car-
dinals, with a few prelates and a number of consulters. It holds
a prominent place among the congregations, or boards as they
would be called at our Court, which, taken collectively, may be
said to constitute the Roman Curia. It determines not only
questions touching the canonisation of saints, and the patron
saints of towns and countries, but also questions touching relics,
rubrics, and the title of sacred images to worship. The all-
important matters of robes, adornments, and precedence, are
said by different authorities to be regulated by it, and by the
smaller Congregation of Ceremonies. The pontifical masters
of the ceremonies have a seat at both boards.
The day in question fell within three months after the signing
of the convention of September, by which the new kingdom of
Italy had succeeded in binding Napoleon III. to withdraw his
troops from the Papal States, at the close of 1866. It was,
therefore, at a moment when thoughts were forcibly directed to
VOL. I.
1
ان
L
2
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
the contingencies which might arise to the Papacy should it be
left alone with Italians. It was, moreover, only two days before
the occurrence of an incident which has already grown into an
event, and was designed to mark a new era in society at large.
To that era the proceedings of the six years which we are about
to trace were to form the introductory stage, up to a grand
inauguration both legislative and ceremonial.
We have no information as to the business for which the
meeting we speak of had been convened. It was, however,
opened as usual by the reading of a prayer. After the
After the prayer,
members of the
the Pontiff commanded all who were not
Sacred College to withdraw, and leave him alone with the
Cardinals. The excluded dignitaries interchanged conjectures
as to what might be the cause of this unusual proceeding, and
hoped that on their readmission they should be informed. But
the Pope did not condescend to their curiosity; they found that
the Congregation only went on with the regular business, and
when events cleared up the doubt it proved that not one of
them had guessed the truth.
In the short but eventful interval, Pius IX. had formally com-
municated to the Cardinals his own persuasion, long cherished,
and now quickened to the point of irrepressible action, that the
remedy for the evils of the time would be found only in a General
Council. He commanded them to study the expediency of con-
voking one, and to send to him in writing their opinions upon
that question.
The above incident is the first related in the sumptuous
volume of Cecconi, written by command of the Pope, who,
after it appeared, conferred on the author the archbishopric of
Florence. That volume exclusively narrates the secret proceed-
ings of the five years which intervened between this meeting and
the opening of the Vatican Council. But, while telling us what
took place on the 6th of December, the Court historian passes in
dead silence over the eighth. On that day, however, the Vatican
launched manifestoes which had been for years in preparation,
A Threefold Triumph.
3
and which have been mentioned every day since. These summed
up all the past policy of Pius IX., and formed a basis for the
future government of the world. They furnished to the Vatican
Council, still five years distant, the kernel of its decrees, both
those passed and those only presented. They are, in fact, printed
with the Freiburg edition of its Acta as preparatory documents.
December is to Pius IX., as it is to the Bonapartes, a month
of solemn anniversaries. On the eighth of that month, ten years
previously to the time of which we are writing, surrounded by
two hundred bishops, he proclaimed the immaculate conception
of the Virgin Mary as a doctrine of the Church. In his own
imagination, this act formed an epoch of glory, to the lustre of
which three distinct triumphs contributed. In the first place, a
darling bye-belief was lifted from the humble posture of pious
opinion, to that of a dogma binding on all, who must admit
changes into their creed with every change of Rome. In the
second place, a new and mighty advance in the power of the
Papacy was achieved, for a formal addition to the creed was made
without the sanction of a General Council. Those bishops who
attended manifestly acted, not as members of a co-ordinate
branch of a legislature, but as councillors of an autocrat. The
absent were placed under the necessity of accepting the fait
accompli, or of attempting to undo it in the face of the Pontiff,
the Curia, and the majority of the prelates. "Gallicanism,'
said the Civiltà Cattolica, 'was, in fact, bruised under the heel
of the Immaculate, when Pius IX., by his own authority, laid
down the definition.'1 Thirdly, an impression of the personal
inspiration of Pius IX. was conveyed, with embellishments, so
as to prepare the way for the recognition of his infallibility.
When he was in the act of proclaiming the new dogma, the
beams of the sun streamed gloriously upon him; the fact being
that his throne was so fixed that this must take place if the sun
shone at the time. Nevertheless, the visible rays were hailed
as evidence of the light which makes manifest things not seen.,
¹ Serie VII., viii., p. 668.
4
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
:
The Pope sought, in the great fresco of Podesti, to popularise
and perpetuate his own conception of this event, which is called,
in French guide-books to the Vatican, the coup de soleil historique.
That picture, filling an entire side of a chamber, near to the
renowned frescoes of Raffaele, represents the Virgin looking
down from celestial glory upon Pius IX., and, by the hand of
an angel, who holds a cross, pouring a stream of supernal light
on his enraptured eye. Hence may the faithful gather that this
reveals the truth to men.
is the light by which he
CHAPTER II.
The Encyclical Quanta Cura, December 8th, 1864.-Causes of Ruin of Modern
Society rejection of the 'force' of the Church-Religious Equality-
Pretensions of Civil Law and of Parents to Control Education-Laws of
Mortmain-Remedies-Restoration of the Authority of the Church-
Connecting Links between Encyclical and Syllabus-Retrospect of Evi-
dences that all Society was in Ruins-The Movement for Reconstruction.
THE tenth anniversary of the auspicious day of 'The Imma-
culate' being now at hand, Pius IX. had, as we have seen,
chosen its fore-eve for setting in motion the preparations for
his General Council. He reserved for the day itself the great
deed of publishing the Encyclical Quanta Cura and its accom-
panying Syllabus of Errors. It is said that the inception of
those documents dates back to a point not very long subsequent
to the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception, and that the
first Special Congregation named to prepare them spent more
than five years without agreeing, after which it was dissolved by
his Holiness, and a second named, which completed the task.
The key-note of the Encyclical is that of an alarm, in the
martial sense; not a panic cry, accompanied by a throw-
ing away of arms, but a note of danger, with a call to take
them up.
The cause assigned for alarm is the ruinous condition of
sense.
The Encyclical.
5
society-that word being used in its political, not its domestic
The very bases of society were shaken by evil prin-
ciples, which had spread on all sides and raised a 'horrible
tempest.' Before proceeding to the errors to be now con-
demned, the Pontiff is careful to connect with them those other
'principal errors of our sad times' which he had already con-
demned in previous encyclicals, allocutions, and letters apostolic.
He thus lays the logical foundation for the collection of them in
the Syllabus. He first reminds the bishops how he had stirred
them up to war against these errors, and how he had also com-
manded the children of the Church to abhor and shun them.
Secondly, he enumerates certain additional errors, condemns
them in turn, and commands his sons to shun them likewise.
Condemnations pronounced in this formal manner are judicial
and sovereign. The Pontiff does not speak as a mere teacher,
but as the supreme tribunal of the Church. The judgments
pronounced are not for the guidance of individuals merely, but
are a rule for every officer of the Church. Every such sentence
fixes the state of the law.
After many generalities, the first token of ruin in modern
society particularised is the design manifested to check and set
aside the salutary force¹ which ought always to be exercised by
the Church, not only over individuals, but also over nations, both
'peoples' and sovereigns. The second token of ruin is the
prevalence of the error that the State may treat various reli-
gions on a footing of equality, the error that liberty of worship
is in fact a personal right of every man, and that the citizen is
entitled to make a free profession of his belief, orally or by the
press, without fear of either civil or ecclesiastical power. This
is condemned as being the 'liberty of damnation.' The next
token of ruin is hostility to the religious orders, which were
established by their founders only by the inspiration of God.
1 The word is vis, which both the Civiltà Cattolica and the French Recueil
translate by 'force.' But not so the German Stimmen aus Maria Laach, which
makes it influence '-einfluss (Heft i., p. 10). Such a difference in versions
meant for Germans, Englishmen, and Americans is not rare.
:6
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
Հ
Another token of ruin is the belief that all the rights of parents
over their children arise out of civil law, especially the claim to
control their education. The Pope would seem to think that
this notion is the ground for denying the right of priests to
take the control of education out of the hand of parents, or the
ground for claiming the protection of civil law for the natural
and Scriptural right of the parent against the alleged right of
the priest. Such denial of the right of the priest is dilated
upon as a further token of ruin. The existence of laws of mort-
main is an additional token. After these civil and ecclesiastical
matters, one theological point is adduced, with formal yet fervent
language, as if it were some new plague, broken out in our own
times the denial of the divinity of our blessed Lord. This
seems to be the only question in theology proper directly raised
in the document. The errors now signalized are all condemned,
and formally added to those previously condemned.
Just as the Emperor Nicholas of Russia, before undertaking
the campaign that led to the Crimean war, found his sick man
and pointed out his symptoms, so had Pius IX. done. In the
former case, the sick man was only one wide-spread but despotic
empire. In the latter, it included everything that could be
called, in the dialect of the Vatican, the Modern State.
Proceeding from his enumeration of the evils which mark the
ruin of contemporary society to the remedies by which it is to
be repaired, his Holiness. once more wraps up much of what he
may mean in generalities. When he does come to particulars,
the hierarchy are directed to teach that kingdoms rest on the
foundations of the faith; that kingly power is bestowed, not
only for the government of the world, but still more for the
protection of the Church; that nothing can be more glorious
for rulers than to permit the Catholic Church to govern accord-
ing to her own laws (ie., canon law), not allowing any one to
impede her free action, and not setting the regal will above that
of the priests of Christ. Here is touched the great question in
government. The Modern State had not only emancipated the
Ruinous State of Society.
7
throne from the supreme tribunal of the Church, that is, the
Pope, but it had also emancipated the civil courts from the
external tribunal of the Church, that is, the ecclesiastical
court. The latter as well as the former evil must be redressed.
To such prescriptions for the healing of society is added a pro-
clamation of indulgences, and then follows an exhortation to
pray both to God and to the Blessed Virgin, ' who has destroyed
all heresies throughout the world,'-whatever that may mean in
history, theology, or rhetoric. She is gentle and full of mercy;
and standing at the right hand of her only Son, our
Lord Jesus Christ, as queen, in gilded clothing, surrounded
with variety, there is nothing which she cannot obtain from
Him.'
6
This curious document was a necessary introduction to the
Syllabus. The external connecting link between the two was
formed by a covering letter of Cardinal Antonelli conveying
Syllabus to the hierarchy by direct command of the Pope, that
they might have all the errors and the pernicious doctrines which
have been condemned by him under their eyes.'¹ The internal
link lay in the title of the Syllabus, which recited the language
of the Encyclical referring to the antecedent judgments of the
Pontiff. It is not a syllabus of errors in general, nor of errors
merely disapproved and abhorred by Pius IX. in particular,
nor of errors rebuked and denounced by him only in sermons,
speeches, or briefs; but a syllabus of The Principal Errors of our
Times, set forth by him in Consistorial Allocutions, Encyclicals,
and other Letters Apostolic.
Before proceeding to consider the Syllabus as the new founda-
tion laid for the reconstruction of society after its ruin, we may
for a moment glance at the facts which might seem to prove to
observers, looking from the Vatican, that it had been reduced to
a ruinous condition.
Coming to the throne in 1846, Pius IX. inherited the
sovereignty of States which had long been in a condition of
¹ Recueil, end of preface.
8
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
chronic disaffection. The state of things is described as follows
by Monsignor Liverani, a learned but seemingly disappointed
prelate, who wrote hoping to redeem the glory of the Papacy by
the re-establishment of a Holy Roman Empire with an Italian
head, after the example of that interval between the line of
Charlemagne and that of Otho, when Guido of Spoleto, his
brilliant son Lambert, and Berengarius wore the imperial title.
"The people,' says Liverani, 'have spoken for forty years,
groaning, agitating, shaking off the yoke by frequent revolu-
tions, accompanied by crimes and continuous misfortunes, by
slaughters, wars, bombardments, banishments, and desolations.'¹
Nevertheless, prelates from the north, coming to pay their
homage to the new Pontiff, on reaching the last spurs of the
Alps, might embrace in the glance of their mind all thence to
Etna, and say, Happy land! the throne of his Holiness in
the centre, the faithful Bourbon on the south, the Hapsburg
on the north, with Tuscany under a branch of the Hapsburgs,
and Piedmont under the House of Savoy,-what a spectacle
of Catholic power! Holy land! not a heretic temple; not
one teacher but in communion with Peter: blessed scene of
Catholic unity!
A poor representative of the oft-extirpated Waldenses might
say
in silence-for such words durst not then disturb the Catholic
unity of Italian air-You forget a few teachers in the valleys
behind you, who never left the word of God to turn lords either
of the earth or of the faith. Before you there is not a pulpit with
the Bible, nor a man who ever drinks the cup of Christ, except-
ing priests alone; not a temple with God's commandments on
its walls, but many a decalogue altered by the authority of a
man who, making the law of God reformable, claims that his
own shall be irreformable !
Beyond the limits of the Pope's temporal dominions soon
arose commotions which spread over the principal seats of his
spiritual power. In Switzerland the Jesuits provoked the war
¹ Il Papato, etc., p. 188.
The Horrible Tempest.
9
of the Sonderbund, and were foiled. Beyond the Atlantic a con-
siderable portion of Mexico passed into the hands of the Protestant
United States. Portugal was plagued with revolt. A famine
thinned and dispersed the Roman Catholic population of Ireland.
France drove away her good king. The Emperor of Austria
was compelled to abdicate, and the empire was not saved from
dismemberment without aid from Russia. The King of Bavaria
also had to lay down his crown. The sovereigns of Tuscany and
Naples were compelled to fly; as was, alas! the Pontiff himself.
Spain and her Queen were seldom heard of, except for an insur-
rection or a scandal. Only two Roman Catholic countries were
thriving-Belgium, with a Protestant king, and a constitution
which the Church had solemnly and vehemently condemned;
and Piedmont, which, worse than Hannibal, had opened the
passes of the Alps to religious liberty.
This was the first sweep of the hurricane. During its preva-
lence, those portions of the world which lay without the Papal
circle enjoyed as much rest as was to be looked for beside
such troubled waters. Both schismatical Russia and heretical
England were stable and expanding. Prussia was for a time
seriously disturbed, but, nevertheless, was manifestly advancing
to the first place in Germany. Holland, Denmark, and Sweden
held on their way; and the United States were growing apace.
From his exile the Pope called on the Catholic powers for
armed aid. Austria crushed and held the Emilia. Spain took
Fuimicino and the cities on the Tyrrhenian shore. Naples con-
quered Frosinone and the south up to Palestrina, but was driven
back at Velletri by Garibaldi. Finally, France declared herself
ready to terminate the war; and, after failing for weeks before
the slight defences of Rome, ultimately took the city.¹
¹ The Pope, in the Allocution of April 20th, 1849, says that Spain first stirred
up the other Catholic nations to form a league among themselves for his restora-
tion (Recueil, p. 228). His description of the Holy City during his absence
was, 'a thicket of roaring beasts'—silvam frementium bestiarum (Id., 224).
His description of himself at the same time was, 'being counted worthy to
suffer shame for the name of Jesus, and being made in some measure conform-
able to His passion' (Id., p. 234).
ΙΟ
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
C
Indebted for a welcome restoration to the unwelcome hand of
a Bonaparte, Pius IX., on re-entering his States, found himself
permanently dependent for possession of the capital on the sword
of France, and for that of the provinces on the sword of Austria.
Under their protection he enjoyed some years of struggling
sovereignty. This could hardly be called a restoration of the tem-
poral power, for a power is not really restored till it can again
stand alone. Instead of being an opponent of the Jesuits, a
Liberal, and a Reformer, as he had been, the Pope was now trans-
formed into a violent reactionary, and had fallen entirely under
the influence of the Jesuits. His admirers proudly point to his
acts from that time forward as evidence that they have been uni-
formly aimed at one end. That end, viewed on its negative side,
they call combating the Revolution, and, viewed on its positive
side, the reconstruction of society. In the introduction to his
Speeches, his peculiar mission is said to be that of reconstruc-
tion. This reconstruction was to begin with the restoration of
ideas, and was to proceed to the restoration of facts.
It is this movement that we are about to trace. First, we
shall take a brief retrospect from the time of its inception at
Gaeta up to the appearance of the Syllabus, which, as the
ostensible ground-plan of a cosmopolitan code, was meant to be
the charter of reconstruction. We shall then, from that stage
onward, as far as our materials enable us, detail the progressive
steps of the movement up to the end of the Vatican Council,
which was meant to complete the constituent arrangements of
the new theocratic monarchy. We shall see unfolding a move-
ment for dominion as distinctive as was that of Leo III. when
he linked the fortunes of the Papacy to those of a new Western
Empire; as distinctive as was the movement of Hildebrand when
from political dependence he lifted up the Papacy to unheard of
domination; as distinctive as was the movement of the Popes
after the Reformation, when through war and the Inquisition
they restored in several countries of Europe their spiritual ascen-
dancy. We shall witness the rise of a curious and powerful
Course of the Movement.
I I
literature-scholastic, serial, and popular-which has steadily
swollen in volume, and now acts with ever accelerating force on
the religious antipathies of many nations, pointing to future
wars on a scale unheard of, fixing the aim of those wars, and
hinting at the disappearance of all existing institutions but the
Church. We shall see a well-sustained endeavour, in the name.
of freedom of instruction, to take all schools and universities out
of the hands of parents and of States, and to put them into the
hands of priests. We shall see such rights in matters ecclesi-
astical as in the Church of Rome had still survived to the laity,
the priests, and the bishops, gradually suppressed in action till the
way was prepared for their abolition in law. We shall see the
subordination of the civil law to the canon law, and the subjec-
tion of the civil magistrate to the 'ecclesiastical magistrate'
insisted upon as the essence of social order. We shall see all
the inherited rights of kings and rulers, within their own do-
minions, to put limits upon the action of the Pope of Rome, first
impugned, then contested, then defied, and finally, as far as the
Church could do it, legislated out of existence. We shall see all
kings and rulers challenged to accept the Pontiff as their head,
and even as their judge in all matters involving moral responsi-
bility. We shall find it taught and taught again that all Catholic
countries have two rulers-the universal and the national one,
the universal one superior, the national one subordinate; and
that every citizen of those countries is more the subject of the
Pope than of his prince. We shall see the relation between
the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities as existing within the
Papal States solemnly and repeatedly declared to be the normal
relation of those two orders of authority, and to be the only
example of their proper relative position extant in all the earth.
We shall see the Papal States earnestly held up as the model for
the new theocracy in the entire world.
Further, we shall see, for five successive years, secret pro-
ceedings of the Court of Rome sufficiently laid open by official
divulgence to enable us to note the slow, sure steps devised for
12 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
depriving kings of all their rights in self-defence against the
Pope; for depriving bishops of all their powers of checking or
restraining the Pope; for depriving theologians of any voice in
the councils of the Church; and for depriving the parochial
clergy of their individual and collective franchises. We shall
see great pomps and ceremonies, long prepared, employed with
dexterous adaptation and astuteness almost beyond belief, to cover
over and to carry the adoption of measures of organic change,
while attention was diverted from constitutional questions to
external display. We shall at almost every turn hear modern
laws and constitutions-liberty of worship, liberty of the press,
liberty of meeting, with representative legislatures and respon-
sible governments-denounced as the curse of mankind in all
the varying accents of a strange dialect, or a dialect happily
strange to us. We shall witness the preaching of a new crusade,
on a cosmopolitan scale, with considerable art, making the bearing
of arms for St. Peter to appear, pre-eminently, the life of the
Cross, and dying in arms for St. Peter to appear as the martyr's
end, the fairest of deaths, and the most enviable. We shall see
how the most jealous and obstinate oligarchy in the world were
led on from step to step of subjugation till they were made the
instruments of reducing their collective body, when in Council
assembled, from a co-ordinate branch of a legislature to a mere
privy council to the Bishop of Rome, and of reducing the
members of their body, when dispersed, from the position of
real diocesan bishops to that of prefects of the Bishop of Rome.
Still further, we shall see evolved under our eyes the process.
by which opinions are elevated into doctrines, and doctrines are
erected into irreformable dogma. We shall see how the bishops,
while dispersed, were induced, in order to facilitate the making
of a new dogma, to discredit their acknowledged standard of
belief, tradition, substituting for it the general consent of the
Church; and how, when the passing of the dogma was secured,
the assembled bishops were induced to disavow the consent
of the Church as unnecessary. We shall see ecclesiastical
Course of the Movement.
13
magnates prostrate and petitioning the Bishop of Rome for the
elementary liberties of a legislature, and petitioning in vain.
We shall see how such magnates in secret petitions represented
the principles about to be erected into dogma as contrary to
their traditional belief and constant teaching, as fraught with
peril to the State, and as certain to bring discredit on the
loyalty of any sincere believer in such dogma; and how the
same magnates afterwards in public documents affirmed the
opposite in all these respects. We shall see how renowned
champions of the Papacy complained late in life that they had
been used for its glory and deceived as to its principles; how
others, aware of the tendency of those principles, endeavoured to
check it; how light and information came out of conflict; and
how some submitted, while others maintained their convictions.
We shall see how, while all the sovereigns who had been threat-
ened with revolution if they did not submit to the Pope, sat
securely on their thrones (excepting only the one who held him
up), the Pope himself fell and cried for aid to the kings. Finally,
we shall see set in motion an immense apparatus of means for
effecting, in a course of ages, the complete social, political, and
ecclesiastical reconstruction of all society, which reconstruction
will culminate only when the spiritual and the temporal powers
meeting as in an apex in the Vicar of Christ, he shall be by all
men regarded as not only High Priest, but as King of kings and
Lord of lords; when, all authority and dominion, all principality
and power, being put under him, there shall in the whole earth
exist only, as we should express it, one master and all men
slaves, or, as he would express it, one fold and one shepherd.¹
The question whether Pius IX. was or was not a Freemason is of no interest
whatever, yet it has been matter of considerable dispute in Italy. It was so well
denied by the Court organs that it ought to have been settled. But, unhappily,
in Italy denials from that quarter often pass for corroborations. So it was in
this case, until in February, 1876, the Capitale, of Rome, published the certificate
of his admission into the Order, with all marks and tokens of authenticity, so
far as the uninitiated can judge. The Nuova Firenze then published a letter to
a Lodge, signed by Count L. R. W., and with marks to identify the Lodge,
saying that he demurred to their judgment on Brother Mastai, and relating how,
14
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
CHAPTER III.
Foundation of a Literature of Reconstruction, Serial and Scholastic-The
Civiltà Cattolica: its Views on Education and on Church and State-
Tarquini's Political Principles of Pope and King-Measures Preparatory to
the Syllabus.
WITH
ITH the year 1850 was commenced a magazine, at the
instance of the Jesuits, and under their direction, bearing
the title Catholic Civilisation (Civiltà Cattolica), in opposition
to modern civilisation. We may here say that the daily organ
of the same complexion bears the title of Catholic Unity
(Unità Cattolica), in opposition to Italian unity. Above one
hundred volumes of the Civiltá have been published; and it
must ever be named in connection with Pius IX., as the inti-
mate organ of his policy, and the most complete store of his
published records. Perhaps its place in the history of literature
is unique. Considering the number of books, serials, and jour-
nals, in different languages, of which it is the inspiring force,
and considering the modifications it has already succeeded in
bringing about in the ideas and even in the organisation of the
whole Catholic society, they can scarcely be charged with vain
boasting who call it the most influential organ in the world.
The Jesuit Fathers forming its editorial staff reside close to the
Pope's palace, and work under his immediate direction. Dr.
Friedrich, during the Vatican Council, told some bishops that
if they would understand the Council, they must study it with
the Civiltà in their hands. For our part, before reading that re-
mark we had applied the same principle to the entire movement.
The leading idea of the Civiltà is expressed, says the article
on a certain occasion, after, as a diplomatist, transacting business with Pius IX.,
he had a private interview, and told his Holiness that he must tell him that
Pius IX., in anathematising all Freemasons, had perjured himself, and anathe-
matised Cav R.. + .. Masti-Ferretti among the rest. The Pope told him that he
was still a Freemason, but that he took the Jesuits in. The editor says that he
took the Count in, and so say other editors who reprint the document. This
controversy is principally curious as showing how the Italian mind is saturated
with a belief in the deceitfulness of all who surround the Papal throne.
The Literature of Reconstruction.
15
on the programme, in its title. Catholic Civilisation is flag,
device, and profession of faith.' The substance is civilisation, the
quality Catholic. Civilisation is not polish, but organisation in
community, under rule. Civilisation, after the Catholic ideal, had
continued steadily to grow up to the fifteenth century, but was
broken in the sixteenth by Lutheranism; was again enfeebled in
the seventeenth by Jansenism; yet again was it undermined in
the eighteenth by Voltairianism, and now in the nineteenth it
is lacerated by Socialism. The evil has actually entered Italy,
and even heterodoxy itself threatens to invade the Peninsula.
Heresy is, in fact, likely to become connected with that aspira-
tion after national unity by which the people are misled.
Almost everything having been overhauled in a heterodox spirit,
almost everything must be reconstituted from the foundation.²
These words express the mission of the new periodical, and of
the restored Papacy. They are the original announcement of a
policy ever since pursued without flagging.
To reconstitute society according to the Catholic ideal is the
single object set forth. Designs such as religious men would
expect to find on the lips of a Christian bishop, or in the fron
of a bishop's magazine, were out of the question. Expositior
of Scripture-Biblical studies, how to convert sinners from the
error of their ways—not these things. We have talk of revolu-
tions, monarchies, republics, authority and anarchy, interspersed
with snarls at heresy and heretics.
'On the brink of social dissolution,' the one necessity felt,
pressed, reiterated, is that of re-establishing on the Catholic
ideal the notion of civilisation,-that is of the civil system; and
of leading back the movement of civilisation to that Catholic
ideal from which it had been departing for three centuries.3
'Perhaps some years, it may be some lustres, will pass ere it is
seen what a large and variegated web may be woven on these
threads (Catholic civilisation), simple as they seem at first
sight.'
4
¹ Civiltá, vol. i., p. 13. 2 Ibid., p. 15. • Ibid., p. 13.
♦ Ibid., p. 13.
16
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
The essential point in this fabric is 'the idea of authority.'
The question relates not to the form of governments as between
monarchy and republic. The authority must be legitimate, and
the operation just.¹ But the idea of authority cannot be restored
except by quickening it, and reinforcing it by the Catholic con-
ception. When the divine authority was shaken, men would no
longer hear of the human (i.e., when the Papacy was rejected,
civil government fell into contempt). The Catholic ideal is idly
reproached with absolutism. But, among Catholics, pure
monarchy, if not limited by certain conventional checks, is
tempered by a higher law, not abstract, but practical, active, and
operative. Absolutism in the sense of despotism is the creation
of Protestantism and Voltairianism, and if it may sit on the
throne of a king, it is more frequently found in constitutional
chambers or democratic assemblies.2 Therefore the one sufficing
remedy is the restoration in ruler and subject of the notion of
authority according to the Catholic ideal. For this the new
organ calls for a salutary conspiracy, a holy crusade; ³ two phrases
that mean all that has since taken place, and all that has yet to
come.
3
We need hardly say that the centre of the Catholic ideal of
the civil system is the Papacy; and the centre of the Papacy is
the notion that the Pope represents God upon earth. Among
Christians, all authority flows from the Pope, as among men
all authority flows from God. Authority coming from below is
never legitimate. Authority seems to be always considered as
coming from below, when it is given by the heads of all the
houses in a nation acting in a peaceful and deliberate manner
through chosen representatives, and making ONE the de-
positary of the collective authority of all the heads of houses
in so far as it touches the duties and the interests com-
mon to them all. The constitutional monarch who in this
manner becomes the Great Father, uniting in himself the
executive authority of all the fathers of the land, and there-
¹
1 Civiltá, vol. i., p. 19.
2 Ibid., pp. 20, 21.
3
• Ibid., p. 14.
Constitutional Authority Illegitimate.
17
fore becomes the head of the only true paternal government, is,
in the Civiltá and its manifold echoes, constantly represented
as a poor slave. The reason of this is that in legislation he
admits the collective authority of the fathers of the land as a
co-ordinate authority with his own. He is also represented
as a ridiculous puppet, because in executive action his minis-
ters are responsible to the collective fathers of the land. This
authority, which in the common affairs of a community is the
most clearly divine one we know of, is constantly treated as
from below. It would be hard to express in English the hatred
and contempt for constitutional monarchy and responsible minis-
ters which are ever flowing from the fountains of the Vatican.
It would seem that authority may be recognised as being from
above if it emanates from a decision taken, not by a vote which
declares the majority of opinion, but by a fight which declares
the majority of force. The Papacy has in all ages recognised
and blessed the authority of the conqueror if he has only taken
the right side; whether, as in the case of Pepin, it was the
minister supplanting his sovereign, or, as in many cases, it was
the German crushing the Italian, or, as in the case of Robert
Guiscard, it was the Norman subjugating both. We cannot,
however, understand modern writing except on the principle that
even authority once so blessed must, in order to retain its legiti-
macy, be used to withhold the franchise from all heads of families,
denying to them any collective voice in their common affairs,
and asserting that the joint authority of all fathers is no authority
at all; that the ruler, be he king, president, or prince bishop, is
not only the depositary, but the fountain of authority; not only
the Great Father, but the Sole Father, and that all the rest are
children. The reader will, as we proceed, have ample opportunity
of comparing these hints with original utterances.
6
The very first article of the Civiltá, after that upon the pro-
gramme, is on education: the question which holds all the
future destinies of the European nations struggling within its
ballot-boxes.' With this appreciation of its theme, it takes
VOL. I.
2
18 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
ground which has since become familiar to Europe, and enun-
ciates principles which have now frequently been reproduced in
our own discussions; so that a slight sketch of its reasoning will
not be without interest to English readers. The interest is in-
creased by the fact that its aims have steadily gained ground
in France. In England, some of them, if not recognised as
principles, have been, to a considerable extent, practically em-
bodied, as undetected principles are apt to be.
Beginning with the theme of Freedom of Instruction, it de-
nounces the tyranny and monopoly of the University of France.
Had not the spirit of Catholicism, it says, broken the chain, it
would soon have become unlawful for one man to tell another
the right road, unless he had a Bachelor's degree, for doing so
was a sort of instruction. The line properly limiting freedom of
instruction it finds in the line which divides the truth from false-
hood. The private lie is condemned by the private conscience,
the social lie by social law, and the public one by public law.
The lie in instruction is the most hurtful of all lies. They who
demand liberty of instruction do so in order to teach the truth.
But in excluding the teaching of lies, it may be even necessary
to protect children betrayed by the barbarous apathy of their
parents.'
(
6
The writer then asks, But who is to determine what is the
lie? Governments? Until a government can show itself in-
fallible, it must renounce all pretensions to regulate instruction
and opinion.' A government might say, I do not indeed pre-
tend to be infallible as to the truth, but I aim at the good of the
subject. But gain acquired at the cost of accepting falsehood
robs man of the sublimest good, the truth, to which no material
good can be compared. Moreover, is it true that the public
good is advanced by a lie? You must either admit that the
government is infallible, or forbid it to mix itself up with edu-
cation, so far as it relates to truth and falsehood.' The pretension
on its part to do so is tyrannical, because interference here is
trespassing on the sanctuary, where the truth alone bears rule.
The State shut out of Moral Education.
19
The position that it belongs to a government to fix the
limits of freedom of opinion is denounced as having originated
in the Reformation, as being Protestant, and, further, as being
destitute of foundation. The Church is the moderator of instruc-
tion, precisely because she is the infallible moderator of opinions
in all that relates to the moral order. Consequently there is in
existence a competent, effectual, and revered tribunal. Then
follow taunts at journals which complain of communal autho-
rities for giving up their educational rights to the clergy.
These are succeeded by jeers at such statesmen as doubt if the
liberty of communal authorities extends so far as to give them
the right of surrendering their liberty.
The objection is then faced, that liberty may be as justly
claimed by the non-Catholic as by the Catholic. Of course,
replies the Civiltà, the only case in which that question can
become a practical one for Catholics is where they form the
majority. Is it to be supposed that a majority shall be bound,
for the sake of a minority, 'to pass a law opening all the pits of
hell for its fellow-citizens?
With Catholics the liberty
of dissidents cannot be a natural right.' The dissident, when
in a minority, cannot 'justly pretend that his right to pub-
lish his opinions should menace the most vital interests of a
whole nation, much less offend them with impunity.'
The position taken by statesmen, that the Church is not
infallible in politics and economy, and that therefore these sub-
jects must be under the control of the State, is first laughed at.
It reminds the writer of a musketeer who should say to his
general, 'I see that your artillery is of no avail against these
'Is
Alps; let us open upon them with our rifles.' After this comes
the principle. The assertion that politics and economy ought to
be under the control of the State rests on one or other of three
errors (1) Politics and economy do not belong to the moral
sciences; or, (2) The moral sciences are not subject to moral
laws; or, (3) The Church is not the authentic exponent of
moral law. The first of these errors is refuted by every uni-
20
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
versity in Europe, in all of which politics and economy are
classed among the moral sciences. The second is a contradiction
in terms. The third is a heresy in every Catholic ear.
It will help to a clear understanding of many expressions
which must occur hereafter, if the reader, at this stage, will
set before his mind's eye the scope of the three principles
here asserted. Phillips, a modern lay doctor, quoted by the
humblest polemic and the mighty Civiltá, in his seven volumes
on ecclesiastical law (Kirchenrecht), discusses the relations of
Church and State at great length. He shows that the Church is
supreme and the State subordinate, in all things that come under
the divine laws. Holtgreven, a Catholic judge, and an opponent
of the Falk laws, explains this clearly: To the divine laws, in
this sense, belong, not only the ten commandments, but also the
canons of the Church, as the Council of Trent shows. The
things subject to the divine laws include all such worldly things
as are connected with morality.'¹
This much is conceded by the Civiltá, that, if danger to the
public interests should arise from false teaching of any material
science, the government may interfere, as it would in a case of
adulteration of food. The Church is not infallible in material
instruction. But as to the universal principles of law, where
experiments are not sensible, and demonstration comes only
after lustres, perhaps after centuries, here it is that governments
are impotent with their intellect, by no means that of wizards;
here it is that Catholic society derives inestimable benefit from
the infallibility of the Church, which declares the truth, and
that in the end cannot fail to be great gain. Had Catholic
governments given due reverence to this teaching, instead
of giving genuflexions and Jewish bows, European society
would not to-day have been beating backward and forward
between the daggers of the secret societies and the bayonets
of the communists.
We may, perhaps, remark that the parts of Europe most
1 ¹ Holtgreven, p. 9.
2 I
The Church sole Fudge of Moral Schooling.
driven about between bayonets and daggers, at the time when
the reverend father wrote, were those in which the experiment
of taking principles of law from the infallible Church had been
more or less tried for centuries. Those parts of Europe which
have since been so driven about are those in which the experi-
ment has been persisted in for the five lustres which have since
then elapsed. The article, it will be seen, claims the right to
take the teaching of the child out of the hand of the parent, and
that of the subject out of the hand of the State.¹ The latter may
mix itself up in the matter as to material things, not as to moral.
Royal supremacy, in university, college, seminary, or primary
school, must not be allowed. It has the twofold evil of setting
the authority and responsibility of the parent for his child above
that of the priest, and of setting the local authority of the
national ruler above the all-embracing authority of the universal
one. The State is not only welcome to appear in school, but
ought to appear in its subordinate capacity, finding money,
secular status, and instruction in material things. But in all that
part of schooling which may be called education in the higher
sense, of a father, a Christian, or a king, the State is not to
have a word to say.
It would seem difficult to ask a community to do an action
involving a more serious disregard of moral considerations than
to find money and power for schools and colleges, and not have
a word to say as to the principles taught in them. We are far
from ascribing such a disregard of moral considerations to a
devout Ultramontane. On the contrary, he is persuaded that
the State, in committing its money and authority to the Church,
takes not only the highest human guarantee, but a truly divine
one, for the protection of every moral interest. The motto of
the article is a sentence intimating that, all over Europe, the
question of the future must be the establishment of universities
canonically instituted.²
In order to the restoration of ideas now undertaken, as pre-
¹ Civiltà, vol. i., pp. 25-51.
2 Ibid.
22
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
:
paring the way for the restoration of facts, it was a practical
necessity to establish an invariable association between the two
ideas of the only Judge of true and false, the only Arbiter of
right and wrong, and the one holy Roman Church. This asso-
ciation could not be established so well by any arrangement as
by making each school an arena on which every day the
authority of both the parent and the State should be-not
pranced upon, not even trampled upon, but serenely and
devoutly walked over, by what M. Veuillot calls the crushing
sandals of the monk.
Another article in the first volume of the Civiltá gives such
expression to the principles which underlie the whole struggle
ever since conducted, that some account of it will do more
to put the reader in possession of certain of those principles
than formal explanations. It is on the central question of the
relations of Church and State; or, as the Civiltá puts it, of the
separation of Church and State-a phrase which, like almost
every other, has a different meaning in its pages from what
it has with us. The following headings give an idea of the
drift of the article: '6. The nation is a part of the Church.'
7. The part ought to be subordinate to the whole.' '8. Be-
cause the Church has authority.' 9. The authority of
jurisdiction."¹
I believe in the holy Catholic Church, in the Apostles' Creed, is
thus interpreted: I believe that every Catholic individual and
nation forms a part of the Catholic society, and that only by
virtue of its being a part does it partake of the benefit of the
whole, through being subordinated to the laws of the whole.'
The writer proceeds: 'Now comes the difficulty. Ought the
part to be subordinate to the whole? Here the question changes
its aspect, and the axiom becomes a problem. But how? Is
it possible to doubt that the part is to be subordinate to the
whole? the leg to the man, the chemical forces to the vital
1 Vol. i., p. 647.
Corporal Funishment.
23
ones? to doubt that the present perishable life should give way
to the future and immortal? '1
6
On the point of jurisdiction, the writer first unearths 'the
serpent,' which is the notion that the Church may judge about
sins, virtues, doctrines, rites, and such-like, but must not touch
temporal jurisdiction. This serpent he proceeds to kill. First,
he solemnly appeals to the faith of the reader. 'Do you believe
that the Church is infallible in dogmatic Bulls, at least, unless
they are formally rejected by the episcopate?' After this, he
resorts to pleasantry: Come close to me, and I will tell it in
your ear.
The Bull of John XXII. condemned John Gianduno
and Marsilius of Padua as heretics, because they denied to the
Church the right of punishing by corporal pains, and it declared
that she could inflict pains even unto death." But I tell you
this in secret, solely that you may know what is the doctrine of
the Catholic Church, which you profess-doctrine put in practice
through very many centuries, down to the last Council (Trent),
which fulminated I know not how many penalties, and material
ones, even against counts, marquises, princes, and emperors.
Woe to us if they should hear us!' Thus jauntily did those
who had only just been reinstated by foreign arms treat the
neo-Catholic doctrine, or, as it has since been called, the Liberal
Catholic one. 'I tell you plainly,' adds the writer, 'that if
the Church cannot rule her sons, even in material things, the
1
Princes are the sons of the Church, armed with the sword for her protection;
but not the fathers of the Church. Hence, in ecclesiastical affairs they have
no laws to give, but have humbly to expect them from the Church. They have
to hear and to believe. They have to obey, and by means of their authority to
make others obey. Protectors of ecclesiastical liberty, they may not curtail
it, else their protection becomes a yoke.-Phillips, ii., 561.
2 Cardinal Tarquini (Institutiones, p. 35, ed. 4th), whom Cardinal Manning,
in his reply to Mr. Gladstone (p. 94), names as teaching differently on such
points, from the earlier Jesuits, Bellarmine and Suarez, quotes this case, saying
that the Bull in question 'more particularly attributes to the Church that
which is the special property of a perfect society, the power of coercion, even
to the use of material force; but Marsilius, who denied this. was on that account
condemned as a heretic.' His words are, Quod maxime proprium est societatis
perfectæ, jus potestatis coactivæ etiam quoad inferendam vim materialem;
Marsilius autem, qui hæc ipsa negabat damnatur eam ob rem ut hæreticus.'
24 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
:
Church is lost; at least, the Catholic Church. She might
survive as that invisible Church which was discovered by Luther
among the ruins of the middle ages, and, reconstructed as the
amphitherium and palæotherium, were discovered in the geo-
logical strata, and reconstructed by Cuvier.'
6
Con-
Referring to a debate in Turin, the writer continues:
sidering the great good which Catholic unity would be to the
human race; considering also that any such social unity is
impossible without some sacrifice of liberty by the associated
parts; considering further that among nations this sacrifice of
liberty consists precisely in subordinating the diversities of
legislation in particular States to the laws of the universal ruler,
Advocate Garbarini had the courage to say that it is the part of
the State to subordinate itself to the Church.' Proceeding to
show that in Paganism religion was a means to the welfare of
the social fabric, and that in Christianity the social fabric is a
means to religion, which alone secures the glory of God, the
writer thus urges his point: Thus, courteous reader, will you
clearly see the essential correlation between the religious idea
and the political one. And hence will you perceive that it would
be impossible, and absurd, for Pagan society not to form a
religion for the good of the State, and that it would be the same
for the Catholic society not to subordinate the State to the
good of religion.'
6
Addressing kings, the writer solemnly counsels them to bring
forth all their codes, and pass them under a careful examination.
But the light by which such examination is to be conducted
must be that 'of pure Catholicism, to which all other legis-
lation must be subordinated. Restore every article of your code,
according to the articles of your creed, not only in what relates
to the duties of subjects, but also in what would seem to diminish
the rights of rulers. And that the Catholic influence, which
modifies codes, may shine in all its fulness, let it not be minis-
ters or legists, but bishops and the Pontiff, who shall minutely
search into your legislation for every anti-Catholic element.' It
Codes to be revised by Priests.
25
is added that it was in this manner that the reforms then
taking place in Austria had been inaugurated, and that if they
were only carried on until administration, politics, civil life,
judicature, and all the departments breathed true Catholic air,
the torrent of universal rebellion would be stayed
'Let
the State know that if the priest is the subject of the State, the
State is the subject of the Church.'
The theocratic Papal polity might have been almost intention-
ally framed to contrast with the first principles of the Mosaic
theocratic polity. The latter, put in one word, seems to be this:
God as the general Father is the great right-holder, and He
identifies the rights of every creature with His own, identifying
at the same time their welfare with His own glory. Therefore
He leaves no creature to the care of a Vicar, no province to any
departmental divinity. Every act done for the benefit of our
fellow-creatures He reckons as a tribute to Himself. Every
infringement of their rights He treats as an offence against
Himself. Every man was taught to see, not an abstract prin-
ciple, but a great Father standing beside the gleaning widow,
the supperless hireling, the pauper forced to pawn, and having
no second coat,—was taught to hear this common Father saying
for these to happier neighbours, 'I am the Lord.' Every man
tempted to lie, cheat, steal, oppress, seduce, or strike, saw the
same great Father rising up against him, and saying, 'I am
the Lord.' Every man was taught to hear the voice of the
Creator calling to all men, and saying, 'Come, do this man
good, and I will bless you for it ;' and to hear the same voice
whispering within himself, and saying, 'Go, and do good to
one of the least of these little ones, and I will bless thee for it.'
It was of the essence of this theocracy that all who held
authority did so by and under a written law in the vulgar
tongue. Of this law every father in his own house was made
the guardian, and in it he was the responsible instructor of his
children. Every prophet professing that he bore a fresh message
was to be brought to the test of this written law. Those who
26 The Fope, the Kings, and the People.
were to apply the test were the men of the whole community.
Every one who claimed to bear a special commission was bound
first to conform to the law, and secondly, to show signs of
special divine power. It was a theocracy of direct divine
government, not of government by a Vicar; a theocracy of
written law, not of arbitrary will styling itself authority; a
theocracy of private judgment, not of a veda shut up from the
low caste, to be read and interpreted only by the twice-born
Brahman. Finally, it was a theocracy in which whatever came
from God became its own witness by benefits to God's children
not to be mistaken, and obvious to all.
The style of thought which separates what promotes the glory
of God from what promotes the welfare of man has no affinity
with this system, but flies in the teeth of the Old Testament.
It moreover defrauds man of the test which God has given to
him for proving all institutions, doctrines, governments, that
come in His name. Whatever is found to blight the offspring
of God, whether in the individual or the community, bears the
mark of being itself unblessed. Whatever has God's blessing
in it will leave tokens of His blessing after it. The Father-
King who reigned over the old Israel never left child of His to
a Vicar-nay, not even for punishment. Woe to him that smote
without express command! And of all offences, the one He
repelled with the greatest loathing was that of putting forward
religion in lieu of righteousness, and making holy office a cloak
to dignify unholy acts. Hands that heaped His altars with
honours, to cover wrong to His offspring, were of all hands
unholiest to Him.
These principles Christ did not annul, but illuminate and
perfect-fulfil.' The godliness that is not profitable for this
life is none of His, any more than is that which seeks here its
end, its glory, or its gain. He took care that no Church should
ever be in a position both to take charge of temporal interests
and to decline any judgment of the laity.' He laid down a
criterion expressly on purpose to enable not only laymen, but
6
The reaction in Catholic Nations.
27
common men-fishermen, carpenters, money-changers, cen-
turions, tax-gatherers-to test the pretensions of all who should
speak in His name, and to judge whether they were worthy or
not to be entrusted with their eternal concerns: • If therefore
ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will
commit unto your trust the true riches?' A Church taking
temporal interests in hand appeals to this test of the temporal
mammon, and to that test must she go. The religion of the
Bible, Old Testament and New, is pre-eminently a religion of
the individual conscience, and therefore of the private judgment.
But a natural corollary of a God who governs through a Vicar
is that of a conscience kept by another. The doctrine that God
governs through a Vicar sets a man between us and our Maker;
the doctrine that our conscience is to be kept by another sets a
man between us and our own souls. No longer the object of
God's direct government, no longer accountable guardians of
our own conscience, the sinews of individual character are cut,
and the march of the nation must be less steady,—in time must
slacken and even halt.
The statement made in the Civiltú as to the guidance under
which the reactionary policy in Austria was devised, gives light
upon the duties then engrossing nuncios and confessors at the
various Courts where Papal influence was powerful. All that
appeared to the world was, that at every one of those Courts a
cold current of reaction set in and ran strong. The Jesuits
took it for a tide, and the bark of St. Peter was to sail cheerily
over all the shoals. But the Liberal Catholics were proportion-
ably disquieted as to the prospects of the Church. The first
days of Pius IX. had fired them with hope that Rome might
yet be fit to face three things of which she was shy-the
Bible, History, and Freedom. But the advent of the Jesuits
to power caused serious forebodings, which soon began to be
realised. To quote the memorable words of Montalembert,
Who could have thought that the clergy, after crying out for
liberty in Belgium, would turn round as they did in 1852, till
28
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
we found them beating down all our liberties and privileges-in
fact, all our ideas—as held in times preceding Napoleon III.?' 1
We now find that at the time when the Pontiff was using his
clergy to help kings in taking away constitutional rights from
their subjects, he was himself preparing to take from the kings
what they indeed looked upon as rights, but what he regarded
in the light of constitutional concessions, infringing the higher
rights of their divinely appointed suzerain. When the Italian
government took possession of the Collegio Romano, it was
found that the Jesuits had left in the great library of the
establishment little belonging to the present pontificate. One
pamphlet is of some significance. A manuscript note on the
title-page proudly tells how his Holiness wished to have it cir-
culated as widely as possible. It also adds that on February 1st,
1853, when the fathers of the Collegio Romano stood before his
Holiness, he singled out the author, Father Camillo Tarquini,
in presence of the other Jesuits and of the Court, and addressed
him thus: 'Father Tarquini, I am delighted; bravo! well done!
I confirm it, and confirm it with all my heart.'
2 This was an
early foretoken of the purple in which Tarquini died. He is
the writer to whom Cardinal Manning appeals, as softening the
doctrine of Bellarmine and Suarez to a temper fitter for our
times. The pamphlet signalised by this display of favour aims
at proving the wickedness of kings in subjecting the bulls,
briefs, or any acts whatever of the Pope, to a placet, exequatur,
or other form of royal assent, before recognising them as
having the force of law in their States. This is one form of the
error of regalism. The tract is published in a Latin version,
•
1 Letter quoted in Unità Cattolica, March 10th, 1870. Friedbergh p. 120.
2 Del Regio Placet: Dissertazione del P. Camillo Tarquini, D.C.D.G.
Estratto dagli Annali delle Scienze Religiose, Roma, 1852. Tipografia della
Rev. Cam. Apostolica.
The note in manuscript on the title-page is as follows: 'S. S. Pio IX.
Volle che presente dissertazione si diffondesse quanto più si potea; e nel di,
1 Febbrajo, 1853, veduto l'autore dissegli alla presenza della sua corte e degli
altri Padri del Collegio Romano. P. Tarquini me rallegro, bravo, bene. Con-
fermo, e confermo di tutta volontà.'
}
No Royal Placet.
29
with the Institutiones of Tarquini. The aims of the writer have
been steadily pursued till, in the third chapter of the Vatican
Constitution upon the Church, his end was gained, as far as it
could be gained by the action of the Church alone.
Father Tarquini contends that fourteen hundred years of
Church history had passed before the so-called kingly right of
placet took its rise. Certain prelates, indeed, had exercised
some such right in their dioceses. The claim on the part of
kings to do so is traced to an association of ideas. Apparently,
he means that, seeing bishops have something to say to laws
which were to come into force in their dioceses, the kings
took it into their heads that they also should have some-
thing to say to such laws as were to come into force in their
dominions.
The power of the Pontiff, argues Father Tarquini, is this-
What he binds on earth is bound in heaven. But if the king,
stepping in, says, To bind implies the force of law, and your
acts shall not acquire the force of law without my placet, how
then? Why, the Pontiff becomes the one really bound. The
king refuses to allow the pontifical judgments to take effect of
themselves. It is not with him 'said on earth and done in
heaven.' His placet must intervene.
It is competent, indeed, he admits to the Pontiff, to grant a
right of placet; but such a right, founded on the grace of a
Pope, cannot be confounded with one inherent in the crown.
We quote the following in full:- You say that the placet is
a real right, demanded by justice, and essential to political
government. The Church condemns it by a series of judg-
ments, perhaps without parallel in her history, extending from
her foundation down to Pius IX. She expressly defines it,
with Leo X., Clement VII., Clement XI., and Benedict XIV., as
opposed to all justice, as indecent, absurd, rash, scandalous, as
insufferable depravity, and worthy of eternal pain. Therefore
she punishes it with the greatest of penalties, the anathema.
'In this matter there is no middle course. You must either
30
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
lay aside the mask of Catholicism, which no longer becomes
you, and boldly avow that the Church has defined good as evil,
justice as injustice, an inherent right of the crown as an ab-
surdity and a wrong, done and so in a judgment perpetuated
from her foundation to our own day; or you must, on the other
hand, confess that you are in an error not to be tolerated.'
(
Thus it seems that what with a Christian minister would only
be a claim to announce the belief and the moral precepts which
he found in the Holy Scriptures, becomes with the Roman
Pontiff a claim to put his decree on any matter which he deems
conducive to the good of the Church' into the form of law,
and to set it up without, or in spite of, but anyhow above, the
national law, be it republican, royal, or imperial. This bound-
less pretension-for boundless it is-will often be found gently
expressed as the right of the Pontiff to communicate with the
faithful.
The writer then asks what, from his point of view, would
seem to be a natural question. Would kings like the Pope to
demand that his placet should be required before their laws
came into force ?¹ He replies that some of them have so far
unlearned 'Christian doctrine as to say that, in case the Pope did
so, he would usurp sovereign rights in their States.' But such a
proposition is heretical, pronounced to be so by the Holy Office
in 1654, with the approbation of Innocent X.2 By virtue of
this, even our children know that the Church presided over and
governed by the Vicar of Christ is a kingdom which has the
ends of the earth for its bounds. Therefore it belongs to the
Vicar of Christ to make laws, in all parts of the world for her
welfare and for her government.'
1 'It would be very natural that the Church which makes laws from God
Himself should demand of the State that it should make no law for her subjects
to which she had not previously given her approbation.'—Phillips, ii., 577.
2 'In 1644, the Holy Office, in a decree approved by Innocent X., condemned
as schismatical and heretical the proposition which asserts that, when the
Pontiffs promulge their decrees in places subject to the dominion of other
temporal princes, they promulge laws in territories that are not theirs.'-Civiltá,
Serie VII., vol. vi., p. 292. Tarquini says 1654 (Inst., p. 159), the Civiltà 1644.
Concessions imposed by States.
31
Father Tarquini then makes a pathetic appeal to princes
against persecuting 'your mother' by preventive regulations,
which take away her rights and liberties. It is unheard of
tyranny! ay, as much as that tyranny would be unheard of
which should condemn a private person to perpetual imprison-
ment, lest he should turn homicide. Furthermore, the claim set
up by the State implies that temporal good is more precious
than eternal. If this be so, the communists are right.¹
Drawing towards his conclusion, our author says:-
'The royal placet was really a constitution imposed upon the Church
by sovereigns. Things found their level, so constitutions are now im-
posed upon the sovereigns by the people. The pretext for the placet
was that of having a guarantee for the rights of the crown against the
Church. The pretext for the constitution is that of having a guarantee
for the rights of the people against the crown. The kings cared not
when they saw the spouse of Christ made sorrowful. And Christ turned
His face away from the kings when He saw them, in their turn, put to
sorrow and used despitefully. [Alluding to the dethronements of 1848,
etc.] But not wholly did He turn it away. A touching spectacle was
then displayed. The Church, which had been humbled and afflicted
by the sovereigns, ran to their defence. She prayed, wept, struggled to
avert the storm. And the storm has seemed to calm down. Will the
world profit by such lessons? God grant that the religious movement
which at the present time we have seen manifesting itself in so many
august minds may not be cut short by the flattery of courtiers, whose
designs lead to nothing but the ruin of kings, ministers, and nations.'
Here the ‘august minds' are evidently the same as those who,
in the pages of the Civiltá, were called 'the heads of Catholic
States.' The Civiltá warned them to beware of legists and
ministers-Tarquini to beware of courtiers. Liberal Catholics
trembled for the consequences to Church and State of Jesuit
Court confessors and far-aiming but short-seeing plans. They
1
'It is impossible that such a power should lie in the right of the State as
such; ... God would in that case have connected with the temporal power in the
kingdoms of men an authority capable of destroying the effective action of His
own kingdom, which is endued by Himself with the utmost fulness of power.
In strong contrast to this, the Church brings with her to kings the placet of the
Most High King of kings, who has given her the might and the power of legis-
lation - Phillips, 1i., 557.
32
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
:
knew that the devout Jesuit calls upon all to regard the
Papal government as the model for the whole world; and that
if statesmen and jurists could be replaced by Jesuits at the
various Courts, a combination of plan and an unity of action
might be secured everywhere for a great movement to esta-
blish the dominion of Christ in a higher degree than the
Thirty Years' War did in Austria and Bohemia.
The argument that kings have no choice but between Papal
supremacy and communism is as fresh to-day as if it had not
been well worn twenty-five years ago. The notion often uttered
in France, Italy, Austria, and Germany, that communist centres
are kept up by Jesuit arts and Jesuit subsidies, may be entirely
groundless. The fact that such a belief is frequently expressed
by Roman Catholics, and hardly ever by Protestants, is a proof
-certainly not that the assertion is true, but-that the political
play of the Society of Jesus is extensively suspected of being
foul, by those who belong to the Church which the Society
rules. The twin argument, that there is no alternative but to
be either an Ultramontane or a heretic, has at last been driven
home and clinched.
The view taken of constitutions by Father Tarquini, that they
are contracts imposed by those under authority upon those in
authority, carries with it two corollaries, that constitutions
were submitted to only from want of power to resist, and that
therefore they may be lawfully recalled when the ruler once
more becomes a really free agent.
But there is a point illustrated in this pamphlet, which seems
to enter into the English head more slowly than any other.
We mean the conscientious view of a true Ultramontane as to
what constitutes religious liberty, or violates it. Englishmen
sometimes not only transfer their own views on this subject to
Ultramontanes, but betray the feeling that they are generous in
doing so. It is never generous, or even just, to ascribe views
to a man which he religiously condemns. If the Englishman
will clearly set before his mind the first postulate of the Ultra-
Ultramontane View of Religious Liberty.
33
montane, that God has appointed a vicar upon earth, to whom
He has committed all power, surely he will see that religious
liberty must principally consist in the freedom of that vicar to
do all which he conceives it to be in his province to do, and in
the freedom of those who receive his commands to carry them.
out, exactly according to his intentions. If any king or nation
limits his freedom to act and command, 'the Pope becomes the
one really bound.' The Englishman may say that, on this
principle, no guarantee is left for any liberty but that of the
Pontiff, or of those who represent authority derived from him.
But that is precisely what the Ultramontane does not believe.
On the contrary, he holds that the highest guarantee for all
legitimate liberty lies in the complete freedom of the Pontiff.
No liberty can be legitimate that consists in exemption, or
assumed exemption, from divine authority. And further, the
authority of the Vicar of God, being exercised under unfailing
guidance, is not liable to commit violations of any right. The
Ultramontane is a partisan of religious liberty as warmly and as
conscientiously as the Englishman. But they differ totally as
to the meaning of the terms. The Englishman does not know
how the words used at the Pope's coronation penetrate the
heart of a full believer. But the Liberal Catholic in Rome does.
It is the Marchese Francesco Nobili Vitelleschi who reminds us
of them. And, on the other hand, Professor Massi, in his Life
of Pius IX., takes care not to pass them by: 'Know that thou
art the father of princes and of kings, and art the governor of
the world." It is not likely that many would, on paper, still
interpret this as meaning father of believers and ruler of the
Church. But it is time that men began, even in thinking, to
attach a serious and definite sense to terms chosen with pro-
digious deliberation to express what is claimed, without offend-
ing susceptibilities more than is unavoidable.2
1
Frond, vol. i., p. 16; and Vitelleschi.
2 Father Schrader says: 'The Allocution of December 15th, 1856, contains
not merely the condemnation of FREEDOM OF WORSHIP, but also the condemna-
tion of unrestricted FREEDOM OF THOUGHT, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, and FREE-
VOL. I.
3
34
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
We thus see begun the movement for the restoration of ideas,
as preparatory to the restoration of facts. In literature this
movement commands the two departments, the scholastic and
the popular. In the one, Tarquini represents the Jesuits as
leading the colleges and the schools; in the other, the Civiltá
represents them as leading the reviews, magazines, journals,
and popular books. But, concurrently with this literary restora-
tion of ideas, it was necessary that a mightier propaganda by
measures should proceed. Of these, some were to be procured,
and some were to be taken. The confessors and nuncios were
charged with the measures to be procured; those to be taken
were the direct task of the Curia. Each new measure must have
the double value of impelling the movement of ideas, and of
clearing the way for more considerable facts. Ranke has traced
the course of the 'ecclesiastical restoration,' which was rendered
necessary by the damage inflicted on Rome by the Reformation,
without being careful to mark the principles or to track the pro-
cesses by which restoration' was effected in Bohemia, Austria,
Spain, Italy, and France. That restoration, however, had been
real and momentous. A second restoration had taken place after
the wreck of the French Revolution, when the Papacy had been
smitten by its own sons. It was the pride of the clergy to cite
the fact that the rulers of England and Prussia had co-operated
in that restoration, as proof that the Papal throne was even in
Protestant eyes the central point of order. Now a third re-
storation was to be effected,-one which would do all that had
been left undone by the other two. The Pope's throne was not
only to be reared up again in Rome, but was to be gradually
DOM OF THE PRESS.' The small capitals are Schrader's. (Der Papst und die
modernen Ideen, Heft ii., p. 35.)
Speaking on the twenty-second proposition of the Syllabus, Schrader says:
'We speak without fear of contradiction when we say that the rightful freedom
of science—namely, the freedom of seeking the truth and following the truth-
has no greater friend or protector than the Pope; but that the modern idea of
freedom of science is utterly condemned by the Holy See, because it claims,
not only freedom for the truth, but also for error, ay, as the above-quoted
brief has it," shamelessly commends errors as progress (p. 42).
Great Assembly at Rome.
35
elevated to a spiritual supremacy equal to the highest claimed
in former Bulls, and to a temporal supremacy as complete as
when Hildebrand triumphed at Canossa.
The first of these restorations had been fought out with the
weapons of the Inquisition and the war-plots of the Jesuits.
The second had been fought out with the weapons of the
Liberal Catholics, borrowed from the Reformation and the
Modern State. When the Jesuits had pushed, not too far, but
untimely far, they were for the day disowned; not, however, as
inimical to the Church, but as hateful to the nations, and as,
therefore, lowering the credit of the Church with the outside
world. Now had come the moment when the Liberal Catholics,
having done their work, were in turn to be disowned; but on
other grounds. They were to be cast out as children of the
world, infected with principles subversive of the kingdom of
God,' of that polity in which the priest of God is the king of
men, and the affairs of an erring race are unerringly guided by
consecrated hands.
CHAPTER IV.
Measures preparatory to the Syllabus.-Changes in Italy since 1846-Progress
of Adverse Events-A Commination of Liberties-A Second Assembly of
Bishops without Parliamentary Functions-The Curse on Italy-Origin of
the phrase 'A Free Church in a Free State -Projected Universal Monarchy.
BEING notoriously deficient in theological training, Pius IX.
was not unnaturally seized with a desire to reduce the
rebel nations by raising contested doctrines to the rank of dog-
mas. When the reactionary movement in politics had attained
its full momentum, he called an assembly of bishops, whose
splendour, surrounding his throne, might restore to it some of
the departed prestige. At the same time, summoning the bishops
for consultation and for ceremonial purposes, but not at all for
parliamentary ones, would be a secure step of progress in the
36
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
absorption of the power of the collective episcopate into the
Papacy. In the midst of two hundred prelates, as we have
already seen, he proclaimed the Immaculate Conception, in 1854.
As a display of absolute authority in the highest realm, that of
dogma, this act did more to advance the proper ideas than an
immensity of writing. We have already quoted the assertion
that it crushed Gallicanism. But ideas were only stepping-
stones to facts. Professor Michelis asserts that even during the
gathering of 1854 an attempt was made in some large assembly
of bishops to induce them to proclaim Papal infallibility as a
Catholic dogma.¹
The prelates, who, on their way to Rome in 1846, had looked
with joy on the spectacle of unity, now found that spectacle
slightly blemished. One heretic temple stood in Turin-a proof
that after all the extirpations of the Waldenses, a root had still
lurked in the ground. This temple had no images, and had
the Bible in mother-tongue. It bore outside, in words that
any cowherd might read, if he could read at all, a verse of
Jeremiah: 'Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old
paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall
find rest for your souls.' And this was not only suffered, but
done by the House of Savoy!
As the prelates went south, whispers might reach some of
them that in Tuscany the police, now and then, discovered ·
secret bands of Bible-readers, somewhat as in old times the
Lollards were unearthed in England. The historical name of
Guicciardini was implicated in the offence, and a number of
vulgar people. Even at Rome, Luigi Desanctis, parish priest
of St. Maria Maddalena, had abandoned as fair prospects as
erudition, character, and favour could well give to an ecclesiastic.
He had quietly withstood flattering and influential efforts to
bring him back. First he had sheltered under the British flag;
but, finding that the flag of Savoy really shed upon Italian soil
the all but inconceivable right of freedom to worship God, he
1 Kurze Geschichte des Vaticanischen Concils, p. 9.
•
Adverse Progress of Events.
37
had taken refuge under it. He was now devoting his clear, keen,
learned pen to teaching Italy the religion of Christ as he found
it in the New Testament. Even in writing for Italians he found
it needful to say that it was only by living in Rome, and by
knowing Pope, Cardinals, and Curia, that they could come to
a clear understanding of the religion of the city. The great
cause of this difficulty he found in the three separate circles of
doctrine in which that religion was wont to be taught, which
he called (1) the official, (2) the theological, (3) the real.¹
The official doctrine was that for use with heretics, the doc-
trine presented by Bossuet and Wiseman; the theological doc-
trine was for use with men of culture; the real doctrine was
for practical use among the people. The eloquent Barnabite,
Gavazzi, was now thundering against the Papacy. Nay, even
the threshold of the Inquisition had been crossed by the force
of Protestant unity. A priest, avowing heresy, who once had
held good preferment, had been seized after the French took
the city. At the urgent instance of the Evangelical Alliance,
General Baraguay d'Hilliers put on such hard pressure that
even in sacred Rome a renegade priest walked out of the palace
of the Holy Office a ransomed man.
The confidence that the Virgin would reward her new exalta-
tion by corresponding exaltation of him who had procured it,
was often expressed in language picturesque and ardent. But
scarcely had the incense of the fresh offering cleared away when
premonitory symptoms appeared of the storm rising again.
Meantime, many Catholics became anxious when they found the
Pope's favourite organ treating even such writers as Bellarmine,
Suarez, and St. Thomas Aquinas, as too much inclined to Liberal-
ism. Liverani, in referring to articles of this kind, says that
Bellarmine had been 'the author of the Night of St. Bartho-
lomew,' and he thinks that Italian Catholics in the nineteenth
century might be allowed to be Liberals up to the standard of
Bellarmine and Suarez.
1 Roma Papale, p. 7.
38
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
In 1855, Piedmont, sending a force to the Crimea, took her
place beside France and England. The next year, at the
Congress of Paris, Cavour lifted up his voice among the repre-
sentatives of Europe, and protested against foreign occupation
in Italy. Mexico abolished the external tribunal of the Church,
the ecclesiastical court; abolished tithes, offered protection to
all of either sex who might choose to forsake their convents,
and declared its resolution not to submit its acts to the supreme
authority of the Apostolic See. Other nations of South America
met the aggressive ecclesiastical movement by asserting the
supremacy of civil law, even in matters directly ecclesiastical.¹
Three years later, the same hand which upheld the Pope in
Rome took Lombardy from Austria, and gave it to Piedmont,
in exchange for Savoy and Nice. Tuscany, Parma, and Modena
banished their dukes; the Romagna cast off the Papal yoke;
and all these, uniting themselves to Piedmont, formed the
kingdom of Italy.
These events were met, on the part of the Vatican, by more
stringent denunciations of modern liberties. In the Civiltá
these were inveighed against under the name of the principles
of 1789. Liverani says (p. 160) that the Civiltá, in a Cate-
chism of Liberty, hardly left a man the use of air and water.
The article so alluded to gives what the writer of it calls a
Litany, which ought to be repeated with the refrain, Good
Lord, deliver us.
2
'Liberty of conscience is a perverse opinion diffused by fraudulent
endeavours of infidels.
'It is a corrupt fountain, a folly, a poisonous error.
'It is an injury to the Church and the State, vaunted with shameless
impudence as becoming to religion.
'It is the liberty of error and the death of the soul.
'It is the abyss, the smoke whereof darkens the sun, and the locusts
out of which lay waste the earth.
'The liberty of the press is an evil liberty, never sufficiently execrated
or abhorred.
¹ Allocution of Dec. 15th, 1856. Receuil, p. 382.
2 Civiltá, Serie IV., vol. iv., p. 430.
The Great Curse upon Italy.
39
'It is an extravagance of doctrines, and a portentous monstrosity of
errors, at which we are horrified."
To give one specimen in the catechetical form :-
'What think you of those who dare to invoke and to promote this
liberty of error?
'Ah, painful thought!
That is effrontery, an insulting frowardness, a
thing not to be named; it is the commission on set purpose of mortal
sin, it is the gulping down of poison in hope of an antidote.
It is a
doctrine false, presumptuous, opposed to the watchful solicitude of the
Holy See, outrageous to that See, and fertile in the worst evils for the
Christian people.'
It would be incorrect to suppose that these principles ex-
clude all possibility of toleration in fact, though not by right.
Toleration may be allowed, but never on principle; never but
as the means of avoiding a greater evil. If more harm to
the cause of religion would result, in any given country, from
intolerance, than from toleration, the latter becomes lawful to
the prince of the country. Otherwise it cannot be so. Even
this qualified admission of a mere de facto toleration of heretics
was not left uncontested. Priests of the Appolonare in Rome
about this time, publicly maintained the thesis that 'it will
never be possible to imagine reasons which should induce a
Catholic prince to grant liberty of worship to heretics.' They
maintained other theses, to the effect that unlimited freedom
of worship, and civil rights, granted to heretics, laid the prince
open to suspicion of heresy, apostasy, or atheism. This doc-
trine, cries Liverani, would require the Catholic king of
Saxony, with two millions of Protestant subjects, and fifty
thousand Catholics, to exterminate the former by means of
the latter. It is, he says, putting this alternative-the creed
or the stake. Yet this debate was held in presence of the
Pope's vicar, Cardinal Patrizi, and was noticed with com-
mendation by the Civiltá.
1
Montalembert proposed that the voting in the Romagna on
the question of annexation to Italy should take place under
'Liverani, p. 163.
40
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
the eye of French troops. Liverani, a native of the Romagna,
prelate as he was, replied, 'If the French army left, without
being replaced by a strong force to guard the lives of the
clergy, at the end of a week all the priests and friars would
be exterminated, so wild and savage is the public indignation
against the government of these last years' (p. 46).
On the 26th of March, 1860, in the famous and terrible
Letters Apostolic Cum Catholica, all the actors and abettors
of the territorial changes were placed under the greater ex-
communication. The Pope¹ expressly decreed that no hand
but his own, or that of his successors, should have the power
of releasing any one of the countless offenders from the ban,
except in the article of death. He proceeds on what seems the
fair principle that the dominion of the Pontiff, though in its
own nature temporal, takes on a spiritual character because of
its spiritual design, as giving to the Head of the whole Church
a position independent of any one nation. Therefore, robbing
him of it becomes a spiritual offence. If he is the representa-
tive of God upon earth, it is hard to see how rebellion against
him can fail of being a spiritual offence. If he is not the
representative of God upon earth, he has altogether miscon-
ceived his own position, and, like any other ruler, may be
judged by his merits, not by his pretensions.
Before the publication of the Pope's Speeches we were
exposed to manifold interpretations of the spiritual import of
this anathema. It was even possible that we might find letters
in the Times assuring us that the Church never curses. But
on the 23rd of June, 1871, Pius IX. uttered language which
put his view of the spiritual import of his own action beyond
cavil. He had the words afterwards reprinted, with the ex-
planation that the allusion to Peter referred to the death of
Ananias and Sapphira. 'True,' said the Pontiff, 'I cannot,
like St. Peter, hurl certain thunders which turn bodies to
ashes; nevertheless, I can hurl thunders which turn souls to
Receuil, p. 400.
..
Changes in Italy.
4I
ashes. And I have done it by excommunicating all those who
perpetrated the sacrilegious spoliation, or had a hand in it.'¹
But if to the spiritual eye of Pio Nono his curse had strewn
Italy with the ashes of millions of blasted souls, his Bulls were,
in a temporal point of view, as powerless as his dogmas. In
the autumn of 1860, the Pontiff saw Umbria and the Marches
wrested from him by the new kingdom, to which also the
whole of the Neapolitan territory was added by Garibaldi.
After this, Europe grew impatient of the French occupation
of Italy, and that last stay of his temporal power became
painfully insecure.
The Parliament in Turin proclaimed that Rome was the
capital of Italy; and now we have to note the birth of one
of those phrases which, becoming watchwords, grow into ap-
preciable forces in history. Cavour, in a speech, alluding to
Montalembert, said great authorities had shown that liberty
might turn to the profit even of the Church. Montalembert
addressed to him a reply, in October 1860, in which he made
use of the words, 'A free Church in a free State.' Five
months later, when the Turin Parliament set up the claim to
Rome, Cavour used the same phrase. Montalembert, with
literary jealousy, publicly claimed it: 'You have done me
the unexpected honour of using the formula I employed in
writing to you a few months ago.' And, doubly to secure his
patent right, as late as August 1863, in a Catholic Congress
at Malines, he declared that it was by the example of Belgium
that he had been taught a formula that had now become famous,
'which has been stolen from us by a great offender.' He
printed his address under the title, 'A Free Church in a Free
State.' 2
The French father of the phrase lived to write what showed
that he had employed it without having defined its terms in
1 Discorsi, vol. i., p. 158.
2 See the whole narrative in Unità Cattolica, March 17th, 1870. Also Mrs.
Oliphant's Life of Montalembert.
42
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
his own mind. Had its Italian foster-father, who repeated it
in death, lived to govern with it, he would have learned, in the
school of action, to select some one of the many interpretations.
which it invites, or else to discard it as a formula, applicable,
indeed, to a Church proper, and a State proper, but incapable
of application to a mixed institution like Romanism, which,
however much of a Church, is still more of a State.
The loss of Rome, to which political symptoms now pointed
as impending, was a calamity to be warded off by all the
weapons of the Papacy, sacred and profane. A great assembly
of prelates was projected, to surpass in splendour even that of
1854. It was to be equally well guarded against any parlia-
mentary character. In June 1862 three hundred bishops from
all parts of the world were actually collected around their chief.
The prelates, in coming up to the city of their solemnities, had
changes to bewail. Could this be the Italy which in 1846
offered such a spectacle of Catholic power, such a scene of
Catholic unity? The frontiers of the Papal territories had
fallen in. No faithful Bourbon in Naples now! The Bible
Society dared to put up its name close by the palace of
him whom the voice which some of the bishops called the
voice of God among men had described, not in a passing
speech, but in a consistorial allocution, as 'that king who,
intent upon promoting the true and solid happiness of his
people, shines with such religion and piety, that he might be
taken as an example by his subjects.' There were no Pro-
testants now in Tuscan prisons; they had emerged into odious
little conventicles! Piedmont had relentlessly protected reli-
gious liberty, in the heretical sense-that sense which violates
Catholic unity by allowing men to worship God otherwise than
under the direction of the Pope. What was most inscrutable
of all, Providence had seemed to favour Piedmont. The flag
which they saw in 1854, waving with the cross of Savoy in
Italian sunlight over a temple of heretics, now waved over the
tomb of Ambrose and of Hildebrand; ay, over the holy city
The Temporal Power, and the New Saints. 43
of Loretto. No Hapsburg now in Florence. And that faithful
Francis Joseph, whose pious intentions to do away with re-
strictions long imposed by his house on the liberty of the
Church, were announced by the Pope with much feeling, in
the same consistory where he put a wreath round the brow of
Ferdinand of Naples; Francis Joseph, whom the Civiltá had
set forth as the example of a monarch revising his code, not by
the counsel of jurists or statesmen, but by that of priests; even
he could no more guard Catholic unity around the Cathedral of
Milan. Shops under its shadow were vending heretical books,
not to speak of Bibles. Thousands of the Italian clergy had
declared for a surrender of the temporal power and a reform
of the Church.
The ceremonies during this assembly displayed a gorgeous
pomp, which even Rome, accustomed since the days of the
Emperors to government by spectacle, was fain to recognise
as an effort, and a success in its kind, worthy of the historical
stake in dispute. The ostensible object was the canonisation
of certain Japanese martyrs; but the real anxiety of the
moment was so absorbing that the new constellation in the
heavens seemed to rise only to rule and decide questions
pending as to boundary lines on the earth.
In these turbulent and pitiless times, said the Pope, when
the Church is pierced with so many wounds; when her rights,
liberties, and doctrines are so miserably violated, especially in
Italy, 'we urgently desire to have new patrons in the presence.
of God,' by whose prevailing prayers the Church, buffeted
with such a horrible tempest, as well as civil society, may obtain
1 The allocution referred to, Quibus Quantisque of April 20th, 1849, was de-
livered only ten days before Ferdinand invaded the Roman States to restore
Pius IX. (Receuil, p. 228). Perhaps not many in England are aware that
under Ferdinand it was a punishable offence to read Dante. A professor
himself a priest, in speaking to me of this fact, added that students were often
registered with the police as hatters, painters, or anything to conceal the fact
that they were students, that line of life not being viewed with favour by the
police.
44
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
the much-longed-for repose. The aid of the new patrons was
that to which faith and hope pathetically turned, in the con-
cluding prayer put up on Whit-Sunday by the Pontiff: 'Regard
Thy Church, now afflicted with such calamities: take not away
Thy mercy from us; but for the sake of these Thy saints, and
through their merits, cause Thy Church,' etc., etc.2
Besides the influence to be exerted by the exalted Japanese
on behalf of the temporal sovereignty, valuable results might
attend a solemn declaration from the episcopate of the whole
world. This would at all events silence priests who had dared
to think amiss, and would affect not only the calculations of
statesmen, but also the complexion of public opinion. The faith
of Romanists in a display is, to all who have been trained not
to take an impression for a reason, absolutely incomprehensible.
Lamartine, in relating the perplexities of Mirabeau when the
gusts of the Revolution had begun to appal even him, exactly
pictures what is the outcome of their sensuous training. 'He
would save the monarchy by a royal proclamation and a cere-
mony to make the king popular.'
A declaration was made by the assembled bishops with all
possible gravity and force. Its purport was suggested with not
less gravity and force by the Pope himself in his allocution
Maxima Quidem, addressed to the congregated hierarchy on the
9th of June. The language chosen by Pope and prelates was
the strongest to be found. They were not content with pledging
themselves to the temporal dominion as a good, useful, helpful,
or urgently desirable thing. Staking the future for the present,
as well as the spiritual for the temporal, they declared that it
was necessary' in order to the exercise of the full pontifical
authority over the whole Church. If this is so, there has been
no proper exercise of authority over the whole Church since
(
¹ Schrader, Pius IX., als Papst und als König, p. 21. Iccirco summopere
optamus novos apud Deum habere patronos, qui in tanto rerum discrimine
validissimis suis precibus impetrent ut, tam horribili discussa malorum procella
optatissimam Catholica Ecclesia et Civilis Societas assequatur pacem.
2 Papst und König, p. 23.
A Universal Monarchy.
45
1870, nor can there be any till the Pope again finds some few
hundred thousand of Italians calling him king. If it is not
so, the collective hierarchy, and the Pope with them, erred in
setting forth a doctrine, touching the Head of the Church, for
the guidance of all mankind. The Pope himself not only said.
that the temporal power was necessary, but that it had been
given by a matchiess counsel of Providence. The reason he
gives for its necessity is the stock one, that the Pope may not be
a dependent of any prince, as if he had not been the helpless
dependent of Napoleon III. The bishops, forgetting both this
dependence and the sanguinary measures by which the temporal
power was upheld, actually used such words as 'noble, tranquil,
and genial liberty.'
1
Besides their testimony to the necessity of the temporal power,
the bishops put on record words well adapted to prepare the
way for the dogma of Papal infallibility-words often after-
wards recalled to those of them who opposed that dogma in
1870. 'Thou art to us the teacher of sound doctrine, thou
the centre of unity, thou the quenchless light of the nations, set
up by divine wisdom. Thou art the rock, and the foundation
of the Church herself, against which the gates of hell shall not
prevail. When thou speakest, we hear Peter; when thou dost
decree, we yield obedience to Christ.' 2
But the new saints of 1862 did not turn the tide any more
than the 'Immaculate '
'Immaculate' of 1854 had done. Italy held
together, though Cavour was gone. The effort of the two
Catholic emperors to secure Mexico for the Church, by placing
a monarch of approved principles on the throne, ended in a
1 Civiltà Cattolica, Serie V., vol. ii., p. 721. Their words are: 'In nobili,
tranquilla, et alma libertate catholicam fidem tueri,' etc.
Monsignor Nardi proudly referred Mamiani, in the summer of 1869, to the
folio volumes in which 835 bishops had inscribed their adhesion to the necessity
of the temporal power. (Stimmen, Neue Folge, v., p. 153.)
2 Civiltà, Serie V., vol. ii., pp. 719, 723.
Tu Petra es, et ipsius ecclesiæ fundamentum
Te decernente, Christo obtemperamus.'
changed in the words, Tu Petra es.
"Tu populis lumen indeficiens...
• •
Te loquente, Petrum audimus,
The text even of the Vulgate is
46
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
tragic failure. The grief felt everywhere at the fate of Maxi-
milian of Hapsburg was intensified for Pius IX., because, as it
is expressed by Professor Massi, the promises made to the Pope
by Maximilian, when he came to Rome before taking the reins
of empire, 'were to remain void.'1 Finally, in 1864, the Con-
vention of September brought home to the Pope the fact that,
unless the Virgin should work a miracle for him, he was to
be abandoned by the foreign auxiliaries whose presence he
hated, but the terror of whom was the only shade in which he
could rest. Perhaps he remembered how soon after the foreign
Emperor had held the Pope's bridle, the Italian Lambert called.
him 'My Lord,' as he would have done to any other baron,
and drove him to hard straits.
It was in this position of affairs that the seers of the Vatican
beheld all human institutions as if reduced by a cataclysm to a
dark and roaring chaos. And on their principles chaos it was.
Not only had kings and lawgivers withdrawn themselves from
under the authority of the supreme tribunal, not only had
civil courts been withdrawn from under the authority of the
external tribunal, but almost all governments had ceased to
enforce by law the attendance of their subjects on the in-
ternal tribunal of the Church which they thus degraded to
the level of a voluntary confessional. In each of the three
circles of all-embracing authority, therefore, order was now
disrupted, and chaos had broken in. The seer could see
but one remedy. Society must be RECONSTRUCTED, and that
upon the basis of one world-wide monarchy. This monarchy
must rest on divine authority, and consequently must have
power to define the limits, to balance the claims, and to con-
trol the exercise of all power civil and ecclesiastical. The
susceptible Pius IX. was by these seers represented, to himself
and to his admirers, as specially raised up to carry out the
mission of such a reconstruction. Not to speak of the many
utterances of these views in his accredited organs of the press,
1 Life of Pius IX. Frond, vol. i., p. 102.
į
A Cosmopolitan Senate.
47
the preface to the first volume of his own speeches says:-
'The work of the great Pontiff is to settle anew and recon-
stitute the close union between civil and religious society. He
will replace the social constitution on its divine bases, over-
turned by the revolution.
He will redress social revo-
lution by social reconstruction.' 1
It is but slowly that minds accustomed to judge by ordinary
standards learn to attach a precise meaning to such expressions
as the above, in the language of the Vatican. Even after
having learned how definite is the meaning, we do not soon
begin to associate ideas of deliberate plan and serious expecta-
tion with what would seem to be only dreams of the cloister.
We therefore give a few clear sentences from Il Genio
Cattolico, a publication praised by the authoritative Unitá
Cattolica. 2 It describes the true ideal of the Papacy as being
'an immense variety of languages, traditions, legislations,
letters, commerce, institutions, and alliances, under the moral
and pacific empire of a single Father, who, with the sceptre of
the word, upholds the equilibrium of the world. The Papacy is
not, as German jurists call it, a State within the State, but is a
cosmopolitan authority, the moderator of all States, the supreme
and universal standard of law and justice. It is a world-wide
monarchy, from which all other monarchies that would call
themselves Christian derive life, order, and equilibrium.'
Coupling this distinct conception of the appointed place of
the Papacy in the human commonwealth with the equally distinct.
conviction that modern society is in ruins, the writer proceeds:
'What is the remedy? The recognition of a common father,
who shall teach subjects to obey as sons, and sovereigns to
rule as fathers; a supreme judge, to declare and give sanctions to
the rights of the one and the other. Without this, how can the
want of balance in the conflicting forces be redressed?'
¹ Discorsi, vol. i.,
p. 23.
? Il Genio Cattolico Periodico Religioso-Scientifico, Litterario, Politico di
Reggio Nell' Emilia, 1873.
48
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
The ambiguity which might be found here by the uninitiated
is not designed by the writer. To him such terms as 'teach'
and 'sceptre of the word' do not convey the idea of employing
only moral force. Indeed, the expression 'the power of the
word' of any supreme judge would not convey that idea. On
the contrary, our author quotes the proposal of Campanella, that
a senate should sit in Rome, consisting of representatives of
all Catholic princes, with the Pope as head. This senate should
decide all international questions of State, should compose differ-
ences between Catholic princes, and should determine upon.
war against infidels and heretics.' All would be compelled
to take arms against any one who should resist its decisions.
'In such a senate consists the unity and safety of Christianity,
and the glory of the Papacy, as well as the security of all the
princes, who would not be disturbed by Catholics while making
war on infidels, and thus Christian enterprises would have a
happy issue; but otherwise the princes run manifest risk of
losing what they now possess.'
"
With views thus radical and all-comprehending did the Court
of Pius IX. proceed to build up, after a very ancient ideal, an
empire over all peoples, nations, and languages, the test of which
should be acceptance of the religious symbol set up by the
autocrat. In the projected reconstruction the ultimate end, the
restoration of facts, would always include these cardinal points.
Every man and every woman in Christendom, and, by a due ex-
tension of 'the kingdom of God,' every man and every woman
living, must be bound by law to appear, at the least annually,
in the internal tribunal of the Church, the confessional. In order
to this, every civil magistrate must be set in obvious and in
practical subordination to the ecclesiastical magistrate or bishop,
by the subjection of the civil court to the external tribunal of
the Church, the ecclesiastical court. In order to this, every
king or lawgiver must be set also in obvious and in prac-
tical subordination to the supreme tribunal of the Church, the
Pope, by a restored state of international law, giving to the
The 'Internal Tribunal.
49
Pontiff, or, to speak accurately, recognising in the Pontiff what
God had given to him, full power to deliver sentence as supreme
judge upon the rights of all kings, and upon the merits of every
law.
We, for the sake of clearness, say three tribunals, though
technically they are only two, the Pope being in both supreme.
Whether the subject enters by the foro externo or by the foro
interno, by the ecclesiastical court or by the confessional, both
in the ultimate instance conduct him to the one bar, that of
the Judge of judges. The supreme tribunal is he, in all causes.
not purely material, in all causes whereinto enters any moral or
religious consideration. Protestants would seem generally to
imagine that the ecclesiastical court is a higher tribunal than
the confessional. Not so. When a conflict arises between the
sentence of the external tribunal and that of the internal, the
suitor at the bar of God's kingdom is bound by the judgment
of the internal tribunal!¹
In Carleton's Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, where
the only symbol of any tribunal is a rickety chair, standing on
an earthen floor full of holes, the priest of God has no sooner
put on robe and stole than 'the tribunal' is as truly constituted
as when in the palace of Charles V. sat Domenico Soto with the
imperial penitent kneeling before him, and said, 'So far you
1 This is briefly and well put in the Acta Sanctæ Sedis (V., 146), where an article
of the Times on the bull of convocation of the Vatican Council is belaboured
through twelve pages of double-column Latin. That journal had the audacity
to set up conscience against Pope, and to name Luther. What do you under-
stand by conscience? for it is solemnly held by Catholics that we may not and
cannot act contrary to conscience. Indeed, we confess that, in point of fact,
we may be bound to act even against the sentence pronounced by an ecclesi-
astical authority, seeing that the external tribunal, as we say, does not always
concur with the internal tribunal, and whenever the internal tribunal is in
cpposition to the external tribunal, we are bound to follow the internal.
this point consult our Catholic authors when they treat of moral theology.
Immo fatemur, posse in re facti contingere, ut agere teneamur contra ipsam
latam auctoritatis ecclesiasticæ sententiam ; quandoquidem forum externum, ut
loqui solemus, non semper cohæret cum foro interno: et quoties forum internum
in oppositione sit cum foro externo, primum sequi tenemur. De qua re con-
sulendi sunt auctores nostri Catholici de morali theologia agentes.'
4
VOL. I.
On
50
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
have confessed the sins of Charles, now confess those of the
Emperor.' In that tribunal has the peasant bride to learn, and
has the Queen to learn, that not the husband is the head of the
woman, but the priest of God. In that tribunal has the shoeless
Connaught child and has the imperial prince to learn that not
the parents are the head of the children, but the priest of God.
In that tribunal has the debtor and has the creditor, the exe-
cutor and the legatee to learn that not the law of the civil bench
obliges, but the law pronounced by the priest of God. In that
tribunal have all these to learn that not even the law which falls
from the ecclesiastical judge in the external tribunal is to be
taken, but that which in the internal tribunal, in holy secrecy,
between the conscience alone and the judge alone, falls with full
force of binding and of loosing from the lips of the priest of God.
So, proceeding outward but, in this step, not upward, in the
other, the external tribunal, has every citizen to learn, and every
public servant, that not the magistrate is the head of the town,
and not the chief magistrate is the head of the city, but that the
bishop is head of both one and the other, for he is the head
of the priests of God. Finally, proceeding upward—and here
it may be either in the holy secrecy of the inward or in the
qualified and potential publicity of the outward tribunal-at the
supreme bar have the princes, the governors and captains, the
judges, the treasurers, the counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the
rulers of the provinces, to learn that not the president, not the
grand duke, not the king, not the emperor, is the head of the
nation, but the thrice-crowned King of kings, the Great High
Priest of God.
This kingdom, it is held, with some stretching of the facts,
did in the Ages of Faith prevail, and it is to be restored.
The restoration of facts, could not be effected without a
foregoing restoration of the idea of Hildebrand. Constantine
had founded a State Church. Leo III., with Charlemagne, had
founded what Mr. Bryce accurately describes as a Catholic
State, with the Pope as spiritual and the Emperor as temporal
Spiritual Authority over Temporal Affairs. 51
head. Cardinal Manning points out that in this Mr. Bryce
makes the Holy Roman Empire a two-headed monster.¹ Never-
theless Mr. Bryce gives the true human history, though doubt-
less Cardinal Manning, following Boniface VIII., gives the
correct Papal doctrine. According to that doctrine, the dualism
of a double-headed State amounted to a sort of Manicheism.
History, which is guilty of tainting many with one heresy or
another, must bear the fault of Mr. Bryce's Manicheism. But
Hildebrand would abolish all dualism. The whole world must
have one head. No matter what the number of kings to whom
he may be lord paramount, they must hold the sword under
his sword, the sceptre under his crosier. Constantine's idea
of a State Church had its merit of unity, but it was unity by
perversion of rights. The true idea was that of a Church State,
embracing the whole world, and placing all mankind as one
fold under one shepherd. This true idea was to be restored.
(
6
We shall, in its place, be taught how we err in calling power
over temporal affairs temporal power. More accurately does
Cardinal Manning speak of the supreme judicial power of the
Church in temporal things.' 2 He speaks of the time when the
civil society of man became subject to the spiritual direction of
the Church,' speaks of the State as having become 'subject to
the divine law, of which the Roman Pontiff was the supreme
expositor and executive.' 3 He speaks of the indirect spiritual
power of the Church over the temporal State,' thus showing
the error of the notion that spiritual power means only power
over spiritual affairs. He speaks of the Christian juris-
prudence in which the Roman Pontiff was recognised as the
Supreme Judge of Princes and People, with a twofold coercion,
spiritual by his own authority, and temporal by the secular
arm.'5
The turn of phraseology in the last sentence is probably not
undesigned. Had it been employed by a Protestant, Ultramon-
tanes, if writing in Italy, would have cried out, Ignorance and
•
2 Ibid., p. 82. Ibid., 83.
1 Vatican Decrees, p. 67.
• Ibid. • Ibid., 84.
52 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
inaccuracy! Does the Cardinal mean that the authority whereby
the Pope through the secular arm applies temporal coercion is
not his own authority? No, assuredly. Yet he leaves us in a
position to slip into some such idea. In such coercion as that
of which he speaks it is not that the secular power acts of its
own authority, but that it acts with its own arm, but with the
Pope's authority. The interesting doctrine of the Brahman as
sprung from the Creator's head, and the King-caste as sprung
from His arm, reappears in the Papal system, in which the
priest anointed on the head and the prince anointed on the arm
symbolize respectively the authority that gives law and the
force that carries it out. But Cardinal Manning's definition of
Christian jurisprudence as that wherein the Pope is recognised
as Supreme Judge of Prince and People is not only strict
but it also explains a whole set of terms,-Christian govern-
ment, Christian law, Christian order, Christian civilisation, and
so forth.
'In the Pontiff meet, as in an apex,' says the Civiltá, incidentally, in
arguing that the Pope cannot be the subject of the king, 'both the powers
(temporal and spiritual), and that because he is the Vicar of Christ, who
is not only the eternal Priest, but is also King of kings and Lord of
lords. . . . This manifestly springs out of the idea of a sole supreme head
in ordering the social life of men. Not otherwise can be rightly under-
stood the order of the world, the wisdom of the divine plan, or the
concord and unity of movement in human life. If then the Pontiff, in
consequence of his high dignity, is at the summit of both the powers, how
can he, without a contradiction of ideas, be conceived of as a subject of
one of them? (VIII., i., 664) . . . What is the reason of the immunity
which in a State is enjoyed by the ministers of a foreign Court? It is
simply that they publicly represent an independent sovereign or people.
This being so, what must be said of him who is not merely in some sense
or other the representative, but is in strict propriety of language the
Vicar of Christ, a sovereign, not only independent of every terrestrial
sovereignty, but having over each and all of them a veritable dominion?
Certainly, if we do not mean to say that the prince, though he may
be a Catholic, does not belong to the fold of Christ, we must admit that
in the words, "Feed my sheep," spoken to Peter, is included authority
even over him, in all his deeds wherein he acts morally, which assuredly
are those wherein he exercises his political power. With regard to these,
·
The 'Perfect Society."
53
moreover, the Pope has power to bind and to loose, in other words, to
command and prohibit' (p. 660).
'The Pontiff is by God set in an absolute manner at the summit of all
sovereignty as such. Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound
in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in
heaven. These words admit of no exceptions whatever, and express a
jurisdiction universal and absolute. It comprehends everything, quod-
cumque' (p. 658).
It was obvious that to effect in Europe such a restoration
as these claims implied, a lengthened preparation of ideas must
go
before the restoration of facts; and that restoration of ideas
it was which we now see undertaken.
In the process of restoration, the first step was to settle for
ever the relative standing of Church and State, or, in esoteric
language, of the Christian society and civil society. In deter-
mining their respective positions, all depended on a clear con-
ception of the principle that the Church constitutes a perfect
society. The full scope of this formula we shall not here attempt
to unfold, but the reader will do well to keep its terms in view.
The fact that the ends of this perfect society are eternal, and
that those of civil society are temporal, is in itself sufficient
proof of the higher rank of the former. As the priest is the
head of the perfect society, framed for eternal ends, and guided
by laws immediately inspired from heaven, while the prince is
only head of the civil society, framed for temporal ends, and
guided by laws evolved by human counsel, the priest is mani-
festly above the prince.' And as the Church of Rome is the
mother and mistress of all Churches, and the Roman Pontiff is
1
Phillips proves-1. That the State cannot be above the Church; 2. They cannot
be equal-that'a glance at the distinction between spiritual and temporal power
shows the impossibility of equality. The Church is the kingdom of Christ,
founded immediately by God, all-comprehending, resting upon unalterable laws,
and having for its end eternal salvation; but States are separate and single
human kingdoms, existing for the end of earthly welfare. How can the king-
dom founded by man be co-ordinate [he means equal] with the divine one; that
which is limited by time and space with the all-comprehending one; laws daily
changing with the eternal ones; the end of earthly welfare with that of bless-
edness in glory with Christ? Yes, even if in opposition to the truth it were
assumed that every human authority had its power immediately from God,
even then the spiritual power should rank high above the temporal, on account
54
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
the source of all priestly authority, in him meet all the powers
belonging to the representative of God upon earth, all powers
necessary to control the laws, the literature, and institutions of
any civil society, whether it be a nation, an association, or a
family.
Monsignor Liverani says (p. 158), 'The perfect society,
according to the Civiltà Cattolica, extends from Aquapendente
to Terracina (ie., over the States of the Church); the imperfect
extends over Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, which form the
exception.' This may not be very unfair in a practical sense.
But the Jesuit doctrine is, in theory, more guarded. The State
also is acknowledged to be a perfect society in its order; but as
the order is inferior, it cannot be supreme, or equal, but must
be subordinate. Having now glanced at some preparatory steps,
we are ready to consider the Magna Charta of Reconstruction.
CHAPTER V.
The Syllabus of Errors, December 8th, 1864-Character of the Propositions
condemned-Disabilities of the State-Powers of the Church.
то
O ordinary readers the Syllabus would rather appear to be a
destructive instrument than a constructive one. Its autho-
rised expounders, however, with remarkable unanimity, treat it
of its catholicity, on account of its eternal laws, and especially on account of its
end.'-Phillips, ii., 617.
'Since Jesus of Nazareth, . . . the anointing of princes is changed from the
head to the arm; but the sacramental anointing is still maintained upon the
head of the bishop, because he, in his episcopal office, represents the person
of the Head. There is, however, a distinction between the anointing of the
bishop and of the prince, because the head of the bishop is anointed with the
ointment, but the arm of the prince is rubbed with oil, that it may be shown
what a difference exists between the authority of the bishop and the power of
the prince.'-Phillips, ii., 621,-quoting Bennetti's Priv. S. Petri Vindicia.
'Now, here are two things to be noted. First, that the emperor holds an office
of human creation,-the Pontiff an office of divine creation. Secondly, that the
office of divine creation is for a higher end than the office which is of human
origin.'- Cardinal Manning, Vatican Decrees,' p. 68.
1
Scope of the Syllabus.
55
as the foundation for the enduring fabric of reconstructed society.
Its form accounts for the first impression on the part of the
outside world. It is a series of condemned propositions, drawn
from official and authoritative utterances of Pius IX.-a syllabus
or collection of errors, condemned in judgments pronounced by
him as supreme judge of Christendom. These, taken collec-
tively, form a politico-ecclesiastical system. The propositions
expressed in the Syllabus, however, are not those which the
Pontiff affirms, but those which he reprobates. This form is
natural to the habit of appealing more to antipathies than to
attachments. But it obscures the meaning if it does not hide it
from untrained readers. Such find, for instance, proposition
42, 'In case of a conflict between the two powers (civil and
ecclesiastical), the civil law prevails,' and think it mild, for-
getting that it is the proposition anathematised, and that the
one approved is the counter-proposition, namely, 'In case of a
conflict between the laws of the two powers, the civil law does
not prevail.' Even this is not all that is meant, but, 'the
ecclesiastical law does prevail.'
The eighty propositions range over most subjects. As all
stand under the head of condemned errors, each proposition is,
logically, to be read with the prefix, 'We reprove and condemn
the following proposition.' Some of these sentences express
the beliefs of infidels, and some those of all Christians but
Romanists; some the crudest notions of socialists, and some
the fundamental principles of free States, or the maxims of all
thriving communities; some the crotchets of obscure theorists in
philosophy and ethics, and some the postulates of all free science.
These heterogeneous beliefs and disbeliefs are strung together
and delivered over, before the universe, to eternal anathema.
Passing from abstract to concrete, embodiments of evil are
condemned, whether the body is a Church, a Bible Society, a
Freemasons' lodge, a pack of communists, or even such clan-
destine gangs as were known in Christendom only to the
territory of the Pope and his favourite Italian princes.
56
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
6
Perhaps the eventual importance of this manifesto was, at the
time, exaggerated at the Vatican, and is exaggerated even yet.
The Pope still calls it 'the only anchor of salvation,'-of course
meaning for society, not for the soul. In the introduction to
his Speeches it is called, with much expansion, The Magna
Charta of Social Reconstruction.' Even in November 1876
the voice of the Vatican in the Civiltà Cattolica calls it 'The
Code of Christian Civilisation.'1 In this century,' says the
Genio Cattolico, already quoted, rises up the sublime and
gigantic figure of Pius IX., another Hildebrand. He is charged
by divine Providence with the erection in our day of a new
edifice upon the debris of the religious and political revolution,
as in former times Gregory VII. was commissioned to recon-
struct a similar edifice upon the scattered remains of tyranny.
Gregory had his Dicta; Pius IX. has his Syllabus.’
6.
If there is exaggeration here, it lies in the calculation of
effects, not in the estimate of intentions. The Syllabus was no
less than a deliberate and resolute attempt to change the face of
the nations by setting up a single central authority, on which
all other authority should depend. The two acknowledged
models of Pius IX. are, first, Hildebrand, the model of polity,
as the assailant of Constantine's ideal of a State Church, and
the founder of the counter ideal of the whole world as one
Church State; and, secondly, Ghislieri, or Pius V., the model
of personal action, as the inquisitor Pope saint.
The Civiltà Cattolica has never ceased to glorify the Syllabus.
A periodical, expressly devoted to expounding and commend-
ing it to the Germans, and making it the basis of a new social
condition in that country, was commenced at a Jesuit monas-
tery near Bonn, under the title of Stimmen aus Maria Laach.
Catholic journals spoke of the universal scope and pregnant
consequences of the Syllabus in terms at which men of the world
were more inclined to smile than to take warning. The views
taken of the document by learned Catholics not of the Ultra-
1 P. 456.
Ranke's Idea of a Transformed Papacy.
57
montane school are briefly put by Michelis: 'Constitutional
freedom, equality before the law, liberty of the press, all the
foundations of modern civilisation, were all at once pronounced
to be hostile to the Catholic faith.'1 Hints were not wanting
that it might introduce a conflict which would rage through
centuries, and perhaps leave nothing standing but the Church.
Still, for the time, politicians were rather annoyed than alarmed,
and perhaps no Protestant statesman thought the matter serious
enough to feel even annoyance.
Protestant statesmen were still somewhat in the state of mind
expressed by Ranke: What is there that can now make the
history of the Papacy interesting and important to us? Not
its peculiar relation to us, which can no longer affect us in any
material point; nor the anxiety or dread which it can inspire.
The times in which we had anything to fear are over; we are
conscious of our perfect security. The Papacy can inspire us
with no other interest than what arises from its historical
development and its former influence.' This prognostic, the
shortsightedness of which the Germans have been painfully
taught, obviously sprang out of a confusion of ideas, expressed
immediately afterwards, where Ranke identifies changing pro-
fessions and claims diplomatically presented with fixed maxims,
with objects and claims founded on cherished dogma, and felt
to be inalienable. As to the Papacy, Ranke says, 'Complete
metamorphoses have taken place in its maxims, objects, and
claims.'2
In contrast with the indifference founded on this supposed
change was the view of the Civiltá in surveying the events of
1864. The year had been, according to it, one marked by
that silent preparation of ideas which brings around great
¹ Kurze Geschichte, p. 10. It will be seen that here, as in the Ciriltá, the
meaning of civilisation is concrete, the civil system.
2 History of Popes, Engl. tran., 2nd ed., p. 19. The learned author, forty
years after he wrote the above, in publishing his sixth edition, referring to these
words, says that they expressed the view of the epoch, but I cannot conceal
from myself that a new epoch of the Papacy has commenced.'
58
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
events. To the unobserving this preparation was unseen; but
the process was going on and the issue certain. Casting a
glance around the world, the Civiltá showed that everywhere.
what it calls the revolution, what we call representative govern-
ment, was becoming ruinous, and the old Catholic ideal of
government regaining its place in the mind of the thoughtful.
In Belgium, it had come to that pass that an important paper
declared that the tyranny of a majority was worse than that of
an autocrat. By a manifest Providence, that immense Babylon,
the United States, founded on the principles of the revolution,
was broken up and undone. The new Mexican empire had all
the more promise of stability, as it would retain, at least in
part, Catholic principles.
This historical article proceeded to say that the greatest merit
of the past year lay
'In the highly important pontifical documents with which it had been
so solemnly closed. The Encyclical of his Holiness Pius IX. of Decem-
ber 8th, and the Syllabus accompanying it, speak clearly enough of them-
selves, and need not our comments. Those exceedingly grave utterances
of pontifical wisdom and fortitude are already perused in every tongue
spoken by Catholics, that is, by the civilised world. Nor do Catholics
alone read them; even Liberals do so too. And already we begin to hear
a distant echo of the fear and wrath felt by the Liberals. They, who
themselves change moment by moment, cannot understand that the
Church should never change, in her principles or in her doctrine. They,
who would conciliate everything-and, when they can do no more, con-
ciliate fact with law-by the stupid word fait accompli, cannot be at peace,
because the Church will not be reconciled to impiety and absurdity.
They do not believe with divine faith in the potency of the pontifical
word; but they do believe by an instinct of terror, as the devils also
believe and tremble. Hence the stream of filth now vainly flowing against
those documents from the Italian and foreign journals. The Liberals
tremble at this warning, and cannot restrain their vexation, because so
many hypocritical efforts to mask their Liberalism under Catholicism are
at last brought to nought. They are now compelled to lay aside the mask
more and more. No longer can they deceive the simple. They must now
declare themselves open enemies of the Church and of her definitions.
Liberalism is now condemned in all its newest and most current formula.
He that has ears to hear let him hear, and he that does not hear must
blame himself, and not the Church, which, like a tender mother (without
"
Schrader's Propositions.
59
condemning either the constitutions or the constitutionalists), puts her
sons on their guard against the poisonous Liberal doctrines. Thus, with
this new, clear monition, she proclaims to the world the absolute incom-
patibility of Christ and Belial, of the Gospel and the world, of sound
principles and those which are called modern civilisation, but in fact are
nothing but masonic civilisation. This new, clear monition closes the past
year, and if it is heard and received, as assuredly it will be, by all the
faithful, as everything which comes from the common mother, the Church,
is always received, it will open up in the new year more and yet more
joyful hope of the restoration of sound ideas, the sure presage and in-
fallible forerunner of the restoration of facts."
Father Schrader was one of the many Jesuits who had in
recent years been sent from Rome into Germany, to carry the
newest forms of the Court theology into the schools. He had
been a member of the Special Congregation for the preparation
of the Syllabus. In Vienna, where he held a chair in the Uni-
versity, he had already published the first part of a work, The
Pope and Modern Ideas, and no sooner did the Syllabus
appear than he published his second part, accredited by a brief
from his Holiness.
In this Schrader not only hailed the Syllabus with clear
insight into its aims and spirit, but he did for it what was
necessary to render it intelligible to ordinary readers. Over
against every condemned proposition, he set down its counter
proposition, the one which the Pope would bless and not curse.
This process, continued through the whole of the eighty proposi-
tions, enables any one to obtain a view of the principles on
which it was proposed to reconstruct society. Such a view,
however, is obscured by the terminology, which often suggests,
to the general reader, either a vague idea or an inoffensive one,
when, to the trained reader, the idea is definite, and if he be not
an Ultramontane, startling.
In England, the labours of Father Schrader escaped notice,
and in Germany aroused the solicitude of only a wakeful few;
but in Rome they were so much valued that when the secret
¹ Civiltá, Serie VI., vol i., p. 172, 173.
2 Der Papst und die modernen Ideen.
60 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
preparations for the Council were organised he was called up,
that the firm hand which had drafted his propositions might
be employed in preparing formulæ.
Though the Syllabus is not even in profession a proclamation
of the glory of Christ, or of the Christian verities, or of the
mission of the Church to turn sinners from their sins to God,
but is formally a charter of ecclesiastical dominion over civil
society, the first fourteen of its eighty propositions are named
as if drawn from the domain of philosophy and theology.
They, however, lay the doctrinal basis for the political claims
that follow. Many have been tempted to think that they
were set at the head of the document to induce any poli-
tician or man of letters, who might take it up, to lay it down
again, as a handful of musty, scholastic crumbs. Such a reader
might be pardoned for laying it down when he found all the
weight of an anathema hurled against the opinion that 'The
method and principles with which the ancient scholastic doctors
cultivated the study of theology are not suited to the necessities
of our times, or to the progress of science' (prop. 13). He
might think that men who could commit the authority of a
Church, for all ages, to the methods of the schoolmen, were
hardly the men to reconstruct even the ruined Pontifical States,
much less nations all over the world. He might think further
that a society which could narrow its terms of membership till
all were excluded who should doubt whether or not the methods
of the schoolmen were suitable to our times, was hardly a
society to embrace within itself all the future of humanity.
But in the celebrated Letters Apostolic, of Dec. 21st, 1863,
to the Archbishop of Munich, the case of the schoolmen was
put in language almost impassioned. The Church had, really,
identified her own honour with that of the doctors, not only
by following their methods in most of her schools, but also by
celebrating their virtues with loud applause and vehement
commendation.¹ And so, as Schrader put it, not only their prin-
¹ Receuil, p. 498.
T
Liberty and the Syllabus.
6r
ciples, but their methods, are perfectly suited to all times, and
to the progress of science.¹ In fact, their methods would give
to the Church the control of higher education.
The fifth proposition illustrates the difficulty of judging of
the practice of the Church of Rome by her theory, or vice versa.
She condemns the following:-That divine revelation is im-
perfect, and therefore subject to a continuous and indefinite
progress, which corresponds to the progress of human reason.'
Persons not of her own communion would say that, except for
the last clause, this might express the ground on which the
fabric of Roman doctrine, properly so called, is built. Believing
too much almost always springs from believing too little. He
who believes enough about one God does not want assistant
divinities. He who believes enough about one Mediator does
not want to multiply the number. He who believes enough
about one revelation does not want new revelations. Both
the Councils of Trent and of the Vatican keep up the theory
of only developing revelation. Practically their proceedings are
pervaded with this principle, "That divine revelation is subject
to continuous and indefinite progress.' The popular effect of
this is that new quasi revelations are of frequent occurrence.2
It is, however, at the fifteenth proposition that the framers
of the Syllabus emerge into their natural element. In it the
opinion condemned is that every man is free to embrace and
profess that religion which he may esteem true, following the
light of reason. This, with the few other propositions under
the head of Indifferentism and Latitudinarianism, prepare the
way for a section, in which communism, clandestine societies,
and Bible societies are bound into one bundle. This again
introduces the two great sections, that on the Church, and that
on the State. These together comprise thirty-seven proposi-
tions. A section on ethics and one
on marriage follow.
Papst und mod. Id., p. 61.
2 Friedrich, in his Mechanismus der Vatikanischen Religion, p. 12, says
that these revelations no longer need to come from God, but may come from
other persons, especially from Mary.
62
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
Marriage is treated not at all in respect to the morals of wedded
life, or to the sanctities of the connubial and parental relation,
but in respect to those questions which affect ecclesiastical
authority and its relation to the civil. The concluding sections
treat of the temporal sovereignty, and of modern Liberalism.
(
Who would look for Liberalism under the improbable
heading of Naturalism? yet both the Civiltá and the Stimmen,
proceeding on lines laid down by Bishop Pie of Poictiers,
elaborately showed how the fundamental heresy of all those
condemned was Naturalism, because, viewed in the light of the
Encyclical, all those errors converged in the denial of the
supernatural character of the Church.' Of this mother of
modern heresies two political varieties are specified, and two
philosophical; but it is shown that the political varieties are those
which the Pope particularly condemns because the others are
so absurd. The philosophical varieties are simply deism and
pantheism. Political Naturalism, on the other hand, is Liberal
Catholicism in two degrees: (1) Denying the authority of the
supernatural order (the Church) in public and temporal affairs,
while admitting it in private and spiritual affairs; (2) Assert-
ing the right of men according to their private judgment to
yield or to refuse obedience to the authority of the supernatural
order. The first of these two errors leads to the drawing of a
distinction between the duties of a citizen and those of a Chris-
tian, and also to the assumption of a right to tell the Church
her duty by excluding her authority from a circle of practical
affairs. The second error leads to the confiding of instruction
and legislation to the State, and to making religion merely the
affair of individuals. Hence does it lead also to secularised
or lay States. Political Naturalism embodies itself in Liberal
associations; Philosophical Naturalism in secret societies.¹
Had we been left to say who were condemned under these
heads we should probably have named Spinosa and Renan;
1 Stimmen, heft i. at length, and Civiltà, VI., i., pp. 273-289.
The Rights of the Church.
63
but the true expositors compel us to think of Montalembert
and Mazzini.
Under the section treating of the Church, the first proposition.
affirms the important principle as to the Church being a
perfect society. Yet this is put into a sentence containing
explicitly or implicitly a number of propositions, some negative,
some affirmative, and nearly all of great ambiguity. The error
condemned is, 'The Church is not a true and perfect society
completely free, nor is she invested with rights proper to herself
and permanent, conferred by her divine Founder; but it belongs
to the civil power to define the rights of the Church, and the
limits within which those rights are to be exercised' (prop. 19).
This, be it remembered, is the proposition condemned. Keeping
in view the ambiguity of the several predicates, the following
points are to be noted:-1. The Church is a perfect society.
2. The Church is completely free. 3. The Church has the direct
authority of Christ for her rights. 4. The State cannot define
the rights of the Church. 5. The State cannot even limit the
exercise of those rights.
Care must be taken to note that no distinction is made
between spiritual and temporal rights, or between universal
and national ones; nor yet between the exercise of rights by
the Church as a voluntary community in a State, and as an
establishment of the State. And too much attention can hardly
be given to the fact that no epithet limits the term civil power,
such as 'Catholic' civil power, or 'Christian' civil power. The
term is taken in its widest extension.
It follows from these premises, as Vatican writers often
demonstrate, that liberty to the Church means the right of
putting all ecclesiastical law in force, and calling upon the
State to execute such law. For if the latter refuses to do so, it
limits the exercise of the Church's rights, or in other terms,
the Church is not left free to carry out her decisions.¹
1 'The Council of Trent requires that all, without distinction, and therefore
princes, should observe the Canons, fer, so far as ecclesiastical affairs are con-
64
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
The broad denial of the right of the State to define or
limit the rights of the Church, without distinction, is meant
to cover, and, to Vaticanists, does cover, the right of the
Church to define the limits of her own authority as to its
domain and as to its exercise, and consequently the right
to define the limits of the authority of the State, both as
to its sphere and its exercise.
Yet, what is, at first sight, simpler to superficial readers than
denying the right of the State to define the rights of a Church?
It is a right of a Church to believe, to pray, to worship, and to
preach. Is the State to define such rights? It is a right
claimed by one Church to pray any day to 'new patrons,'
whom, as Moses said, 'Thou hast not known, thou, nor thy
fathers;' yet is the State to assume the function of defining
such rights? But one Church also claims the right of em-
ploying mercenaries and foreign auxiliaries to force a few
millions of men of a fine race, in a fine country, to submit to
her chief pastor as their king. She also claims the right to set
her priests, in any country, before the princes of the nation;
and the right, not merely to ask for an alteration of the law
of the land, but to declare it void,-the right even to tell sub-
jects when and where they may lawfully break law.¹ Now,
both classes of claims are covered by the one word 'rights,'
and the State is confidently warned off from a fort, or from the
pamphlet of a seditious bishop, as if that ground was lawful
cerned, the Canons rest upon the eternal, unchangeable dogma of the Church.
They are a supplement to the gospels, epistles, and prophecies, directed, like
them, to the salvation of the human species. In order that the Church may
give a practical application to her laws for the life of men, she needs the power
of jurisdiction, and also against the refractory and the transgressor of her laws,
the power of punishment.'-Phillips, ii., 559.
It is not allowable either that the temporal authorities should make a law,
in reference to an ecclesiastical subject, on which the Canons have not deter-
mined anything; or, that through their law they should change Canons that
are in existence. Every law of the kind opposed to ecclesiastical rules, or
enacted in addition to them, if not desired by the Church, or expressly recog-
nised by her, is hence in itself invalid.'-Phillips, ii., 563.
The Prince to carry out Canon Law.
65
Church ground; indeed, as if it was holy, like the shrines of
faith and worship sanctified by our Lord and His apostles
Perhaps the general drift of the famous formula is most fairly
represented by taking the words of one of those who have the
greatest influence on its practical interpretation. The following
proposition is found in a set of Theses propounded by a Jesuit,
before a Jesuit college, which forms one of the few recent tracts
left by the fathers of that order in the Collegio Romano:-
'The Church of Christ is a perfect society, wholly indepen-
dent of every civil power in its substance and its operation,
possessing power peculiar to itself, both legislative and judicial,
as well as compulsory, which is exercised by spiritual and tem-
poral penalties, personal and also substantial.'1
6
Father Bucceroni may also be taken as fairly conveying the
whole effect of the Syllabus on the relations of the State to the
Church, when he says that Catholic civil society is bound to
yield to the Church, even in temporal affairs, if the advance-
ment of a spiritual end calls for it;' and 'religion should be so
positively protected that the judgments of the Church should
never be obstructed.'
The State has not to grant the powers above mentioned to
the Church, but to recognise the Church as a corporation
wherein they are, by divine right, inherent. It is for the heads
of the Church to define the limits of their own domain, and it
is for the heads of the State to permit them within those limits.
to rule as representing God. In resenting the prohibition of
Napoleon III. to promulgate the Syllabus in France, the Civiltá
spoke thus of the error which misled politicians :—
'It proceeds from the belief that it is the civil authority which permits
the Church to exercise within its territory her jurisdiction over the faith-
ful. Nothing is more false. The faithful, wherever found, are subject to
the Church by the will of Christ, and not by the will of the State. They
must necessarily be governed by two authorities, by the civil and the
ecclesiastical, each freely acting within its proper circle; yet the first in
Theses ex universa Theologia quas in Collegio Lavalliensi Societatis Jesu
defendet P. Januarius Bucceroni ejusdem societatis. Die II. Juli, 1872. § xxiv.
VOL. I.
5
66
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
subordination to the second, as the interests of the body are subordinate
to those of the soul. The Christian people, to whatever nation they be-
long, be they Italians, Germans, or French, if subjects of the Emperor as
to things temporal, are also subjects of the Pope as to things spiritual,
and more of the Pope than of the Emperor.'
Laughing at M. Langlais, who in the French Courts argued
that the Pope in treating of the very foundations of political
institutions had gone beyond his proper sphere, that of faith
and morals, the Civiltá said :-
'According to our weak way of thinking, the legitimate argument would
have run thus: The Pope has a right to give a decision only within the
moral order: the Pope has given a decision as to such and such proposi-
tions; therefore those propositions belong to the moral order.'
In attempting to judge of the effect of any clause, the reader
cannot be too often put upon his guard against loose Protestant
interpretations. Any interpretation but the strictly Papal one is
totally misleading. The nearer we come to the force of the terms
in Canon Law, the nearer do we come to their real import.
For instance, in the condemned proposition 20, 'The eccle-
siastical power ought not to exercise its authority without
the consent or permission of the civil government,' we must
ask, 1. What is the ecclesiastical power? and 2. What is its
authority? Clearly all Protestant answers to either question
would be illusory. The ecclesiastical power, in any given
place, is the prelate who there represents the Pope; and his
authority is just what the latter may have given to him, whether
it affects doctrines, morals, institutions, laws, land, the bodies
and souls of men, or the allegiance of subjects.2 So, it is no ques-
tion of the right of a congregation to worship, or of a preacher
to preach, or of a priest to perform ceremonies according to his
conscience, nor yet of a Church to define and propagate its own
doctrines, and frame its ritual, or to exercise spiritual discipline
¹ VI., i., 652, 653.
2 'Partiales ecclesiæ praefectos, seu pastores essse episcopos, quorum scilicet
potestas iis terminis definitur, qui ab Romano Pontifice sive immediate et
expresse, sive mediate ac tacite designati fuerint.'-Tarquini, Institutiones,
p. 117.
We are more Subjects of the Pope than of the Queen. 67
over its clergy, but simply a question of one impersonated.
authority in presence of another, the one representing the Pope
and the other the Crown.
'The possession of the prince originates in human jurisdiction,
founded in facts occasioned by man's social nature; but the possession
of the Pope originates in a divine jurisdiction, and is founded on the
essential dependence of man upon God. The authority of the Church
is the authority of Christ Himself, who governs the faithful through His
vicar here below. Every baptized person, then, is more the subject
of the Pope than he is of any other earthly governor whatever. This
subjection is spiritual, but just on that account does it embrace the man
more fully than any material subjection; for the principal part of man
is not the body but the spirit.'-Civiltá, Serie VII., vol. vi., p. 293.
Not many will need to be reminded of the vast import of
the simple word 'immunity.' As applied to the clergy it
means complete exemption from civil control and civil law.
The Civiltá puts this in an engaging form.¹ The clergy are
placed outside of lay jurisdiction by divine right. They stand
to the civil magistrate in the relation that ambassadors of a
foreign prince hold to the tribunals of the country. They are
subjects, but subjects of their own king, and only under his
jurisdiction. So the holy ministers are ambassadors for God.
As such they are not judged by those to whom they exercise
their embassy, but they are judged by God, through the medium
of him whom He has set up to hold His place upon earth.' The
Pope may place a priesthood in a certain measure under civil
law by conceding certain rights to the civil power. Or he
may abandon a condemned priest to the secular arm. But he
is himself the supreme judge even of civil laws, and therefore is
incapable of coming under any true obligation to them (p. 663).
In him, therefore, immunity, partial only in the clergy, reaches
its fulness, for none can place him under that law or that
authority over both of which he sits as judge. None surely
will confound the idea of supreme judge of the law with that of
the highest judge under the law. Our Lord Chancellor is the
latter, but not the former.
(
¹ VIII., i., 662.
68
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
A few passages from the standard work of Phillips on ecclesi-
astical law will clear these points, and that in an interesting
form. The author was a layman and a German, both of which
circumstances are mentioned by the Civiltá as indicating that
in advancing ecclesiastical claims the learned canonist will be
moderate.
'Above all others, above priests, kings, princes, fathers, sons, and
teachers, stands the bishop as the representative of Christ, which is
indicated by his anointing. If this is true with regard to all the pastors
of the Church, how much more is it true with regard to the successor of
Peter, who stands immediately in the place of Him who "did no violence,
neither was any deceit in His mouth." As the substitute of Christ,
he is set not only over all princes, lands, and nations, but also over all
bishops. He has to give account of them all, and for them all must he
lay down his life as the Good Shepherd for the sheep. As none other
is like to him in the burden of duty, so is none other like to him in the
fulness of honour. It is certain that on the whole earth there does not
exist any dignity greater than his, and if due honour is to be rendered
by all Christians to bishops as the holders of the spiritual power, so must
all hearts still more submit themselves to him whom God has elevated
above all the bishops. Hence is it especially the duty of those who are
clothed with the temporal power, to let this their subordination appear
by homage. Since they must be conscious that the splendour of their
crown is far outshone by that which they received in baptism, wherein
they were called to be fellow heirs with Christ. The pseudo-Ambrose was
not so far wrong when he asserted that no fellow can be found for the
honour and dignity of a bishop; for in comparison with it, the splendour
of kings and the crowns of princes are but as lead to gold. We may
see kings and princes bending their necks at the knee of priests, and,
kissing their right hand, commend themselves to their prayers. What
Christian king, as Gregory VII. remarks, when he comes to die, does not
humbly implore the help of the priest? but no one upon the bed of death
ever calls for the assistance of the king.
One essential difference between the spiritual power and the tem-
poral power lies in this, that the former can never be imparted to a
layman. He must, first of all, through a special qualification, be elevated
to the higher grade of the clergy. No law can take away this difference,
no power can change it. Therefore princes, no matter how great their
earthly might, always abide laymen. Even if a prince has succeeded
in subjecting to himself the entire globe, he is nevertheless no teacher,
but a scholar of the truth. He is no shepherd, he is only a sheep of the
flock. He is no father, only a son of the Church. Her must he love as
his mother, yea, more than the mother of his body, for the latter gave
2
What is to be done with a Heretic Prince? 69
As
AS.
him birth only that he might return to dust again, whereas the Church
gave him birth that he might be fellow heir with Christ for ever.
from Christ he has received no spiritual power, but only a temporal,
which means an inferior power, so must he, like all other laymen, be in
subjection to the holders of the spiritual power, for in respect to all the
laity, the authority of the Church must ever be the same, without any
regard to their different worldly standing. Christ does not distinguish
between sheep and sheep; thus clearly indicating that they do not belong
to His fold who do not acknowledge the spiritual authority of the Church
as over them, in particular that of His supreme representative.
'Hence all kings and princes are subject to the divine laws and the
canons of the Church; and if they fail in regard to them, the spiritual
power must judge them.'-Phillips, ii., 622-625.
'Innocent III. rightly appealed to the Divine order in this matter
when he said, "Because our power is not from a man, but from God, so
can no one of sound mind be ignorant that it pertains to our office to
admonish every Christian in regard to every mortal sin, and if he
despises the admonition, to compel him by ecclesiastical punishment."
This must especially take place when the temporal ruler, by means of
his falling away from the Church, threatens to lead his subjects into the
way of perdition; and in this case the spiritual authority steps in on
two grounds,-out of regard both to the prince and also to the people.
The prince, when he makes a bad use of his power, hastens to his own con-
demnation; hence it is the duty of the Church, and in particular of the
head thereof, to preserve him from it, because the Pope has an account
to render for him also. The Church has likewise the same care in regard
to the people; being answerable for them too, she must strive to keep
spiritual evils far away from them.
'Now as to the means of which the Church with this view can avail her-
self in regard to the temporal ruler. First of all, the following present
themselves-request, exhortation, admonition, and censure. But if all
these are resorted to in vain, because the prince despises the Church and
does not hear her, then what Christ has said with regard to all applies to
him-" He that despises you despises me, and he who will not hear the
Church shall be to you as an heathen man and a publican." In such a
case, the Church, as she naturally concedes no right of self-decision to her
subjects, excludes even a prince from her community, in order that she
may bring him back by this indirect way, since he would not come back
by the straight one. But if these steps are without result, if the prince
still goes forward incorrigible, stiff-necked in the way of perdition, and
draws his people along with him in the same path, then must the Church
resort to the final means which lie at her command for the deliverance of
that portion of her flock. If she does not succeed with the prince himself,
she must hold back those sheep from the abyss, and nothing else remains
for her to do but to let him who despises the means of redemption, walk
70
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
upon his way alone. In order to this she must undo the bond which
binds the subjects to him; for however holy that bond may be, still it
cannot have the power of obliging men to open disobedience against God.
It was not the custom for any vassal to serve his liege lord against the
supreme lord, and should service against God be permitted? Here lies
the boundary of obedience to the temporal authority, and the power
which has received the full authority to bind and to loose, can, in such
a. case, decide when the ruler, hardening himself in rebellion against
God, is no longer entitled to conduct his subjects. This was, moreover,
the proceeding which the Church on several occasions adopted. For
instance, the third Lateran Council released from their oath the vassals
of lords who had passed over to the sect of the Albigenses, and the fourth
threatened those with the same punishment who should tolerate heretics
within their dominions. The Council of Lyons, in the year 1245, solemnly
pronounced the deposition of Frederick II. That explanation is alto-
gether groundless which would assert that in these cases the Church
proceeded only after it had obtained permission from the princes;'
and that in the last case Innocent IV. pronounced the sentence, not
with the consent of the Council, but merely in its presence. Such an
assertion is quite incapable of proof. The words of the judgment
say directly the contrary, for Innocent IV. expressly declares that he
does this after having carefully deliberated over the affair with his
Brethren and the holy Council. No choice then remains but either to
acknowledge that the Church has a right to adopt such proceedings, or
to assert that the Church made herself guilty of an usurpation and of
inducing the subjects of those princes to commit a wrong.'-Phillips, ii.,
632-636.
In reading the following abstract it is to be remembered
that we aim not at giving a complete but a summary view of
the effect of the Syllabus on the relations of Church and State,
and that we do not necessarily disapprove of each separate
claim specified. Of course neither the disabilities of the State
nor the powers of the Church here indicated are embodied in
the existing institutions of any country. They are only the dis-
abilities on the one part, and the powers on the other, which
would be embodied in the institutions of every country did the
¹ Cardinal Manning asserts (Vat. Dec., p. 85) that 'in every case of depo-
sition, as of Philip le Bel, Henry IV. of Germany, Frederick II., and the like,
the sentence of the electors, princes, States, and people, and the public opinion
and voice of nations, had already pronounced sentence of rejection on those
tyrants, before the Pontiffs pronounced the sentence of excommunication and
deposition.'
Disabilities of the State.
71
tribunal of the Pope acquire the supremacy which it claims.
We must not, however, on that account suppose that any
sentence of the Syllabus is merely an expression of opinion.
Every sentence is a formal and supreme judgment, fixing the
state of the law. We need hardly remind careful readers that
denying a proposition does not necessarily mean asserting its
contrary. But it does at least imply asserting its contradictory.
Schrader indeed says that it is the contradictory of the con-
demned proposition that is to be maintained.
But his own
counter-propositions do not adhere to that rule. What they assert
is sometimes the contrary of the condemned proposition. To
explain these technical terms:-One asserts that all Englishmen
are shopkeepers. You deny it. That denial does not pledge you
to assert that no Englishman is a shopkeeper; which proposition
is the contrary of the other. But it does pledge you at least to
assert that some Englishmen are not shopkeepers; which propo-
sition is the contradictory. Two contraries may be both false; of
two contradictories one must be false and the other true.
SUMMARY OF POINTS ASSUMED IN THE SYLLABUS AS TO THE
DISABILITIES OF THE STATE, AND THE RIGHTS AND POWERS
OF THE CHURCH.
DISABILITIES OF THE STATE.
(N.B.-The numbers attached to the respective propositions indicate the articles
of the syllabus in which they are contained.)
The State has not the right to leave every man free to profess and
embrace whatever religion he shall deem true. (15.)
It has not the right to define the rights of the Church, nor to define
the limits within which she is to exercise those rights. (19.)
It has not the right to enact that the ecclesiastical power shall require
the permission of the civil power in order to the exercise of its autho-
rity. (20.)
It has not the right to treat as an excess of power, or as usurping
the rights of princes, anything that the Roman Pontiffs or Ecumenical
Councils have done. (23.)
It has not the right to deny to the Church the use of force, or to deny
to her the possession of either a direct or an indirect temporal power.
(24.)
72
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
י
It has not the right to revoke any temporal power found in the
possession of bishops as if it had been granted to them by the State. (25.)
It has not the right to exclude the Pontiff or clergy from all dominion
over temporal affairs. (27.)
It has not the right to prevent bishops from publishing the Letters
Apostolic of the Pope, without its sanction. (28.)
It has not the right of treating the immunity of the Church and
of ecclesiastical persons as if it were a privilege arising out of civil
law. (30.)
It has not the right, without consent of the Pope, of abolishing
ecclesiastical courts for temporal causes, whether civil or criminal, to
which the clergy are parties. (31.)
It has not the right of abolishing the personal immunity of the clergy
and students for the priesthood from military service.' (32.)
It has not the right to adopt the conclusions of a National Church
Council, unless confirmed by the Pope. (36.)
It has not the right of establishing a National Church separate from
the Pope. (37.)
It has not the right of asserting itself to be the fountain of all rights;
or of asserting a jurisdiction not limited by any other jurisdiction, say
that of the Pope (39). N.B.-The absence of any distinction between
legal rights, of which the State alone is the fountain, and natural rights, of
which the laws that create legal rights are but the recognition, is character-
istic and pervasive.
It has not the right even of an indirect or negative power over 'religious
affairs.' (41.)
It has not the right of exequatur, nor yet that of allowing an appeal
from an ecclesiastical court to a civil one. (41.)
It has not the right of asserting the supremacy of its own laws when
they come into conflict with ecclesiastical law. (42.)
It has not the right of rescinding or annulling concordats or grants of
immunity agreed upon by the Pope, without his consent. (43.)
It has not the right to interfere in 'matters pertaining to' religion,
morals, or spiritual government. (44.)
It has not the right to judge any instruction which may be issued by
pastors of the Church for the guidance of consciences. (44.)
It has not the right to the entire direction of public schools. (45.)
It has not the right of requiring that the plan of studies in clerical
seminaries shall be submitted to it. (46.)
It has not the right to present bishops, or to depose them, or to found
sees. (50, 51.)
The word is generally translated' clergy' in English. But it is not cleri but
clerici, which includes divinity students, and is commonly translated in Italian
by chierici. In Italy the class which would have been exempted under cover
of the student's right would have been very numerous.
!
Powers of the Church.
73
It has not the right to interfere with the taking of monastic vows by its
subjects of either sex, or to fix any limit to the age at which it may be
done. (52.)
It has not the right to assist subjects who wish to abandon monasteries
or convents. (53.)
It has not the right to abolish monasteries or convents. (53.)
It has not the right of determining questions of jurisdiction as between
itself and the ecclesiastical authority. (54.)
It has not the right to separate itself from the Church. (55.)
It has not the right to provide for the study of philosophy, or moral
science, or civil law eluding the ecclesiastical authority (57). N.B.-Moral
science includes politics and economy.
It has not the right to proclaim or to observe the principle of non-
intervention. (62.)
It has not the right to declare the marriage contract separable from
the sacrament of marriage. (66.)
It has not the right to sanction divorce in any case. (67.)
It has not the right to prevent the Church from setting up impediments
which invalidate marriage. It has no right to set up such impediments
itself. It has no right to abolish such impediments already existing. (67.)
It has not the right to uphold any marriage solemnised otherwise than
according to the form prescribed by the Council of Trent, even if solem-
nised according to a form sanctioned by the civil law. (71.)
It has not the right to recognise any marriage between Christians as
valid, unless the sacrament is included. (73.)
It has not the right to declare that matrimonial causes, or those arising
out of betrothals, belong by their nature to the civil jurisdiction. (74.)
RIGHTS AND POWERS OF THE CHURCH.
N.B.-In many cases, the propositions under this head show the powers of the
Church directly corresponding to the disabilities of the State expressed
under the previous head.
She has the right to interfere with the study of philosophy, and it is not
her duty to tolerate errors in it, or to leave it to correct itself. (11.)
She has the right to require the State not to leave every man free to
profess his own religion. (15.)
She has the right to be perfectly free. She has the right to define her
own rights, and to define the limits within which they are to be exercised
(19.)
She has the right to exercise her power without the permission or con-
sent of the State. (20.)
She has the right to bind Catholic teachers and authors, even in matters
additional to those which may have been decreed as articles of belief
binding on all. (22.)
+
74
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
She has the right of requiring it to be believed by all that no Pope ever
exceeded the bounds of his power; also that no Ecumenical Council ever
did so, and further, that neither the one nor the other ever usurped the
rights of princes. (23.)
She has the right to employ force. (24.)
She has the right to maintain that whatever temporal power is found
in the hands of a bishop, is not beyond what is inherent in his office, and
has not come from the State, and therefore is not liable to be resumed
by it. (25.)
She has the right to claim dominion in temporal things for the clergy
and the Pope. (27.)
She has the right to make bishops promulge the Pope's decrees with-
out consent of their rulers. (28.)
She has the right to require it to be believed of all, that the immunity
of the Church, and of ecclesiastical persons, did not arise out of civil law.
(30.)
She has the right to require that temporal causes, whether civil or
criminal, to which clergymen are parties should be tried by ecclesiastical
tribunals. (31.)
She has the right to alter the conclusions of a National Church
Council, and to reject the claim of the Government of the country to
have the matter decided in the terms adopted by such National Council.
(36.)
She has the right to prevent the foundation of any National Church,
not subject to the authority of the Roman Pontiff. (37.)
She has the right to reject any claim on the part of the State to
either a direct and positive or an indirect and negative power in religious
affairs, and more especially when the State is ruled by an unbelieving
prince. (41.)
She has the right to reject the claim of the State to exercise a power
of exequatur, or to allow appeals from ecclesiastical to civil tribunals. (41.)
She has the right to exclude the civil power from all interference in
' matters which appertain to' religion, morals, and spiritual government.
Hence she has the right of excluding it from pronouncing any judgment
on instructions which may be issued by any pastor of the Church for the
guidance of conscience. (44.)
She has the right to deprive the civil authority of the entire govern-
ment of public schools. (45.)
She has the right to refuse to show the plan of study in clerical
seminaries to civil authorities. (46.)
She has the right to fix the age for taking monastic vows both for
men and women, irrespective of the civil authority. (52.)
She has the right to uphold the laws of religious orders against the
civil authority; the right to deprive the latter of power to aid any who,
after having taken vows, should seek to escape from monasteries or
Powers of the Church.
75
nunneries; and the right to prevent it from taking the houses, churches,
or funds of religious orders under secular management. (53.)
She has the right of holding kings and princes in subjection to her
jurisdiction, and of denying that their authority is superior to her own in
determining questions of jurisdiction. (54.)
She has the right of perpetuating the union of Church and State. (55.)
She has the right of subjecting the study of philosophy, moral science,
and civil law, to ecclesiastical authority. (56.)
She has the right of enjoining a policy of intervention. (62.)
She has the right to require the sacrament of marriage as essential
to every contract of marriage. (62.)
She has the right to deprive the civil authority of power to sanction
divorce in any case. (67.)
She has the right to enact impediments which invalidate marriage,
the right to prevent the State from doing so, also the right to prevent it
from annulling such impediments when existing. (68.)
She has the right to require all to receive the Canons of Trent as of
dogmatical authority, namely, those Canons which anathematise such as
deny her the power of setting up impediments which invalidate marriage.
(70.)
She has the right of treating all marriages which are not solemnised
according to the form of the Council of Trent as invalid, even those
solemnised according to a form prescribed by the civil law. (71.)
She has the right of annulling all marriages among Christians
solemnised only by civil contract. (73.)
She has the right of judging all matrimonial causes, and those arising
out of betrothals, in ecclesiastical courts.
(74.)
She has the right to require that the Catholic religion shall be the
only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all others. (77.)
She has the right to prevent the State from granting the public ex-
ercise of their own worship to persons immigrating into it. (78.)
She has the power of requiring the State not to permit free expres-
sion of opinion. (79.)
The importance of questions affecting marriage and betrothal
is threefold. (1) Immense revenues accrue to the Court and
bureaucracy of Rome from the system of dispensations for
marrying within the degrees forbidden in any one of the three
separate scales of consanguinity, affinity, or spiritual affinity,
i.e., affinity contracted by sponsorship at baptism or confirma-
tion. (2) The grant, every five years, of a QUINQUENNIAL
FACULTY to the bishop to issue such dispensations as affect
those distant degrees within which dispensations do not pay a
76
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
"
tax, or to the poor who cannot pay, holds the bishop in per-
petual dependence on the Curia. (3) The whole system of
impediments and dispensations subserves the end of extending
the control of the priesthood over domestic life through the
reluctance felt in families at the time of a marriage, as at that
of a death, to cause scandal by a difference with 'the clergy.'
sense.
Phillips says (ii., 639) that in modern times the union of
Church and State is frequently compared to wedlock,—not an
inapt figure, but one calling for care lest it be taken in a wrong
'That would be the case if in this union the female
partner was taken for the Church, and the male partner for the
State. If we employ this simile, we must think of the relative
positions as just reversed.' This seems reasonable. The legal
position of a married woman, a feme covert, would appear not ill
to correspond with that of a State bound to the husband, who
calls himself a mother.
THE
CHAPTER VI.
The Secret Memoranda of the Cardinals, February 1865.
HE Cardinals who, in the beginning of December, were
commanded to prepare notes on the expediency of holding a
Council, did not hurry, but by the beginning of February fifteen
such notes were in the hands of the Pope. Their Eminences
discussed the subject under four heads: 1. The present condition
of the world; 2. The desirableness or otherwise of resorting to
the ultimate remedy of a General Council; 3. The difficulties in
the way of holding one, and the means of overcoming them;
4. The subjects of which a Council might treat.
Cecconi gives only a summary of the contents of these notes,
and we cannot but regret that it was not published before the
conflicts of which the Council has been the occasion. It might
have been, in that case, just the same as it is now; but our
Secret Notes of Cardinals.
77
confidence in its frankness would have been greater, because a
change has taken place in the manner of Ultramontane autho-
rities when expressing themselves since 1870, and especially
since 1872, as compared with 1869 or the early part of 1870,
on what the world calls political, and the Curia generally calls
social, points, and more particularly on the grand future of the
struggle and triumph of reconstruction. Bearing, however, this
change in mind, we may welcome the summary of Cecconi as of
real value; for, however incomplete, it is authoritative, so far as
representing what the Court wishes to be made public. It is,
moreover, not tainted with infirmities often found in declara-
tions on this side of the Alps, which render them frail authorities,
whether for a student or a parliamentary committee; infirmities
often appearing in English and German translations, as well as
in original utterances.
The most eminent consulters, or, as our historian loves to
call them, the purpled (i porporati), showed how the present
age was remarkable for progress in invention. This formed its
favourable side. But then such progress served only temporal
ends. The 'Christian government of the world,' as it existed
in former ages, had given place to a system based on the prin-
ciple that society, as such, had nothing to do with God. The
points in the sad spectacle of this 'social apostacy,' which most
distressed the Cardinals, were as follows :-Education was with-
drawn from the supreme vigilance of the Catholic Church, and
consequently ran into manifold errors; the doctrines of natur-
alism, rationalism, and various forms of pantheism prevailed,
from which sprang socialism and communism.
Coming to political affairs, some of the writers mourned over
the prevalence of revolutionary principles in general, some over
freedom of worship and of the press in particular, and some
over the tyranny of the State, which controlled education and
charitable institutions, thus appropriating to itself all the social
forces. Some, again, lamented the violation of the rights of
the Church in regard to laws affecting marriage, to those on the
78
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
holding of land, to the temporal sovereignty of the Pope, to the
religious orders, and similar topics.
The practice of magnetism, clairvoyance, and spiritualism is
deplored by their Eminences as one great plague and shame of
our epoch. Freemasonry, viewed 'in its true aspect,' not as
a benevolent association, but as an institution having for its
ultimate aim the erection of a pretended church universal of
humanity on the ruins of all religion, is said by several of the
consulters to be the arm which carries the modern theories
into practice, and therefore is viewed as one of the most potent
enemies of the Church.
The next point noted is the influence exerted even upon
Catholic teaching by the Reformation and by rationalism. It
is shown that in philosophy, as taught in some countries, the
ancient system of the schools had been set aside, and, as all
sciences are affected by philosophy, it not unfrequently occurred
that authors and professors attacked the pure doctrines of the
faith. Some of them even evinced a disposition to regard Rome
as being ignorant of the relations of Catholic science to heretical
and rationalistic science, or, at least, as not appreciating the
necessities arising out of such relations. Nay, they even dis-
played some unreadiness in submitting to her authority.
The countries here referred to are those where Roman
Catholic populations border upon reformed ones, or are mixed
with them. South of the Alps and Pyrenees, all that came to be
taught at the Vatican soon counted among the pure doctrines
of the faith." But the standard of real Christian antiquity
erected in reformed countries, and the tendency evermore to
recommence drawing from the wells of doctrine at the river
head, could not but make Romish scholars, in places influenced
by such countries, slower to follow every fresh innovation.
Content to accept Trent as antiquity for the Romish as distin-
guished from the Catholic portion of their creed, and venerating
the ages a little further up, as if they were the truly ancient
ones, many of them, nevertheless, were not prepared with grace
Differences within the Church.
79
and comfort to put on new dogmas, new 'devotions,' and new
principles of morality, evolved under their own eyes.
The counterpart of an unchanging standard of faith existing
in reformed countries is fearless freedom of research; for they
who steer by fixed stars are not alarmed about finding them-
selves at sea, knowing that, however broad the ocean, the stars
will guide them to a shore. The northern Catholics were not
uninfluenced by this tendency any more than by its counterpart,
and often found themselves, as the late discussions have shown,
little flattered by the state of science, even of theological science,
in ruling circles in Rome.
After this serious notice of the doctrinal differences hitherto
tolerated within the bosom of the Church, the Cardinals proceed
to urge the lamentable fact that, owing to the want of 'harmony'
between the civil and ecclesiastical authority, many precepts of
the canon law had fallen into disuse. Hence the state of dis-
cipline among the clergy was deficient in uniformity, uncertain
and lawless. This expression 'in harmony' is often employed to
denote that state of law which is believed to be the normal,-
indeed, the divinely-appointed one; that is, the state in which
the civil law recognises the canon law, and provides for its due
execution.
6
On the second point, that of the desirableness of holding a
Council, nearly all the Cardinals were agreed. In the present
confusion of principles and systems, the whole episcopate as-
sembled in Council, pointing out the way of eternal salvation
to nations and sovereigns, and also the true relation between
the natural order and the supernatural order, with the rights
and duties of governors and governed, would be a luminous
beacon scattering the darkness that covers the world. Perhaps,
in the presence of such a spectacle, heretical and schismatical
societies would lay aside old prejudices, and would be drawn to
a reunion.'
We only interpose a word to say that perhaps there are even
yet among us some who do not know what is the supernatural
80
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
order and what the natural order. The former is the order of
government, by the supernatural institution of the Church, for
eternal ends; the latter the order of government, by the natural
institution of the State, for temporal ends. With this explana-
tion it is obvious that the 'true way of eternal salvation' for
nations and sovereigns is to submit the natural order to the
supernatural, which will guide it aright. The terms may be
greatly varied; the political order, the civil order, the external
order, and so on, coming in by turns.
However, the unanimity of the Cardinals was not complete.
One advised that the calling of a General Council should be re-
served for times when some great difference within the Church
demanded a settlement. A second thought that the delicacy
of some of the points to be handled, and the want of that ex-
ternal support which the Church formerly possessed, outweighed
any prospect of advantage. A third could not pronounce
between advantages and disadvantages, but gladly left the
decision with the Sovereign Pontiff, whom God always assisted
with special light.
Cecconi's statement as to the general agreement of the Car-
dinals appears to clash with that made by persons in Rome,
who ought to be well informed, and who affirm that, at first,
nearly all the Cardinals were opposed to the Pope's desire, and
only yielded to his ungovernable longing to have his own in-
fallibility proclaimed. Lord Acton says the Cardinals gave
their counsel against the project, and that the Pope proceeded
heedless of their opposition.¹ Both statements may be correct;
for even if the Cardinals had opposed the project when inform-
ally talked about, they might yield when the official initiative
taken by their wilful sovereign convinced them that it was to be.
One of the counsellors of Ali, the fourth caliph, when rebuked
by Abdullah Abbas for giving bad advice in contradiction to
good, previously given and rejected, replied, 'When a person,
either through folly or obstinacy, is found to reject counsels
1 Zur Geschichte, etc., p. 3.
Notes of the Cardinals.
81
which are obviously salutary, he must expect to receive counsels
of a complexion precisely the reverse.'
On the third point, namely, that of the difficulties in the way
of holding a Council, the Cardinals held that great prudence
would be required. The decrees of the Council would be re-
ceived with indifference by the ungodly and the worldly, or
would be made the pretext for new trespasses against the
Church. Then, as to governments, would they permit the
bishops to attend? Would they not prohibit the execution in
their territories of decrees not conformed to the interests of
those who held the power of the sword? Again, what would
be the use of new canons if the civil power would not further
the execution of them, or would even thwart it? And besides
all this, the political horizon was clouded, and the Council might
be interrupted. So far for external difficulties.
As to internal ones, points noted were, the long absence of
the bishops from their flocks, the risk of dissensions in the
Council, and of consequent scandal,—a risk which appeared the
greater as the thorny character of some of the questions to be
treated was considered. The Cardinals also felt that there was
some danger that a desire might arise on the part of the bishops
to extend their own privileges, already too great, so much so
as even to be hurtful to the practical uniformity of ecclesiastical
government, as well as to the firmness of ecclesiastical disci-
pline, and to the union of the bishops with the head of the
Church.
The considerations mentioned as outweighing these diffi-
culties might seem very slight, but viewed in the light of later
attempts, one of them, dismissed in a few words, was of great
significance.
Perhaps the absence of bishops from their flocks would not
be of such long continuance as some expected. This is sufficient
to show that even at that early date the hope of an expeditious
assent to what the Pope desired formed an element in the
calculations of the Court. But the final argument relied upon,
VOL. I.
6
82
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
as an answer to the difficulties, is the hand of God fighting for
the Church.
On the most important point of all, the subjects with which
the Council should deal, the summary of the notes given by
Cecconi is so meagre as to suggest the idea either that the views
of their Eminences must have been crude, or that they did not
care to put on paper such views as were matured; always
supposing that the summary really represents the whole of the
contents. After a few generalities, the first particular subject
named for condemnation is the liberty of the press, after which
are named civil marriages, impediments to marriage, mixed
marriages, and such like, with questions of ecclesiastical
property, and the observance of fasts and feasts.
Only two of the Cardinals mentioned the subject of Papal
infallibility. A third named Gallicanism and the necessity of
the temporal sovereignty. Only one mentioned the Syllabus.
From the facts last named, Cecconi triumphantly infers that
they who say that Rome designed to concentrate all power in
the hands of the Pope, have lost their cause. We need only
remark that, by his own testimony, the Cardinals who mentioned
infallibility and the Syllabus were those who were against the
meeting of a Council. And perhaps this fact, coupled with that
of no allusion being made to these subjects by those who desired
the meeting of a Council, might suggest to cold critics an
inference opposite to the one drawn by the official historian.
We must, in justice to him, however, say that he does not
expressly deny that the measures were then in contemplation.
by which Rome has actually concentrated all her powers in
the hands of the Pope.
The omission to name the Syllabus in this instance is one of a
series of acts of reticence in respect of that document which are
at least curious. It is not mentioned in the Encyclical which
accompanied it. It is not mentioned by the official historian at
the time of its issue; and when, as we shall hereafter see, the
Pope solemnly confirmed it in the presence of five hundred
Relations of Church and State to be Regulated. 83
bishops, the act was not mentioned by the Court organs.
Further, the Syllabus was not mentioned even in the very
document by which the collective hierarchy expressed their
solemn adhesion to it. Nor was the adhesion to it by letter of
the prelates then absent mentioned till, as our tale will show,
all this was brought out by the friction of events.
Points in these notes to be borne in mind, as throwing light
on the future of our history, are, that those who desired a
Council hoped it would be a short one, and were of opinion
that the powers of bishops were too great; and that the rela_
tions of the supernatural order and the natural order must be
regulated, i.e., reduced to rule. These two commonwealths,
commonly called the Church and State, had hitherto adjusted
their relations, at least wherever Rome represented the super-
natural order, by the rough method of trials of strength and
skill. The object of reducing their relations to rule would
be to restore that harmony of action which, according to the
Curia, formerly existed in happy ages, but had been lost in the
changes of time. Naturally, this desired harmony could only
be restored by each abiding, according to rule, in its own place
-the lower under the higher, and the higher above the lower."
•
Only three cases are conceivable. Either the Church and the State are
perfectly co-ordinate [by coordinirt Phillips clearly means co-equal], or the
State is subordinate to the Church, or the Church subordinate to the State.
The divine commands of obedience towards authority, given by the
apostles Peter and Paul in their epistles, and so earnestly impressed upon
all mankind, are sometimes made to apply to an obedience which even the
spiritual authority owes to the temporal. First of all, in relation to the well-
known passage in the Epistle to the Romans, it is very evident that it cannot
have this meaning. It does not speak of the subordination of one power
to another, but of individuals who personally are to be subordinate to the
higher powers. But as the Church is not excluded from these higher powers,
—indeed, relatively to others, must be held as a higher power, this passage
would much rather prove the opposite. It clearly, however, proves the truth
that every soul must be subject to the ecclesiastical power, which in the
strictest sense of the words cannot be said of subjection to the temporal authority.
For otherwise there could not be several States in the world independent of
one another.'-Phillips, ii., 608.
84
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
CHAPTER VII.
A Secret Commission to prepare for the Council, March 1865-First Summons
-Points determined-Reasons why Princes are not consulted-Plan for
the Future Council.
IN
N March 1865, Cardinals Patrizi, Reisach, Panebianco,
Bizzari, and Caterini were appointed a secret commission to
make preparations for the proposed Council. It was in the
deepening grey of an evening in Lent that the red coaches
drove down the Via della Scrofa carrying those Cardinals to
their first meeting, in the palace of the Vicariate. Rome did
not know that this represented the first move in the preparation
of one of those world-representing displays which had some
part in bringing on her ancient decay, and a greater one in
gilding it over; displays which, while changing in the accidents
of form, have retained the essential character of a sense-sub-
duing pageant, and retained also the purpose of binding the
city to an autocrat. The significance of the display now con-
templated was to consist in showing both Quirites and Italians
that the world bowed down to the tiara, and so to bind Rome to
the Pope for ever.
The Cardinal Vicar, Patrizi, a man of sixty-seven, was not,
like his colleagues, to use the familiar Roman term, a 'crea-
ture' of Pius IX. He owed his hat to Gregory XVI., and had
already worn the purple for more than thirty years, sustaining a
reputation for steady work and large generosity. As a specimen
of the forms of the Court, we translate the circular of invitation
to the meeting, which forms the first document in the collection
of Cecconi (p. 322):-
'MOST REVEREND EMINENCE,-I have the honour to inform
your Most Reverend Eminence that the first meeting of the
Special Congregation, of which I have already orally apprised
your Eminence, delivering at the same time a printed document
relating to it, will be held on next Thursday the 9th inst., at
First Meetings of Secret Commission.
85
the hour of half-past six, post meridiem, in the house of his Most
Reverend Eminence Cardinal Patrizi, Vicar of his Holiness.
'Bowing and kissing the sacred purple, I have the honour
to declare myself, with the most profound obedience and respect,
your Most Reverend Eminence's most humble, most devoted,
most obedient servant,
'PETER, Archbishop of Sardis, Pro-Secretary.'
Formal as is this circular, it avoids specifying either the
title of the Special Congregation, or the object of the meeting.
Monsignor Peter Giannelli, though signing himself Archbishop
of Sardis, probably had no greater personal connection with the
Lydian capital than had Croesus, in his day, with Canterbury.
He did not, however, kiss the sacred purple in vain, for in the
spring of 1875 he was invested with it, at the same time as
Cardinal Manning.
At this first meeting of the Commission, Giannelli read a
memorandum intimating his belief that France, Italy, and
Portugal would prohibit their bishops from attending a Council,
-more particularly Italy; but as Germany, England, America,
Spain, and others, would not do so, a considerable number
would be able to assemble. This indicates a consciousness that
political distrust of Rome was felt most strongly in Roman
Catholic countries.
In this memorandum the Archbishop twice raises a point
which afterwards excited heart-burnings. All are aware,' he
says, that the number of Italian bishops, in proportion to
those of any other nation, is very large, and they, in consequence
of their greater proximity to the chair of Peter, have always
proved faithful to its traditions, so that their presence in councils
has at all times been considered as the strongest support of the
Apostolic See. But it would be unjust to blame the Holy See for
counting on such support, as if it resorted to a worldly policy.'
After hearing this memorandum the Cardinals proceeded to
¹ Cardinals in signing a letter to the Pope to whom they owe their elevation,
add to other terms of obedience and creature.'-Frond, vol. ii., p. 13.
86 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
consider the following questions, and gave to each the answer
indicated :—
1. Is the summoning of an Ecumenical Council under the
circumstances necessary, and opportune?
Affirmed.
2. Should Catholic princes be previously consulted?
Negatived. Nevertheless, when the Bull of Convocation has
been issued, it would be well and. becoming for the Holy See to
adopt suitable procedures with the princes.
3. Should the Sacred College be consulted before the issuing
of the Bull of Convocation, and if so, how?
Affirmed; but in the manner to be determined by the Most
Holy, or, in common speech, in such manner as the Pope may
please.¹
4. Should a Special Congregation be appointed to direct
affairs relating to the Council?
Affirmed.
5. Should the Directing Congregation, after the publication of
the Bull, consult some bishops in different countries as to the
subjects proper to be treated, both in doctrine and discipline,
regard being had to the variety of countries?
Affirmed.
The reason which led the Cardinals to negative the idea of
consulting the Catholic princes is supposed by Cecconi to have
been a fear lest obstacles to the holding of a Council might be
raised, and also lest the proceeding might be interpreted as a
recognition of the supremacy of the State (p. 29).
On the 13th of March these resolutions of the Commission.
were reported to the Pope, by whom they were approved with
one slight modification. Instead of a consultation of certain
select bishops after the convocation of the Council, he appointed
that it should take place before.
ap-
The first step in carrying out these resolutions was the
pointment of a Directing Congregation, which was composed of
1 'Juxta modum a Sanctissimo statuendum.'— Cecconi, p. 29.
Plan for the Preparations.
87
the Cardinals of the Commission, with a few others, the number
eventually being nine. That body was in existence two years and
a half before the hierarchy generally received an intimation, in
a Secret Consistory, of the intention to hold a Council.
At the meeting of the Directing Congregation on March 19th,
the sketch of a plan for the labours of the Council was pre-
sented by one of its members, not named. He proposed that the
work should be divided into four branches, and that each should
be assigned to a different committee.
•
1. DOCTRINE, to be committed to the Inquisition, presided over
by a Cardinal of the Inquisition; the committee to be enlarged
by the addition of some members not attached to the Holy
Office. This committee could be sub-divided into sections.
2. ECCLESIASTICO-POLITICAL AFFAIRS, to be committed to
the Congregation for ecclesiastical affairs, enlarged by con-
sulters and others.
3. MISSIONS and ORIENTAL CHURCHES, to be committed to
the Propaganda and the Congregation of Oriental Rites.
4. DISCIPLINE, to be committed to the congregation for
hishops and regulars, with the addition of consulters, canonists,
and theologians.
Each committee was to be presided over by a Cardinal, and
all were to report to the Directing Congregation, with which
should rest the ultimate authority.
6
The language in which the probable value of communications
from outside the governing body is indicated sounds like what
statesmen might apply to professors: Their ideas, for the most
part scientific or abstract, can be reduced to a concrete form by
discussion, with the aid of those present in the Commission.'2
The plan thus sketched was approved; and the meeting
recorded its resolution, that, in dogmatic divinity, such errors
must be kept in view as had arisen since the Council of Trent.
If the point had needed proof, this statement gives it, that
dogmatic definitions were intended from the first.
Cecconi, p. 322.
2 Ibid., pp. 31 and 322.
88
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
"
CHAPTER VIII.
Memoranda of Thirty-six chosen Bishops, consulted under Bond of Strictest
Secrecy, April to August, 1865-Doctrine of Church and State-Antagonism
of History and the Embryo Dogma-Nuncios admitted to the Secret-And
Oriental Bishops.
ON
N the 10th of April his Holiness sanctioned a letter to thirty-
six select bishops of different countries, intimating under the
most binding secrecy his intention of holding a Council in the
Holy City, at some time yet undetermined, and requesting them.
to communicate their views as to the subjects proper to be
treated.¹
In August, nearly all the answers had arrived. Out of the
thirty-six, only three bishops cast doubts on the wisdom of the
project; all the others were rejoiced.
The letters of the thirty-six, according to Cecconi, expressed
views on the present condition of society coinciding with those.
of the purpled in Rome. The thirty-six generally remarked on
the absence of any special heresies. So far as reported, their
suggestions touching religion were only for a reassertion of such
rudimentary truths as a mother might think about when dis-
turbed by the wayward notions of her boys. When we come
to particulars, the subjects which our author finds specified are:
the right of the Church to hold land; her independence of the
State; her right to control education; her right to judge what
promotes and what hinders religion. Among other matters
noted, the chief are: the obligation of the faithful to adhere to
the decisions of the Church, and in particular to those of the
Holy See, and the necessity of the temporal sovereignty of
the Pope, with 'similar points.'
Any one of these claims, almost any word in them, raises
questions of some gravity. For instance, what does the simple
word 'independence' mean? We already know that it cannot
mean separation from the State, nor dispensing with pecuniary ·
¹ Cecconi, p. 324.
What is Independence?
89
support from the State, nor indifference to protection from the
forces of the State, or to patronage from the State in offices and
dignities. It does not even mean being without the right to
call upon the State to execute the decrees of the Church, both in
enforcing what she deems helpful, and in restraining what she
deems hurtful to her interests.
Seeing, then, that independence does not mean any one of
these things, what can it mean? It is for us to watch and
gather up the meaning as we go along. At present we may say
that perhaps the Church is to be independent of the State in
some such sense as a general is independent of his commissaries.
He could not well get on without them, but their place is neither
in council nor in fight; he is to use them, but not to consult
them, except to learn what service he can get out of them,
and what he cannot. In one particular the analogy fails: the
general does not look to the commissaries for either rank or
pay. Or, to take a familiar transaction in the history of Church
and State, the Church independently defined what was heresy,
independently taught that the suffering of death was its proper
penalty, independently spied out the suspected, independently
tried the accused, and independently handed over the condemned
to the temporal arm for execution. The necessity for calling upon
the temporal arm to do this office could not properly be called
dependence, any more than a similar necessity on the part of
our judges for the office of the sheriff may properly be so
called.
After Cecconi has apparently concluded his summary of the
suggestions of the thirty-six, a sentence is slipped in, saying,
that among the verities which ought to be propounded by the
Council, some mentioned Papal infallibility—'a doctrine ad-
mitted in all Catholic schools, with a few exceptions.' Here-
upon departing from his general rule, and adopting marks of
quotation, he gives the words of one particular bishop, without
naming him. These bear directly on the point most agitated
before and during the Council. Such English readers as know
90
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
much of the controversy, will probably risk a guess as to the
author, and it may be that persons in Munich will hardly stop
at guessing, but will say they know. It plainly was no
Bavarian, not even a German, neither of whom would fall into
such an expression as 'Munich in Bavaria.' 'At present there
are but few who impugn this prerogative of the Roman Pontiff';
and they do so, not from a theological point of view, but the
better to assert and maintain the freedom of science. It would
seem that a school of theologians has sprung up with this
object, at Munich, in Bavaria, in whose writings the principal
aim is to lower the Holy See, its authority and its mode of
government, by the aid of historical dissertations, and to bring
it into contempt, and above all to combat the infallibility of
Peter teaching ex cathedra.'
This language intimates that the science for which especially
freedom was claimed at Munich was history, which wants no
other freedom than that of learning the truth and telling it, that
of detecting lies and forgeries and exposing them. Even the
Court historian feels the significance of this announcement of
the mutual antipathy existing between history and the embryo
dogma. Why infallibility should be looked upon as more
closely related to freedom of enquiry than even to theology
itself, is due to subtle affinities of thought, which it requires
some familiarity with the subject to be able to appreciate.
It is important to remember that all the claims hitherto
mentioned are set down by the thirty-six under the head of
doctrine, not under that of the relations between Church and
State. They are, therefore, not merely advantages to be
accepted or waived according to circumstances, but inalienable
rights divinely inherent in the supernatural order.
Among the 'isms' designated for anathema by the chosen
thirty-six, those which have any bearing on divinity proper
One 'ism' to be
could be named by most ordinary readers.
condemned is regalism, or the doctrine that the king is
supreme in his own country; another is liberty of conscience.
Objects proposed for the Council.
91
and of the press; and of course the bishops no more forget mag-
netism, somnambulism, and freemasonry, than their purpled
superiors of the Curia.
We ought not to omit the fact that the thirty-six mentioned
the Syllabus and Encyclical as tracing the lines along which the
Council would do well to proceed.
Two points brought out under the head of discipline, are, the
mobilisation of the clergy, and the educational rights of the
Church; strong condemnation being levelled against mixed
schools.
The same points which had been already touched, under the
head of doctrine, reappear under that of the relations between
Church and State, but this time rather in a political than a
dogmatic aspect. In the former case we were in the region of
eternal truths: here we come down to that of allowable or
desirable measures. For instance, as to freedom of worship and
of the press, the question is how far a de facto liberty may be
tolerated, it being assumed that liberty de jure cannot exist.
Of course we again go over solicitudes for the independence and
autonomy of the Church, for the control of education, for the
right of jurisdiction, and that of immunity; and especially for
the subordination of the social order to positive revealed religion,
which means of the heads and laws of the State to the heads
and laws of the Church. The Council will be called to rebuke
Cæsarism, and the pagan deification of the State, and to offer
to political powers as at present existing, the conditions on
which they may satisfy the requirements of God, of Christ, and
of His Church, and so merit a blessing from on high, and per-
haps find true stability here below.
This last sentence indicates the substance of a vast deal of
writing as to one practical purpose of the Council, that of
bringing the movement for the reconstituting of society to a
crisis, and compelling governments either to fight or surrender,
no longer leaving them any chance of parleying or running
away.
92
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
'Having laid down true principles respecting ecclesiastical property,
immunity, and the Christian character of the civil power, the Council can
easily enact that the temporal power of the Roman Pontiff cannot be
lawfully disturbed, as if it was an impediment in the way of the good of the
country, seeing that, on the contrary, it is the only example now exist-
ing of the political order being, in a regular form, subject to Christian
law, and can be easily adapted to all the concessions and improvements
demanded by the present state of things. This would raise the point of
once more asserting the necessity of the temporal power, and of solemnly
ordaining penalties against the spoliators."
1
In this passage we may catch the Vatican meaning of such
a phrase as 'the Christian character of the civil power,'
which we soon find explained, where the States of the Church
are spoken of, as the only existing example of the regular
subjection of the political order to Christian law. The seven
hundred thousand persons then dwelling within those States
were the only creatures under heaven enjoying the benefit of a
government in which the relations between the natural order
and the supernatural order were not irregular.
After the secret preparations in Rome had been continued
for nearly twelve months, the circle of confidential advisers was
further extended. On November 17th, 1865, the Cardinal Presi-
dent of the Directing Congregation communicated the intention
of his Holiness to the nuncios in Paris, Vienna, Munich, Madrid,
and Brussels; and requested them to name canonists and
theologians of sound principles, exemplary life, and distinguished
learning who might be called up to Rome to serve on the pre-
paratory committees.
The next extension of the circle was to the Oriental bishops,
who were consulted by Cardinal Barnabo, the Prefect of the
Propaganda. They hailed the prospect of a Council, hoping that
it might at length remove barriers which held the East in sepa-
ration from Rome. Of these barriers they name both ancient
and modern instances. Among the former the worst appears
to be 'national spirit,' and among the latter we find Protes-
1 Cecconi, p. 42.
Danger of a National Spirit.
6
93
tantism and the everlasting Freemasons. Nationalism' is a
trial to the Papal Church in the west as well as in the east.
Cardinal Manning, in the Pastoral issued just before the
Council met, said :-
'The definition of the infallibility of the Pontiff, speaking ex cathedra,
is needed to exclude from the minds of Catholics the exaggerated spirit
of national independence and pride, which has, in these last centuries,
so profoundly afflicted the Church. If there be anything which a Catholic
Englishman ought to know, it is the subtle, stealthy influence by which
the national spirit invades and assimilates the Church to itself; and the
bitter fruits of heresy and schism which that assimilation legitimately
bears.' 1
The clearest instance of the national spirit invading and
assimilating the Church to itself occurred in decaying Rome.
The military and absolutist spirit of the empire supplanted in
the ministry and organisation of the Church the original spirit
of humility and brotherhood. The spirit of the national pomps
supplanted the primitive superiority to sensation and display.
The spirit of the governing classes set up side by side with the
simple code of Christ a new code, meant avowedly to restore the
old Roman domination of law, under the form of a spiritual
empire. The spirit of that domination claimed to impose upon.
other churches the will of the Church of the capital, and did
not scruple to call her the mother-church, and to support her
claims with lie and forgery oft repeated. But after the Pope,
conspiring with the minister of the Frankish king, and rising
with him against their two sovereigns, had erected himself into
a petty prince, the national spirit of the empire began to narrow
down to the municipal one of aboriginal Rome. Ever since
that time the municipal spirit has increasingly become the spirit
of the Papacy. Whatever that power has effected, it has never
been able to make itself a nation. Aiming at a universal empire
the spirit of its rule has become more and more close, local,
bureaucratic as that of any wee Italian republic of the middle.
ages. Men must not only act and move, but must also think
1 The Ecumenical Council, p. 52
94
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
and speak, according to rules excogitated by certain guilds
within the Aurelian walls.
There is a curious but striking contrast between this pro-
fessedly supernatural institution and one which scarcely claimed
a regular place among natural institutions. Coming up amid
the decline and corruption of an empire older, richer, and more
populous than had been the empire of Rome, the East India Com-
pany, in a couple of generations, made a nation out of some
hundreds of States among which had raged yearly conflicts.
That nation still contains many thrones, but within its circle,
and in spite of their jealousies, no less than two hundred and
forty millions of men, a family immensely greater than Rome
ever cursed with war or blessed with law, now live in peace and
freedom such as were unknown to the ages which had aforetime
passed over their country. On the plains around the presidential
cities of India, where a century ago Mahratta, Moslem, and
Rajpoot were wont to ravage, now reigns peace at seed-time and
peace at harvest. Security sits and sings on every tree, and
Industry, building her nest in every bush, sends out broods
that, free from fear, busily cover the land. What a contrast
with the endless whirl of war which in what are called the
Ages of Faith-ages when the spells of the chief priest in
Rome had power over semi-barbarous chiefs-ever eddied on
the plain around Rome, a glorious plain, growing waste and
more and more waste, while kings came, now to be crowned,
now to put a Pope in prison, and while Italians and foreigners
rose and sank by turn in the alternating surges,-foreigners,
however, most frequently coming into the fight at the call of a
self-asserting but mongrel and parasitical government, which
claimed to be the heaven-sent superior, not only of commercial
corporations like the East India Company, but also of the very
kings and emperors whom it played off against one another,
and on whom it had always to rely. A national spirit indeed!
Such a national spirit as we see in reformed countries, and as was
once in an inferior degree seen in the Gallican nation, is large,
Effects of Sadowa.
95
tolerant, and magnanimous compared with the tight, pretentious
municipal spirit unconsciously depicted by Liverani when he
enumerates the small men from small towns, puffed up with the
name of cities, who, in the Curia, swell themselves out with
notions of world-commanding importance,-notions rendered
possible only by their own helpless narrowness.
CHAPTER IX.
Interruption of Preparations for Fourteen Months, through the consequences
of Sadowa - The French evacute Rome - Alleged Double Dealing of
Napoleon III.-Civiltà on St. Bartholomew's-Change of Plan-Instead
of a Council a Great Display-Serious Complaints of Liberal Catholics.
IT
T was on May 24th, 1866, that the Directing Congregation held
its third meeting, Monsignor Nina acting as secretary in
the absence of Giannelli, who was indisposed. But, soon after-
wards, dark clouds enveloped the Vatican, and ere the congre-
gation could again meet fourteen months had passed away.
On July 3rd, 1866, a shell burst at Sadowa which struck in
three different directions, and in each case the blow was heavy.
Austria fell from the primacy of Germany, and from her place
among Italian States. Italy, acquiring Venice, entered into full
possession of herself, Rome alone excepted. The disjointed
members of Germany moved to union under Prussia, like bone
coming to its bone.
These were deplorable reversals of Papal policy, unfriendly
both to the temporal dominion at home and to the spiritual
dominion abroad. By the instrumentality of France and
Austria it had been possible, for ages, to keep Italy and
Germany parcelled into small States, easily played off against
one another, inimical to great national organisations or high
national sentiment, and glad of an alliance with a small State
possessing an organisation by which it could interfere almost
96
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
everywhere, and in almost everything. The long-continued
success of the policy directed to this end seemed to stamp it
as almost miraculous. Had Germany united under the Haps-
burgs, ready to keep Italy disunited, it would have mattered
less to Rome. But her uniting under the Hohenzollerns, and
aiding Italy to become one, was doubly dangerous. Recon-
struction as going on in Italy and Germany must be met by
reconstruction on a universal scale.¹
On November 4th, 1866, the people of Venetia carried their
suffrages to the feet of King Victor Emmanuel, while Austria
and France sullenly acquiesced. The king said, 'Italy is made
if not completed,'-a hint which the Vatican both understood
and resented. Five weeks later, at four o'clock on the morning
of December 11th, Mr. Gladstone, whose name had already left
a beneficent mark on the history of Italy, was watching by the
gaslight from a window in Rome as the French troops wound
round the corner of a street, and he felt that the seed of great
events lay in that evacuation !2 That day the flag of red, white,
and blue which for seventeen years had cast a light on the
999
1 In the Times for Dec. 8th, 1875, its correspondent in Rome, giving extracts
from Monsignor Nardi's review of an article by Mr. Gladstone in the Church
Review on the Church in Italy, quotes the following: ""Mr. Gladstone fulminates
at length against the temporal power. He is not afraid of Austria or Russia,
nor even of Germany, but he is afraid of France. He says the audacious pre-
tension of restoring the temporal power is not the only one with which the
Vatican threatens the civil liberties of Christendom. The re-establishment
of the temporal power would unquestionably compromise the very exist-
ence of the German Empire.' We have quoted these words because we can
believe them true. According to Mr. Gladstone, to restore the Pope would be
to destroy the Germanic Empire. We dearly loved the ancient Germanic
Empire, born of the Catholic Church, and heir of its spirit and majesty. It
was a grand and noble association of princes and of cities, paternally ruled by
a head, who received his crown from the hands of the Pontiff. Marvellous was
the prosperity it enjoyed, and that prosperity would have become greater, even
perennial, but for the unrestrained cupidity of Prussia. The old monarchy was
Christian, but this is pagan. Would, indeed, that it was at least pagan 1 but
what is more cruel, to the blind ignorance of the Gentiles it substitutes the
cunning perfidy of the heretics. Mr. Gladstone is not wrong here. If this
terrible monarchy were to spread and dominate all Europe, not only would the
temporal power rise no more, but the spiritual would be threatened with death.'
Quarterly Review, No. 275, p. 293.
,
The French Evacuate Rome.
97
Vatican and a shadow on the Tiber, was lowered at St. Angelo.
The Pope felt that it would soon be succeeded by the red, white,
and green. So that, as if by a historical parody on the old furor
of the circus, the rage of parties in Rome was once more lashed
up by the blue and the green respectively.
'Do not deceive yourselves,' said the Pope to General
Montebello, when he presented himself to take leave, 'the revo-
lution will come hither: it has proclaimed it: you have heard it,
you have understood it and seen it.'
The Civiltà Cattolica, alluding to the 'soporifics' administered
at this irritating moment by French journalists and diploma-
tists, asked whether France would hold the same language to
Italy, now menacing the Pope, as she had held to Austria and
Spain when preparing to assist him, namely, that ' any depar-
ture from the principle of non-intervention would involve a war
with France.' She had not so spoken to Italy, and would not
do so, for had not Billault said, 'It is not possible to turn
French bayonets against Italy.' This being the case, France
might hold her peace and not tease the respectable public with
soporifics.¹
When Napoleon III., in the discourse from the throne,
alluding to the fear of Rome being taken from the Pope, said
that Europe would not permit an event which would throw
confusion into the Catholic world, the Civiltá bitterly exposed
his double dealing. Some would take this language as a pledge
to uphold the temporal power, but others would see that it was
only a shuffling of the responsibility off the shoulders of France
on to those of Europe. Had he said France will not stand it?
No, but that Europe will not allow it.
It would be about this time that Viscount Poli and Arthur
Guillemin, a lieutenant of zouaves and a zealous crusader,
sitting over a cup of coffee saw five gentlemen enter the coffee-
house who were not Romans, but superintendents of a railway
then being constructed. One of them laid on the table a nose-
Civiltà, Serie VI., vol. ix., p. 126.
VOL. I.
7
+
·
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
98
gay, so arranged that the colours formed 'the cockade of a
king hostile to the Pontiff,'-doubtless red and white camellias,
forming, with their green leaves, the colours of Italy. Guillemin,
who was in uniform, heard remarks which showed that the
gentlemen knew what the flowers signified. He rose, seized
the nosegay, dashed it to the ground, and trampled it to pieces.
Then, as the others grumbled, he drew out his revolver, laid it
by his side, and went on sipping his coffee, and chatting with
the Viscount.1
<
The Civiltá was at this time publishing a series of articles on
the massacre of St. Bartholomew's, sometimes calling it 'the
slaughter' and sometimes the executions of Paris;' and cal-
culating that there might have been some two thousand Protes-
tants put to death in the capital, and, say, eight thousand in all
France!
Among his other crimes, Bismarck stayed the preparations
for the Council by the campaign of Sadowa. The most reverend
Court historian evidently has no sense of any need for giving the
world other reasons for the total interruption of those prepara-
tions than the political troubles. Yet one who learned Chris-
tianity at the feet of Christ would not readily see why the
studies of holy men in the mysteries of divine revelation should
depend upon a battle in Bohemia, or on the flitting of a French
garrison. Surely, divines might go on searching into natural-
ism, rationalism, pantheism, somnambulism, and freemasonry,
whether Germany was uniting or splitting up again. Never-
theless, studies in regalism and Cæsarism, in the regular subor-
dination of the natural order to the supernatural, and in the best
measures for replacing the political system of Europe on the
divine basis, or, as we should say, for subordinating civil and
restoring ecclesiastical jurisdiction, were liable to be influenced
by the flights of the eagles. And the augurs who were tracing
the lines for the foundations of the reconstruction, found in the
1 Civiltà, Serie VII., iv., 418.
Uneasy Feeling of Liberal Catholics.
99
movements of the eagles of Prussia and France omens that
counselled delay.
According to the original design, the Council was to be
opened on the day observed as the eighteenth centennial anni-
versary of St. Peter's martyrdom. But, owing to these sad
interruptions, when 1867 approached the secret preparations
were not sufficiently advanced. Such, at least, is the only
reason given by Cecconi why the Council was postponed.
The Pope, however, was resolved to cover St. Peter's day
with glory. So his own thrice sacred anniversary, that of 'the
Immaculate,' and of the Syllabus, was once more signalised by
the issue of letters to the bishops of the whole world, citing
them to Rome for the 29th of the ensuing June. They were
not only to celebrate the centenary of Peter's martyrdom, but
to take part in the canonisation of some twenty additional saints,
and also to attend certain consistories. The second name upon
the list of the 'new patrons in the presence of God' about to
be created was that of PETER DE ARBUES, 'Spanish inquisitor
and martyr,'¹ of whose canonisation we shall hear again. This
invitation was dated three days before the French evacuated
Rome. As trusty bayonets were failing, additional celestial
powers were to be called into the firmament.
All this time the Liberal Catholics were becoming increasingly
uneasy at the prospect of the dangers on which the Church was
drifting. They had hoped to see her first embrace and then
dominate modern culture and liberties. This was a dream of
O'Connell, of Lammenais, and of Gioberti. At this aimed the
erudite and steadfast German Catholics. But every new utter-
ance of the Court, whether in official document or inspired organ,
showed that it was determined upon dragging the Church in
an opposite direction. According to the policy to which it had
fully committed itself, the Church was to conquer, not by adopt-
ing the modern age, but by restoring the middle ages. The
dominion of the Pontiff over the whole earth as spiritual despot
¹ Cecconi, p. 133.
Uor M
100 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
$
and temporal suzerain was the ideal to which everything must
give way. Montalembert, who had been flattered by the opening
career of Pius IX., as sailors say they are flattered by what
they call foxy weather, expresses himself as follows: 'I began
as early as 1852 to wrestle against the detestable political and
religious aberrations summed up in contemporary Ultramon-
tanism.' He showed that when in 1847 he defended the Jesuits
of the Sonderbund against Thiers, as he did with equal eloquence
and want of foresight, he did not utter one word of the modern
doctrines, and that for a good reason, because, he says, 'No one
had thought of setting them up when I entered on public life.'
Indeed, he affirms that, in 1847, Gallicanism was dead, but
that it had been revived through the encouragement given to
extreme pretensions during the pontificate of Pius IX. He
then quotes an important letter addressed to himself, in 1863,
by Sibour, at that time Archbishop of Paris :-
'The new Ultramontane school is conducting us to a twofold idolatry
-idolatry of the temporal power and idolatry of the spiritual power.
When you, like myself, made a splendid profession of Ultramontanism,
you did not understand things in this fashion. We defended the independ-
ence of the spiritual power against the usurpations and pretensions of the
temporal power; but we respected the constitution of the State and the
constitution of the Church. We did not sweep away every intermediate
power, or every gradation of order, nor yet every legitimate resistance, nor
all individuality and spontaneity. The Pope and the Emperor were not
then the former the whole Church, the latter the whole State.'
Montalembert goes on to say that the old Ultramontanes had
recognised the right of the Pope, in a great crisis, to rise above
all rules; but they did not confound the exception with the
rule. These cares and apprehensions were for the time con-
cealed, and were only brought to light by the anguish of that
moment when the final leap downward was about to place
a gulf that could never be recrossed between Rome and all
things free and equal. But when the expression did come, it
bore with it the record of previous irritations.
ie Uksamenjane bishops,' said Montalembert, 'have pushed every-
Reprimand of the Archbishop of Paris.
ΙΟΙ
thing to the extreme, and have argued to the utmost against all liber-
ties, those of the State as well as those of the Church.
'If such a system was not of a nature to compromise the gravest
interests of religion, in the present, but much more in the future, we
might content ourselves with despising it; but when one has the pre-
sentiment of the ills which are being prepared for us, it is difficult to be
silent and resigned.'
CHAPTER X.
Reprimand of Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, for disputing the Ordinary and
Immediate Jurisdiction of the Pope in his Diocese-Sent in 1864, Published
in 1869.
WITHIN a twelvemonth of the issue of the Syllabus, letters
of significance were passing between Paris and Rome.
One of those letters throws light on the steps taken to grind
down any bishop who dared to assert, as bishops used to do,
some authority for their own office, independent of the direct
and universal meddling of Rome. That some prelates were still
tempted to this offence we have seen hinted by the Cardinal
consulters, in the original notes upon the question of holding a
Council.
One of the most considerable figures in the hierarchy was
Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, to whose name a historical death
has given tragic immortality. When the preparations for the
issue of the Syllabus must have been far advanced, in 1864,
he had drawn upon himself letters of censure from Rome. To
these he had replied both publicly in the senate, and privately,
in a manner which showed that some remnants of old French
doctrines yet survived the modern influence in primary schools
and episcopal seminaries. And wherever any sense of the
ancient office of a bishop did survive, there was constant irrita-
Letter quoted in the Unità Cattolica, March 10th, 1870. Friedberg,
p. 118-121.
102
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
tion in the condition of dependence to which the system of
quinquennial faculties reduced the men who, bearing the old
name, held the modern post under the bureaux in Rome. Only
a few weeks before the Magna Charta of reconstruction was
promulged, on October 26th, 1864, a letter was addressed to
Darboy which fills no less than ten octavo pages of small type
in the documents of Friedberg. Besides its solid value as
instruction, this epistle has the interest of a sharp lecture.
Furthermore, its very language coloured the most important
of the Vatican decrees.
1
We shall here supply only an outline, which, however, will
give to any attentive reader a key to certain points disputed
between the two schools into which the Church of Rome had
the advantage of being divided, before the Vatican Council.
The quarrel arises on the old subject of the 'exemption' of
the regulars from episcopal control, and the direct action of the
Curia in a diocese, over the head of a bishop and under his feet.
Readers of Church history will be tempted to think lightly of
the Pope's candour when he speaks of Darboy's complaint as
a new one, but however this suspicion may touch those who
furnished the materials for the letter, it does not attach to the
Pope personally, for he is not usually supposed to read history,
though he often sets it to rights.
If inaccurate in his facts, Pius IX. is orthodox in his policy,
for just as bishops must be independent of the government of
the country, so must the regulars be independent of the bishops,
that power to set wheels in motion may be carried from the
engine-house in Rome into the midst of a nation by two
perfectly independent shafts. When the Church is a national
one, a bishop has some stake in the country, though slight
compared with his stake at the Vatican; and he must, at all
events, keep up relations with the authorities. The former
circumstance brings temptations to a national spirit,'-one of
the standing evils cried down by the Curia. The latter circum-
¹ Aktenstücke, p. 257-267.
་
Reprimand of Darboy.
103
stance may make it convenient that the bishop should not
always know what is really the course of action being prepared.
In both points of view the regulars can be utilised. Darius
took care to have three separate powers in each province, all
directly dependent on the Imperial Court alone.¹ And from his
days highly organised Asiatic governments have had, besides
the apparently omnipotent lieutenants, confidential agents in
every province, depending directly on the metropolitan
authorities.
The Pontiff commences his letter by reminding his venerable
brother that he made professions of devotion to the Holy See on
his elevation to that of Paris. Then he tells him that certain of
his letters replying to animadversions of the Pope, show him to
hold views opposed to the divine primacy of the Roman Pontiff
over the whole Church. Darboy had asserted that the power of
the Pope, in a diocese other than his own, was not ordinary and
immediate, but such as should be interposed only as a last
resource, in cases of manifest necessity. He had represented
the intervention of the Pope, by the exercise of ordinary and
immediate jurisdiction, as turning a diocese into a mission, and
a bishop into a vicar apostolic. Moreover, he had said, in the
French senate, that when such intervention took place at the
private instance of individuals, it rendered the administration of
a diocese all but impossible; and he had added that regulars,
Nuncio, and Curia all aimed at bringing about such interven-
tion as an ordinary thing, and that he would resist it and call
upon the bishops and people to do so. He had even spoken of
submitting letters apostolic to the government, and of having
recourse to the lay power; nay, he had gone so far as to
mention the Organic articles, though he could not be ignorant
of how the Holy See had always protested against them.
The Pope could scarcely believe that his venerable brother
had uttered such things, and was moved with wonder and
anguish at finding him avowing the condemned opinions of
Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, vol. iv.
:
104 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
:
Febronius, which a bishop ought to abhor. In denying the
‘immediate and ordinary' jurisdiction of the Pope, he had
denied the decree of the fourth Lateran Council. The words
'feed my lambs, feed my sheep' mean that believers all and
singular are to be subject to Peter and his successors, as to
the Lord Christ Himself, whose vicar upon earth the Roman
Pontiff truly is. Every Catholic would reply to the charge as
to a diocese being turned into a mission, and a bishop into a
vicar apostolic, by saying that it was as false as it would be to
say that prefects, judges, or provincial magistrates were not.
ordinary magistrates, because a direct, immediate, and ordinary
power was held by the king or emperor.
St. Thomas Aquinas, continues the letter, had said 'the Pope
has a plenitude of pontifical power, as a king in his kingdom,
but bishops are received into a share of the solicitude, like
judges set over particular cities.' As a Catholic bishop, Darboy
ought to know that all had a right to appeal to Rome, none to
appeal from her. Such a complaint as that the interference of
Rome rendered the administration of a diocese almost impossible
had never been made either in past ages or in the present one.
Bishops of a religious mind derived from such intervention
consolation and strength before God, the Church, and her
enemies. Before God, because it, in part, exempted them from
responsibility, in giving account of their stewardship. When
Darboy spoke of appealing to bishops and people, he ought to
have known that the same had been done by Febronius, and
that it was an offence against the divine Author of the consti-
tution of the Church.
The Archbishop had not been informed against, proceeded the
Pope, by the regulars, but, from other quarters the fact came
before his Holiness that the Archbishop had exercised the right
of visitation over them, on which he had been admonished, and
of this admonition he had been pleased to speak, in the senate,
as of a sentence delivered without the cause having been heard.
It was hardly to be believed! The Archbishop knew the
1
105
Reprimand of Darboy.
Decretals, and knew how, in all ages, the Popes had written in
the same manner to bishops when they became aware of some-
thing in their sees which was not quite right. Without this
procedure, the government of the whole Church would be
rendered too difficult for the Vicar of Christ, and any other
course would hardly comport with episcopal meekness.
As it was a question of the visitation of regulars, it must be
remembered that the right of exemption had long been enjoyed
by the Jesuits and Franciscans in Paris, and that the Apostolic
See had exercised its own special or 'privative' jurisdiction.
The present case, therefore, was one of violation of possession,
i.e., of the possession of the right of exemption enjoyed by the
regulars, and of the right of privative jurisdiction enjoyed by
the Apostolic See. True, Darboy thought that a presumption.
of right administration ought to be admitted in favour of one in
charge, until the contrary was proved. But that was opposed to
the principle of St. Bernard, who held that it was the glory of
the Papacy to rescue the weak out of the hands of the strong.
Darboy had alleged that, by the law of the Council of Trent,
regulars could not have canonical existence in any diocese.
without consent of the bishop, which consent had never been
received by the monks in question. But, having been long on
the ground, they had acquired a prescriptive right, by virtual,
if not by express consent of successive bishops. And as to the
fact that the civil law forbade them to possess land, of what use
were such laws in ecclesiastical adminstration? In these most
turbulent and miserable times of noxious, odious rebellion, civil
law might even deny to bishops their civil standing.
The Pontiff cannot dissemble his extreme surprise and annoy-
ance that his venerable brother had attended the funeral of
Marshal Magnan, the Grand Orient of the Freemasons, and had
given the solemn absolution while the insignia of freemasonry
were on the bier, and brethren of the condemned sect wearing
its orders were present. The sect aimed at corrupting all minds
and manners; at destroying every idea of honesty, virtue, truth,
106 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
?
and justice; at diffusing monstrous opinions and abominable
vices, fostering detestable crimes, and undermining all legitimate
authority; yea, at overturning the Catholic Church and civil
society, and at expelling God from heaven.
His Holiness cannot pass over the fact that it has come to his
ears that an opinion has been expressed to the effect that acts
of the Holy See do not compel obedience unless the civil govern-
ment has given authority to carry them out. This opinion
is pernicious, erroneous, and injurious to the authority of the
Holy See and to the interests of the faithful. The supreme
authority of the Apostolic See can never be subordinated to the
rule or will of the civil power in any matter which in any
respect touches upon ecclesiastical affairs and the spiritual
government of souls; and all who glory in the Catholic name
are bound to obey the Church, and to show her due reverence
and devotion. Furthermore, the Pope's venerable brother had
incorrectly asserted in his speech that Benedict XIV. in his
Concordat with the King of Sardinia had agreed that the
royal sanction should be required before pontifical acts were
carried into execution; and that according to the instructions
annexed to the Concordat, they were to be submitted to the
senate, except when they dealt with matters of dogma or
morals; which false assertion the venerable brother would not
have made had he weighed the words of the instructions. The
letter concludes with protestations of the Pope's affection for
his venerable brother and his flock.
This epistle, after being long held in reserve, was launched
into publicity, at a time when Darboy's influence was threatening
to be inconvenient in the Council, and when the French govern-
ment had requested a cardinal's hat for him."
It is, perhaps, not superfluous to remark that the terms 'pleni-
tude of power,' as denoting the prerogative of the Pope, and
' received to a share of the solicitude,' as denoting the origin and
nature of the bishop's authority, are not merely happy phrases,
¹ Ce Qui Se Passe au Concile, p. 16.
Reprimand of Darboy.
107
but scientific terms fitted to express the Papal theory of the
Church constitution as opposed to the Episcopal theory. The
Episcopal theory, holding that the office of all bishops is of divine
institution, regards the Pope, not as the source of episcopal au-
thority, but as supreme and ultimate arbiter. According to the
Papal theory the authority of the bishop is an emanation from
that of the Pope, who, as monarch, unlimited by any co-ordinate
authority, retains in his own hands not only extraordinary but
ordinary, not only ultimate but immediate jurisdiction over
every subject within the bounds assigned to a bishop. The
latter is a prefect, not only liable to be discharged or imprisoned,
but liable while retained in office to have any matter taken out
of his hands and settled contrary to his views. This is the
theory which, like a scourge of not small cords, is employed to
flog Darboy, while the incongruous epithet venerable brother,'
dangles at the handle,—a vestige of a past age and an exploded
theory. An emperor does not call his prefect venerable
brother.'
<
A portion of the letter, which will well repay study, is that
indicating the attitude of the Curia to all authority not immedi-
ately within its own hands, even if in the hands of its 'prefects.'
Against any such authority it will receive the reports of its
private agents, and treat those reports as having the status of
a legal appeal. It will act, if need be, without hearing the
accused, and maintain that none shall appeal from it, though
all may appeal to it. This is the case even with the episcopal
authority; what, then, is the case with the civil? It is swept
aside as an unclean thing; 'of what use are such laws in eccle-
siastical affairs?' If Archbishop Darboy, strong in his character,
strong in his see,—the largest in the Roman Catholic world,—
and strong in his influence at the Tuileries, is thus treated when
complained of by the Jesuits, what must be the case with small
prelates who venture to provoke their power?
As to the Freemasons, one is tempted to wish to be in their
secret, for then one would possess a rough test of Papal infalli-
108 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
bility. If they do not aim at overturning all government, and
expelling God from heaven, infallibility does not carry far.
The fact that a Grand Master of the Masons, the Marquis of
Ripon, has renounced them to embrace the infallibility which
so depicts them, does not tell in their favour.
One anachronism of this epistle is the word 'primacy,' which
imbeds as in crystal the original pretensions of the Roman
bishop, presenting them in contrast with those advanced in
the letter. As the claim of primacy had been developed out
of a position in the capital, so out of primacy was developed
authority, out of authority essential superiority, out of essential
superiority sovereignty limited by many checks, and out of that,
finally, sovereignty absolutely unlimited.
The time for the great assembly was now approaching, and,
meanwhile, the Papal organs were enlivened by the prospect of
a war between France and Prussia, on the question of Luxem-
bourg. When this hope was deferred the readers of the Civiltá
were informed that nevertheless every possible preparation for
war was being pushed forward by the French on the largest
scale, and with greatly improved arms.
On the 9th of May, 1867, the deputies Angeloni and Crotti
were called up in the Italian Parliament to take the oatns and
their seats. Angeloni did so; but Crotti, a well-known member
of the Ultramontane aristocracy, after pronouncing the words 'I
swear to be faithful to the king and constitution,' added, ‘saving
always divine and ecclesiastical laws.' This formula was at
once recognised as being that which had been published in
Rome by the Penetenzieria, with the declaration that the repe-
tition of it was the only condition on which Catholics could
accept seats in the Italian chambers. Called upon to take the
oath in the form prescribed by the law of the land, Count Crotti
stood firm by the higher law of the Penetenzieria, and the
Chamber disowning his salvis legibus divinis et ecclesiasticis,
refused to admit him.
Serie VI., vol. x., p. 384.
i
The Eighteenth Centenary of Peter's Death. 109
CHAPTER XI.
Great Gathering in Rome, June 1867-Impressions and Anticipations,-Im-
provements in the City-Louis Veuillot on the Great Future.
THE
HE whole earth had been moved in the hope of not only
exhibiting a pageant outshining former ones, but also of
carrying the dogma of Papal infallibility by an ecclesiastical
coup d'etat, or, as it is called, by acclamation, without the delays
of a discussion.¹ Had this been accomplished the legislative
form of a General Council would have been rendered futile for
the time to come, or at the most, would have been but a grander
method of working the institution of 'consultative despotism,'
to adopt the strict definition of Montalembert. The invitation had
been enthusiastically responded to. The spectacle of the Papacy
menaced with the loss of Rome was touching, and the belief
was cherished that a great demonstration of the interest felt by
the Catholic world on its behalf would contribute to ward off
the peril. Besides these motives, another in full activity was
the ever powerful one, especially powerful with Romanists, the
desire to see a pageant; and this sight was to surpass all the
former displays of Rome.
The city put on its best, the churches were newly embellished,
the streets decked in festive array. Bishops came from all
the ends of the earth, till the thoroughfares were mottled with
the toilets of five hundred. Priests crowded in till, it is said,
twelve thousand breathed the sacred air of the city, every one
of them proud to tread that spot of our unruly earth, where the
priest was king of men.
Besides the clergy, came such multitudes of pilgrims that,
according to Cecconi, the population of the city was almost
doubled. The Romans saw their familiar rite, the worship of
the statue of St. Peter-l'adorazione della statua di San Pietro-
¹ Acton, Zur. Ges., p. 14.
}
ΙΙΟ The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
performed on a prodigious scale. In modern as in ancient
Rome, adoration has its degrees; all worship does not imply
the ascription of supreme, but only of celestial honours. No
Pontiff in the days of the Republic ever pretended that Quirinus
was creator of the world and father of eternity. He was the
protecting divinity of Rome, but with very limited powers in
comparison with Peter, carrying no sceptre equal to the keys.
Such of the visitors as had seen the city in former times, if
not too much pre-occupied with the sanctity of the place to
observe such matters, would find several improvements. Side
pavements had been allowed in the main streets. Gaslight had,
after long and painful efforts, been admitted. The Papal idea of
street-lighting had been ecclesiastical and pictorial. M. Fisquet
treats the subject in his folio on ceremonies (Frond, iii., 251).
Besides all the Madonnas in the churches, there were, he says,
as many more on the fronts of the houses,-of the latter,
1421. Those in shops, galleries, etc., could not be numbered.
Nearly all had silver crowns, earrings, diamond brooches, or at
least filagree ones. One thousand and sixty-seven lamps were
lighted before them every day. True, it had been said that this
was brought about by the Popes to save expense in street
lighting. The street roughs broke lamps if they shone only for
the 'temporal end,' but as soon as the lamp was lifted into the
supernatural order, by being lighted before the Madonna, it
became sacred. M. Fisquet quotes Bernardin Gassiat to show
how enlightened such government was. In former times, that
is, 'in the ages of faith,' the cities of Italy, at night, 'were,'
he says, 'like vast cities of the dead, full of mysteries, and
without any security. If it is to be supposed that the institution
of lamps before the Madonnas was due to the initiative of the
Papal police, it would be a fine argument in proof of their
devotion to the cause of civilisation.'
However, even Rome had been pushed into some approaches
to other sorts of civilisation. Railways had entered the walls.
The personal liberality of the Pope had effected several improve-
Noon-day in Rome.
III
ments, both in public works and charitable institutions. The
French had done a great deal for the cleansing of the streets,
although the filth of some of them, and the indecency of some of
the bye ones, were still beyond belief to any one from England.
The Pope's army, which as late as 1860 was an odd-looking
array, was now a sightly and active force, composed mainly of
foreigners, in large part French. And, finally, it had become
possible to tell the time of day.
Formerly, mid-day had been one of the mysteries of Rome.
It seemed as if the right of private judgment, banished from the
churches, had taken refuge in the steeples, for each particular
clock went off at some mysterious impulse, and struck twelve
at a noon of its own. Naughty Romans said that the impulse
proceeded from the vitals of the priest, whom discipline forbade
to breakfast till the time for saying masses had expired, which
did not take place till noon. When, therefore, each separate
rector had, out of the depths of his consciousness, evolved the
truth that it ought to be twelve o'clock, he told the sexton to
make it so; earlier or later, according as the consciousness was
more or less keen. Thus for good part of an hour, they do say
often longer, the air continued thrilling with the tidings that it
was just noon of day. The same naughty Romans ascribe the
change to General Baraguay d'Hilliers, while in command of
the French garrison. Having vainly endeavoured to get a
standard of time established, he presumed, with French auda-
city, to carry the case by appeal from the sacristy to the sun.
Placing a gun on Fort St. Angelo, with a burning glass upon
it, he stole the tidings from another world, which were not to be
got from the temples at hand.¹
One of the most powerful of the pilgrims was M. Louis
Veuillot, who as editor of the Univers had for very many years
done much to second in literature the work done in schools, of
1 This was first told me by a Roman tradesman, in presence, among others,
of a very good-natured canon, who joined in the general laugh at my innocent
surprise. This year (1875) an ex-officer of the Pope's service added, Ay, but
the priests bribed the artillery men to steal half the charge of powder, and to
II2 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
reviving antipathies and superstitions which were in danger of
dying out in France. His notes of this visit form part of his
two octavos. As soon as he reaches the foot of the Alps, at
Susa, he begins to scold Italy and the Italians, takes every
opportunity of doing so, and goes out of the country scolding
worse than when he came in. He says (vol. i., p. 48),
'Florence, where the intellectual life of revolutionary Italy is
concentrated, has not a man, not an artist, not a pamphleteer,
not a caricaturist, to show to the world. It is a vile workshop of
vile counterfeits, a factory of despicable mouldings.' According
to him, the Italians persecuted the pilgrims. It was the old
cry, 'The Christians to the lions;' but, irate as he is, he lets it
appear that the persecutions could not have been deadly, by
adding, 'There are three kinds of lions in Italy-the custom-
house officers, the bugs, and the innkeepers.'
But if Italy and the Italians were exceedingly evil in the
eyes of M. Veuillot, he found compensation in the perfect
loveliness of Rome and the Romans. At a table in the
open air, and in the shade, by St. Carlo on the Corso, 'What
think you,' he asks, 'did I pay for a cup of café au lait, a
roll, and two figs dropping pearls of honey, such figs as
Augustus loved; and for a large glass of beautiful water,
with the animated spectacle of the street, and the view of a
balcony decorated with brilliant cloths? Twopence halfpenny;
and it was a halfpenny too much, the halfpenny of progress.'¹
The very cabmen are loudly praised, and the cabs carry 'ideas;'
the press, especially the Civiltá, is of course far above the
French level. But the Pope was the grandest spectacle of all.
As he entered the Basilica, preceded by a train of five hundred
turn the gun toward the Campagna, so that the report should scarcely be
heard.' Probably the last statement is a mere rumour, not representing any
actual transaction, but indicating, really enough, the state of mind of the
people as to what their masters were likely to do. I have heard it said that
Sir James Hudson used to declare that when first appointed to Turin he could
walk all round the city while it struck twelve o'clock.
¹ Rome pendant le Concile, vol. i., p. 16.
The Marvellous Future.
113
prelates, it made an impression of power greater than if four
millions of men had defiled past, armed with the most perfect
artillery.¹
Naturally, however, the imagination of M. Veuillot was most
fired with the prospect of that historical future which was
about to open on the human species. Darkness still covers the
chaos after the cataclysm, but the breaking of the light draws
nigh. A change of tone henceforth marks the utterances
of reconstruction. In 1850 and the succeeding years, princes
were to be favoured agents, and concordats a salutary instru-
ment in restoring the polity of the kingdom of God. But,
alas, how ineffectual had these proved! The time had come
for the true bearers of the commission which gives 'all power
in heaven and in earth,' to assert their own prerogative, and
gradually to file away all interloping authorities which existed
only for a temporal end. The news of a projected Council
has reached the ears of M. Veuillot. His first word is, 'Rome
is officially taking the reins of the world into her hand.' Other
expressions scattered up and down his animated pages are as
follows:-
•
•
The day that the Council is convoked the counter-revolution will
commence. Pius IX. will open his mouth, and the great word, Let
there be light, will proceed out of his lips.
It will be a solemn
date in history; it will witness the laying of the immovable stone of Re-
construction. . . . At the voice of the Pontiff the bowels of the earth will
be moved, to give birth to the new civilisation of the cross. . . . Here is
the great reservoir whence the future will pour out and overflow the
human race. These days in Rome are a revelation of the state of the
world, and the starting point of a renovation. . . . The pilgrimage of
Catholic Europe to Rome in 1867 will have consequences of which the
Moniteur [alluding to remarks in that journal] will be informed here-
after, and of which the world will become aware when the Moniteur
would wish them to be unheard of. . . . For centuries Rome has not
seen the Pope in such splendour, nor has he so manifestly appeared in his
character as head of the human race.'
The following expressions further elucidating the same train
VOL. I.
¹ Rome pendant le Concile, vol. i., p. 35.
8
114 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
of thought are found scattered over papers printed after the
Council had been called, but we give them here :-
'The order of things which lasted above ten centuries has ceased to
exist. The middle ages are terminated. The 29th of June, 1868 [the
date of the Bull convoking the Council], is their final end, their last sigh.
Another era is beginning. . . . The Church and the State are already
separated in fact. It is not well. The Church is now a soul without a
body, the State a body without a soul. Some in both Church and State
rejoice at this. Let them haste and make ready. Strange toils are
coming. There must be clearing away and rebuilding, and the workmen
will not agree.
"One flock and one shepherd," these words reveal the
sole political secret of the human race. Europe is on the brink of an abyss
for not having extended the benefit of unity to the world, and not having
conserved it for herself. There are no more Catholic kingdoms, no
more Christian nations.
What place could princes take in the
Council? what part could they play in the government of mind or
manners? They have no longer the right to speak to men of their
eternal salvation. The Church does not expel them, but takes note
that they are outside. . . . The rupture is declared; that rupture gives
her the world to reconstruct, and she sets to work. It is entering on a
desert where for forty years the people had to wander to renew them-
selves. We can foresee relentless pursuits, and catastrophes which will
spare nothing. .
As the State is out of the Church, we have scarcely
any longer a place in the State. What are we Catholics in France? A
conquered people. What is about to come to pass is not a thing
unheard of. Noah beheld it. . . . It is not to create division that con-
cordats are destroyed, but to re-establish unity; it will no longer be a
question of alliances but of conquests.'
These dispersed but not unconnected utterances of one
whose opinions rule so many of the pulpits and schools of
France, and who stands so high in the favour of the Vatican,
are not without importance. His forecast of the future is
remarkable :-
'If we dare to cast our eyes further into the future, beyond the far
extended smoke of battle and of demolition, we behold a gigantic and
unheard of construction, the work of the Church, which by lovelier and
more marvellous creations will reply to the infernal genius of destruction.
We behold the Christian and Catholic organisation of democracy. On
the ruins of faithless empires we behold the multitude of nations arise
more numerous, equal among themselves, free, forming one universal
confederation, in the unity of the faith, under the presidency of the
Roman Pontiff, equally the protected and the protector of every one;
The End of a Free Press foreseen.
115
a holy people, as once there was a holy empire. And this baptised and
sacred democracy will do what the monarchies have not been able or not
wished to do; it will abolish the idols everywhere, it will cause Christ
to reign universally, and there will be one fold and one shepherd.'
>> 1
We presume that a Christian democracy, in the Vatican sense,
means a democratic despotism, with the Pope as suzerain,
whether the chief of the State be a monarch or a president
after the model of Ecuador, or, better still, a prince-bishop.
The Christian organisation would be that now going on in
unions, leagues, and confraternities, guided by the regulars.
The increased number of nations which are to replace empires
would seem to indicate a preference for small States-perhaps
'spiritual States,' whose fall is often lamented. The idols to be
abolished would be, all heresies, schisms, and modern liberties.
The natural order would be absorbed in the supernatural.
M. Veuillot is of course one of those who look on the modern
liberty of the press as a great curse. We might suppose that
this opinion rests upon the violent examples of political folly
and moral corruption exhibited by certain sheets in France
and Italy whenever legal fetters do not impede free writing.
But not so. It is a notorious fact that rabid papers are favour-
ites with the priests, but moderate ones are odious to them.
'You will never find the Opinione,' said an educated Roman,
in the hands of a priest, because it is moderate. You will
often find the Capitale in their hands, because it is destructive.'
We may insert here what came to hand long after thsee pages
were written, as an illustration of the kind of press that is to be
quenched. The Times of January 26th, 1876, in the letter of its
Paris correspondent, gives a morsel from the Univers, in the
style of M. Veuillot. The Times had said something about an
interview of the Marquis of Ripon, as a new convert, with the
Pope. The Univers devotes to that article 'a column and a half
of invectives,' and thus winds up: 'The Times is now the
giant of the press, and prospers in both hemispheres. But the
Vol. i., pp. 65, 66.
116 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
day will come when the two worlds will want no more of its
agony column, or of its bad literature; and its last compositor,
inactive before his immense poison machine, suddenly idle, will
wait in vain for copy which will never come.' Will the com-
positor look out of the top window in Queen Victoria Street to
see if Macaulay's New Zealander has arrived on London Bridge?
CHAPTER XII.
The Political Lesson of the Gathering, namely, All are called upon to recognise
in the Papal States the Model State of the World-Survey of those States.
OPPORTUNENESS of the Centenary of St. Peter for re-
viving the True Idea of the Political Order among States,' is
the heading of an article in the Civiltà Cattolica for 1867. The
first words are, 'He who comes to Rome finds St. Peter become
a king;' a proposition of which we should modify the predicate,
saying, He who comes to Rome finds a king, professing to be
St. Peter. He (i.e., Peter) has joined the tiara of the Pontiff
to the crown of the Prince.' Why did not the writer say the
'tiara of the apostle'? That would be too great an offence
against antiquity. It is the tiara of the Pontiff, as if Peter
had taken over that office from Nero.
6
However, these are but the introductory notes. The writer
proceeds to expound the political effects of baptism. Chris-
tianity has not changed the civil power as to its substance, but
as to its relations, by making a change in the subject of power.
That subject is no longer mere man, but man made Christian by
baptism. As such he is brought under the new law, with which
no act of his must ever come into conflict. This doctrine-
which frequently reappears as the theological basis of recon-
struction—is more fully stated by M. Veuillot: 'They will not
deny that the true human race is baptised humanity. It
is, then, baptism which constitutes humanity, and all that has
Political Effects of Baptism.
117
not been introduced into the Church by baptism is, in reality,
only a sort of raw material, which as yet awaits the breath
of life' (p. cxii.) In order to prevent any conflict between
baptized man and the law of the Church, the civil power
must be subject to the Church. Suarez is quoted to the effect
that as a man would not be rightly constituted unless the
body were subject to the soul, neither would the Church be
rightly established unless the temporal power were subject to the
spiritual. And hence, the political conclusion is firmly drawn:
'The ideal of such a subordination is realised in the pontifical
government. Because, owing to the peculiar character of him
who here holds the temporal power, it cannot rebel against the
spiritual power, civil law can never here set itself against
evangelical law, nor is any political act possible which should
offend against morals.'
The last affirmation will appear boldest to those who best
know what political acts had been done in the Roman States,
and in the present reign. No one of these acts could offend
against Christian morals! for the all-sufficing reason that Peter
had become the king, and Peter does no wrong. Thus we find
infallibility, as received in the Court creed, covering measures
of taxation and police, as well as lotteries and monopolies,—an
abuse of the doctrine made still more obvious by what follows,
in which the infallibility of the government is grounded on its
immaculate conception, and consequently perfect nature. Since
in the Pontifical States 'the laws must be sanctioned by him
who holds the place of God on earth, him whom God has given
to us for guide and teacher, they can never be in conflict with the
divine will. The infallible Depositary of evangelical interests
can never sacrifice them to earthly ones. Though in such a
government the two powers [spiritual and temporal] are distinct
in form, they are in complete harmony and duly co-ordinated one
1
1 'I have no need to declare myself ready to repel and rejert that which the
Pope cannot do. He cannot do an act contrary to the Divine law.”— Cardinal
Manning, Vat. Dec., p. 41.
118 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
with the other, presenting to lay States the perfect example of
the Christian civil power.'
It is granted that lay States can never equal this example, but
they ought to imitate it. By their very conception they can
never be free from the original taint, owing to which it becomes
possible for 'the temporal power to rebel against the spiritual
power.' Not only is it possible, but, by their nature, they are
predisposed to that sin of sins. But all rulers of lay States are
to know that in becoming subjects of the Church the subjects
of civil power have been changed, though the substance of civil
power has not been changed. We do not stay to inquire what
may be the substance of civil power, after its subjects have been
lifted above obedience to it by another human power, higher
than itself in all things wherein the two may come into collision.
Christianity has, thank God, its higher law. That is, it holds
man as the offspring of God, and as redeemed by Christ to a
nobler life, and a holier than can be prescribed by any civil
authority. But in the State it owns no authority but that of the
sovereign as supreme, whether he be called king, imperator, or
president, and that of those who under him administer law.
The higher law of the Papacy, on the contrary, lies in setting up
as supreme judge a human ruler over the civil ruler, and in
holding the changed subjects of the civil power bound, in all
cases of collision, to obey the supreme judge.
In conclusion, the faithful are told that the centenary of St.
Peter, by bringing together people from all parts of the world,
will give to them the opportunity of beholding 'a State in which
peace, morality, and justice reign. It is like an oasis amid the
desolation of the desert; and it is so because the political order
is in full harmony with evangelical law.' It is, therefore, in-
ferred that all those who look upon the immaculate and infallible
State will return home to testify how great is the folly of that
separation of Church and State which many propose; and also
to testify that the only way to conduct the nations back to
civil well-being, is by making their laws over again, in a
(
Challenge to the whole World.
119
Christian sense, and harmonising political order with the
Gospel.'1
The reader will by this time begin to attach a meaning to
such expressions as 'evangelical interests,' 'harmonising poli-
tical order with the gospel,' and the like, rather different from
that which he would give to them in reading theology or any
political writing but that of the Vatican. There the desire to
enlist religious veneration for political arrangements, has led to
a secularising of sacred language, which is now developed into
a highly finished art. If nations are to make their laws over
again, in a Christian sense,' the Court of Rome has made Chris-
tian language over again in a political sense. The approaching
pilgrims, in comparing the oasis into which they were about to
enter, with the deserts from which they had emerged, would
be able to judge by the experience of centuries as to whether,
where Peter reigns, the lifting up of the subject above lay
government into the supernatural order had led to the elevation
of the laity to supernatural goodness, or to the lowering of the
clergy to the level of political officials.
Two writers, as dissimilar as Addison and Edgar Quinet,
had, in some degree, anticipated the comparison here chal-
lenged, each speaking from a point of view suited to his own
day and mode of thinking. The Englishman remarks how
great is the difference between Roman Catholic populations.
where they touch upon reformed countries and where they
are under the unbroken influence of the Papacy. Ignorance,
superstition, and crime gradually deepen till the Alps and the
Pyrenees are passed, when all these become strikingly worse.
Addison might have added to this observation the further one
of a contrast between Roman Catholic populations which
border on Protestant States and those which border on Moham-
medan ones. Contrast Belgium, Bavaria, Leinster, with An-
dalusia, Sicily, Croatia!
The Frenchman says that there was only one model country
Civiltá, Serie VI., vol. x., p. 525 et sqq.
I 20 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
in Europe. This was correct; for France had never cast out
the influence of the Reformation, or made away with all the
Protestants; and had, moreover, been the hot-bed of what
Quinet calls the philosophers. Italy, again, had always been
a stronghold of the so-called philosophers, although all the
Protestants had been consumed. In Spain, however, as he
points out, the Inquisition had really fulfilled its mission; both
Protestants and philosophers having been annihilated, schools
and letters having been reduced to order, and the whole nation
having been made to move for more than two hundred years
on the Papal lines. The consequence was the total ruin of
religion in the country.¹
The comparison to which strangers were challenged by the
Curia had the great advantage of being a comparison of good,
not of evil. If the Papal States are to lay States as the oasis
to the desert, proof actually lies before us of something more
than human superiority-of something amounting to a higher
dispensation. If the Papal States are but moderately superior
to others, proof of any higher dispensation fails; but proof of
human superiority remains. If they are only equal to lay States,
even proof of human superiority fails. If they are inferior,
proof fails both of divine commission and of human superiority,
and proof arises of the presence of greater human fault.
The only true book of Positive Philosophy yet (we do not
say of Positive Science) is the blessed old Book of books. It
brings everything to the test of fruits. It puts the extraordinary
man to the test before ordinary men. Priest, prophet, and king
must produce-not.allege, but produce-credentials. If they have
an ordinary commission they must prove it by ordinary qualities
such as God would employ and bless, if an extraordinary com-
mission by extraordinary qualities, and if a supernatural one
by supernatural powers. Moses put the prophet under the
test of the written Word (Deut. xiii. 2, 3); and Paul put the
apostle and even the angel under the same test, if he claimed
¹ Ultramontanism et la Société Moderne.
Are the Papal States an Oasis?
121
to say anything to us in the name of God. And that test was
to be applied by common men. This is the horror of priestcraft.
This is the strength of Christianity. He who refuses the ordained
appeal to the Word, and to fruits, and to the verdict of every
man's conscience, writes his own description as a false prophet.
The message God sends to men wants, above all things, private
judgment-awake, earnest, and searching, that its credentials
may commend themselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of God.
We shall not, therefore, set out to compare evil, but good.
We shall not enquire if there are more waste acres in the Papal
States, more filthy huts, more wretched villages, more mean
little towns called cities, more blighted prospects, talents thrown
to waste, and families brought to decay, more liars, thieves,
drunkards, blasphemers, and libertines, more depraved homes,
more guilty conspiracies, more strikers, robbers, and assassins,
more beggars in the streets, more idlers and extortioners in
office, more wretches in prison, and more dead men in graves
dug by the law, than, say, in our own far from immaculate or
infallible England. We shall only look for the opposite of all
these, and more of it,—so much more as would furnish proof of
a special dispensation of God's loving-kindness to men.
In one particular, such of the pilgrims as had heard of the
desolation of the Roman Campagna would feel surprise, some-
what similar to that often felt by travellers in the Desert of
Sinai. The latter, expecting to find extended plains of burning
sand-a Sahara-find a country like another, only that it has
no vegetation. So when pilgrims on the Campagna found
green plains basking under a lovely sky, they would wonder
how men could call it waste. Only by degrees would they
realise the fact that there were no farm-houses, no labourers'
cottages, no hamlets. In Arabia vegetation has failed, and with
it animal existence. This region is a degree less desert: the
herb enjoys life and supports the beast; only man has failed.
Travellers from the north are under the illusion of the light.
122 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
t
Its richness invests objects with a beauty of which the most
brilliant part would be lost under duller skies. Travellers
coming from countries equally well lighted, come also from
scenes where Islam or heathenism is dominant, or else from
new countries, which cannot well be compared with one that
has enjoyed so long a reign of civilisation. Those from new
countries would be pre-occupied by signs of antiquity; but if
not priests, they would feel the lack of any token of modern vic-
tories of mind over matter, or of character over circumstances.
To those from the East, again, the antiquities are remains of a
comparatively modern age. If they had lived under Turkish
rule, they would have been so accustomed to see circumstances
govern, and matter take its own way, that they really would
feel that they were rising into a more vigorous civilisation.
And they would be the only ones who, on any grounds but
such as satisfied M. Veuillot, could come to that conclusion.
Beyond what we call the east, lies a farther east; and it
would be the duty of any one who read the challenge of the
priest-kings, and came from a part of India which had for a
century been under British government, to compare the popu-
lation now beneath his eye with the heathen population under
Protestant rulers. The comparison ought to embrace numbers,
industrial activity, security of life and property, education and
civil rights. Account should be taken of how much time the
one government had enjoyed to develop the benefits of its rule,
and how little the other; as also of those preceding conditions
the advantages and disadvantages of which each in its place had
inherited.
But which of the two more rapidly brought order out of
anarchy? Which sooner consolidated hostile States into a peace-
ful family of nations? Which gave to the greatest multitude
the blessing of sitting every man under his vine and under his
fig-tree-none daring to make him afraid, none, whether he
differed in rank or race, in religion or in politics? Yet the
Company was not immaculate, and not infallible.
Dwellings in the Papal States.
123
An observer coming from the south, and entering the States
of the Church by the line of the Sacco, finds a rich vale bor-
dered by the Volscian and Hernian Hills. He looks for houses
standing apart, for hamlets and villages; but finds none.
Charming sites for a mansion and park, and rich sites for
farm-houses and hamlets, are without inhabitants, the people to
till the land coming down from villages perched upon the hills,
in some cases at a distance of miles.
A trained observer seeing the plain forsaken and the villages
in military positions on the heights, would at once say, as he
would in Syria,-The land has not learned what rest is! It
has not yet experienced, for any continuance, that lot of con-
scious security in which the family suffices to itself, the lonely
house is safe, and the village needs neither wall nor steep.
The valleys of Tuscany or Piedmont tell a better tale of law
and government.
When, at wide intervals, an inn or what is called a Tenuta
occurs, perhaps it is announced by a few fine children, ill-clad
and begging. The house has an expression of fear. The
windows are few and small, and the yard, instead of a fence or
There are no stack yards,
low wall, is defended by a high one.
no farm store and treasure spreading securely and ornamentally
around as if conscious of strong, benign protectors. There is no
grass-plot, no gravelled or flagged walk, no flower-bed before
the door, no flower-pot in the window, no garden. The house
has never blossomed into the home. It is, after all these ages,
but a shelter from weather and violence.
Entering, you find dirt to a degree neither easy to believe
nor pleasant to describe, which grows worse and worse the
longer and more minutely you observe. The furniture consists
of a few stools, a rough table or bench, with a sack or two of
straw for a bed. The few utensils, whether of earthenware or
metal, are, like the stools and bench, poor in quality, rude in
Scarcely ever is there against the walls a
form, and ill kept.
print or photograph, an engraved sheet, a clock or plaster bust.
124
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
You look in vain for book, periodical, or journal. The idea of
children's picture-books, or of a cottage library, is out of the
question; and the Bible is not to be seen.
If there be a picture
of the Madonna or the patron saint, it is, in point of art, far
below the pictures which often light up the cottage of our
humblest labourer. If there is a book, it is a wretched dream-
book teaching how to succeed in the lottery. No polished chest
of drawers, no white dresser, no fire range bearing witness
of taste and elbow-grease,' no pretty crockery, no easy-chair.
You may perhaps see a man asleep on the bare bench and another
on the floor.
(
As you let the picture print itself, with all its inevitable
comments, upon your mind, it calls up comparisons with what
you have seen in the unlettered countries of the world-not
with the homes that grow up around a family Bible. Here
the arts which bring Art home to the multitude have found no
entrance. Engraving, printing, carving, ornamental work in
metal, wood, or pottery, gardening, or artistic husbandry, are
graces that have not crossed this dirty threshold. The aesthetics,
which have had some part in the government of the country,
have never developed the blessed æsthetic of home.
Turning from the house to the inhabitants, you must take care
not to build a comparison on misleading data. We are not to
look for the clear northern complexion here, or the burly Teuton
physique, and must not put down dark full eyes as sensual, a
hooked nose as cruel, or a sallow complexion as gloomy and
plotting, without further proof. On the other hand, you are not
to take the brightness given by the light and the crispness given
by the air, to all tissues, especially animal ones, compared with
the flaccid condition of the same tissues in our humid air, as
anything more than what it is. Things which in England would
look only clean, would here look bright.
Physically, you find a race of great capacity. The frame, if
wanting the compactness of the French and the solidity of the
English, is large and shapely; such as after a few well-fed and
Villages in the Papal States.
125
well-housed generations would probably be one of the finest in
the world. There is a certain sluggishness, which is generally
called laziness. Perhaps it is not so much laziness as a lack of
that physical elasticity which comes with successive generations
of hopeful effort and good condition, but sinks away under hope-
lessness, or the effects of poor food and bad air. The natural
intelligence is quick, and the manners generally polite, often
winning. The pleasant word and the obliging act are both
ready. But when did these carters and labourers wash? Was
anything ever done to cleanse these garments, partly of goat-
skin with the hair attached, and partly of heavy cloth? We do
not call raids now and then to keep vermin under, an effort at
really cleansing. And the heads of the women and children!
Whatever the prevalent æsthetics have accomplished, they have
never awakened the sacred æsthetic of the human person, which
is not to be confounded with the lower æsthetic of dress.
Turning towards the villages, the observer is again reminded
of Syria, where he may have been led on by the prospect of a
beautiful city set on a hill, and found a squalid village. Self-
defending construction, as in the case of the lone house on the
plain, reappears here. No outlying cottages before the village,
no detached ones within it, no gardens or orchards behind.
The backs of the houses form a continuous high wall, pierced
with small windows, constituting an irregular but not despicable
work of defence. Again you find the absence of any bit of green,
or of flower-beds before the house, or of flowers in the window.
The home is nothing outside the threshold, the village nothing
outside the walls. Where are the English greens and gardens,
the Swiss artistic structures, the fountains, bees, and flowers?
Where the umbrage and bloom of an American village, founded
not many years ago on the wild? There is no trace of that
æsthetic of nature which would have been awakened had the
fathers and mothers of these labourers, for the last few genera-
tions, gone forth at morning with the language of the Psalms
in their memories, and also the language of Him whose. touch
126 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
turned the bird and the lily into spirit links, drawing up the
heart of toiling man to the bosom of an all-providing and all-
adorning God. We have seen a quotation from a Cardinal to
the effect that there are more works of art in Perugia than in
all the provincial towns of England. When our towns are as
old as Perugia we shall better compare their art treasures.
Meantime, the gardens of Nottingham alone would put those
of all the Papal States to shame, excepting such as are attached
to palaces.
Before entering the houses one feels as if it would be unfair
to compare them with those of English villages in our more
cultured and sunny counties. But we may take a Yorkshire
manufacturing village, near collieries. There the ground is dirty
with coal slack; the air dirty with coal smoke and heavy with
damp vapours; the houses are of the colour of baked mud, called
brick; the sky is low, and more brown than grey. Nature and
art seem to have combined to make the house dirty. Here, on
the contrary, the ground is as dry as a board, the air bright, the
walls of warm-coloured stone, the sky lofty, luminous, and blue.
Nature has done everything to suggest cleanliness, and also to
reward it with such brilliant effect as we can only see in the
brightest moments which summer lights up within our English
homes. And as to manufacture, its grimy fingers have never
touched the place.
Yet under the unfavourable conditions you find tidy women,
with tidy children, by tidy fire-sides. The floor, seats, tables,
drawers, dresser, walls, all show that the domestic arts of
ornament, in however humble a style, are represented. The
cottage child sits with its book on its knee; and you are not
afraid to look into the corners. The Bible and hymn-book are
probably upon the shelf; and if you do not know that the scene
of the cotter's Saturday night is actually enacted there, you feel
that it might be.
Under the favourable circumstances, on the other hand, floor,
stairs, wall, furniture, utensils, and the persons of the women
Two Types of Culture.
127
and children are kept in such a style that one of the women
from the Yorkshire cottage would not like to pass a night in
the place. And you must not look into the corners. Any
stray picture which may be on the walls, only serves to remind
you, by contrast, of the wonderful development of illustrative
art in England, Germany, and America, and of its penetrating
influence in the homes of the remote and poor. Here, some-
times, you may find, even in the village church, prints and dolls,
the former of which in England would be considered poor, and
the latter tawdry in the village shop. Yet in the same church
there may be some real work of art, which has for generations
had every opportunity of forming the public taste.
So long as we employ sense-culture as the instrument of
thought-culture, it goes on ever extending its sphere. It
renders itself the medium of expressing what it had been ori-
ginally the instrument of imparting. Then it becomes the
stimulus and organ of new developments, combinations, and
creations of mind. But when sense-culture becomes the substi-
tute for thought-culture, it soon reaches its limits, and, revolving
within them, enslaves thought to sensation. Seeing for the
sake of a sight, and hearing for the sake of a sound, are as
useful in the development of the mind as are play and exercise
in that of the body. But when people are trained to look on
sights and sounds which terminate in themselves, as the solem-
nities of civil and religious existence, as the events of a com-
munity instead of its diversion, the habit of doing so naturally
turns first to valuing things, next to doing them according
as they will show or sound. If trainers keep down thought-
culture and stimulate sense-culture, the trained will come to
appreciate everything, not by the higher æsthetic of reason
or of faith, but by the lower æsthetic of impression.
Turning from the dwellings to the fields, the observer is filled
with delight. In one place we have rich meadow land; in
another a variety of fruit trees, reminding one of the time when
Goth and Norman, in their respective days, sent specimens
128 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
;
hence to their kinsmen in the north, as proof of the Paradise
they might find. In a third place we have manifold and boun-
tiful crops of grain.
Still the impression is renewed here which is made upon one
by Devonshire in contrast with the Scottish Lowlands; that
is, one soon feels that the charm of the place lies more in the
richness of nature than in the grace of culture. In Devonshire,
where nature has done so much more than in the Lowlands, each
successive observation brings home a deeper impression that
mind has done less. In the Lowlands, on the contrary, where
nature has done less, mind has done more. There, from father
to son for generations, the mind of the plough-boy, the sheep-
boy, and the cow-boy, has been cultivated, in some degree
That culture has gone out to the plough and the harrow, to
the spade and the hoe, to the implements of sowing, reaping,
and thrashing; to the soil, the furrow, the ridge, the field, the
meadow; to the grass, the bush, and the standing corn; to the
sheaf, the shock, the stack, and the farmyard; to the hedge, the
garden, and the grove. In consequence, the face of the country
has a highly educated expression.
While the lower culture of the average mind has been thus im-
pressing itself upon the face of the earth, the few elect minds have.
been first raised, by its elevating force, above the more sluggish
mass, and then floated far away. Some are in the pulpit and
some in the surgery, some in the professor's chair and some at
the bar, some in the colonial council and some on the bench,
some guiding the bank and some the factory, and some making
the world wonder at themselves and at the little land that pro-
duces so many of them.
The Reformation found their fathers at a vast disadvantage
as compared with the Volscian, the Latin, and the Sabine heirs
of eastern and southern civilisation. But the return to the ordi-
nance that every father was bound to teach his own children,
—an essential part of Christian legislation for a community, as
good for the father as for the child, as good for the public as
'
Education in the Papal States.
129
the family,-produced the parish school, and, silently but not
slowly, led the rougher northman far away in front of his elder
and more polished brother. The latter retains what belongs to
the race; and if similar spiritual and mental conditions should,
in mercy to Italy, be brought in, he will perhaps one day take
his place in the van again.
Nine years later than the time of which we write, the Civiltá
for 1876, pp. 260, 261, speaks so as to illustrate the auspices
under which the Italian race, as compared with the Scotch,
has been of late centuries left to develop :-
'We do not say that it [elementary instruction] is injurious to the
farmer and farm-labourer (contadino), or the sempstress, to the carter
or the laundress, to the porter or the vegetable seller, but, on the con-
trary, it may be of much use to them in life, if they employ it well.'
After showing that mere elements are not education (as if
any one said they were), the writer proceeds :-
'Let us not be told that popular instruction will have to go beyond
this and include grammar, spelling, history, geography, and other lite-
rary branches.
For in that case, of two things, one; either the learners,
picking up only bits, will lose them, for want of exercise, sooner, per-
haps, than they acquired them, or they will digest or profit by what
they learn; and in that case, all who acquire such knowledge no
longer like to belong to the people, but seek to rise, change the jacket
for a coat, the ragged hat for a cylinder, and seek to exchange the
mattock, the whip, or the plane, for the books of the clerk, the account-
ant, or the official.
Hence it is very rare that one of the populace
schooled in the modern fashion knows anything after he has reached
a certain age, beyond reading and writing, and accounts, if indeed he
has not lost half his baggage of A B C in the field or the shop. The
ordinary effect, then, of this instruction, is to set up the pride of know-
ledge in an ignorant populace, which thinks itself learned if it can dis-
tinguish h from ≈, and does not confound a 6 with a 9, and to displace a
number of poor, presumptuous unfortunates from that position in which
Providence placed them by birth, and to tempt them to seek bread and
fortune in the over-thronged bureau of the State, of the municipality,
of companies, or families, with the double advantage of filling town and
country with starving idlers, ready to sell themselves for every enterprise
for which they can be bought, and to constrain States and corporations
to increase the number of employés to appease the herd of these hapless
instructed ones, who rush in hundreds to storm the first little post vacant
9
VOL. I.
130
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
at any manger, whatever it may be. Is this a result to be spoken of as
so immoderately profitable to the people and helpful to society? One
that merits being exalted to the stars by any one who, though not a
Liberal, has still a grain of good sense in his head? . . . In the notion
of the Liberals,' proceeds the writer, 'this sort of popular instruction must
be inseparable from the liberty of the press, which would be of little use
if the people were not spoiled by its effects. And indeed if the liberty of
the press was done away with, two-thirds of the arguments which lead
Liberals to prepare an educated people would fall to the ground.
That this instruction proves profitable to a great number of the common
people as to their material interests, we cheerfully concede. But it is
none the less true that it proves extremely dangerous, in a social sense,
by the abuse which the dominant Liberalism makes of it, and by the
wicked ends to which it directs it.'
•
This is a good example of those who wish to keep education
in the hands of the clergy, in order to prevent the people from
being educated above their position. The proprietors of estates
where such ideas triumph, inherit from the fathers who made
them triumph, estates that have never been educated above.
their position, never educated according to their capacity; while
heritors of Scotch estates, whose fathers paid for educating the
people according to their capacity, find that the estate comes
into their hands educated up to its capacity, so that the money
spent by the ancestors on the rough diamonds and coarsely-cased
pearls, concealed in the pows of shoeless urchins, is returned to
their descendants in the rent-roll, and proves to be the best
family investment they ever made.
The land in these Papal States, like the people, is nobly
capable; but our present enquiries turn, not upon the future,
but upon proof of immaculate and infallible government, for
the last thousand years or more.
Fixing, then, our attention on the works of man, we find
cause repeatedly to wish that we had some measure for exactly
determining how much progress has been made, amid these
lovely scenes, by the human mind since it passed from under
the dominion of Pagan Romanism into that of Papal Romanism.
At present we have not the means of accurately settling this
question, and perhaps we never shall have, though honest
A Scotch
X
Influence of Pagan Romanism on the Church. 131
research may yet sufficiently elucidate it for a practical judg-
ment. So long as Christianity worked by its legitimate forces,
those of the Spirit alone, with its legitimate instrument, the
Word alone, it cast out the cruel and obscene spirits of Pagan-
ism, silently, but not slowly. In individuals and in families
real Christians were made. This continued so long as the
ministers of Christ ministered like their Master, reading the
Word of God, and preaching it, but no more thinking of per-
forming 'functions,' like the heathen, than He did; so long
as they had neither place nor name in the posts graded and
rewarded by human powers; so long as they enjoyed no con-
sideration but what was won through wisdom, goodness, and
spiritual fruitfulness; so long as their whole inheritance was
not a profession, but a calling, which renounced the world,
not by cutting God's holiest human ties, but by abandoning,
for life, every hope of title, pomp, or power. So long as this
spirit reigned, and whenever it again reappeared, they could
point to numbers, whom they found vile but left created anew
in Christ Jesus unto good works.
But from the time when Christianity became a public power,
the courtier, the priest, and the crowd began to flow into the
Church, and carried part of their heathenism in with them.
For a long time the Christian element dominated not only the
names and theories but the forms of the Churches. Gradually,
the heathen element invaded the forms, not by any means in
Rome only, or, in earlier times, worst in Rome; but all over,
and perhaps worst in the East. When, however, the device of
the Emperors was parodied,—and as they had assumed the office
of Pontiff to confirm the civil dictatorship, the Roman Bishop
assumed the temporal supremacy to confirm the spiritual dic-
tatorship,—all the three paganising forces of statecraft, priest-
craft, and popular superstition came more vigorously into
play; with the result stated by Gregorovius: So that Church
which arose out of the union of Christianity with the Roman
Empire, drew from the latter the system of centralisation, and
132 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
A
the stores of ancient language and education; but the people
utterly corrupted, could not yield her the living material for
the development of the Christian ideal. On the contrary, it
was just they who in early times defaced Christianity, and
permeated the Church, scarcely yet established in the Empire,
with the old heathenism.' It was, however, on the new
system of conversion that the people could not yield the mate-
rial for developing Christianity. On the old one they had done
When the Church waits for converts till the Spirit of
God brings her penitents, she will always find material (often
raw and foul, but capable) for doing all her work.
so.
But we find the first step in an enquiry as to the pro-
gress which has been accomplished, challenged by the Vatican
philosophy, which decries modern improvements like the rail-
way, telegraph, steam engine, and so on, as 'material progress.'
When we ordinary mortals say 'mental progress,' we mean a
progress of mind; but when the Pope says 'material progress,'
does he mean a progress of matter? No; then what does he
mean? Perhaps to suggest some such idea as the progressive
ascendancy of matter over mind; but if so, it is unfortunate for
him, as a philosopher, that the inventions he despises represent
the advancing ascendancy of mind over matter.
And very
unhappy is it for mankind that all his influence goes to employ
matter in colour, form, and movement, to make man a creature
of sensation, and to stay the operation of reason and of faith,
exchanging reason for sentiment and faith for sight.
Suppose that an observer before passing from the valley of
the Sacco into that of the Anio looks at a historical place like
Palestrina, situated on one of the noblest heights of the land; a
point whence Pyrrhus and Hannibal, in succession, looked with
the longing of warriors across the Campagna to the distant
Rome; and whence the Temple of Fortune, emulating Egyptian
proportions, and overspreading a whole hillside, dominated the
plain, and held forth its lights to the far off sea. This city has
1 Vol. i., p. 14.
Towns in the Papal States.
133
a Cardinal Bishop, and a palace of the great Papal-princely
family of the Barberini, and yet is what a homely Englishman
would call a nasty village. If such a one had to pick his steps
up the alleys that serve for streets, in the afternoon, when the
issue of the cow-houses is flowing down them, he would rather
be at home. The people are civil and apparently industrious,
but the energy of the children goes out in begging. The decay
and dirt which conquer all, furnish to an English eye a plain
instance of material progress-matter gaining upon mind. The
palace is neither kept up nor abandoned as a ruin, but, as if to
set the town an example of thriftless filth, it is used partly for
an æsthetic exhibition, containing as it does one wonderful
mosaic, with frescoes and portraits of the Pope and Cardinals
of the family, and is partly given up to-matter. If it were
only a ruin, one could name many which the proprietors keep
tidy, and even ornamental; but it is a question whether the
law ought not to punish any prince who employs a palace to
set such an example. For the rest, the people follow it with
seeming content. Just as confidently as a skilled observer
would conclude that Middlesborough or Cincinnati bore witness
against any claim to great antiquity, would he conclude that
Palestrina bore witness against any claim to supernaturally
good government. How much lower was the place when it was
heathen?
Taking the way to the valley of the Anio the observer finds,
at the foot of the dividing ridge, the well-placed town of
Olevano. One visiting it after a heavy shower can see at what
a disadvantage the appearance of our towns is put by our
humidity. Could its streets have been much meaner or filthier,
its children much more given to begging, its women much more
untidy, its houses much less like places to call homes, in the
days of Pagan Rome? And this is the result of a govern-
ment and religion given to æsthetics! Compare the fountain
with that of a Swiss Protestant village. Few would have heart
to go through with the comparison, extending it to the feet,
134
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
gowns, necks, and heads of the little maids and matrons who
group around the two fountains. One is stopped in the attempt
to compare, by pity for a fine people who have been so handled,
-and that in the name of God. And when dressed up, what
maids and matrons they are! See one of these women as a
wet nurse in Rome! she is a picture; and when out with her
mistress walks the Corso as if she had constituted herself and
the baby into a procession.
From the ridge between the two valleys, by Civitella, the
stranger has one of those prospects of which no previous travel
blunts the charm, and no subsequent travel blunts the memory.
Here he finds well-made men ploughing, and women with busts
worthy of Sabine mothers carrying stones. Looking at the
plough, he finds it only a few degrees stronger and better than
that used by the ordinary Hindu ryot. It is very far behind the
improved ones to be seen in northern Italy, and would be a real
curiosity to Bedfordshire or Lincolnshire ploughmen. The Sabine
farm of Horace lies near peaks within sight; the ploughs upon it
may have been inferior, but certainly not much so.. Then those
women, with big loads of stones piled upon their stately heads!
Surely if that does not mark material progress, it marks social
stagnation. It was probably just so when Nero built his villa,
not many miles off, at Subiaco, except that then the women who
did such work would not be the wives and mothers of the free,
but slaves. We have here a clear gain from Christianity in the
disappearance of the curse of slavery, as also of other cruelties
which the name of Nero suggests, but which lay in the habits
and religion of his time, though exaggerated in his person. The
cart matches with the plough; the want of taste in its form and
colour, in the harness, and in the keeping of the oxen or horses,
would give a northern farmer, of either the old school or the new,
a text for a soliloquy.
soliloquy. Can the carts which, in heathen days,
rolled on polygonal pavements of basalt along the eight-and-
twenty highways into Rome, have been much inferior to these?
Turning to the domestic animals, one observes the sheep, the
Taste and Labour.
135
pigs, the goats, the poultry, comparing them with the breeds
produced in England. The only animal that shows signs of
culture is the ass, which, on the average, is decidedly superior to
ours. As to the others, it is plain that man has done little by his
dominion over them to make them either more beautiful or more
useful. The idea of making them happy seems hardly to occur
to the people. In towns ladies' lap-dogs are cultivated, but the
pastoral æsthetics seem left in deep sleep.
If the observation of implements is extended to those of the
handicrafts, it confirms the impression of want of taste made by
those of agriculture. Where are the beautifully finished and
beautifully kept tools of which the English workman is proud?
Compare any workshop or factory here with one in America,—
which country, for want of Madonnas and 'functions,' is pitied
as being steeped in insensibility to all that is fair! But tools
are not things to make a show, and the noble æsthetic of labour
has not been fostered. Labour is not part of the supernatural
order, only of the natural; it serves but temporal ends. And
who made the natural? And who dares to teach man, created
in the image of God, that the daily duty appointed to him-duty
to himself, his family, his country, and his race-serves but tem-
poral ends? If neglected, are only temporal ends frustrated?
When our Father sends us what fills our hearts with food and
gladness, is He working nought but temporal ends? Labour
-human labour-is, in the eye of Christ, the normal, the
divinely ordained action of a spirit which is the offspring of
God, operating through a frame built to be His living temple.
Away with those who to win a spell-power and a merit in part
saving for so-called 'good works,'-that is, for practices not
founded in nature nor enjoined in Scripture, practices without
sanction, either divine or human, except the word of priests,-
would unlink from its connection with the immortal prospects
of man the allotted labour which dignifies the day of the lowliest.
who but fulfils his part! For what is helpful to sanctification.
commend us even to the stones on the head of the female hod-
136
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
man, rather than to the beads at the waist of the novice nun!
Albeit the former is a coarse toil not to be seen without a blush
by man born of a woman, yet is it a real lift at the load of life—
a load natural and therefore divine; whereas the other is neither
work nor play, not tending either to lift the load of life or to
cheer on the labour of lifting it, but tending only to weaken all
the powers by rendering the mind a slave of charms. Least of
all is it spiritual or supernatural. It is simply manipulation
applied by the master with sensational skill, and in the subject
suspending thought on sensationai routine.
The French, alluding to the absence of any sense of the
beauties of nature in their literature until recent times, speak
of the days before nature was invented;' and in the company
of average Italians one is reminded of that phrase.
6
You will find that the names of wild flowers are unknown to
nearly all townsfolk-coachman, priest, pleasure tourist, and
trader all alike; and perhaps, till you meet with a rustic, you
may vainly enquire even for the name of the genesta, though
covering hillsides with very beautiful yellow. If it was a vest-
ment only half as fine you could learn all about it. It is little
better as to the names of peaks, or the course of streams, or the
points of beauty in a panorama. The people seldom go to a
hilltop, but will turn out at night to see a mountain illuminated
with Bengal lights. They take a man for an astronomer if he
has an eye for the constellations, but a whole town will flock to
see catherine-wheels.
How far do the villages of the thrice beautiful Sabina exceed
those of our Lake District or of Wales in that poetic property
of all villages, 'innocence'? The last thing we should do is to
set up our own as a standard. One of the first services for
which we ought to thank a foreigner is pointing out remaining
blots in our national life. Not that talk such as Hergenröther
and similar writers indulge in deserves either thanks or answer.
But if you hear the friars talk of the villagers, and the villagers
of the friars and police, the townsfolk of the countryfolk,
Cities in the Papal States.
137
the doctor of his practice, and the priest of the refractory, you
will hear mention made, with incidental ease, of crimes which,
if committed in the Lake Districts of England, or in the tourist's
haunts in Wales, would fill the journals for weeks. And how
often here does scandal name the priest before all others!
Do the towns in Papal territory contrast with those in 'Lay
States' as the oasis does with the desert? Suppose the ob-
server to stand before Subiaco, seated amid Sabine peaks in the
smiling valley of the Anio,-a favourite haunt of artists, and
worthy of their favour. A marble arch marks the entrance to
the town; a summer palace of the Pope crowns it. The heads
of the place are themselves headed by a bishop, and the func-
tionaries who in lay States would be called royal, imperial, or
by some other epithet indicating the natural order, are here
called apostolic, as belonging to the supernatural. A little way
off stands the Sacred Cave where Benedict first taught. That
is the Lupercal of Roman monasticism. There arose the institu-
tion which became the one grand public institution of Papal
Italy, arose out of purposes not only pure, but lofty, though
upon plans departing from those both of Moses and of Christ.
These made the love of God in the individual a spiritual force to
leaven the family, and made the family the basis of all insti-
tutions. The monasticism of the further east made spiritual life
a dainty too delicate for the fireside. The Christian system
made each new convert a moral agent acting within the social
fabric. When Christians adopted the Oriental system, each new
convert was abstracted from the social fabric, was taught to
turn his or her back on the family, and to call being in the
family being in the world, and renouncing the family renouncing
the world. Out of a life of three-and-thirty years spent among
men, our Lord has left us scarcely another trace of thirty of
those years than this, that He spent them in the family; thus
elevating its sanctity to a level to which no craft can raise an
artificial family, made up by the grouping of one sex into a
household and calling it a 'religious family' because it is a
138
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
family of 'religious.'1 This convent of Benedict still preserves
its celebrated gardens, boasted of as a beauty for the whole
earth, including the bed of roses, the lineal descendants of
those which were transformed from thorns by miracle.
This city, then, according to the Papal theory, is a city
favoured among the favoured ones, flourishing in a realm where
no act of authority can take place contrary to Christian morals,
seeing that temporal and spiritual power unite upon one head,
like the circling crowns upon the tiara adorning the marble
arch. This claim is set up, in good earnest, by those who have
ruled the city for ages, and who maintain that he who, summer
after summer, was honoured in its palace with more than human
worship, was none other than the representative of God upon
earth. Be it remembered that we speak of the time before the
temporal power fell!
On the principles of Christianity, if this place has for ages
enjoyed a spiritual government free from religious error, and a
temporal one free from moral fault, and has, in addition, been
blessed with the presence of the representative of God upon
earth, we shall without fail find it a scene of enlightenment,
righteousness, and bliss. It must in these respects be far before.
places where frail human nature has been in the hands of
churches liable to err, and of governments which commit faults
every day: such, as Rome and ourselves are agreed, exist in all
Protestant countries. If, on the other hand, they who have here
been stewards of the unrighteous mammon have employed it ill,
who will entrust to them the true riches, who will give to them
the keeping of his soul?
At the entrance of the city, on a morning in May, the sound
of chanting floats down the street, and a procession of clergy
moves along, passes under the marble arch, and proceeds to a
church in the suburbs. Then the priests bless the fields to secure
good crops, as is done by the priests in India.
The principle here alluded to is elucidated in an instructive manner in
Nazareth and its Lessons, by the Rev. G. S. Drew.
Esthetics and Ceremonies.
139
The observer has here to mark a point of clear superiority
over what our reformed countries could show. We could not
organise such a procession in a mean provincial town, and indeed
scarcely anywhere. The men are not only robed for a procession,
but they know how to march in procession; and they carry it
through as if accomplishing a procession was a considerable
service to God and man. Their artistic march is really im-
posing, and to get it up probably does not require so much
effort as it would do to teach every labourer that, winter and
summer, his great Father takes thought for his daily bread,
that He will send a blessing in answer to his own cry and
that of his little ones, and will not leave it suspended on any
performance of priests, nor yet will He withhold His bounty
even from the unjust and the evil.
In contrast with the branches of æsthetics illustrated by pre-
vious observations, this procession shows that one branch has been
cultivated by the governing class-the aesthetic of ceremonial.
No people are more highly educated in the art of sight-seeing,
and in the manners which become it, than the people of Rome.
Consequently, in crowds at a 'function' they are not only good-
humoured (as indeed nearly all crowds are), but they are also
gentler and more perfectly at home than almost any other
crowd. "Rough" is a blemish hardly seen in an eastern crowd,
and not in a Roman. If an Asiatic or a Roman who meant
next day to have your life met you in a crowd, he would be
very civil. Spectacle as an instrument of government is one
thing, and as a means of spiritual and moral elevation for the
multitude another. As an instrument of government its power
is great; but every success it gains with the crowd increases
their disposition to look at appearance rather than substance,
and to act on sensation rather than upon conviction. It thus
tends to make them less capable of being governed by reason,
and consequently more liable to be governed by force.
The streets of the city paraded by this procession are not
beautiful, and had they been steeped for a few years in a smoky,
140
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
3
moist Lancashire atmosphere they would be exceedingly ugly.
They are not clean, but dirty, below the condition of any
country town in the Protestant parts of Ireland. They are not
busy, but have a listless air, as if people had little to do and not
much heart in doing it. The signs of enterprise and of improve-
ment which in towns under good governments silently tell the
tale, are not to be seen,—signs which already, in 1867, might be
traced in most of the towns of the New Italy. The well-dressed
portion of the people is small, and the proportion of those poorly
but tidily dressed extremely small. A gala costume even of
the poor is fine, for whatever is for effect is studiously done.
Many men and women, evidently not in abject poverty, but
capable of dressing up for a state occasion, are not tidy, but
badly the reverse. The number of ragged adults is great, and
that of ragged children very great; it is hard to estimate that
of the beggars, for even young women employed, and not very
miserably dressed, will take advantage of a passing stranger to
seek a penny; and as to the children, begging appears to be
a recognised branch of street life.
A young gentleman from Rome, tall and handsome, on the
point of getting into a carriage with his companions, anxiously
enquires if the road to Palestrina is safe. Have there not been
attacks of brigands lately? The fact is not denied, though he is
assured that all will be well. In any talk about quarrelling, the
use of the knife—that is, the dagger-knife-is alluded to as a
common incident. When any occurrence illustrates the amount
of confidence felt by the people in the honesty or truthfulness of
one another, it seems generally low on the first point, and
almost nil upon the second.
They who would answer to our working classes are quite equal
to them in natural intelligence, and perhaps superior in manners,
but far inferior in cleanliness, vigour, and independence; abovo
all, in self-control. Polish attends ancient races, and comes
only with time. Any one who has been formally entertained
by a Bedouin Sheikh may have scen a specimen of manly
Condition of the Various Classes.
141
bearing coupled with politeness which among us would imply
education. Intellectual and moral decay may set in and proceed
far without undoing the polish of better times. Indeed, polish
may be all the more cultivated as a veil for the decay. The
dwellings, furniture, and food of the working class are immensely
inferior to those of ours. The smithy and the carpenter's shop
strongly illustrate the general principles already indicated. The
tools seldom display taste, and show but a backward state of
improvement; while the work is not neatly done, and is re-
markably wanting in finish. This work is only for use, not for
great occasions. The workshops of the tailor and shoemaker
are very poor, and disorderly; but more care is taken with
the finish of their work,--it is not only for use, but also for
appearance.
If the working classes show no sign of having been blessed
with a government better than that of all mankind, does any
sign of it appear among the trading classes? Beginning at
the upper strata of finance and commerce, a merely English
eye would look in vain for tokens of their existence. Where
are the equipages in the street, with well-conditioned servants
and horses, and harness kept to admiration? Where are the
houses outside the town, standing in their own gardens, with
wealth and plenty in their surroundings, evincing a relish for
the beauty of home and of nature which belongs to a higher
æsthetic than any taste for pageant?
Coming down to the shops, perhaps an episcopal city in the
'oasis' would so impress Roman Catholic shopkeepers from
Thurles or Tuam that they would think a comparison profane.
Their evil lot has been cast in a lamentable portion of the
'desert,' the misdeeds of whose rulers, and the wrongs of
whose pastors and people, have often made the hearts of the
devout in Italy to bleed. Protestant shopkeepers of Munster
and Connaught would not be so awestruck but that they could
make a comparison. They would not find under the fairer sky,
and the theocratic rule, what they would take for symptoms of
A
142 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
3
divine superiority. The shopkeepers of Enniskillen and Porta-
down, not blessed even with a heretic bishop, would smile at
the comparison.
As to the professional classes, they are nearly absorbed in
the clergy; for this is a state in which the only way to 'found
a family' is to begin by taking vows of celibacy, and the only
way to bequeath coronets is to begin by renouncing the world.
The one unworldly profession counts, among its prizes, a triple
crown, scores of princedoms, ministries of state, of finance,
and even of war, embassies, exceeding many palaces, honours
surpassing those of nobility, gorgeous uniforms, lofty titles,
revenues of enormous amount, with powers and dignities bearing
a double value,-one measurable by the standards of the world,
and one immeasurable in the eyes of the faithful. The bulk of
the land has passed into the possession either of corporations
of clergy or of families founded by priests successful in their
profession. For if the monastery at first drained the moral
force of the family, by withdrawing its best sons from domestic
life, it before long began also to dry up its inheritance, by
appearing at the deathbed a competitor in canonicals. The
monastery set up beside the landowners a many-handed and
consecrated rival. Over the cultivators it set landlords without
either the stimulus of personal proprietorship or the check of
hereditary interests. Over the land it set corporations of idle,
unskilled, and short-sighted owners. Thus while Islam sapped
the family system by polygamy, did the Papal system sap it by
the opposite extreme of celibacy.
The Mosaic economy is generally taken to be more carnal
than the Christian; but Moses, leaving Egypt, where the king
and the priests were the only landowners, enacted that the
priests should not hold land, and though married men, should
have only a house and a cow's grass.' Here, on the con-
trary, the priest, though renouncing the world in some spiritual
sense, comes a hundredfold more into possession of it in a
material one. If mind shows its dominion over land and sea,
Splendour and Degradation of the Clergy. 143
over adamant and wind, over time and space, the feat is labelled
for contempt as 'material progress.' If ministers of the
Gospel become immersed in the management of manors, pro-
vinces, taxes, lotteries, and even of brigades, the fall is certifi-
cated for reverence as 'spiritual' ascendancy. In Israel the
royal tribe was one of which no man gave attendance at the
altar,' and the priestly tribe one of which none came to the
throne. Here the priest is king, and the temporal prince kisses
his foot. A favourite image is that of the mystic David, pastor
and king in one. Here is the cure of political NATURALISM.
6
The clergy of the Pontifical States included the two widest
extremes of professional life to be found in Christendom-that
of show and dressiness beyond what our courtiers or soldiers.
display, and that of personal meanness and social degradation
to which no professional class among us approaches. Society
seemed to avenge itself for the humiliations it had to suffer
from the Court priest, by the contempt with which it treated
the clown priest. We once asked an advocate if all the priests
did not read the Unitú Cattolica, and we give his reply, not as
describing what priests are, but as showing what men of educa-
tion may say of them:-'All?' said the Dottore; 'well, nearly
all that can read.' But you do not mean to say that there
are priests who cannot read?' 'Well, not precisely; but
there are many that could not read a journal intelligently, so
as to enjoy it.'
6
The co-existence of fear with hatred of a dominant priesthood
may be observed in any country where priests have been the
governing class, and perhaps, after the Pontifical States, may
be best observed in India. The Brahmans, however, have not
in the popular eye so direct a command over the lot of the
departed as Rome has secured for her own priests, nor have they
any such pecuniary profit out of the faith of the survivors. On
the other hand, no class of Brahmans sinks so far below the
average of respectability, among their countrymen, as do the
lower clergy of the Roman and Neapolitan States.
144 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
But the contempt of the Italians for the priesthood is no
more thorough than is their reverence. The man who will
not introduce a certain priest to his daughters, will pay him
to save the soul of his mother out of the pains of purgatory.
To the Monsignore Don Juan, to use a term of Gregorovius, he
will manifest profound respect, while in his heart he scorns
him. To the not worse but less successful priest, he will
manifest contempt and spend some wit upon his vices, and yet,
in his heart, will fear his occult power over the souls of his
departed kindred. So he hangs suspended between belief and
disbelief, swaying in a curved line of incessant yet varying
doubt, now approaching to belief of anything, and now to dis-
belief of everything.
What Rome calls Faith, is not faith either in a philosophical
or a theological sense. It is simply submission. Under plea of
submission to God, it becomes submission to the Church, which
becomes submission to the Pope, which becomes submission
to your Confessor. This system, acting on a nation, transfers.
the basis of character from conviction to submission, from the
manly openness of faith to the monkish ambiguity of fear.
The worldly professions have no such lot as the sacred one.
This is not a Canaan where Levi has no inheritance among his
brethren, but one in which he leaves little for the eleven. The
soldier finds a priest over him as minister of war, and an ex-
soldier turned priest as king! Except the show corps for
inglorious pomp around the sovereign, the military sphere for
Romans is narrow, foreigners taking the lead. Letters are no
profession. The civil service is principally in the hands of the
priests. The law exists, and there are men with the titles of
advocates and judges. But if we drew any idea of the status
and 'chances' belonging to such titles, from England, it would
be altogether misleading. Chief Justice Whiteside has shown
how wide the difference is, and he spoke of the great city. In
the little one of which we now speak, two English gentlemen, who
could not find room in the inn, were directed to the house of an
יי
!
Nobles in the Papal States.
145
advocate, who played my host with assiduity and good humour,
and charged four francs each for dinner, bed, candles, and
service. The doctors seem most like men with a professional
standing; and if they keep from politics, they have a fair chance
of leading a quiet life in obscure usefulness.
As to aristocracy, where are the mansions and parks which
in any portion of the United Kingdom would adorn so lovely
a valley? There is not one. Some of the Italian nobles have
still large fortunes; but most of them, like those of France, are
poor. The country house is a house pent up in a close country
town; and sometimes a tumbledown house it is. The Papacy
has always been a source of wealth to a circle of curialistic
families. Yet the Church has steadily competed with the heirs
for both their land and gold.
The extinction of the once splendid aristocracy of Spain, with
the impoverishment of that of France and Italy, contrasted with
the position of our own aristocracy, would afford matter for an
interesting study. Is it anything more than one phase of the
great phenomenon of the superior stability of all natural in-
stitutions in reformed countries? Whatever the reformation
adopts or erects has to find a basis in reason, not merely in senti-
ment or appearances. Consequently, whether it be monarchy
or republic, aristocracy or commercial enterprise, municipal
rights or parliamentary privileges, it becomes reformable, and
therefore capable not only of enduring, but of growth. The
Roman nobles, having no political functions, cannot, except for
purposes of parade, be called an aristocracy. Macaulay said
much in a word when, in one of his letters, he remarked that the
utmost a layman could aspire to was to be a Lord of the Bed-
chamber.¹ To these nobles are equally unknown woolsack or
red bench, cabinet or privy council, vice-royalty or embassy,
governorship or lord-lieutenancy, the seat of the magistrate or
the command of the yeomen. Even the term Lord of the Bed-
chamber covers a false conception. To us that office implies
VOL. I.
¹ Life, by Trevelyan.
10
146 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
the grand order of an hereditary legislator. The poor Roman
noble, however, has no voice in the government of the parish,
any more than in that of the nation; no voice even in the
< functions,' which are the one class of events on which he is.
welcome to talk. And as under the Papal system nobles
cannot be an aristocracy, so cannot the people be a democracy
-they are a mere populace. To them are unknown vestry
meeting and town meeting; in fact, public meeting of every
sort, unless at mass, the theatre, and the lottery. To them are
unknown jury-box and polling booth. No voice have they in
choice of parish officer, town's officer, or national representative.
None of them can even wear the alderman's gown or the civic
chain, none can rise to a seat on the grand jury, or in the
national council-nay, they cannot attain to the powers and
rights of a churchwarden or a guardian of the poor. In the
city of Rome exists a lay office called that of Senator. Its
duties and powers, though not spiritual, are all but impalpable.
But the scarlet robe and golden toga are illustrious. The
office is a grand one in a procession. With the Senator are
several Conservators. A Roman might describe their office as
that of train-bearers to the ideas of the ruling priests, in a
secret town council. But again their robes are superb. They
march clothed down to the feet in crocus and in carnation.
"
Yet is the whole world called to take this state of things
as the model of the subordination of the layman to the priest,
The ideal of that subordination,' we are told, 'is realised in
the Papal government.' The ideal! This absorption, then, of
the State into the so-called Church, this suppression of king,
nobles, and people under the priest, is not an abnormal and
monstrous lusus ecclesia, but is the ideal of the new 'political
order.' Any one can understand it—the king merged in the
prince-bishop or else a vassal of the priest; the noble the
retainer and jewelled ornament of the priest; the people the
helots of the priest. That is the model. Here is realised for
us the ideal of the one fold and one shepherd. Such talk as
The Condition of Aristocracy.
147
in free countries is sometimes heard from the bishops or
cardinals of Rome, in sound seeming to the ignorant to com-
mend other and noble constitutions, is untrustworthy as the
most treacherous air of the Campagna. The English la-
bourer knows that his son may, like James Cook, walk the
quarter-deck, or, like Robert Stephenson, sit in the legislature.
The Roman noble knows that the utmost his son, if not a
priest, can rise to is to wear pearls and stars at the court of
a priest, and kiss his foot when he makes a great show. Who
would not rather drain away a weary life in the toil that most
debases and least repays, than shine in violet and gold, in scarlet
and in lace, while putting upon this yoke a specious polish, and
trying to allure into placing their necks under its crushing
weight, those whom a purer religion has made free? The Papal
system treats as an abomination the harmonies and balances by
which, as time with wear and tear has proved, it is possible to
combine real democracy, real aristocracy, and real monarchy
into a whole, wherein each of the three elements is mighty, and
none is exclusive because none is extinguished.
The kindly monk who, at Subiaco, shows a stranger over the
Sacred Cave of Benedict, glories in far-famed gardens, which
any peasant from Appenzell could tell him might be equalled in
some private houses in such a village as Heiden. Fame some-
times draws out the dying notes of her trumpet unaccountably
long. The monk is careful to enlist your admiration for several
meritorious works in painting and sculpture, but to Protestants
one gem is shown only by request. It is a portrait of the devil
painted on the wall, in dark passages, and not visible except
when a light is flashed upon it. This done, it appears for a
moment, or longer, as the operator pleases, through one opening,
fitted with real iron gratings, athwart of which the demon
glares out of the gloom upon the spectator. Such a picture is
capable of being put to uses that would meet the strongest
views of those who call for something to strike the senses, and
through them to affect the feelings.
!
148 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
}
As long ago as the days of the man of the land of Uz, the
monotheistic way of depicting a spiritual presence was, 'I
could not discern the form thereof;' and, surely, even in that re-
mote time, the æsthetic was higher than that of the Sacred Cave.
They who admire such prostitution of art to degrade theology,
or who are forced to reconcile themselves to it, may well dis-
relish the spiritual medium of teaching, namely, the Word,
which, when using things seen to illustrate things not seen,
connects the two only by thought, suggesting analogies and
attributes, not embodying forms and colours. With its terms
serpent, lion, dragon, the Word sets before the reason and ima-
gination a bad being not of flesh and blood, an invisible foe.
But such efforts at teaching unseen things through form and
colour, as the one in question, only set a man-beast or beast-man
before the sensations. Greek art, when at its best, modelled for
gods and goddesses the most perfect human forms, but neither
stuck wings to their backs nor put plates round their heads
to make them more celestial. It did the noblest that idolatry
could do.
Here we touch the fundamental difference between the culture
of the Pontifical States and that of the reformed nations. In
the former sense-culture having been preferred to thought-
culture, letters, which with a minimum of sensation give a
maximum of thought, have been long neglected, and indeed,
in the ages subsequent to the Reformation, discouraged. This
went so far that the Italian language had to coin a word to
denote the condition of its historic race. When first the control
of the Papacy over the teaching of the Peninsula was broken,
seventeen millions of Italians were described as analfabeti,
unalphabeted. Letters were for the learned, and were but
sparingly dealt out to the poor. The eye and the ear were to
be kept as much as possible in the region of sensation, and to be
led as little as might be into the realm of thought.¹
1 Any one who shares the marvellous views of Hergenrother, as developed
in the Stimmen aus Maria Laach, will think this opinion incorrect, and a
See p 252
F
The Word or the Image?
149
The idea having once been admitted that, because many were
ignorant, the image was to be resorted to as a substitute for the
Word, in teaching things unseen, it became natural to use living
form and colour, as well as inanimate, and so glided in dress
and action for better scenic effect. Then the ease of performing,
compared with the labour of instructing, and the pleasure of
spectacle, compared with the effort of learning, led on to further
departures from apostolic usage, till men, finally, turned their
back on the principle which had been consecrated in divine
revelation from the day when the great voice sounded upon
Sinai; we mean the principle that the mind of God instructs
the mind of man through that medium which has a maximum
of the spiritual element and a minimum of the material,—the
Word. Ye heard a Voice, but ye saw no similitude,' is the
appeal of the Parent Spirit to the spirit of the offspring. For
the latter the ear, by the Word, becomes the avenue of access
to an infinite universe of thought, as the eye, through light,
becomes the avenue of access to an all but infinite universe
of form. And by letters, the eye, too, learns to join the ear and
to travel away on the wings of the Word, so finding a second
access to the higher realm by a medium where sensation is as
nothing and thought is all.
The Jesuit Father Raffaele Garrucci, in his uncompleted
History of Christian Art,' gives, in an interesting form, the
principle accepted and acted upon. He bases it, however, on
one of those historical foundations to the construction of which
only Jesuit historians are competent:—
good deal more. But he was writing for Germany. The Civiltà of 1876
vol. ix., p. 260, dealing with the figure now generally mentioned, says :-'Who
has not had his ears stunned with the lamentations of Italian Liberals, because
there are still found in the peninsula perhaps fifteen millions who do not know
their letters? Oh, ignorance of the alphabet, according to these gentlemen, is
the horrid gangrene of the country, the hotbed of crime, the disgrace of the
nation!' In the Opinione for February 12th, 1876, is stated the result of the
five years' conscription, in the province of Rome, from the time of its annexation
to the kingdom of Italy to that date. It gave 58.30 per cent, of analfabeti. That
is, roughly, 60 per cent. who knew not the A B C, and these were young men.
A lower percentage of women is instructed.
150
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
•
'The first successors of Peter were not wanting in the culture neces-
sary to teach painters and sculptors how to give expression to the sense
of the prophets. . . . St. Clement belonged to the house of the Flavii,
and was reputed as of great learning in science and every liberal art.
Those great pastors proceeded with ardour in introducing the
Christian arts, from zeal for the honour of God and the good of Christian
society. .
All confessed that written books (or scriptures) do not
suffice, for they are read by few, and understood by fewer. They also
confessed that what is heard by the ear does not make a deep impression
on the heart, and therefore saw, that if painting and sculpture were
introduced, they would furnish aids to the faithful by means of which
the mind could understand, the memory could retain, and the will could
put in practice the instructions and examples given.' ¹
>
The weak point in the historical substruction here laid under
Christian image-cult, is that the foundations are not carried
further down than the Roman family of the Flavii. Clement
might really have heard from them how much the image was
to be preferred to the Word, as a means of teaching the doctrine
and practice of religion, because it had the sanction of the
venerable systems from which Rome borrowed, the systems of
Greece, Egypt, and the great East, whereas there was no nation
which adhered to the Word except the Hebrews, including the
Christians.
It would seem, then, that Clement received the principle of
the superiority of the image to the Word from the Flavii, who
received it from Pagan Romanism, which received it from
Greece, which received it from Phrygia and Phoenicia, which
received it from Chaldea, which received it. But the clue
does not lead us in the direction of 'Apostolic tradition.' If
Clement did not receive the principle from his Hebrew prede-
cessor Peter, and yet did introduce it, he brought in an inno-
vation without any other tradition to sustain it than that of
Pagan Rome.
As the historian lays all the weight of the innovation upon
Clement, he is bound to give us an account of Peter describing
1 Storia della Arte Christiana nei primi otto secoli: da P. Raffaele
Garrucci. Vol. i., p. 6.
The Picture or the Book?
151
to his disciples the manner in which his blessed Master had
gathered the Hebrew painters and sculptors, and instructed
them in the art of embodying His principles, which could be
but imperfectly expressed by the Word, especially fundamental
principles, such as God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him
must worship Him in spirit and in truth.' The spectacle of
Peter himself so engaged with the Roman artists, would have
been worth describing, and it is a pity that no ancient writer,
or even painter, perpetuated it. There are bold things in fresco
on the walls of the Vatican. Perhaps some generation will see
a painting of Peter among the models on the steps of Trinità de'
Monti.
We may doubt if Rome, and much more if Clement, can
be proved guilty of being the first to begin the return to
heathen forms, under the idea of Christian adaptations. Aaron
came before Jeroboam; the priest, who yields to the super-
stition of the crowd, before the politician, who innovates to
strengthen his position. Both the one and the other appeared
in Christianity as in Judaism, only too early; but the city of
Rome did not lead the way in either kind of corruption, though
eventually in both she outstripped all.
Perhaps there is no town in Italy where one more naturally
dwells on the respective offices of the Word and the image than
in Subiaco. As it was here that the first Roman convent sprang
up, so was it here that the first printing press was established in
Italy. But the Swiss printers who set it up soon removed to
Rome. How hard is it to find a book-shop in a country town in
the Papal States, and when found how clearly does it tell the
tale that it cannot thrive! The book has been for priests, lawyers,
and gentlemen; the picture has been the book of the populace.
Where that is the case the cottage is a stranger to that wedlock.
of picture and book to which many a lettered life owes its
earliest inspiration, and to which society owes many a shining
career. It is not too much to say that in an American village,
where a work of high art was never seen, more has often been
*
152 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
+
done by engraver and printer to make painter and sculptor
friends and teachers of the people than in towns of the Papal
States a thousand years old, which for centuries have possessed
some considerable works of art.
Had the Word been relied upon instead of the image, for
religious teaching, Subiaco would for centuries past have had
several book-shops. The walls of the houses would have been
covered with instructive prints, employing art to represent
visible things, and to illustrate thought, not to portray invisible
beings. The human frame would have been regarded with re-
spect, as a temple to be kept clean, and not lightly maimed or
destroyed. Two laws would have become written on the public
sentiment—that the person of man was never to be idolised, and
never degraded. Every child would have had a mother capable
of teaching it the words of the Gospel, and would have found
schools where it could be taught whatever its faculties fitted it
to learn. All the domestic arts would have been more highly
developed, and the glories of nature would have awakened ten-
fold the response in the human soul.
Moreover, these peasants and shopkeepers would have been
the descendants of fathers who, for many generations, had been
in the habit every week of attending worship, not as a spectacle,
but as an exercise of faith, reason, and attention. Not only does
faith come by hearing, but also reflection, reasoning, and habits
of judging. They who join in reading the grand and solemn
Scriptures, in mother tongue, and who also hear from a preacher
every week a series of things, some of which they believe, some of
which they do not believe, and some of which they hardly know
whether they believe or not, learn insensibly to reason. Where
they are taught not to accept what they hear merely because it
is said, but to search the Scriptures to see whether these things
are so, and thus to form their own judgment, for which they
will have to give account, any capability of thought they may
possess is likely to be called into play. The very habit of
hearing connected, intelligent, and, above all, expository or
Social Effects of Preaching or Performances. 153
argumentative discourse, is in itself a considerable step towards
mental training, and an exercise of self-restraint. A population
for ages accustomed to scriptural worship and earnest preach-
ing, must grow into a thoughtful one, ready to govern itself and
easy to be governed by reason, but that cannot be permanently
oppressed. A people accustomed to hear preaching must become
in time a reading people. One accustomed only to worship by
spectacle, with little teaching, learns to be impatient of reasoning
and amenable to watch-words. The one becomes a people call-
ing for the author, the other a people calling for the actor. The
one learns to sift what is said, and to treat as tricks any attempt
to pass off impressions for reasons. The other learns to fit
church to theatre and theatre to church; at both imbibing
love of show; in both being made governable by sensations
rather than by convictions, in both being trained in the
æsthetic of toilet, of posture, and of etiquette, losing meanwhile
the æsthetic of deliberation. The breaches of taste in the
French Chambers by men of exquisite taste in dress and all nick-
nacks, and of finish in rhetoric, as compared with the high taste
of our own deliberative assemblies, is one illustration of what
we now hastily indicate. The southern races are they especially
which need a religion of spirit and reason, not one of material
display and sensuous stimuli. Just as historians till very lately
have overlooked national food and beverage as among the poli-
tical forces, apparently assuming either that food and beverage
had no part in forming national character, or that character
had none in shaping events, so have they overlooked one of
the most pervasive of institutions-that of preaching. It is
not till after long observation tested by many examples among
different races that the evidence appears of how great is the
effect of that one institution upon all the processes of political
life as contrasted with the effect of a religion of perform-
ances. Preaching is pervasive in place, reaching town and
country; pervasive in time, recurring every week; pervasive
through life, beginning to act on childhood and continuing to
154
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
act on old age. Had the altar been substituted for the pulpit in
Scotland, or in New England, in the days of the Stuarts, Scot-
land might have been as Sicily, and New England as Mexico.
But what has the ministry of the Gospel done to train this
southern population in habits of reasoning? The stated reli-
gious services have been a series of sensations-sensations of
smell, sound, and sight. Sensations of smell, in the odours of
incense. Sensations of sound, contrived to give a maximum of
sensation with a minimum of thought. Language itself has
been turned into musical noises emptied of any meaning for the
people. Every variety of sound exciting sensation, but not
conveying thought, has been employed, from the boom of the
great bell to the tinkle of the little one, and from the diapason
of the organ to the piping note of the boy! Sensations of sight,
conveyed through the threefold channel of movement, of form
and colour, of light and shade. Movement of vestments,
banners, vessels, processions, incense-mists, and ever-changing
artistic human action. Form-animate and inanimate, repre-
senting things seen, and professing to represent, not only things
unseen, but also mysteries which angels desire not to look at,
but to look into. Colours-in glass, wood, marble, silver, gold,
cloth, damask, muslin, silk, embroidery, precious stones, and all
manner of paint. Light and shade-graduated or contrasted,
from the undefiled sunlight down through every variety of
dimmed light, tinted light, painted light, candle light, to gloom
and even darkness.¹
Here such influences have not been disturbed, consequently
we might expect a people with little reading and less reasoning,
careless of quiet thoroughness, or of anything which makes no
strong instant impression, feebly drawn to the true beauty of
nature, not available as a decoration, but dazzled by artificial
beauties, especially when turned into costume; looking on
Frond, in his Avant-propos to the folio of M. Fisquet on the Ceremonies of
Rome, says:-'When all the senses with which man is endowed concur to the
same end, the effect produced becomes irresistible: the sanction of the outward
worship is in its proper nature' (Frond, vol. iii., p. 5).
Any Squires or Farmers?
155
a gorgeous pageant as a great event, consequently eager for
spectacle, and overjoyed by a set of vivid sensations, accepting
an impression for a reason, and an effective scene enacted by
priest or ruler as a credential of authority, and as some consider-
able atonement for its abuse. Such a population is naturally
hard to govern and easy to oppress.
Following the smiling valley from Subiaco to Tivoli, one
would, in 1867, probably see youths in the uniform of the
zouaves, lounging on a bank, near one or both of the towns.
Foreign mercenaries! would the Italians say. Foreign, cer-
tainly, and some of them mercenaries; but some, even in the
dress of a private, would unmistakably show the gentleman
—no mercenary, but a crusader who, in answer to the cry
raised after Castelfidardo, has come from afar to fight for
St. Peter, to 'die for religion.'
Even in this mountain valley the villages still keep to the
heights. Where is the squire and his generous hall?-no
room here for his magisterial office or commanding influence!
Where is the farmstead, full and cozy, warm nest of fruitful
brood sure to store a land with golden eggs? When the
squire was quenched under the mitre of the abbot, the farmer
was smothered in the cowl of the friar. Where are the par-
sonages and manses, homes where thought-culture is generally
at the maximum, and external show often at the minimum,
Christian families rooted in nature, blessed by divine ordi-
nance, where woman is doing what the Mother of our Lord
was doing at the head of her house-families holier a hundred
times than the 'religious' family, artificially substituted for
nature and gospel? If from the list of bright names written
up in England since the Reformation were blotted all that
were first inscribed in the family Bible of parsonage or manse,
that list would be more shortened than most men would
imagine.
One visiting Tivoli on the day of a great feast would see
the people at their best. The wonder is how, out of such
156 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
interiors, such costumes can emerge, and how they do show
in the untarnished air and golden light! Such freedom of
the air from colouring matter we never enjoy, unless it be far
west or south, beyond all the chimneys, when the Atlantic
breeze is blowing. Such richness of light is with us unknown.
And this must always make a difference in the æsthetic sensi-
bility, at least so far as colour is concerned. Models for artists
are here easy to find, almost as easy as among the peasantry of
Galilee when out for an Easter holy-day on Mount Tabor. But
here every now and then occur evidences of the artistic gift,
and of artistic culture, which there would not be found.
From the Villa d'Este at Tivoli, with its grandiose, ill-kept
gardens, the prospect across the Campagna, when the distant
city and its unique dome are limmed against the sunset sky,
is one of rare enchantment. Suppose that on these Sabine
or on the Alban Hills you ask some intelligent inhabitant if
these are not the Delectable Mountains, the summits of the
true Celestial Empire, where no act of moral wrong has been
done by the authorities for, say, the last ten hundred years.
Perhaps you might hear such a statement as we once heard.
It was from a gentleman in the pay of the government; but
he knew that he had not to speak either to a priest or to that
denationalised creature which Romans soon detect under the
English form, a convertito. The statement may not have been
correct. But it was such as under our unblessed, lay govern-
ment is never heard. It was such as under a good government
could never be invented. Such a statement, professing to be
made from a man's own knowledge, one never heard in Europe,
except in Naples under the last two kings; but one might
hear such in Egypt, and one could easily hear such, many
years ago, in the Mysore, from old men talking of the times
of Hyder Ali.
The desolation of the Campagna is the true and terrible.
material progress. Here physical impediments to health and
life have conquered, not being encountered by moral and mental
The Historical Aspect of the Campagna.
157
force. What natural riches are here! If England has wealth
in its coal, how much has Italy in its sunshine? How much
has that saved in the last thousand years in clothes, bedding,
and fuel? How much in the wear and tear of buildings, and
of implements? How much has it given in ripening what we
can never ripen, and in ripening quickly and perfectly what
we can ripen but slowly and in part? How much has it both
saved and given in diminishing the physical temptation to in-
temperance? This soil, this sun, and in addition the tribute
of nations, poured out here for ages in all the endless forms
of Peter's gain,-where is all that wealth gone? Here we are
amid the riches of nature, to which successive centuries have
brought riches of tribute, and yet are we wrapped around by
silence, vacuity, and fear. Sleep not here! whispers every
friendly voice. Wealth of matter, poverty of man!
The Papal
government is sometimes accused of bringing the malaria.
No; it only let it come and let it stay. Like many who will
not believe in invisible mind, it would not believe in invisible
matter. The miasma was the hand of God, and was not to
be fought against. The Papal government is also accused of
bringing all the foreign hordes who wasted this once glorious
plain. It did not always bring them. It only brought them
so often that had it been done by any faction in the heart of
a country not being priests, mankind would have sunk the
memory of the faction under eternal disgrace. Now, the sickly
Campagna labourer, the thing like a Fijian hut which to him
is home, and the buffalo, seem a meet monument to the memory
of Saracen and Lombard destroying, and of Cardinals plunder-
ing till only the grass was left. Who would have the heart to
ask himself, Is this the proof that the oasis of priests, amid
the desert of Lay States, is a garden planted of the Lord?
Who, with the grand and benign theocracy of the Bible in
view, in which heaven and earth have a common King, as angels
and men have a common Father, in which blight to a com-
munity below is proof of disfavour on high, though trial to an in-
158 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
dividual may be proof only of discipline,-in which the care of
our heavenly Father for our clothes, our food, and all our little
daily needs is made the divine means of engaging our trust
and love to the infinitely awful yet infinitely loving One, in
whom attention to individuals is not distraction any more than
filling the lungs of little children one by one is division to the
air, and to whom the rule of a whole nation is not effort any
more than speed is hurry to a sunbeam ;—who having in view
a theocracy which ever sets before common men open evidence
of the hand and care of God, telling those who please Him,
'Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou
be in the field: blessed shall be thy basket and thy store,'-
a theocracy which makes godliness prove its promise of the
life that is to come by its profitableness in the life that now
is, a profitableness not always traceable at the moment or in
the individual, but always in the community and in the long
run;-who, having in view this revealed government of our
Father who gives us bread, could ask if this city is the 'city
where God dwells,' seeing as he does the power that here rules
sitting surrounded by the signs of its balefulness?
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 skele-
tons and clouts by way of relics in tawdry churches, would
6
159
The Papal States compared with Ireland.
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 sur-
rounds the fair city would have noted the response of intel-
ligent industry to the boons of a very bountiful Providence.
No such scenes of life, beauty, and comfort have been created
in the States of the Papacy during the whole period of its
existence as those which smile on the banks of the Liffey, the
Lagan, and the Lee. If the Italians were wise they would care-
fully photograph the interiors of the houses approaching the city,
and keep for future time authentic proofs of what the Popes
left. Say the wayside public-house at the Saxa Rubra, the hut,
where the labourers sleep on the floor, just beyond the tomb of
Cecilia Metella, the farmhouse (if we must use so respectable a
name) outside the Salara gate, and so on. The men, women,
and children, the clothes and bed-clothes, ought to be taken
too. Yet this solitude around the city, like that which fences
Mecca, has had much to do with the spell of the place and with
its power over the superstitious. Priestcraft was true to itself
in the instincts which down to our own day resisted every-
thing that would remove that immemorial veil. It is another
form of the dim religious light and other similar tricks upon
thought.
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
160 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
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
where the submission called for is not submission to the blessed
though unfathomable providence of the All-knowing, but sub-
mission to a human superior, the most artificial ever invented;
where what is called authority is an arbitrary command without
a root in nature, or a shade of sanction in Scripture;-com-
munities 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,
A Prelate upon the Holy City.
161
shall disturb the testimony. The Civiltà,¹ 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 pro-
priety 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 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 par-
ticulars 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).
¹ VIII., i., 132.
VOL. I.
11
162
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
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 in-
genuous 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
Unitά 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.
1867
Solemn Confirmation of Syllabus.
163
CHAPTER XIII.
Solemn Confirmation of the Syllabus by the Pope before the assembled
Hierarchy, and their Acquiescence, June 17th, 1867.
THE
HE 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 men-
tion of the Syllabus when first issued, so does he also omit to
say a word of its definitive confirmation by the Pontiff on
June 17th, 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 trans-
action 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 cele-
brated in the Sixtine 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. ¹
1 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 verifi-
cation 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
1
Centenary of St. Peter, p. 6.
164
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
•
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 there-
fore liable to alteration. The Civiltá and the Stimmen 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 widespread multitudes, and not
merely the tabernacle.
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 26th to July 1st,
1867-Consistory-Acquiescence in the Syllabus of the assembled Bishops-
The Canonised Inquisitor-Questions and Returns preparatory to Greater
Centralisation - Manning on the Ceremonies-O'Connell on the Papist
Doctrines-The Doctrine of Direct and Indirect Power.
THE
HE 26th of June, 1867, was the day of the Secret Con-
sistory, 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 repro-
duced this martial figure, the Jesuit historian Sambin (p. 13),
writing after the battles of 1870, makes the Pope say that the
166 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
Church would gain her fairest triumphs by converting her
enemies.
The very name of an Ecumenical 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 the 1st of July,
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 pro-
claim Papal infallibility in the document itself; but this set
the French prelates up in arms.¹ Though stopping short of that
goal, the bishops go far in their approaches to it. Their minds
had been filled with joy on learning from the 'sacred lips' of
the Pontiff his intention of calling a General Council. The lan-
guage of the address, naturally reflecting that of the Pope in
the Pauline Chapel, showed that the Church was not occupied
just then with spiritual but with 'civil humanity,'-of which,
indeed, no longer satisfied with being Mother Church, she is
now to be declared the mother.
(
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 every-
thing 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,
Acton's Zur Geschichte, pp. 13, 14.
2
Adhesion of the Bishops to the Syllabus.
167
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.'¹
No one skilled in the language of the speakers will take the
last words as meaning less than liberty to exercise all powers
which the Pontiff held to be committed to him, and power to
guard every exercise of that liberty.2
(
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.
This link, binding the authority of the episcopate to the past
of the Pope's action, is followed by a festoon of rhetoric which,
however, also covers links in a chain. And then comes the
solemn adhesion of the assembled hierarchy to the condemna-
tions 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.' 3
1 ¹ Acta (Freiburg edition), p. 35.
2 The Church must be able to exercise a perfectly free activity in every single
case lying within her domain, from the first inception of any ecclesiastical law
to its practical application. According to the principles of divine law already
explained, the State authority, in relation to this matter, can have only the one
duty to fulfil (which, because of the honour connected with it, becomes a right),
that of protecting the Church against all obstructions and hindrances.'-Phillips,
Kirchenrecht, ii., 560.
Acta (Freiburg edition), p. 33.
168 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
So it was done. The Pope had called for the express sub-
mission of the episcopate to his own acts, hitherto variously
understood and discussed, and they had given it in round terms.
Dr. Manning, in characterising their document as 'The Address
or Response, in which they united themselves in heart and mind
to their supreme Head,'¹ 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 collec-
tive hierarchy had not only tacitly acquiesced but openly accepted
it. But full as was now its authority, the Syllabus was still,
in spite of the care bestowed upon it, amorphous, liable to
strange twists of interpretation, especially by pupils trained for
Rome.
Yet it is worthy of special remark that the Syllabus is not
mentioned in this Salutation. They who knew nothing of the
scene in the Pauline Chapel might read even the passage above
quoted without knowing that it was a formal adhesion to that
instrument in particular, although how they could take the terms
as not including it we cannot see. Of the scene in the Pauline
Chapel the organs of the Court said not a word. 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.' And even as early as one year from the time,
we shall find that the double authority of the Bishop of Rome,
2 Seric VII., vol. vii., p. 587.
2
Centenary of St. Peter, p. 5.
3
ار
The Salutation of the Bishop.
169
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.¹ 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 govern-
ment as the model?
The bishops evidently knew that they were initiating a move-
ment 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.' 2
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.'s
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
Acta (Freiburg edition), p. 36.
2
1 Acta (Freiburg cdition), p. 34.
Centenary of St. Peter, pp. 12, 13.
170
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
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.'1 The expressions of confi-
dence in these new-made powers, as champions in the thicken-
ing 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,
1
¹ Frond, i., p. 82.
Indignation against a New Saint.
171
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.'¹
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 men-
tioned as being second on the list of those now to be canonised.
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 wel-
comed 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 canonise an Inquisitor,
covered over with the blood of the victims whom he had immo-
lated 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 Q
mores ! '2
1 Eusebius' Life of Constantine, lib. ii., c. 5.
2
Serie VII., vol. vii., p. 23.
172
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
In the Pope's reply to the celebrated address of the five
hundred, the principal point naturally was the expression of his
satisfaction at the approbation given by so many of the pastors¹
of Christendom to the doctrines and condemnations he had
propounded; for the Christian nations would be confirmed in
their obedience to the Holy See.' This language is not to be
loosely interpreted. It is not souls that are to be confirmed,
but nations. They are to be confirmed in obedience; and in
obedience to the Holy See. Perhaps, by this time, the reader
can, in part, grant to such a phrase the magnificence of meaning
which it had in the intentions of the Pontiff.'
After this all-important point, the Pope felt that such a
testimony to the necessity of his temporal power was splendid.
He was pleased with the praise of his loyal Romans. But he
took occasion to couple the names of Peter and Paul in a more
correct form than that into which the bishops had fallen. It is
Peter, prince of the apostles,' and 'Paul, doctor of the Gentiles.'
In return for the metaphor of the ship he gave them that of
the tower. Human pride, repeating ancient presumption, had
long attempted by factitious progress to build up a stately
tower, the top of which should reach to heaven, whence God
Himself was to be pulled down at last. The Council was the
mightiest force to combat these attempts, and he solemnly
declared that it should be placed under the patronage of the
most blessed Virgin, and that, in whatever year convoked, it
should be opened on the day dedicated to the Immaculate Con-
ception! If those who think that a representative legislature is
a lawful and even a noble erection will only note the Tower of
Babel every time it reappears in the speech of the initiated,
they will in time catch a hint of its meaning.
2
The Cardinals of the Holy Office had drawn up a list of
questions on points of Church discipline, which was delivered
1 The reader will already have observed that in the Vatican dialect 'pastor'
means 'bishop,' almost universally.
2 Acta (Freiburg edition), p. 47.
The Reports of the Solemnities.
173
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.¹
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 autho-
rity 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 mobilised 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 twofold authority which rules the nations in the name
of God.'2 It of course celebrates the 'standards which repre-
sented the glory of the Princes of the Apostles,' and does not
forget the 'twenty thousand wax candles.' Pius IX. was not
reduced, like Licinius, to say, 'We light tapers in vain.' So
far as the bishops were concerned, the tapers were not lighted
1 Zur Geschichte, p. 4. 2 Serie VI., vol. xi., p. 165. ³ Ibid., p. 234.
3
174
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
in vain. They greatly enhanced their faith in the cause, and
their zeal for it. Indeed, with twenty thousand wax candles a
Pope could make his flock see almost anything:
(
The place which the ceremonies were designed to fill in the
movement for reconstruction was not better indicated at the
time by any one than by Archbishop Manning. He reminded
his clergy that in the solemn adherence of the bishops to those
acts of the Pontiff, whereby he had condemned errors and
enunciated truth, 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.' Nothing was
further from the thoughts of the pastors, proceeded the Arch-
bishop; they recognised the voice of Peter in the voice of
Pius, and the infallible certainty of all his declarations and
condemnations. . . . They did not add certainty to what was
already infallible.'1 The infallibility, he contended, belonged
to all the approbations and condemnations alike-not, as some
'blindly say,' by virtue derived from canons, councils, or eccle-
siastical 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 Pro-
testants. 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 doc-
¹ Centenary of St. Peter, pp. 33, 34.
O'Connell not a Papist.
175
trine 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 Parlia-
ment 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."
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.
2
It would not be fair to charge upon all Catholics, as doctrine
to which they are bound, the loose views of Cardinal Manning,
who, as things have turned out, now sets even Protestants upon
fixing limits around infallibility as imperatively as he swept all
limits out of sight in that rose-coloured moment of 1867 when
Rome had just made known that she was officially taking the
affairs of the world in hand. Then he had no forbearance for
those Roman Catholics who knew that what Dr. Manning called.
'blindness' had been the doctrine held in countries to which
men might feel proud to belong, and also knew that the
countries where it was called blindness had become a drag
upon civilisation. Yet, even in the Papal States, Spain and
South America, professed theologians, if not writing for Court
ends, would have treated the expressions of Dr. Manning as not
only exaggerated but as inaccurate. 'Infallible certainty of all
his declarations and condemnations' is language which O'Connell
would have driven his coach and six, not through, but over.
1 The Select Speeches of O'Connell. Edited by his son, 1862. P. 447.
2 Life prefixed to the Lives of the Saints, vol. i., p. 14. Ed. of 1836.
176
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
6
1
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.' 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.2
The same spokesman said not more than the Jesuits thought,
but much more than the organs of the Court ventured to say,
when he went on in the following vigorous and portentous
words:-
'Every bishop in the world had the Encyclical and Syllabus in his
hands. Upon that summary of the acts of this whole Pontificate, five
hundred bishops proclaim their adhesion to every declaration and
every condemnation therein contained, and to every other act of doc-
trinal authority since their last assembly in Rome. It is the Encyclical
and Syllabus which gives such force and import to the words of the
episcopate the other day. It is the basis of their "Salutation," as they
style the address. It will be also the basis and the guide of the General
Council, prescribing and directing its deliberations and decrees.'³
At its proper date we shall see how this declaration is con-
firmed by the Civiltá for the confounding of Montalembert,
Darboy, and such like, and, by anticipation, for the confuting
of one who on this matter took great liberties with English
trustfulness.
The well-defined phrase 'act of doctrinal authority,' which we
have put in italics, indicates the rank of the Syllabus according
to Manning's model curialistic intellect. It was not a mere act
of ecclesiastical discipline, liable to be modified; much less a
mere manifesto of ecclesiastical polity. It was a 'doctrinal
authority,' fixing eternal principles, to which disciplinary ar-
rangements, concordats, and national laws, must in time be
brought into conformity. The Jesuits had always argued that,
condemning certain doctrines and not any forms of discipline, it
was purely doctrinal. This view the Pope had now confirmed.
Just as the episcopate had been committed in 1862 to the
2 Ibid., p. 34. 3 Ibid., p. 39.
Centenary of St. Peter, p. 38.
Rulers to be Awakened.
177
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 re-
corded, 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 civilised 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.'
1
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.'2
¹ Centenary of St. Peter, p. 95.
VOL. I.
2 Vaticanism, p. 155.
12
178 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
There was one part of the ceremonies which neither Archbishop
Manning nor, so far as we know, any bishop on this side of the
mountains described at the time. Indeed, had any one of them
done so, few of us would then have found in it any important
connection with the powerful awaking of civil rulers, and with
the fact that the Church is not a mere religion, but a good
deal besides. Much that is to come under our eye will, how-
ever, show that the ceremony we are about to hear the Civiltá
describe was one with an edge on it. The chair of St. Peter--
not the one with the Moslem inscription described by Lady
Morgan, and many others, which might well enough have been
set up by the Saracens, or inscribed by them when they had
possession, but an old Roman chair-was exposed for vene-
ration. The Civiltá had afterwards to relate how, on the
evening of a horrible fight in the trastevere, the Crusaders,
while engaged in destroying a nest of Garibaldians barricaded
in a house, would seize a moment to 'slip into the basilica of
St. Grisogono to consecrate their bayonets to God.' This re-
minds the writer that this was one of the practices of the
Crusaders, of which every one could see hundreds of examples
while the chair of St. Peter was exposed in the apostolic
cathedral for the centenary. They laid their swords on the
venerable relic, and taking them up again replaced them in
the scabbard, to be unsheathed only in the service of God and
of religion. We believe that masters of the art of war will
not repute as useless such incentives to military valour, not
even the Garibaldians."1
6
The language of O'Connell, as above quoted, was not em-
ployed loosely. He spoke
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
¹ VII., ix., 54.
Direct and Indirect Power.
179
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 Monta-
lembert 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.
To us the words 'directly' and 'indirectly' seem very easy
to be understood; yet they have played no little part in the
ecclesiastical and political controversies of Rome. O'Connell
appears to use them half in a popular and half in an ecclesias-
tical sense; still, the popular sense appears to predominate. He
calls that authority spiritual which is over spiritual things, and
by temporal authority he clearly means authority over temporal
things. In thus speaking, he designates authority according
to its domain, and not according to its origin. This was just
the point upon which Bellarmine and Sixtus V. had their
quarrel. There is a curious little autobiography of the great
Jesuit Cardinal in the Collegio Romano. Writing in the
third person, he says that Pope Sixtus was incensed against
Bellarmine because of a proposition found in his writings,
denying that the Pope was the direct Lord of the whole world.'
On account of this proposition Sixtus placed Bellarmine's great
6
180
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
work, The Controversies, in the Index. After his death, the
Congregation of Rites had it erased.
In this dispute the popular meaning was on the side of the
Pope, but the more astute meaning was on the side of the
Jesuit; and astuteness carried the day. The term 'temporal
authority' was liable to give offence both to rulers and people ;
for rulers do not want a suzerain, and nations do not want
two rulers. The term 'spiritual authority' was not so ob-
jectionable. It had the further advantage of expressing the
origin and the character of the Papal authority, and of both
indicating and justifying its claim to be of a higher order than
any temporal authority could be. Thus temporal authority
came to mean nothing more or less than authority originating
in a temporal source, as well as authority used for a temporal
end. This obviously could not apply to that authority which
the Pope claims over all the states of the world. This universal
authority, instead of being called temporal authority, came to
be strictly described as spiritual authority over temporal affairs;
or if temporal authority at all, not direct but only indirect
temporal authority. No matter how secular the affairs over
which this authority is exerted, its spiritual character is always
sustained by the fact that it did not originate in a temporal
compact, and that it never claims to extend to any affair into
which the element of sin or virtue cannot enter; but, wherever
this element may enter, eternal ends may be affected, and the
matter ceases to be any longer a purely temporal one. We
do not remember any Papal writer who clearly sets forth the
class of human transactions which do not involve sin,' as
Cardinal Manning expresses it. By this we understand trans-
actions in which one course would be sinful and another
course would be virtuous. Such attempts as we remember to
indicate actions that are exempt from this quality, are not
worth any notice. For instance, Phillips, in matrimonial
affairs, draws the line at dowry and inheritance,-a line ob-
viously arbitrary. A child will at once see that both dowry and
<
•
Direct and Indirect Power.
181
inheritance may involve moral questions of the highest gravity,
—may involve sins and virtues of considerable magnitude; sins,
too, in which the Church' has a direct temporal interest. It
only remains, therefore, for the ecclesiastical authority to say,
at any moment, that those questions do not lie on the State side
of the dividing line, but on the Church side.
We must remember that the dispute between Sixtus and
Bellarmine was not about the domain of the Papal power, but
simply about the best way of designating it. Both agreed that
its domain extended over the world; over princes, laws, tri-
bunals, institutions, and all actions of governments, corporations,
or families, 'involving sin.' But it was not only convenient.
but necessary that this power, when exercised outside of the
Pontifical States, should be distinguished by some characteristic
designation from the temporal authority exercised within those
States. The wider power came not to the Pope from natural
society, but from God; did not reside in a secular person,
but in the Vicar of God; and aimed not at the temporal wel-
fare of a nation, but at the extension of the dominion of God,
which it is heretical to separate from the dominion of His
Vicar. It is, therefore, spiritual power; and the extension of
the domain of the Vicar of God always subserves a spiritual
end, namely, that of the eternal salvation of the nation in
question,—and thereby it subserves the glory of God.
By a process not more strange than what often takes place
in the evolution of terminology, in which at least the fittest
does not always survive, the terms 'direct' and 'temporal
came to be interchangeable, and also 'indirect' and 'spiritual.'
We see no proof that the mystifying influence which these
terms produce was the object originally aimed at. The
evolution was a difficult one, and, if the result may be some-
what awkward, it has now worked itself clear. We do not
say that advantage has never been taken of the mystifying
effect of this terminology. In both our own country and
others, in both former times and recent ones, advantage has
182
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
been scandalously taken of it. And advantage will still be
taken of it, until the universal conscience resents such courses
as an outrage upon the rudimentary duties of citizenship. The
use made of the term 'direct' by Antonelli, in his diplomatic
fencing with Counts Beust and Daru, will pass under our eye.
Within the Papal States, the authority of the Pope over
temporal affairs is direct, aiming at temporal ends. Beyond
those States, it is indirect, and indeed is not properly temporal
authority, but spiritual authority over temporal affairs. In the
one case, the Pope is his own executive; in the other, he has to
set in motion the executive office of the temporal ruler; but his
authority over the latter does not extend beyond the limits of
affairs in which sin is involved. In every case, however, where
a moral question may arise before the mind of the civil ruler,
there stands above the ruler the spiritual power of the Pope.
As no other question can involve moral consequences of greater
weight than one of peace or war, that question becomes one of
the first in which the spiritual authority should predominate
over all temporal interests, and should control physical forces.
6
Cardinal Manning has put this matter before the public with
sufficient clearness, for those who understand the principles now
explained. The superior power,' he says, 'cannot be temporal,
or its jurisdiction would be direct.'¹ A spiritual power in-
directly over temporal things, in so far as they may affect the
salvation of men, or involve sin' (p. 72). The principal point is
clearly put by the Cardinal (p. 76). Speaking of the power of the
Pope, he says, 'If temporal, it would not be of a higher, but of
the same, order.' The emphases are the Cardinal's. He also
says (p. 54), 'If princes and their laws deviate from the law of
God, the Church has authority from God to judge of that devia-
tion, and to oblige to its correction.' In the next quotation, it
is again the Cardinal who emphasises the proper designation of
authority, direct from on high (p. 55). The authority which
the Church has from God for this end, is not temporal, but spiri-
1 Vat. Dec., p. 76.
C
Dr. Newman on the Syllabus.
183
tual.' For what end? For that of obliging princes to conform
to the law of God. Here we emphasise oblige. It is to be
remembered that the law of God always, in Papal language,
means that law as expounded by the Church. The Cardinal
says again, 'When any prince by baptism became Christian, he
became subject to the law of God, and to the Church as its
expositor' (p. 66). The authority by which one of our judges
obliges a criminal to conform to law, by undergoing his sentence,
is not physical, but civil, and the civil authority commands the
physical force of sheriff and jailer. It acts with a view to a direct
physical effect, to be produced upon the person of the criminal;
but it also acts with a view to an indirect civil effect, of a much
higher order, namely, the benefit of the community. Just so
the authority by which the Vicegerent of God obliges princes is
not civil or temporal, but spiritual or divine. If the authority
of the judge were physical, it would be no higher in its order
than that kind of authority which one criminal often holds over
another. So, if the Pope's authority were temporal, it would be
merely of the same order as that of princes. His authority might,
in degree, be greater than theirs; but, in order, it would sink
to the common level. Being spiritual, it is higher in its origin,
higher in its end, higher in its domain, and higher in its applica-
tion; therefore, according to a favourite simile, higher in order
as much as the greater light which rules the day is higher than
the lesser light which rules the night.
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 Arch-
bishop 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
184
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
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 Allo-
cutions, 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 first proposition here involves matter for Roman Catholics to dispute
about among themselves, and we shall pass it by. The Syllabus may have
no dogmatic force, as Dr. Newman says, or may be part of the supreme
and infallible teaching of the Church,' as Cardinal Manning says,' or may
be 'the rule of teaching' for all bishops, as Pius IX. says. Which of
these may be its true position is a question between the Pope and Dr.
Newman. Our present question is another.
The second proposition in the clause just quoted from Dr. Newman is
one on which even Protestants may venture to form a judgment.
<
Tho
Centenary of St. Peter, p. 28.
• Ibid., p. 6.
Dr. Newman on the Syllabus.
185
Syllabus addresses us not in its separate portions, but as a whole.' This
again comprises two propositions, one affirmative and one negative. 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. To put the whole assertion into a true form it would have to
be altered to this effect: The Syllabus addresses us as a whole, and in its
separate parts.
The principle upon which Dr. Newman grounds the idea that the
Syllabus does not address us in its separate portions seems to be this:
each article of it, taken in itself, is composed of the words, literal or
virtual, of some person declared to be in error. Now surely it is not
necessary to be told that the words which the Pope condemns are those of
other people. But why do these words proceed out of his lips? On purpose
to receive condemnation; and they fall from his lips one by one, under
sentence, although the formula of judgment is not separately repeated
before each one. If an arbiter says, I disallow the following items, and
sets down eighty, he does not repeat 'I disallow' before each; but we
should not on that account think of saying that his award addresses us
as a whole but not in its separate portions. The words 'I disallow'
govern all that follows. 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 docu-
ments.
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 Ency-
clical 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 addi-
tional 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
186 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
consequence whatever, but Dr. Newman has chosen to make it important,
and for his theory it may have some importance.
The only connection between the Syllabus and the Encyclical is one
external to them both, the connection of time and organ; Cardinal Anto-
nelli sending them to the bishops with the introduction of one and the
same letter' (p. 82). Some of the assertions in this venturesome sentence
cannot be disputed. It is true that the two documents were sent to the
bishops with the same introductory letter. It is true that they were both
sent at the same time. It is true that Cardinal Antonelli sent them.
Moreover, it is true that in doing so he acted as an 'organ,' and not as the
author of one document or the other. But the main allegation, that the
only connection between them is one of time and organ, is incorrect.
There is this important point of internal connection: the Encyclical
expressly refers to the Pope's previous condemnations as given in official
forms; the Syllabus begins by reciting as its own heading the terms of
that reference, 'The Principal Errors of our Times set forth,' as such in the
very same official acts by the present Pope, it even recites the words ' Con-
sistorial Allocutions, Encyclicals, and other Letters Apostolic.'
The Encyclical is signed by Pius IX., as are his Letters. The Syllabus
is headed by his name, as are his Allocutions. It quotes from no docu-
ment which is not authenticated and recognised as his act. The Encyclical
contains certain new condemnations necessary to complete former ones.
The Syllabus collects together the former ones, which become complete
by the addition of the new. The two documents fit into one another,
under the hand of a critic, as easily as they fitted into the same covering
under the hand of Cardinal Antonelli. These clear internal links are
strengthened by a point of external connection omitted by Dr. Newman.
The letter by which the organ introduced them to the bishops was not
only the same letter, but was also an official statement to the bishops that
the two documents were from the same author. Antonelli attributes to
the Pope, not only the whole, but the separate portions of the Syllabus;
and it is precisely for fear that these portions, severally, might not be
every one under the eye of each particular bishop in the world, that the
Holy Father has had this collection made of the errors he has condemned.
'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
Dr. Newman on the Syllabus.
187
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? Not something that may be erroneous,
or something that has been secretly judged to be erroneous.
It means
errors declared to be such by the Pontiff; a list of such 'errors,' there-
fore, 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. For instance, if one asserted that
no Roman Catholic is a Pope, Dr. Newman would deny it; yet all he
would mean would be that as one single exception to an otherwise
universal rule did exist, that fact rendered the universal assertion untrue.
Still this denial of a universal by its contradictory is so wide a way of
talking, that the effect of it may be just the opposite of what we have
now stated. For instance, if one asserted that every Roman Catholic is
a Pope, Dr. Newman would again deny it. But now he would not
mean that what is asserted is a rule with one solitary exception; on
the contrary, he would mean that it is no more than the one solitary
exception, and that the contrary is a rule absolutely true of every Roman
Catholic in the world, except one. Even in this one method, therefore,
of denying a universal there may be very wide latitude of meaning. 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. For instance, one asserts that all men should be Roman Catho-
lics, and another asserts that no man should be a Roman Catholic; each
of them intending to exclude all exceptions, and to lay down an absolute
rule.
Now if Dr. Newman believes that when the Pope denies that, in case of
conflict, the civil law should prevail, the Pope ineans 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.
Schrader is a logician as well as Dr. Newman. Had he taken the
denial in question in the sense hinted at by the latter, he would have
given as his counter-proposition the following. In some conflicts of the
two laws the civil law should not prevail. Does he do so? No surely.
Had he done so, his name and place in his Church would have been
different from what they became. Against a universal he sets a universal,
188
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
Where the statesman asserts the ascendancy of civil law in every case
of conflict, Schrader asserts the ascendancy of the ecclesiastical. His
proposition is evidently not the contradicte y, but the contrary. 'In
cases of conflict (not in some cases cf cruflict) the civil law does not
prevail.'
Dr. Newman's treatment of the Sentence (24) which condemned those
who say that the Church has not the right to employ force, is very in-
structive. 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 out-
ward 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 inferendæ potestatem temporalem; it never glances
at spiritual censures in the popular sense.
i
At the next step, Dr. Newinan 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 regard-
ing 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 cor-
poral 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 instruments
'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
Dr. Newman on the Syllabus.
189
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 with-
drawn 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 instru-
ments of flogging and thrashing, much less the instruments of other
corporal pains which fall short of the 'effusion of blood.'
'Assuredly,' says Boniface VIII., 'he who denies that the temporal
sword is in the power of Peter, ill attends to the words of our Lord, when
He said, "Put up again thy sword into his sheath." The word here is
clear: in the power of the Church, not in her hand. Dr. Newman, how-
ever, sees only the weapons in her hand, and does not think of her
'employing' any that is not in her own hand. But the very next words
of Boniface save ordinary readers from falling into such a mistake.
'Therefore,' he proceeds, 'both are in the power of the Church, the
spiritual sword, namely, and the material; but the latter to be wielded
for the Church, and the former by the Church.' Perhaps, then, the fence
of Dr. Newman turns upon the distinction between employing and causing
to be employed. But we, like Dr. Newman, wish to speak with the
Fisherman; and he, in the person of Boniface, proceeds: The former
(the spiritual) by the priest, the latter (the temporal) by the hand of kings
and soldiers, but at the beck and sufferance of the priest.' Here the
distinction is clear as day. The one sword is to be wielded by the priest;
the other, though not in the same way, by the king. The priest's sword
is in his own power, and is his. The king's is not in his power. It is
only in his hand; to make which plainer, the hands of kings and those of
soldiers are coupled together in the same ministerial category. It is not
at the king's discretion, and to be used on his accountability. It is at
the beck or at the nod, ad nutum, of the priest. It is not the king's, to
have and to hold till God takes it away. It is at the sufferance, ad
patientiam, of the priest. Moreover, while that sufferance endures, and
190
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
the king is allowed to hold it in his hand, it is not independent; but,'
proceeds Boniface, 'sword ought to be under sword, and the temporal
authority subject to the spiritual power.'
Yet even the Bull Unam Sanctam, strictly interpreted, does not claim
all that Dr. Newman's seemingly loose language claims for the hand of
the Church. The Bull claims in words neither cat nor rack, nor indeed
any material weapon,-only the spiritual sword for her hand. By having
them in her hand we mean, as much exempt from civil control as is her
spiritual sword. To have the other sword in her power, at her beck,
at her sufferance, and in subjection, is all that the Church of Boniface
really claimed respecting it, outside the Papal States. But all of that
she did claim. She now, according to Cardinal Soglia, claims, further,
to have in her own hand all instruments of bodily pain short of taking life.
We have carefully spoken of the doctrine, that the corporal sword is not
to be wielded by the hand of the Church herself, as what was her doctrine.
We are by no means clear that it is so now. Part of the preparation for
the Vatican Council consisted in teaching, by the high authority of
Cardinal Tarquini, that the sword might be directly and immediately
wielded by the Church herself, in the person of the Pope and a General
Council. The question between Soglia and other writers, as Dr. Newman
well knows, turned not upon the use of force, and not upon the consigning
of heretics to death, but turned exclusively on the point whether in inflict-
ing upon them the last penalty the Church did right to imbue in their
blood her own hand, and not that of the temporal power.
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 incompre-
hensible to other people.
C
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
Dr. Newman on the Syllabus.
191
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 apos-
tolic 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, consider-
able 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.
192 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
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 docu-
ments, 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.
We have found that the omission to mention the Syllabus by name
in the Encyclical was one of a series of acts of reticence touching that
document, all of which must have been the effect of one common
reason.
The intention of the language of Boniface to make the king, in the use
of the sword, merely a minister at the command of the priest, is rendered
clearer by his departure from the words of St. Bernard, whom he is
supposed to quote, in order, as Ultramontane writers point out, to con-
found the King of France by the authority of the greatest of Frenchmen.
Those words were: 'The latter is to be wielded for the Church, the
former by the Church; the material sword by the hand of the soldier, but
only at the intimation of the priest and the command of the Emperor.' ¹
This language of Bernard leaves the matter much as historians who wrote
before Christ habitually put it, namely, that the soldier did not smite
with the sword until the king commanded, and the king did not command
until the priest told him that the omens allowed it. But Boniface changed
all this. He did not allow anything to appear about the king commanding.
He simply takes the soldier and the king together as hands to the priest,
who is the power that gives the command, to which they are to give
effect. Thus the doctrine of physical force steadily develops itself in
Papal politics, as does that of materialised worship in Papal theology.
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
1 Soglia, vol. ii., p. 216-17.
Propaganda.
Edition of 1875 by Vecchiotti, sold at the
-
(
Dr. Newman on the Syllabus.
193
public as justifying him in crying out against Mr. Gladstone for accusing
the Church of claiming the right to use force? We shall not say one
word about it, but leave a few sentences taken from Soglia's chapter on
the coercive power of the Church and on ecclesiastical penalties to speak
for themselves. We quote from an edition of three octavos, sold at the
Propaganda. Dr. Newman quotes from a single duodecimo published
in Paris. His edition is Cisalpine. Moreover, Soglia wrote before the
present pontificate and the new developments of doctrine. Our edition
(the sixteenth, 1875) is expressly prepared for use in seminaries.-Page
216: The Church, exercising her power in the external tribunal, has
been long accustomed to chastise offenders even with prison, exile, con-
finement 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 accord-
ing 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 punish-
ment, 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
13
C
VOL. I.
194 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
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 spiritua"
good of the faithful.'
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 enthu-
siasm 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 prepara-
tions 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.¹ Rightly or
wrongly, as Vitelleschi says, he is credited with the principal sharo
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 denationalised in manner
and spirit, that his countrymen sometimes accused him of affect-
ing 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
! Cecconi, p. 62,
Distribution of Labours.
195
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.¹
When Reisach had rendered his presence in Munich so un-
welcome that the King applied to the Pope for his removal,
he resigned the archbishopric, but the Pope raised him to the
purple, as Resident Cardinal. Now he was to be the first
Presiding Cardinal in the Council.
Cecconi's description of the task assigned to Reisach and his
Commission, shows how it went to the root of the enterprise of
reconstruction. He speaks of it as 'this first attempt to indite
a code of laws concerning matters affecting the relations of the
Church and Civil Society' (p. 301).
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 move-
ment 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
1 An interesting account of this change is given in Sepp's stirring speech in
the Bavarian Parliament on the Mering case, Deutschland und der Vatican, pp.
182-185.
196
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
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. Gari-
baldi, 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 dif-
ferent 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 the 3rd of November 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 Civiltà 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." So does the one
6
¹ VII., iii., 559.
Two Sovereigns to One State.
197
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
captivity?
gone into
The martial value of the religious motives and principles.
which animated the Crusaders, as contrasted with the Garibal-
dians, 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 oppor-
tunity 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 trium-
phantly through the Roman territory.''
On the 8th of October, 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.'
¹ Civiltà, VII., x., 161.
198
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
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.'
21
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 cele-
brated '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 Wurzburg. England was
represented by Monsignor Weathers, and the United States by
Monsignor Corcoran. On October 2nd 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.2
(
6
In concluding his letter the Cardinal cordially kisses hands
to the bishop, who in return kisses the hand of the Cardinal,
in token of reverence,' but he does not 'kiss the sacred
purple.'
The language of Dr. Newman, as reported in this correspond-
ence, shows that he had but faint light on the part which mere
3 Cecconi, pp. 370, 371,
1 Serie VII., vol. vii., p. 22.
Bishops in Partibus, and Princes.
199
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 im-
portant 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 had 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 communi-
cating a copy of the Bull of Convocation to each Court. Bnt
should the princes be invited to attend? This question was
much debated among the purpled consulters, and was negatived.'
Our author explains :—
6
t
?
Cecconi, p. 122,
200 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
'In former times, when Catholic princes, as such, openly professed
Catholicism, when the civil and ecclesiastical laws harmonised with one
another, and States executed the decrees of the Church, the presence of
princes in Councils was not only fitting, but in some sense necessary.
But at prosent where is tho Catholic kingdom? Where harmonious laws?
Where is ecclesiastical legislation respected on principle? On the con-
trary, does not the pretended separation of the State from the Church
form the rule which guides every act of governments and of parliaments,
as to which, nowadays, sovereigns are nothing more than the executors
of their will? Are, then, those to be introduced into the august Council
who, in the main, would ropresent nothing there but the very principles
which the Church, assembled in the person of her pastors, is called to condemn,
and, as much as in her lies, to destroy.'—Cecconi, pp. 122, 123.
This passage needs no exposition, but it will repay re-reading.
The words we have put in italics contain an expression of the
purpose and the policy of that movement in which the Council
formed the legislativo episode; and those words may bo pon-
dered again and again. The decision thus taken was logical,
for no one is a Catholic princo as such' who does not placo
the law of his land under canon law; or, in proper language,
who does not maintain 'harmonious laws,' recognising politics
as lying in the domain of morals, and therefore as being under
the spiritual authority. When the controversy on the Syllabus
began, the Civiltú 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. Tho 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., 652-653).
It is not said that Antonelli in particular took alarm. But it
is said that fears arose lest the novelty' resolved upon should
Are Kings to be Invited?
201
prove perilous; therefore the subject had to be reconsidered in
the presence of the Secretary of State. Thus for once we seo
taking his place with the Nine the spare, well-knit, olive-tinted
son of Sonnino, with his compelling lip and sharp eye, never at
rest and never disconcerted; with his rare tufts of hair, black
enough for the tuft of a Brahman; and with his broad brow,
on which sat thought, but thought less sagelike than lordly.
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 pub-
lishing 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 he
held in presence of the Most Holy' (coram sanctissimo)—i.c.,
before the Pope.¹
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, ho 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 remoto
placo-full of will, spirit, and self-confidence, with more art in
governing than ho has got credit for, at least in that domi-
neering and deluding which avails with priests. He would be
as hilarious as a squire who never put to death anything moro
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.
llo
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
■ Cecconi, p. 832.
202 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
"
rightfully claimed by his predecessors of blessed memory, but
from which the Church, slow of heart to believe, had hitherto
withheld her formal sanction, were at last to be openly acknow-
ledged in his person? The Church had, however, over and over
again acknowledged the right of kings to a place and a voice.
But having become mere constitutional kings, were they worthy
to retain their ancient place? The historian does not intimate
that any question of right was ever raised. He intimates
only that strong fears were expressed as to possible danger
from the proposed exclusion. The deliberation was long and
anxious.
6
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?' Admitting all this, the smooth man of Sonnino
would show that if all the kings were offended, Garibaldi, or
personages more formidable, might take their seat in Rome,
instead of a Council. Hard words for a Pope to hear! When
the call for Trent went forth, the only doubtful crowns were
two lying away between civilisation 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
The social
but not sound,-there were no Catholic States.
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
Symptoms of Conflict.
203
to be invited, but they were to be allowed to claim admission.
The Bull was then and there altered in this sense.¹
1
We have already seen what is the Vatican view of constitu-
tional States, when told by the Vatican historian that they
are the thing to be combated, and if possible destroyed. The
Vatican view of the forthcoming Council is implied in the same
utterance, it was the force to combat and destroy constitu-
tional States. On the ruins, however, was to rise a nobler struc-
ture, and more secure. We have already seen the Church
called 'mother of civil humanity,'-an extension of the term
'mother of the faithful.' We are now to see the Pope called
'father of the nations,'-an extension of the term 'father of the
faithful.' As such, seeing that the nations under their present
form are in a dying condition, he is the saviour of society.
The introduction to the Pope's Speeches says:—
'It was by a manifest counsel of the Omniscient that the true Father of
the nations, the only saviour of moribund society, was led to collect
all his forces, and by proclaiming the dogma of infallibility, to establish
the supreme teaching authority, as an imperishable centre around which
the misled generations might rally in the midst of catastrophes.' ²
Of the terms here used that most transformed by re-
ligious belief is the phrase supreme teaching authority. To a
Protestant it means some great power of interpreting the Bible.
To an Ultramontane it means the power of interpreting the law
and mind of God, held by His Vicar, and exercised either in
statutes or in institutions; and thus it becomes really a supreme
legislative and rectoral authority over rulers. We shall in the
sequel see its real meaning clearly stated.
Meanwhile symptoms of the coming conflict began to appear.
Catholics of all classes looked forward to great events for the
Church and the nations. In proportion as they were well
informed, did their estimate of the gravity of impending events
increase. Those who did not share the hopes of the hidden
Council, or who recoiled from the dogmas likely to be decreed,
* Discorsi, vol. i., p. 24.
1 Cecconi, p. 121-124.
204
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
felt anxious.
The press began to pour out pamphlets and
reprints, enabling all to read up on the question of Councils.
It was by a Cæsar at the height of military and political
success that the first General Council was convened. This new
Council was called by one retaining as much of the Cæsar as lay
in the office of Pontiff, and the ambition of universal supremacy,
but at the depth of political and military failure. When Con-
stantine sent the good Bishop of Cordova with his letter to the
disputants in Egypt, he was grieved by theological dissensions
within the Churches. Restore to us peaceful and serene days,
and nights void of care, that the pleasure of the pure light and
the joy of a quiet life may in future be reserved to us also.'
Pius IX. likewise longed for quiet days and nights, but he was
disturbed by the unity and progress of Italy and Germany, not
by bishops sparring with words, to use the phrase of Eusebius.
1
"The Crusaders of St. Peter' was the title of historical tales
now regularly appearing in the Civilti, 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 tho
Crusade, and faith that those who fell escaped purgatorial pains
and found direct entrance among the beatified. The military
virtues of the rosary, of certain medals, and of the scapular,
were always kept in view. One word might express the appeal
to the crusader himself To the fight newly shriven, from the
fight straight to heaven.
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.
The congregations of Mary often met at the foot of an olive to recite
the holy rosary.
…No one faccd danger without acquiring [by absolu-
•
tion] that daring which is inspired by a pure conscience and by the bread
of the strong. On march the fatigue was lightened by reciting the
¹ Life of Constantine, by Euschius, lib. ii., cap. 72. London, 1709.
•
The Blessedness of the Crusaders.
205
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
He still
me he looked like an angel. I could not restrain my tears.
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 :
Oh what a comfort is that
'My beloved son is dead-died for his God.
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.] 'lf,' continues
the mother to her friend, 'you go to a reception of our holy and vene
206
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
rated 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,
6 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. Later, to Monsignor
Stonor, another Englishman, he expressed the same sentiments,
and it is immediately added that he 'impressed most tender
kisses on the medals of St. Michael the Archangel, and St.
Ignatius, to whom he professed special devotion.' St. Michael
was then patron of the Church, and patron of all her warriors,
and St. Ignatius is eminently a fighting saint. Alfred Colling-
ridge, 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.
6
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
6
6
The Martyred Crusaders.
207
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
recognised 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 re-
ceived 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 Chris-
tians 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
6
6
208 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
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.
CHAPTER III.
Bull of Convocation-Doctrine of the Sword-The Crusade of St. Peter-
Incidents-Mission to the Orientals, and Overtures to Protestants in dif-
ferent Countries-June 1868 to December 1868-69.
IT
T was on St. Peter's Day, June 29th, 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 Con-
ception, December 8th, 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
God Himself, Father, Son, and
the authority of Almighty
91
6
Holy Ghost, and of His blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, which
we also exercise upon earth.' 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
• Acta, p. 6.
Invitations to Schismatics and Heretics.
•
•
·
209
to defend justice, .
whose education is withdrawn from the clergy;
to assure the progress and solidity of the human sciences." This some-
what confounds things spiritual and temporal; but those political allusions
drowned in the usual digressions of Pontifical documents, passed un-
observed.'
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. Many a clear-headed man would
have taken the expression about redressing the errors that turn
society upside down, to mean, confronting false principles with
sound ones; and the expression about 'preserving a nation'
from bad journals to mean, beating them by good ones; and
to such men, of course, 'defending justice' would never mean
what it meant to the French priest, but what it means at
St. Stephen's.
To obviate the objection that the assembly would be only a
synod of the Western Church, and not an Ecumenical Council,
the Bull was followed by Letters Apostolic addressed to all
prelates of the Oriental Churches not holding communion with
Rome.¹ 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 com-
plete the union. This invitation was dated September 8th; 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
1 Archbishop Manning gave reasons for looking upon the motive here assigned
as 'a transparent error.'
VOL. 1.
14
210 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
1
in Protestant countries, it began to be discussed in Roman
Catholic ones with an interest which rapidly warmed to excite-
ment. 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 sympathise with
the aims indicated. For instance, a professor of history in the
Roman University writing a folio said, 'By this august act the
greatness of Pius IX. is raised so far above all previous deeds.
of his pontificate, that we are compelled to lay down our pen.'
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."2 Language like this is not to be smiled
at when it goes to the heart of perhaps half a million of eccle-
siastics, each one of whom transmits the impression through a
wide circle. The writers were in awful earnest, and held out
to the falling world the hope of an all-sufficing Saviour. 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 portion which we put in italics gives the theological
key to the doctrine of dominion over the species, as in a former
article we saw baptism made the key to the doctrine of civil
dominion over all the baptized :—
'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 human species has been perfected in its natural quali-
ties, by divine revelation and by the incarnation of the Word, and has been
¹ Professor Massi in Frond, vol. i., p. 130.
2 Serie VII., vol. iii., p. 264.
The Head of our whole Species.
2II
lifted up into a supernatural order, in which alone can it find its temporal
and eternal felicity. 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.'
"" 1
•
The Count Henri de Riancey exclaimed that no monarch,
even in his wildest dreams, could flatter himself that he could
send irresistible instructions into every nation, as did he who
alone upon earth signed himself Bishop of the Catholic Church.
The chief pre-occupation of the Count, like that of most good
Catholics, was the preservation of the temporal power. No one
shall ever reign over the Seven Hills, cried he, but the successor
of him who was crucified on the Janiculum. The inviolability
of Rome was a law of history,-fine words for a Frenchman.
He believed that the Pope meant to force the powers to under-
stand how much was involved in maintaining the dominion of
Peter inviolate. The moral neutrality of the Papal States
would probably be changed into a neutrality guaranteed by the
law of nations.2
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
1 Serie VII., vol. iii., pp. 259, 260.
2 Frond, General Introduction.
212 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
straining after temporal power, and placing herself in anta-
gonism to freedom and light, could ill conceal their anxiety.
But the Jesuits everywhere hailed the dawning of a won-
derful day.
On Saturday the 17th of October, 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 Ecumenical 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 oecumenical, 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
Ecumenical 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
The Patriarch of Constantinople.
213
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.'
6
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 cathedra, who is exalted above
the Ecumenical 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 realised 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.
again there is urgent necessity for ceaseless prayer to the
I say
214
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
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, accom-
panied to the stair by the Vicar-General.'
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.' 2
C
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 exis-
tence 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
1 Friedberg Aktenstücke, pp. 250-253.
2 Neue Folge, Erstes IIeft, pp. 72, 73.
·
Rome and the East.
215
Peter had not been actually bestowed upon him. But seeing
that be 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 fore-
head. 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 Arch-
bishop 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.
That ancient dominion of the Pontiff over the East, imagined
by Dr. Manning and others, is a vision, formed in a vaporous
historic atmosphere. When Rome set out to establish a phy-
sical dominion over the world, she succeeded more speedily and
more widely against the over-ripe civilisation of the ancient
nations, than over the untamed force of the young North.
When, again, she set out to establish a spiritual dominion, she
did not succeed with any but Romans or barbarians, unless by
the power of the sword.
1
Just as Josephus said, 'Almost all which concerns the Greeks
happened not long ago, nay, one may say is of yesterday only,"
so all the learned of the East looked down upon Rome. To
them she was what Theodoric and his Goths were to her in the
over-ripe stage of her own civilisation-stronger, nobler, wiser;
but gross and not intellectual. To the West and North, she
¹ Against Apion, Book I., cap. 2, etc.
216 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
}
3
was ancient and lettered, to the East modern, only beginning to
pick up bits of poetry and philosophy, and to reproduce them.
In smiling at Greek antiquity, Josephus incidentally laughs at
that of Rome. The Greeks, he shows, did not even name the
place, not Herodotus nor Thucydides, nor any of their contem-
poraries; and it was very late, and with very great difficulty,
that the Romans became known to the Greeks.' 1
Again, just as in Greek history and biography, the extraction
of a god, or the travel-study of a sage, invariably leads one
East and South, so Rome always points to the East. Evander
was from Arcadia. The ship of Eneas and the chair of Peter
were both from the East, and there also lay the colleges of
Cicero. When, therefore, Rome attempted to push a spiritual
dominion in the East, it was like Birmingham turning upon
Oxford. Pontiff is a sonorous, ancient word in Westminster,
But in Antioch, Tarsus, or Jerusalem, it was only like what
Moolah or Guru is to us. But at the time now spoken of, the
chief pastor of Rome was still known by a Christian title.
The Christianity of the East, though half-paganised, never
fell before the materialised forms of Rome, but before the
monotheistic Semite, with his doctrine of the sword. At that
date the two swords of Boniface had not been discovered. The
emerald standard of the race of Fatima,' to quote Gibbon, had
long floated over Christian ruins, before the standard of the tiara
and keys ever hallowed sack and bloodshed. Omar had objected
to be called Vicar of the Vicar before ever Pope stained Christian
speech, or rather the speech of Christendom, with the term, the
Vicar of God.2
At Tyre, when rowing near the city, and looking through the clear sea
water for ruined columns lying on the bottom, I pointed to a building ashore,
saying to the guide, 'You have not shown us that.' He quietly replied, 'Oh,
that is not ancient. It is only of the times of Alexander.'
2 Price's Mohammedan Hist., vol. i., p. 59. The word Caliph is explained
to mean successor-vicar, giving the full meaning, of which the Latin term gives
only the latter part. Price translates the terms denoting the office of Imaum
and Caliph, Imaumet Khaleifut, by supreme authority, both religious and civil,
or pontifical and civil. But true to the law of its development, as being a
•
The Case of the Protestants.
217
The union of absolute authority in both religion and politics
was speedily realised in an Arabian Pope, springing from a
heathen stem; but slowly and with difficulty were the two
authorities united in a Latin Caliph developed out of a Christian
bishop. Investiture of kings, and holding of stirrups, were
borrowed from the Eastern Caliph by the Western one.¹
Representations as to the readiness of Protestants to submit,
had led to the letter to Protestants. Bishop Martin of Pader-
born 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. 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.' 3
2
A few consistories in Germany, Holland, Sweden, and
America, noticed the document. Dr. Cumming, of the Scotch
Church in London, wrote to the Pope expressing his willingness
to attend the Council, if allowed to reason upon the questions at
issue. The Pope gave no answer directly, but communicated
his views to the public through Archbishop Manning. The
Pope having apparently been informed that a number of persons
wished to have conferences with a view of uniting themselves
to Rome, wrote a second letter to Dr. Manning, to the effect
relapse from Christianity by the Jewish side, Mohammedanism was too reve-
rent to call its chief the Vicar of God.-only of God's prophet. Equally true
to the law of its development, as being a relapse from Christianity by the
Pagan side, the Romish system called its chicf the Vicar of God. Originally
aspiring to be successor of Peter, he is now, as many Liberal Catholics and Old
Catholics have pointed out, habitually spoken of, by the advanced school, as
indeed he often was in the middle ages, as the successor of Christ, or the Living
Christ.
¹ Times, Dec. 10th, 1870. Letter of Special Correspondent from Constanti-
nople, describing the Sultan, quotes his titles: This Padisha, Father of all
Sovereigns, this Hunikar or Manslayer, Refuge of the World, and Shadow of
God.' Price says (i., p. 27) the first four Khalifs-Lieutenants, or Vicars.
2 These productions are published by Friedrich-Tagebuch, p. 453 ff.
3 The Centenary of St. Peter, and the General Council, p. 90.
218 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
that though no place could be allowed in the Council for the
discussion of tenets already condemned, any persons desiring
conference would find learned men designated, to whom they
could open their minds. The public has never learned who were
the persons thus provided for, or what was their number.
Bishop Dupanloup, as will hereafter appear, had taken an
impression, from Dr. Pusey, that in England the desire for
union with Rome was widespread. The 'good press' of France
and Italy often painted it as almost universal. The English
Church has been all but buried many times. M. Veuillot him-
self has seen it vanishing, and already little remaining to its
discomfited ministers 'but their money-bags.'
The Jesuit organs, in replying to an article of the Times of
October 3rd, 1868, displayed more resentment against the 'folly
and arrogance' of others, than against those of the original
offender. On the part of the Perseveranza of Milan, it was 'a
colossal and unpardonable error' to imagine that the Times
might be taken as the voice of the Protestant public of England.
Dr. Lee had acted with more intelligence, for he had said that
he could not speak in the name of others."
1
Archbishop Manning declares that 'the indiction of the
Council was no sooner published than the well-known volume
called Janus appeared." Our information, however, will not
bring that volume to light till after a good deal has intervened.
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. This was repeated a
1 Stimmen, Neue Folge, Heft I., p. 54.
2 He first made this statement in 1870, and repeated it in 1875 by quoting it
in his reply to Mr. Gladstone. See The Vatican Decrees, p. 104.
A Dutch Crusader.
219
second time, to the delight of the soldiers. 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.'1
(
6
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.
The 'salutary conspiracy and the holy crusade' which we saw
the Civiltá announce in its program article, had now fairly
passed the subterranean stage. 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 Mertana. Stories true and
often very touching were mixed with fables and with ecstacies.
The tales were those of youths from the noblest houses and
from the lowliest cots. The young Duke de Blacas 'dedicated
his sword to the tomb of St. Peter, as his forefathers dedicated
theirs to the tomb of Christ.' In his death youths are to see
the martyr palm for which it is noble to pant, and mothers are
to see a privilege which they might well seek in prayer. Peter
Jong, a poor Dutch lad, only son of his mother, a widow, who
gave him up rejoicing as if God had granted her great grace,
fell, it is said, after having slain fourteen Italians. He receives
this tribute: For St. Peter he inflicted many just deaths; for
1 Civiltá, Serie VII., vol. v., p. 234.
220 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
6
St. Peter he worthily met his own.' It is told how the King of
Holland keeps Jong's photograph in his portfolio, and shows it
to other intending crusaders as an encouragement. Another
Dutch youth writes: Mamma, blessed is he who sheds the last
drop of his blood. The martyrs of all the centuries descend
to meet him and to conduct him to heaven.' This, though
Protestants may not know it, is spiritual warfare! for 'to
defend the Church of Christ is a spiritual object.' One proof
constantly alleged that bayonet and ball used for St. Peter are
to re-establish truth and righteousness is, 'This is the victory
that overcometh the world, even our faith.' If those who do
not care to read heavy matter would only read in the Civiltá
'The Crusaders of St. Peter,' they would learn how Scripture
can be quoted, and how the new red cross and rosary are sent
round with a cry to arms. They would learn that the 'universal
politics of the soldiers of Pius IX.' are to be expressed in the
language of a crusader of Mentana- I have taken up the cross
to do penance for my sin. I have come to Rome for my con-
version. I serve St. Peter in this force. Blessed is he who
dies for religion! Oh, might I die in the first engagement!'
The young Duke de Blacas, not having been in action, seemed
in dying to think that he should not escape purgatory. Care,
however, is taken, in a studiously written biography of a Goldoni
who also died before battle, to show that in point of martyrdom,
as to the old crusaders, no difference was made by St. Bernard
and St. Catharine of Siena between those who died in battle and
those who died in the service. Also, that no difference had been
made between these two classes of the crusaders of St. Peter
by Pius IX. He had comforted a father who regretted that
his son had not fallen in battle, by telling him that he had 'the
supreme' consolation, because the son had died in the service
of the Holy See. And he had, in his solemn Allocution, com-
pared both classes alike to the martyred Maccabees. The father
of Goldoni, pictured as a devout and humane physician, is repre-
sented as often putting up the prayer for his only son, 'Oh that
A Martyr not in Battle.
221
God would inspire him to take up the cross!' Young Goldoni
was a diligent reader of the Unità Cattolica and the Civiltá, from
which 'sources of religious and of pure intellectual culture he
drew a generous and daring spirit.' Though he died unhappily
before battle, his biographer sees him seated among the celestial
martyrs, between the Duke de Blacas and the Count Zileri de
Verme, with whom do rejoice and glory others who died at a
distance from the fight. When Goldoni received his 'call' to
the crusade, he started in haste. 'It seemed as if the Spirit of
God carried him.' The Archbishop of Modena specially blessed
' our young
crusader.' He then received the Sacrament, and so
'heart to heart with Jesus Christ consecrated his life to Holy
Church.' Moreover, in parting, 'the young cavalier of Jesus.
Christ put upon his bosom, as if a breastplate, an image of
Mary.' The night before leaving home he, 'in the manner of
the old crusaders,' knelt at his father's knee and asked his
blessing. While the father'shed upon him the holy water and
the prayer,' Antonio burst into weeping.
Arrived in Rome, Goldoni sought a Jesuit to 'govern his
soul.' The Jesuit made allusion to the dangers of his new life.
'I have made up my mind to be a martyr for the Holy See,'
replied Goldoni. The Holy Father has declared the temporal
power necessary to the spiritual. Therefore, fighting and dying
for the temporal power, I should indirectly be a martyr for
our holy religion.' The Jesuit was overcome at hearing these
generous sentiments from a youth so superior. Two days after,
the Jesuit and Goldoni met 'in the tribunal of penitence.'
Goldoni soon caught a fever, and in the hospital often con-
fessed. On the Feast of St. John Berchmans' he declared that he
had obtained from the saint the grace to be with him in Paradise
on the day of the Assumption of the Virgin. He reiterated that
he should on the day of the Assumption go to heaven to see the
Madonna and St. John Berchmans. His good father, called
from Modena, arrived in time to bless and pray for his departing
Technically, Berchmans seems to be only a beatified, not a saint.
222
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
Antonio. At the last moment he left him, for it would seem
that those around thought that the presence of the earthly father
would come between him and the heavenly Father. So he lay,
with his lustrous eyes calmly fixed on heaven, as if, says the
chaplain, 'he was awaiting the appearance of his John Berch-
mans, who was to present him at the throne of the great Virgin.'
At seven o'clock on the morning of the Assumption he passed
away.
The reverend biographer concludes this really effective plea
for crusaders by re-affirming the position which his tale is meant
to establish, that crusaders, even if they die of fever, and not on
the field, are exempted from purgatory and pass to immediate
glory. Therefore, he says, Antonio Goldoni, crowned with light,
and blessed with the blessedness of God Himself, is so far from
regretting having immolated his youth for religion, that from
this very fact he draws divine delight, and smiles with youth
eternal. Every paragraph of this biography seems to breathe
the spirit of a man who believes that in charming parents to
bring up sons for the crusade of St. Peter, and in charming lads
to immolate their youth, he is himself fighting a good fight of
faith, and gaining the merits of a crusader.¹
CHAPTER IV.
Princes, Ministers, and their Confessors-Montalembert's part in the Revival—
His Posthumous Work on Spain-Indignation against the New Assump-
tions-Debate of Clergy in Paris on the Lawfulness of Absolving a Liberal
Prince or Minister-Wrath at Rome-True Doctrines taught to Darboy and
his Clergy.
IN proportion as this Popery of physical force came into view,
did the mental stress of Catholics who had put their faith
in finer forces increase.
Chateaubriand, who played a brilliant part in the Catholic
¹ Civiltà, Serie VII., vol. iii., p. 656 ff.
Montalembert's Indignation.
223
reaction which followed the great French Revolution, especially
in that phase of the movement which aimed at linking together,
in the imagination, Rome and ideas and hopes now dear to man-
kind, left a work, at his death, which he called 'Memoirs from
Beyond the Grave'-Memories d'outre Tombe. Montalembert,
who played a still more brilliant part in the Catholic reaction
which followed the Revolution of 1830, also left behind him
a work, to appear after his death. In that work we can trace
the pains of a representative mind, showing what must have
been those of multitudes at the time of which we now write.
(
1
Montalembert saw, in 'the absolutest politics, the retrospec-
tive fanaticism, the embittered hostility to all modern ideas and
institutions, flaunted everywhere by the religious press, not
only a blot on the cause, which had been his life-passion,—a
passion of feminine flame but of masculine vigour,—but also a per-
sonal wound. It made his past look like a well-played hypocrisy.
He had enthusiastically and victoriously argued for Catholicism
under plea of liberty. I neither can nor will,' he cries, 'keep
silence, as to the monstrous articles published this very year
(1868) by the Civiltà Cattolica against liberty in general, and
precisely against those Liberal Catholics who, like me, have had
the naïveté in the Parliamentary tribune, to assert the rights of
the Jesuits, and cause them to triumph in the name of liberty.' 2
Montalembert next refers to an appeal made by the Civiltá to
M. Renan, on purpose to show by his testimony that the true
doctrine of the Church was well known in 1848, in spite of all
that Liberal Catholics said to the contrary:-
According to the Ciriltá, the Church cannot co-exist with any modern
liberty. M. Renan is the one contemporary writer who, according to it,
first comprehended the truth, which in 1848 he proclaimed, that the
Church never has been tolerant, and never will be so; and that a Liberal
Catholic, or a Catholic Liberal, could only be a hypocrite or a dolt. Those
of us who, in the same years of 1848 and 1849, and that in the name of
› L'Espagne et la Liberté. Bibliothèque Universelle de Lausanne, 1876,
p. 626.
2 Ibid., p. 635.
224
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
liberty and toleration, claimed and procured the right of instruction for
Jesuits, as for all other Frenchmen, absolutely understood nothing;
or, to speak more correctly, we were not sincere, we indeed are a just
object of derision for Catholics who are not Liberals, and for Liberals who
are not Catholics." Alleging that the Civiltá sees no better way of serving
the Catholic cause, in the second half of the nineteenth century, than by
parading in the eyes of Europe the theories and examples of persecution
in the middle ages, and by stamping each one of them with the approving
name of a pope, or a saint, he cries, As to Spain in particular, they must
forsooth bring to light again an admonition of Pius V., deploring the soft-
ness of Philip II. in pursuing heretics and insisting on the infliction of
temporal chastisements. And as a general principle, they must declare
loudly and clearly, that there is no modern liberty which is not irregular
and pernicious in itself, and mortal in its effects. That liberty, not abso-
lute and unlimited liberty, but liberty as such and in itself, is a plague,
a spiritual plague, much more deadly than a bodily one.
soned with citations, definitions, and theological dissertations, which have
been well summed up, in plain French, as follows: "There is no healthy
liberty; all liberty is a sickness. There is no wise liberty; all liberty is a
madness. There is no good and bad liberty of the press; all liberty of the
press is, in itself, essentially bad. There is no good and bad liberty of
conscience; liberty of conscience bears its proper condemnation with it.
There is no good and bad liberty of worship; it is liberty of worship, in
itself, which must be absolutely reprobated." And so on, with all the
liberties, all the franchises, all the emancipations in which modern society
glories.'
All this sea-
On the second anniversary of that mysterious Thursday in
February 1848 when King Louis Philippe, of the Tuileries,
suddenly changed into Mr. Smith in a street cab on the way to
exile, Montalembert and Thiers pleaded in the National Assembly
for freedom of instruction' on behalf of the Jesuits.
'It was
6
only,' says our orator, 'in the name of liberty, of modern consti-
tutions, of modern liberty, of the liberty of conscience, of the
press, and of the tribune, that we made the claim.' He adds
that the victory was won only by Thiers brandishing the
text of the Republican constitution in the face of the furious
Mountain, a constitution proclaiming equal freedom of worship
and association to all. The italics are his own :—
'We were all wrong, it is clear. In sound theology M. Renan alone was
right,--he and the like of him who maintained that Catholicism, and above
all, the Jesuits, were absolutely incompatible with liberty. Only--we
Indignation of Montalembert.
225
ought to have been told it then. It was then, and not now, that they
ought to have taught us that liberty was a plague, instead of taking advan-
tage of it, and that by our help, in order, twenty years later, to come
insulting and repudiating both it and us, at one and the same time.
'I have long passed the age of disappointments and passionate emo-
tions, but I declare on reading these bare-faced palinodes I have
reddened to the white of my eyes, and shivered to the ends of my nails.
I am no longer child enough to complain of the inconsistencies of men
in general, or of Jesuits in particular, but I loudly say that this tone of
the puppy and the pedant (ce ton de faquin et de pédagogue), employed
towards old defenders, all of whom are not dead, and in respect of old
struggles, which may be renewed to-morrow, does not become either
monks or reputable men. It may be perfectly orthodox. In matters of
theology I am no judge, but I think I am a judge in a matter of honour
and decency; and I declare it is perfectly indecent.'
Montalembert does not accuse, apparently he does not even
suspect, of personal insincerity the particular Jesuits who in
1848 and the following years led him to believe that they
accepted constitutional liberty, among whom he especially
mentions the celebrated De Ravignan. But he says:-
'Had any Jesuit, of any reputation in Rome, expressed himself in
1848 or 1850, as does the Civiltà in our days, most surely not a single
Jesuit college would have been opened in France; and more than that,
not one French soldier would have gone to Rome to re-establish the
temporal power. So much for the past. And as to the future, without
putting on the air of a prophet, one may affirm that in the old world and
the new, more Jesuits than one will shed bitter tears when hereafter
they find lying in the way of the Company the pages just published by
their Roman brethren in the official journal.’
Utterances which we have already given (p. 15) show that
even as early as 1850 the Civiltú had expressed in brief all
that has since been developed; but it is only by degrees that
such utterances, diplomatically reticent, awaken men to their
full import. Even those who do sco their entire meaning
feel it very differently when, in the early pages of a new perio-
dical, it sounds like the note of some excited monk, and when,
after a period of years, it comes with the boom of an awful
power. We give but one more extract from this unconscious
palinode of the high-souled Montalembert, who could not even
VOL. I.
15
226
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
then see that the Liberal Catholicism of his ideal was a generous
phantasy, irreconcilable with the Popery of Rome, as much so
as was his beloved parliamentary system in politics with the
Second Empire. No more could he see that Pope and Jesuit.
were true to themselves in urging their old and fixed principles,
and had been equally true to themselves in using instruments
like him so long as they struck or stayed their hand at 'the beck
of the priest,' and in disowning them so soon as they set up to
keep a conscience for themselves, 'as if the rod should shake itself
against them that lift it up.' Such a Catholicism as Montalem-
bert dreamed of would have required some broad national base at
least equal to that which France could have proffered; but on
the municipal basis of Rome nothing could stand but contracted
personal Popery. He and his friend Lacordaire carried to
Rome the large ideas of a great people, and bathed the quaint
figures of the Curia, and the quaint objects of the city, in the
tropical light of their own genius, just as Lamartine had done
with the withered remnants of the East. After such pictures
as Montalembert had drawn in his books, and his speeches, of
his ideal Catholic Church-pictures of which the most brilliant
would seem faint to himself, in comparison with what they
had been as they glowed before his imagination ere they were
reduced to words-it must have been mortifying to have, in
age and sickness, to write as follows:-
'Certainly, a strange way has been invented of serving religion, of
making the modern world accept, comprehend, and love it. One might
say that they treat the Church like one of those wild beasts that are
carried about in menageries. Look at her, they seem to say, and under-
stand what she means, and what is her real nature! To-day, she is in a
cage, tamed and broken in, by force of circumstances. She can do no
harm for the present; but understand that she has paws and tusks, and
if ever she is let loose you will be made to know it' (p. 641).
As he wrote this sad passage, in all probability there would
rise before his imagination one of the most memorable scenes
in the life of any orator. When glorifying the return of the
Pope to Rome, restored by French force, and deprecating any
A Case of Conscience.
227
attempt at a conflict with the Church, he said that from
any such conflict only dishonour could result, as to a strong
man would result dishonour from a combat with a woman.
And then, turning upon his audience, he said, 'The Church is
more than a woman; the Church is a mother," with a gush
and a power which produced such a scene as perhaps has
hardly ever been witnessed in any parliamentary assembly.
And both ideals were quite sincere. The Church of Monta-
lembert's imagination was a mother; the Church of the Civiltú
Cattolica is a dam, holding to her young while they continue
in sheer dependence, treating them as strangers when they can
take care of themselves. His Church is the dream of an ex-
ceptional few, the Church of the Civiltà is the strong reality.
The articles which called forth this protestation of Monta-
lembert, were among the most curious even of the Civiltá.
They dealt with France-Paris and Darboy. They directly
touched the conscience of politicians and princes, displaying,
at the same time, the machinery whereby the Syllabus, which
to most of us at that time looked like an edict in the air,
could be applied to them in their public action. On the 5th
of February, 1868, the Archbishop of Paris held a conference
of his clergy in the Church of Saint Rocque, and there argued
the following case of conscience. By some exceptional feat of
the worst of all evil genii, Publicity, the discussion, and its
result, were reported in the Patrie; and this indiscretion caused
the world for once to gain a real peep into the consultations in
the judges' chambers, behind the internal tribunal.
'A man engaged in politics,' says the case of conscience, 'declares to
his confessor that he has no intention of renouncing the doctrines which
prevail among modern nations, the principal points of which are, liberty
of worship, liberty of the press, and the action of the State in mixed
affairs. The confessor asks if he is to grant absolution to a penitent in
this state of mind, or to deny it.'—Civiltá, VII., ii., 151.
The reasoning ascribed to the supposed penitent is the fol-
lowing:-
'You, as my confessor, have not the right to lay on me as you would on
228
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
a private man, the duty of devoting a certain day, and of adopting certain
means for the conversion of this or that person. Doubtless, I ought, by
word and example, to lay myself out for the conversion and edification of
my neighbour; but it rests with me as a free agent to select the means
and to discern the opportunity. In like manner, you cannot order me as
politician, legislator, or prince, to take, this very day, this or that measure,
against blasphemy for example, or Sunday labour, or the license of the
press. Lay it upon me to attend to the propagation of righteousness and
truth; but leave it to me to judge of the opportunity, and to choose the
means. And, I pray you, consider the grounds of my opinions. In the
first place, whenever we speak or act, we have on one side the truth and
right, which certainly ought to be respected; but on the other side wo
have fitness and opportunity, of which also we must take account, if we
would speak to good purpose. Now, in this respect, I know better than
any other what I can do, and what I cannot, in my family, or in a political
assembly, or in the nation. In the next place, perhaps you do not see
the absurdity which would follow the opposite opinion. It would follow
that you had the right to decide and regulate all my actions, because into
every one of them morality may enter; and every one of them may be
connected with religion. You would be able to dictate my will, to tell
me what vote I ought to give, to determine whether I am to declare
peace or war. Mere trifles, you say. But what, in that case, would
temporal power be, but a passive instrument of the spiritual power, and
a mere machine? These are the reasons why I stand to my old notions
on this point, and have no thought of changing them for others.'
In this case, as thus put, and in the ensuing discussion,
we see the confessor of a king or minister preparing to meet
his 'penitent.' In the language of Montalembert we see the
feeling of a politician in facing the 'tribunal,' under an Ultra-
montane confessor; and in the papers of the Civiltú we see
the glaring eye of Rome searching out every movement of
the one and the other.
The case being thus stated, both as to its substance and as to
the reasoning of the supposed penitent, the discussion began.
Abbé Michaud, of the Madeleine, maintained that the confessor
ought to grant absolution. Abbé G——, a Dominican, main-
G-
tained that he ought not to do so. Archbishop Darboy now
and then interfered, to moderate the opposition of the latter.
The Abbé Falcimagne interrupted the Archbishop, declaring
that he would deny the absolution, for the supposed penitent
*
།
་
1
May a Liberal Prince be Absolved?
229
was unworthy of it. Finally, the Abbé Hamon, Curé of Saint
Sulpice, read out four conclusions, which were fully accepted by
the Archbishop, and which allowed the confessor to grant the
absolution. The Opinion Nationale and other journals said that
this conclusion showed to how little the condemnations of the
Syllabus amounted.
Both the conclusion and the grounds on which it was rested
gave huge offence at Rome. What were the grounds? No
less dangerous than that the opinions, avowed by the supposed
minister or prince, were probable opinions; and that a confessor
had no right to deny absolution because a penitent held opinions
differing from his own, if they were probable opinions, that is,
opinions resting on serious reasons and accredited by respect-
able authorities. But, cried Rome, those opinions are con-
demned! And the Church of Paris is to say to the world that
opinions which are condemned even in the Syllabus are pro-
bable! So Monsignor Darboy and all his abettors sank deeper
than ever into disgrace.
The Civiltà was not content with less than five long articles,
making ninety octavo pages. It is in these that the things
are set forth which fired the embers of Montalembert's true love
of liberty, and damped his dying hope of ever seeing his ideal
Catholicism and actual Popery seated on the same throne.
We need not quote the passages which are echoed in his indig-
nant repudiation; but we give a few others, which show that,
strongly as we have seen him put the case, he was not guilty of
any injustice. The Abbé Michaud said that the liberty con-
demned was not moderate liberty, but unbounded liberty. The
Civiltá took it for granted that he could not have been sincere.
1
"We ought to hold, not only that religious liberty is unlawful in itself,
and repugnant to the divine command, but also that it is very pernicious
to the State Wherefore, no prince or magistrate can prescribe, approve,
or introduce it into his dominions, but ought, on the contrary, to throw
obstacles in the way of it, and to remove it by all the means of which he
1 Civiltà Cattolica, VII., ii., p. 150 ff.
230
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
can dispose; and if he cannot fully remove it without disturbing the State,
and throwing it into disorder, it then, and only then, becomes lawful for
him to tolerate false forms of worship. . . . The experience of every age
teaches,' adds the writer, quoting the Bull Mirari of Gregory XVI.,
' and even remotest antiquity clearly demonstrates, that the cities which
most flourished in opulence, dominion, and glory, came to run from this
cause only, that is, from immoderate liberty of thought, licence of
meeting, and the mania of novelty' (pp. 157, 158).
Still quoting the same supreme authority, it proceeds to
say:
'Similar to liberty of worship, is that worst of liberties, never suffi-
ciently execrated or abhorred,-liberty of the press, which some dare to
invoke and promote with so much clamour.' It continues :-'In respect
of religion and the press, it is idle to distinguish between two sorts of
liberty, one wise and the other unbridled, as the Abbé did. In such
matters, all liberty is a delirium and a pestilence. There is no healthy
man's delirium; all delirium is that of a sick man.
worthy and harmless plague; every plague is deadly. . . . Hence, it is
never a decent thing to introduce such liberty into a civil community. It
is only permissible to tolerate it in certain cases, in the same way that a
pest is tolerated' (p. 160).
There is no praise-
The Abbé Michaud had said that, in mixed questions, the
State interfered by the same right as the Church! Such an
utterance savoured of our bad times. It was infected with the
idea of the independence of the civil power in regard to the
ecclesiastical. This idea was born with Protestantism; but it
has been received by some Catholics, sincere, it is true, though
not discerning. What follows is lengthy, but must be given
verbatim :-
'If this independence was affirmed only of the origin of the civil power,
there would be nothing to say. It is certainly of faith that the ecclesias-
tical power comes immediately from God, without the concurrence of the
civil power. If, then, one chooses to say that the civil power, as to its
nature, comes immediately from God, without springing from the eccle-
siastical power, let him say it. Thus, in respect to this point of origin
solely, the two powers may be said to be independent one of the other,
just as, in respect of origin, body and soul in man are said to be inde-
pendent of one another. The body is not a product of the soul, which
animates it; nor is the soul created by the body; but just as it would be
a capital error to infer that, in the composite human being, the body
exists independently of the soul, so is it a capital error to infer, from
The Liberal Prince cannot be Absolved.
231
what we have conceded, that, in society, the temporal power in no way
depends on the spiritual. It is true that the temporal prince is invested
with supreme power and authority, in his order; but from this it follows
only that he is not subject to any other earthly power. It does not follow
that his authority, sovereign in its order, cannot be subject and is not
subject to another authority of a more perfect order; that is, the spiritual.
It is necessary that whoever holds power, even sovereign, for
temporal rule shall be regulated by the Roman Pontiff' (pp. 161-163).
•
So far for the independence of the State. Now as to its
right of intervention in mixed questions, and above all, as to
the defining of limits between the two powers:
The State ought first to learn, from the Church, what are mixed
questions, that it may not take spiritual matters for mixed ones, con-
founding both the one and the other with those which are called temporal
ones. Each separate kind of corn must be tied up into a separate sheaf.
The State ought to arrange with the Church every time it puts a hand
to what is temporal in these mixed matters, in order that it may not
violate what is spiritual.'
The Civiltá quotes M. Renan, where he shows how the
Syllabus had proved his assertion of 1848. The Syllabus is a
luminous demonstration of the proposition I maintained, that
Catholicism and liberty are two things incompatible.' The
Civiltá adds that, in order to know this fact, M. Renan did not
need to be a profound theologian, but only needed to read the
works of any author sincerely Catholic. It points out that the
Liberal Catholics fancy that the Popes, in condemning liberty of
worship and of the press, only spoke of part of the subject, that is,
of some sorts of liberty; and that it was, therefore, some liberty,
not all, that they called madness, poison, and pestilence. But
the Popes, asserts the Civiltá, on the contrary, thought that all
liberty of worship and of the press bore those characters (p.
314).
The Abbé Falcimagne insisted (p. 316) that the supposed
penitent should be at once treated as a sick man, and as being
not of sound reason :-
'He comes to submit himself to my tribunal, and at the same time
rejects my authority. To see how far I can yield to his spiritual
infirmity I must see how far the authority of the confessor over the
232
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
<
4
E
penitent extends. On this point, I shall cite the words of Domenico
Soto, who, after hearing the confession of Charles V., said, "Su
far, you have confessed the sins of Charles; now confess those of the
Emperor." Soto at least thought that the actions of his penitent, although
they belonged to the political order, nevertheless came within the cogni-
zance of his tribunal. Our patient is of a diametrically opposite opinion.
He will not recognise in me the right of judging him in what touches
doctrine and morals indirectly. But I hold that, as confessor, I have a
right to judge my penitent, be he a legislator, or even a prelate of the
Church, in things pertaining to dogmas and morals, and to prohibit what
is contrary to either, whether directly or indirectly. So I can command
him to cease from holding presumptuous tenets.'
The Archbishop then asked the Abbé Falcimagne, requesting
him to give a direct answer, if he had a right to order his
penitent to leave a hundred thousand francs in his will to be
distributed among the poor.
To this the Abbé Falcimagne
made no reply. He said the point now was to know whether
the penitent, who would not renounce his modern ideas as
to liberty, was or was not guilty of presumption, temerarius.
'Guilty of presumption,' replied the Archbishop, 'is that con-
fessor who lays his hands on temporal things, assessing what he
has no right to assess.' 'But,' retorted Falcimagne, 'I have the
right to judge my penitent as to his disposition; and if he
comes to me, and says that he wishes to maintain his principles,
and declares that I have not a right to judge him, I tell him
that his pretensions are illegitimate; that his reason is dis-
ordered by modern principles; and that, if he will not renounce
those principles, I cannot absolve him.'
The Civiltá thinks that, at this point, they came to the heart
of the matter. On one side they began to allege that the con-
fessor could not require his penitent to renounce his opinions
unless they were heretical, or were opinions condemned by the
Church. A very false doctrine! exclaims the oracle; for, in
addition to heretical opinions, a true Catholic must renounce
many others, those, for instance, which are proximato to
heresy; those which are presumptuous, scandalous, and all
indeed that are offensive to pious ears. The teaching power of
Liberty of Conscience Wrong in Itself.
233
our Church is not merely infallible, and not only does it define
with infallibility when defining articles of faith, but also when
defining any truth, scientific or practical, political or historical,
which is connected, in any manner whatever, with dogma and
morals; and whoever would be a sincere Catholic must conform
not only in respectful silence, but with interior assent of the in-
tellect (p. 318).
The Civiltá, however, though the mightiest, was not the
earliest champion in the field. Bishop Plantier, of Nimes, a
zealot among the zealous, rushed into the columns of the
Univers to condemn the conclusions which allowed the political
penitent to be absolved, and the frail reasons which propped them
up. Monsignor Plantier cannot believe that the conclusions are
correctly reported, for they contain two propositions that are
false, or, at least, much controverted. It seems to be assumed
he says, that the Church has not frequently condemned any
liberty of worship, or of the press, but an unbounded and ab-
solute liberty, and that it is only in this latter sense that these
liberties have been condemned in the Encyclical of December
8th, 1864. This idea is groundless. It is not in degrec,
but in principle, that Pius VII., Gregory XVI., and Pius IX.,
have condemned both these liberties viewed as legal liberties.
True, they have recognised the possibility of tolerating such
liberties in certain modern States as a dolorous but inevitable
necessity. They have even allowed Catholics to take an oath
of fidelity to constitutions which permit and protect these
liberties. In cases of persecuted Churches, like that of Poland,
they have even claimed liberty of worship, as a relative progress;
but as to the ground and essence of this liberty, the liberty of
different forms of worship, and as to the equality of such various
forms before the eye of the law, the Pontiffs have never resorted
to tergiversation or subterfuge. Restricted, or unbounded, they,
as teachers, have never declared this liberty to be substantially
legitimate. They have done the contrary. As to the liberty of
the press, they have shown even greater severity.
234
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
The notion that it belongs rather to politics than to theology
to fix for worship and the press the limits of liberty, makes
Monsignor Plantier ask if a General Council would adopt that
view.
After rejoicing over the sound principles of Bishop Plantier,
the Civiltá proceeds to quote the opinions of the 'good journals'
of Italy, laying stress on the point that the opinions held by
the supposed penitent could not be probable opinions, being
in fact those which were already condemned in the Syllabus.
It proceeds with great vigour to maintain that the Syllabus
was the decree, not only of the Pope, but also of the five
hundred bishops who had adhered to it last year (1867). Of
these, the Civiltá correctly says that Darboy himself was one.
It next contributes an important item of information, which
completes the evidence of the perfect and formal ecclesiastical
authority of all the condemnations of the Syllabus, on either
theory of the constitution of the Church, the Papal or the
Episcopal. After the address of the five hundred bishops
present in Rome, all the absent ones, asserts the Civiltá, sent
in their adhesion by letter, which they hastened to forward to
this Roman chair, where, with the living Pontiff, resides the
spirit of truth' (p. 324). Hence it draws the inference,
which is a just conclusion, if we may say so, in the face of
a hundred English writers who, following an old tradition,
when reviewing what Dr. Newman put upon paper on this
subject, called it logical.
'This penitent,' says the great organ of the Vatican, openly opposes
the teaching power of the Church, whether that teaching power is con-
sidered as being exercised by the Bishop of Rome alone, or as being
exercised by him in conjunction with all the bishops of Christendom.
That teaching power has pronounced in the one mode and in the other,
and has proscribed those opinions. In both ways has it condemned
opinions, not imaginary or belonging to bygone times, but opinions
which to-day, and under our eye, are pertinaciously maintained and
reduced to practice' (p. 324).
Returning with intense earnestness to this point, it says (p.
543):-
Lacordaire forced to Sanction use of Bodily Pains. 235
'The universal Bishop has spoken alone, and further, he has spoken
conjointly with the bishops of the particular Churches. To contradict
after this, is in effect to separate oneself from the whole of the pastors,
and from him who is supreme among them all.'
This is not enough. Some pages later, hesitation, on this
question so vital to practical government, is again censured,
in replying to the plea that the supposed penitent might be
worthy of absolution on the ground of invincible ignorance:-
'We shall never tell him that ignorance consists in this, namely, that
after he has read the Encyclical and the Syllabus, and re-read them, he
could not understand that the modern opinions, which he retained, have
been truly condemned, or that they have been condemned rightfully.
This is not ignorance. It is an error and a pertinacity proper to a man
not far removed from heresy. In this case, we once more repeat, confession
is not the thing wanted. The first elements of the faith, and of the Catho-
lic profession, have to be set straight in this man's head' (p. 547).
It would almost seem as if Montalembert was personally
pointed at in the two latter articles. It is not a little curious
to learn here that his bosom friend, Lacordaire, long the charm
of the French pulpit, was called to Rome in 1850 to answer
for his doctrine. The points on which he had to set himself
right with Rome were anything but, in our sense, religious
ones: (1) The coercive power of the Church; (2) The origin
of sovereignty; and (3) The temporal power of the Pope. He
did set himself right. Father Jandel, the General of the
Dominicans, exulting over his answer on the question touching
the coercive power, says, 'It avenges his memory from the
suspicion of complicity with certain opinions which some
Catholics would fain shelter under the authority of his name.'¹
Avenges his memory! It proves that whatever Lacordaire
believed, he submitted to write as his own the doctrine of
Rome, that the Church has power to 'employ external force,'
and to inflict bodily pains. And so France sees the memory
of her Bossuet held up to reproach, and the memory of her
Lacordaire yoked by the Dominican General to his beloved
1 Seric VII., vol. iii., p. 65.
236 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
Inquisition. She sees her Montalembert driven from public
life, assailed, yea, reviled, while living, preparatory to being
insulted when dead.
Any one acquainted with the high spirit and immense emo-
tional force of Montalembert, can imagine his reddening and
shivering at finding the following among the citations from
Renan to prove that the sceptic understood the doctrine of
'Catholicism' better than its professed friends in France :-
'The remedy applied by the Church of Rome to the liberty of worship
and liberty of thought is the Inquisition. The Councils have established
and approved the Inquisition, the Fathers and bishops have counselled
and practised it. The Inquisition is the logical outgrowth of the whole
orthodox system, and the quintessence of the spirit of the Church.'
Strongly as our sympathies are with Montalembert and
Darboy, we feel that, so long as the Jesuits have to prove
that persecution is the doctrine and has been the practice of the
Church, they have it all their own way against the Liberal
Catholics, till they creep up to the early ages. But their
attempt to father the Inquisition on those ages, not indeed in
its apparatus, but in its spirit and substance, and then their
attempt to prove that the Gospel itself is persecuting, and
that our merciful Lord is the author and founder of persecu-
tion, is melancholy as the Roman Campagna on the dampest
evening, and unhealthy as it ever is on the most miasmatic.
Yet the logic brought to bear for this purpose is similar to
that by which we find engrafted on the Gospel the Papacy
and the other outgrowths of Roman ingenuity.
A good illustration of the doctrine of the sword, and also
of that of direct and indirect power, is incidentally furnished
in the papers now under our notice. After saying that tho
power of compulsion belongs indirectly to the Church, but
that she avails herself of the authority of secular princes, to
whom the material sword directly belongs, the writer adds,
'The material sword is subject to the Church, and Christian
Scric VII., vol. iii., p. 56.
Work of the Council.
237
princes must wield it at her command. She orders it and
points out its use; they wield it and strike.' Then follows a
broad statement, which seems designed to push the authority
of the Church beyond the domain of the baptised, 'All men,
whatever their station or office, are by divine appointment sub-
ject to the Church.' So we are brought to the old conclusion :-
'If princes hold the material sword by their own right, since without
it they could not preserve temporal peace in the societies over which they
preside, and if, at the same time, they belong to the Church, and hence
are, like any other men, dependent upon her, even in regard of their
office, they must, with that same sword, aid the Church, that she may
not be hindered in procuring eternal peace for men.'
1
CHAPTER V.
What is to be the Work of the Council-Fears caused by Grandiose Projects-
Reform of the Church in Head and Members-Statesmen evince Concern.
URIOSITY as to what the particular work of the Council
CURIOSITY
was to be grew all the more rapidly, because no authorita-
tive indication of it was given. Were the Jesuit tenets of Papal
authority and Papal infallibility to be raised into dogmas? Was
the Pope to make another offering to the Virgin by proclaiming
as an article of faith, that her body had been carried to heaven?
By the repetition of such questions, tens of millions partially
awoke to the consciousness that they belonged to a religion
which knew not what might be its standard of faith next year,
much less did it know to what particular tenets it might be
committed.
1 Serie VII., vol. iii., p. 313. In the text we represent the Ciriltá as saying
that the power of the corporal sword belongs indirectly to the Church. The
original word is directly,' but that is probably a misprint. Yet, as the very
important qualification as a general rule' is immediately afterwards used before
the statement that she avails herself of the secular arm, we are not sure that
the writer does not mean 'directly.' If so, he is insinuating the doctrine we
shall hereafter sec advocated. But a quotation he makes from Suarez is express,
'indirectly.'
238
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
Then, as to the position of the bishops, were they to be, as the
Stimmen aus Maria Laach put it, only councillors, or also judges?
If the latter, they would first hear the doctors, as did their pre-
decessors at Trent; would next deliberate, and finally would
formulate decrees, which decrees, without alteration, would be
confirmed by the Pontiff. But if the bishops were no longer
judges of the faith, but simply councillors of the one judge, their
place would be to argue points, as the doctors had done at Trent,
while the decree should be that of the Pope, and they would
merely assent.
Again, as to the composition of the Council, were the bishops
in partibus to be members? Was Darboy, whose diocese counted
two millions of souls, to be balanced by some Court creature
with a title from Sardis or Ecbatana ? or was Schwarzenberg,
with Bohemia at his back, to be balanced by an instrument of the
Curia, who, independently of his patrons, had not a month's
bread to call his own? Were those who represented ancient
and numerous Churches, and who were as far free agents as
men under Rome can be, to be voted against, man for man,
by vicars apostolic, without churches, or with only new and
ignorant ones,-men depending on the Propaganda even for
their travelling expenses and board ?
Finally, as to the mode of procedure, all-important in de-
liberative assemblies; were the bishops, as they did at Trent, to
agree upon their own rules of procedure, to evolve by mutual
consultation the questions demanding solution, and to discuss
them till all were ready to vote? Or could there be truth in
the suspicion that everything was being cut and dried before-
hand, and that the Court would impose ready-made rules of
procedure, and allow no one but itself to introduce any subject
for discussion?
As to the burning question of moral unanimity, would pro-
jected formulæ be passed from hand to hand, as was done at
Trent, examined in meetings of groups, retouched, and, if need
be, remoulded till a form was arrived at in which all but two or
Serious Questionings as to Projects.
239
three acquiesced? or was it possible that formula for new
articles in a creed prepared behind the backs of the bishops
would be imposed on millions and for ever, by a majority made
up with the help of the bishops in partibus ?
These questions, touching, as they did, the core of the con-
stitution of the Church, began to loom up ominously; but
few ventured to give frank expression to their undefined fears.
When put into words, those fears seemed to imply distrust of
the Pope, greater than was decent. Therefore both divines and
politicians fell into the habit of saying that such things could
not possibly be contemplated, instead of saying, if they meant
Rome to heed them, that these things would not be endured.
All this time, the nine determined men forming the secret
Directing Congregation, were coolly looking at the same ques-
tions, and, step by step, as we shall see, when events bring out
the secret plans, were settling those questions in the sense most
dreaded, and going to lengths not, we believe, suggested in any
of the anticipatory expressions of fear.
Even at Trent, in an Alpine valley, the pressure of Rome,
and the preponderance of its legates, caused frequent complaint
that the Council, as compared with ancient ones, had not liberty,
being deprived of the initiative and of the self-guiding power
without which no multitude of advisers can constitute a legis-
lature. But if this was the case in Trent, what would it be in
the city of Rome?
Earnest theologians who had not been converted by the
infallibilist propaganda of recent years, were thrown into con-
sternation. Some bishops, able administrators, saw no essential
difference between Papal infallibility as a doctrine taught in
many of the schools, and believed by great numbers if rejected
by others perhaps greater, and the same opinion as an article of
faith. In such a view, the men of thought saw the superficial
glance of practical men,' as they call themselves, who never
discover anything but by feeling it, and who live by acting out
to-day what others thought out in time gone by.
240
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
}
Little difference! thought the men of foresight. We are
going to be compelled to alter our catechisms and creed in the
face of the Protestants, going to be compelled to teach the
opposite of what we have always taught, going to part with
immemorial safeguards against altering the conditions of salva-
tion, or further narrowing the terms of membership in the
Church-to part with the necessity before every such change of
the open and formal process of a General Council! The pro-
posed dogma is unlike any now in the creed, in the all-important
point of being self-multiplying. If it is adopted, we shall be
liable to have eternal obligations laid upon our souls, without a
week's warning.
3
Beside fears like these, others perhaps more general were
those of quiet Catholics wishing to live in peace and serve their
respective nations loyally, who being conscious that even now
they were liable to suspicion of a divided allegiance, feared that
if the Jesuit tenets became the creed, their political relations
would be less comfortable, and their prospects of office not so
good. 'At the Vatican,' says Ce Qui se Passe au Concile,
speaking of the mystery and the uneasiness of this moment;
'At the Vatican they spoke in low tones of grandiose projects
that were to transform the world, and by exalting Pius IX.
were to confound the enemies of the Church.' It was those
grandiose projects which made good citizens fear for their own
future political standing.
Even feelings of this sort, as represented by Holtgreven, ought
to touch us, being those of silent millions awaiting in the dark
the sentence of their lords in Council.
He says:
'When we left the gymnasium, soon after the year 1860, there was no
pupil who could say that, even by hint, he had been taught there that
the Pope was infallible by himself, and without the consent of the Church.
The answer 128 in Martin's Handbook of Religion is still too fresh in
the memory of all; an answer which affirms that the grace of infallibility
belongs only to the collective body of bishops, as successors of the apostles.
Persons in office and out of it, clergy, laity, and exalted Church
dignitaries, agreed that the pretensions of the Pope to power over kings
and nations, in matters of allegiance and such like, were not part of
A Remarkable Austrian Pamphlet.
241
their religion, but arose out of the state of the civil laws in the middle
ages.
Thus does the Catholic teacher teach in his lectures on
Church history, thus does the student learn; and this view, which
captivates the youth, putting his German heart at rest, and rejoicing
it, still gives him repose and removes every scruple when, as a man, he
lifts up the hand to swear allegiance to the laws of the fatherland."
1
Those of the French clergy whose education had been carried
beyond the usual round of Latin, logic, and manners, began to
manifest misgivings as to the effect of the impending change
on men of enlarged culture. It was in March 1869 that the
Unitá published the Pope's famous letter to the Archbishop of
Paris, described in a former chapter. The Paris correspondent
of that journal, commenting upon it, calls the dignitary who, in
the eye of the world, would be his metropolitan and ordinary, 'a
pretty fellow'-bel soggetto-whom no one would any longer look
upon as a candidate for the rank of Cardinal. In the same
letter he says that war against Prussia must break out, whether
the occasion be the Belgian railways, or complaints that Prussia
violates the treaty of Prague.
Fears as to coming changes, in their effect on men of culture,
were felt still more deeply in Germany, where the general
education of the clergy was higher than elsewhere. Both the
German clergy and the nobler of the French were unprepared
for what they began, in secret, to call Pius-cult, as it appeared
in the language employed by the favoured organs. One word
in the prayer for the Pope, recommended by the Unitá, on
March 12th, grated not on Protestant ears only. The Are
Maria was for a week to be followed by these petitions: 'Eternal
Father, defend Pius IX.! Eternal Word, assist Pius IX.! Holy
Spirit, glorify Pius IX.!'
Perhaps none of the publications now flowing from the press.
excited greater attention than one which was announced as
being from the pen of one of the best known of the Austrian
clergy. It was entitled The Reform of the Romish Church in
¹ Holtyreven, pp. 4, 5.
VOL. I.
16
242
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
"
Head and Members. The writer affirms that Rome holds fast
to the view that the regal power is conferred by the eccle-
siastical. The Catholic Church requires you to elevate this
distinguished warrior here present to the dignity of king' is
the language he quotes from the form of coronation. Not only
does this author oppose the attempt to restore laws enforcing
unity of creed, but he actually does so on principle, as well as
on the ground of expediency. To him it is a humiliating fact
that the only two States in Europe which keep the absolutism
of the Papal States in countenance are Turkey and Russia. A
reason which he urges why the attempt to impose ecclesiastical
law upon States should be relinquished is one very frequently
urged upon the other side, as showing the necessity for the
Church at once to erect what is called the supreme teaching
authority. That reason is that now even Catholic kings, being
constitutional ones, cannot, if they would, enforce ecclesiastical
law by their own will, without the consent of their people.
The longing of Rome for the subjection of the States of the
world, and for power again to employ the arm of the State in
her service, is, he contends, a delusion which will lead only to
her overthrow. Moreover, he lays down the startling principle
that the Church has nothing to ask but liberty to act in her
own sphere like any private society. This last position is utterly
irreconcilable with all the ordinary theories. He holds that
anything granted to the Church by the State beyond what is
given to any other private society is an evil, and also that every
case, in the past, wherein Church and State have joined hands.
in order to help one another to gain their respective ends, has
turned out ill for both of them. One of the two always
manages to subordinate the other. This ecclesiastic takes the
relation of Church and State, as it existed in the first three
centuries, to have been more favourable to the Church for the
fulfilment of her end than would be the subjecting of the State
to her power, although that object was so much yearned after by
Rome. In the former position of things the Church, he argues,
'Reform in Head and Members:
243
achieved her grandest triumph by the conquest of the dominant
heathenism, and with it of the heathen State. In modern times
his ideal of the normal relation of Church and State is that
existing in America, which he imagines works favourably for
Romanism.
The author of Reform in Head and Members looks on the
system of lower seminaries for boys and higher ones for young
men, in which the future clergy pass their youth separated from
all society, leading an unreal life, pursuing narrow studies and
without knowledge of men, or the possibility of acquiring any
breadth of mind, as producing only a race of priests unfit to
lead an educated age. He declares that in France, Italy, and
Spain the system of close seminaries has destroyed theological
science among Catholics. He manifests the ordinary contempt
of German scholars for the showy and wordy pupils of the
Roman seminaries, and contends that Catholic theology does not
bear any comparison, as to talent and learning, with Protestant
theology in any country except Germany, where the priests
have to study at the universities. He further believes that the
lamentable moral condition of the Romish clergy is not a little
to be ascribed to the seclusion and unreality in which their
youth is passed (p. 161).
'The young priests in whose hands the guidance of the people is to
be placed, squander the fair and precious years of youth in enclosures
shut off from the world, and out of them do they go forth into life without
experience of men or of the world. Then does the world, with all its
charms, allurements, delights, and seductions, rush in upon those narrow,
inexperienced young clergymen; and alas! only too many of them sink
in a sea which to them is new, strange, and untried.'
He demands a thorough reform of this system, insisting that
the contempt shown by all respectable Italians for the priesthood
is not to be accounted for except on the ground of this wretched
system and of its wretched moral and religious results.
Another demand boldly made by this Austrian priest is for
the abolition of the vows of celibacy, so far as they are either
perpetual or obligatory. He would admit of vows that were both
1
244 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
voluntary and temporary. The corrupting effects of celibacy
evidently leave him no hope that it is capable of being rendered
consistent with tolerable morality. He treats this institution
as purely local and Romish, regarding its imposition upon the
Catholic Church as a great public evil, impossible to be justified.
At page 117 he says, 'Upon the law of the Romish Church fall
back all those moral abominations, beyond measure and beyond
number, which have arisen out of it, and which will stain the
Church as long as that law remains in force.' When the writer
approaches the subject of bureaucratic centralisation, the Catholic
rises against the Romanism which has fastened itself on the
Churches of other nations. This system of centralisation as
carried out by the Curia, is much too narrow legitimately to
claim the name of national. It scarcely deserves the dignified
name of municipal. While denouncing all nationalities which
by reason of some broad base have a claim to such a noble
name, like Gallicanism or Josephism, it sets up a number of
petty bureau interests, parasites to the Churches under Rome
all over the world, constantly sucking in a multiplicity of small
charges. Our author wants to see an end of the system. He
wonders what may be the annual revenue paid into Rome
from all quarters of the globe, for indults, dispensations,
indulgences, remissions of sins, and the fees gained by all the
inventions for what he calls selling poor parchment and bad
writing very dear. He does not, like many writers when they
touch this subject, break out into a passion against the huck-
stering of their religion, but manifests a cold contempt, feeling
that the system is low and hollow, and wanting to see it swept
out of the way.
The system just referred to is connected with contrivances
for withdrawing episcopal functions from the bishops, and con-
centrating them in the hand of the Pope. Those functions are
let out again in this way. Such dispensations as do not pay any
money tax may be distributed by the bishop himself. This
however, can only be done by virtue of what is called a Faculty,
#
The System of Faculties.
245
granted to him from the Pope. This faculty does not include
the heavier cases, which pay a money tax, and for which a
constant system of recourse to Rome must be kept up. These
latter weighty affairs,' which to the Curialist, who abhors
nationalism and local organisations anywhere beyond the
Aurelian walls, these causæ majores, too important to be en-
trusted to the archbishops or bishops of France, Austria, or
Spain, include such matters as these: if a layman hears mass
in a chapel in a private house, also if a priest celebrates mass
in his own house, or if he celebrates it when his foot has been
maimed or broken, or his hand, or his thumb, or fore-finger,
or when he loses the left eye or becomes blind, or when he
has to wear a wig by reason of baldness, or if his tongue is
injured so that he stutters.
The modern contrivance for making a bishop a tenant on a
short lease is calmly exposed. Formerly, as the author points
out, a bishop used to rule his own diocese; now he is no more
than a delegate. We have said that he is allowed to distribute
such dispensations for the smaller sins against Church law as do
not pay any money tax, but his power to do this, as also his power
to perform several other of the acts essential to his office, is no
longer conveyed to him with the office itself. On the contrary,
for that power he is dependent upon a lease, never given for
more than five years, called the QUINQUENNIAL FACULTIES. If
at the expiration of one of these terms the Faculties are not
renewed, he becomes a mere lay figure in his chair, and would
be at once exposed to his clergy and people as under disgrace.
By this means is he kept a perpetual pensioner on the favour
of the Curia, and in addition to the periodical expiration of the
ordinary lease, he is a tenant at will, liable any day to have his
Faculties withdrawn by the Holy Father.
'The centralising of the government of the Church in the See of Rome,
to effect which it was necessary to destroy the rights of metropolitans
and to curtail the jurisdiction of bishops, is a state of things so unjustifi-
able and ruinous, that the well-being of the Church urgently demands its
removal. This absorption of all the powers and rights of Church govern-
246
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
**
ment is not to be justified either by pleading the necessity of preserving
the unity of the Church, or by pleading the supreme hierarchical power,
which belongs to the See of Rome. The very necessity of manifesting
unity pre-supposes a number of persons entrusted with independent
functions of government; and if the incumbent of the highest power of
the Church strips the subordinate functionaries of all authority, he makes
himself the sole seat of power in the Church.'
This last conclusion would not disconcert the Curia. In their
view to have only one seat of power both for the Church and
for the world was the desideratum of ruined society.
This writer would restore worship in the mother tongue.
Such publications betrayed the disquietude attending member-
ship in a body ever liable to change by adopting new principles,
but incapable of reform by recalling what has been once
adopted.
Statesmen began to feel concern, at least such as did not
belong to the class finely laughed at by M. Veuillot, who do not
think it necessary to inform themselves on 'the small affairs of
the Catholic Church,' although speaking, legislating, and perhaps
writing on matters of which those affairs form a considerable
element. Might not the Papal authority, already a difficulty to
most governments, become, by concentration and increase, a
greater difficulty? Might not the sections of population most
susceptible of its impulse, always hard to govern, become really
unmanageable? In February the Opinion Nationale of Paris
said: 'A decisive struggle is preparing.
The Church is
collecting its forces for a final contest, and paving the way by
proclaiming within itself personal government and dictatorship;
in other words, Papal infallibility.'
Naturally such fears were sooner and more seriously felt by
Roman Catholic statesmen than by Protestant ones. Though
Von Lutz, Minister of Worship in Bavaria, spoke after the event,
he tersely expressed the apprehensions felt at this time :—
'The Church lays down the principle that the Pope is Prince of princes,
and Lord Paramount (Oberherr) of all States. Do you think it possible
that States will put up with that? That the State will quietly stand by
while the bishop orders the parish priest to preach against the law of the
Mamiani anticipates, not Peace, but a Sword.' 247
land, and while he deposes him if he will not comply? Or must the
State itself drive the parish priest out of his home for refusing to misuse
the pulpit, against the State?'¹
Several bishops in different countries tried to allay such
alarms by appealing to the confidence of the faithful in the
goodness of the Holy Father, and in the wisdom of a General
Council. But fears too intelligent to be relieved by such appeals
found voice through Mamiani, once the Minister of Pius IX.,
under the title Del Prossimo Concilio Ecumenico. Mamiani be-
lieved that the Curia would manage to procure a decree, midway
between dogma and discipline, to be set up as a positive ordi-
nance of the Church, for the upholding of its temporal power.
He held it for certain that Rome would come out of the Council
with her lordship more unlimited, her illiberal theocratic notions
more embittered, and her heart more than ever set on measuring
herself with the spirit of the age. She would press down upon
conscience with all the weight of the Syllabus, and would more
desperately clutch the shreds of the temporal power, already
the absorbing care of the Holy See, which indeed would fain
make it the absorbing care of the entire Church. Hence, cries
Maniani, the rapidly increasing number of the discouraged and
the fearful. Many, he adds, will bend the neck and be mute.
Many will secretly cease to be Catholics, and the Council will
have sorrowfully to repeat the words, 'not to bring peace on
earth, but a sword.'
Poor Mamiani! cried the organs of the Vatican; he, at least,
was one of the discouraged and the fearful. If the General
Council should not bring peace, but a sword, it would, in that
case, only carry on the work of Christ. The Gospel was to
bring peace to men of goodwill, but a sword to those of per-
verse will. Mamiani was not deceived in his forecast, but the
prospect ought to give him pleasure, because the effect of conflict
would be that the kingdom of God and that of darkness would
¹ Menzel, Jesuitenumtriebe, p. 119.
248
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
1
be more clearly distinguished than ever. The kingdom of God
is the Church. (See Phillips, passim.)
M. Veuillot did not fail to twit his brother journalists on their
affectation of treating the Council as a matter of no great
'practical' importance. Paris, no doubt, thinks less about the
Council than about M. Rochefort, author of the Lanterne. Yet,
after M. Rochefort, the Council has taken a certain place to
which the journalists imagined it could never pretend.' 2 One
able journal had postponed the publication of the Bull as not
containing anything 'very striking.' Even the Debats was
amused at the old Church, which fancied that the Council was
of any importance.
The great gatherings of bishops in 1854, 1862, and 1867 were,
continued Veuillot, but preparatory assemblies. The Pope had
been preparing the Council for twenty-three years; had even
taken eighteen months after issuing the Bull to perfect the
preparation; but fifty journalists could pass a sovereign judg-
ment upon it without finding any necessity for thinking about
it.
Sneering at those statesmen for whom a question never be-
comes practical till it has become ripe, he proceeds thus. They
study affairs, and admit that this satisfies them; and admit that
they arrive at the understanding of affairs without understand-
ing ideas. Still, while laughing at such statesmen, he artfully
used their words, flowing from ignorance of ideas. He quotes
M. Ollivier, who cried, 'The Church says, All I demand is
the right of ruling myself in my own way,'-a clear proof that
M. Ollivier was treating the affairs without knowing anything of
the ideas. He spoke as if the Church claimed to be a private
society within the State. M. Veuillot, more instructed, con-
ceived of the Church as impersonated in God's Vicegerent, and
understood leaving him to rule in his own way,' in a devout
and large sense.
¹ Stimmen, Neue Folge, Drittes Ileft, p. CO.
2 Vol. i., p. 4-18.
Bishops utter Forecasts.
249
Bishop Fessler, of St. Pölten,¹ in a lengthy manifesto, gave a
clear intimation that the infallibility of the Pope would probably
be defined by the Council. This set many Catholics in Germany
on preparing to combat the intention announced, and set still
more on saying that as Fessler had been the first to face the
German public with this intimation, his fortune was made at
Rome.
Bishop Dupanloup, of Orleans, put forth his best literary
power in what was called, by the Constitutionnel, an attempt to
bring about a reconciliation between the Council and the prin-
ciples of 1789.2 He urged that they greatly erred who looked
upon the approaching Council as a menace against modern
society, or as a declaration of war with progress. On the con-
trary, freedom, fraternity and progress, so far as they were true
and good, had nothing to fear from this 'senate of humanity.'
Bishop Von Ketteler, of Mainz, declared that the forthcoming
Council was the greatest event of our age ³:
'At least,' added this doughty pupil of the Jesuits, 'in the work of
reconstruction; for as to destruction, certainly, there have been greater
events. As God provided for the Church and the world in the century of
the so-called Reformation, by means of the Council of Trent, so has He
in our century, which, still sadder to say, is the century of Revolu-
tion, the century of demolition and universal destruction, inspired the
High Pontiff with the supreme remedy, the convocation of the Vatican
Council. The work of destruction is manifestly hasting to its end. It is
time to commence the work of reconstruction, on the ancient foundation
laid by Christ once for all. This is precisely the work to which the
Council is called.'
These words we quote from the Civiltá, to which the whole
document seemed highly laudable.* But its translation is
strong. Ketteler did not use the term 'reconstruction' for his
German audience, but 'construction.' He did not say that God.
had inspired the Pontiff, but that the Spirit of God again
Das Letzte und das Nächste Concil, p. 59.
• Lettre sur le futur Concile Ecuménique.
8 Das Allgemeine Concil und seine Bedeutung für unsere Zeit.
4 Scric VII., vol. vi., p. 93.
250 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
.
assembled the General Council, the highest Court of Judgment
for the Truth on earth. This last form of words had the merit
of which our English tongue has within the last few years
presented some examples of all but incredible skill,-the merit
of suggesting to a Protestant an idea that would not awaken
his political fears, and yet of representing to the Jesuits of the
Civiltá the true doctrine. The Pope himself began to take part
in the controversy now gradually rising. The Abbé Belet had
translated into French the work of the Jesuit Father Weninger,
published in New York. The Pope wrote a brief to thank him,
taking occasion at the same time harshly to censure the great
Bossuet, as a bishop who, in order to flatter the civil power,
contradicted his own proper opinions, and contradicted the
original doctrine of the Church.¹
Pleasant to the military palate of Pius IX. were the words
of brave Colonel Allet, in a soldierly order of the day, issued
in December, to his zouaves. After recounting, in terse strong
terms, their services against the Garibaldians, he says:-
'Soldiers all is not over. Great dangers still threaten the Church.
Remember that in your regiment you stand, not merely as soldiers
marching side by side; you also represent a principle before the world,
the principle of the voluntary and disinterested defence of the Holy See.
You are the nucleus around which will unite in the hour of danger the
prayers, the succours, and the hopes of the Catholic world. Be, then, true
soldiers of God. You have not merely duties, you have even a mission,
and you will not fulfil it without union, discipline, moral conduct, and
military instruction. A third battalion is formed. Your swelling ranks
assure to you a larger part in future struggles. We shall march together to
the cry of "Long Live Pius IX. !”'
Funereal solemnities on behalf of the fallen are proudly re-
corded as having been celebrated in France, England, Germany,
etc. The proudest mention of all is that of Lovaine, apparently
because the 'function' was that of a University. The design of
the Belgians, it is shown, was not merely to give their suffrage
to the souls departed, but especially to show their consciousness
1 Friedberg, p. 487.
A Professor foreseeing a Change of Doctrine. 251
that it was for them a glory to have so many volunteers in the
Papal army. The Belgian soldiers especially showed interest
and sympathy.¹
To these military consolations were added such as a crown
and a nation once great could now bestow. Queen Isabella
strongly recommended from the throne, and her Cortes almost
unanimously voted, that the forces of the nation, acting in
alliance with the Emperor of the French, should be ready to
defend the Holy See. What was more important, the King of
Prussia, in reply to Ledochowsky, spoke clearly in support of
the temporal power.
The Pope, at the opening of the new
year, poured blessings upon France, her sovereign, and her
arms, especially on General Failly, whom shortly afterwards
he, in taking leave of him, blessed anew.
It was also told with satisfaction how, at banquets, both at
Malines and Namur, the health of the Pope was drunk before
that of the King of Belgium, and how pleasantly the Nuncio
gave the health of the local and subordinate sovereign after
that of his master, as the Lord Paramount, had received its
meed.³
4
It is not easy for us, whose faith has always rested on the
fixed standard of God's Word, to enter into all the feelings of
suspense which are to be read between the lines of a lecture by
Professor Menzel, then of Braunsberg, now of Bonn, printed
for private circulation among his former pupils. He is teaching
them the doctrine of Church infallibility, but not, as he had
hitherto done, in the twofold confidence of persuasion and
personal security. Persuasion abides, reinforced by fresh study,
and animated by assault. But security is gone. The conscious-
ness that he may never more be allowed to teach this doctrine
weighs upon all he utters. Before another session, should
his own faith not change, that of his chair probably will. The
1 ¹ Civiltá, VII., i. 108-109. 2 Ibid., pp. 228-230.
• Id., 622.
♦ Ueber das Subject der Kirchlichen Unfehlbarkeit. (Als Manuscript
gedruckt). Braunsberg: 1870.
252 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
•
قطر
148
Church which he had served, as permitting the membership
of those who denied the infallibility of the Pope, had been
catholic enough for him. But now, after pausing since the
Reformation, she had actively resumed the process of narrowing
the terms of membership by dogmatising new shibboleths. One
had been already added in his own day. Another now hung
overhead, still more momentous, because it not only altered the
doctrine of the Church, but altered the standard of doctrine,
and was moreover self-propagating,—a seed bearing fruit after
its kind.
6
This complete subversion of the old Catholic principle, every-
Sea where, always, and by all,' cries the poor Professor, 'has found
its most doughty champions in the Jesuits of the Civiltà Cattolica,
with their branch at Maria Laach, and in the Archbishops of
Malines and Westminster, Deschamps and Manning.'¹ In the
struggling argument of the Teacher of this year, we cannot help
hearing, by anticipation, the sighs of the excommunicated of
next year; excommunicated for holding fast what he had always
taught, with the sanction of the Church, and from one of her
chairs! And as the iron enters into his soul, he evidently feels.
it hard that an English hand should be one of the foremost in
driving it home.
Professors looked from the chair on their classes not knowing
what they might have to teach a twelvemonth hence. Preachers
looked from the pulpit on their congregations weighted with
the same uncertainty. Editors wrote that the Catholic faith was
thus and thus, feeling that, perhaps, soon they must write the
reverse, or else drop the pen. Heads of families were perplexed
as to what they should say to their children, if compelled to
believe what they and their fathers had always resented as a
false accusation against their religion. Jurists wondered if
they must either break with their clergy, or begin a campaign
for reinstating canon law over civil. Heads of colleges won-
dered if they must break with the Church, or move heaven and
1 P. 7.
Uncertainties.
253
earth to procure universities 'canonically instituted.' Nobles
wondered if they must for the sake of their souls turn against
the legislative rights of their order, and seek a polity wherein the
noble, as in the Model State under the Perfect Society, served
merely as a brilliant to enrich the crown of the priest of God.
Statesmen pondered how Church and State could be held to-
gether if the Pope resolved to have all the liberty of power and
the power of liberty.' Kings whose forefathers had compelled
nations, by the sword, to wear the yoke of Rome, chafed to think
that their religion was to be 'changed over their heads.' But
all this time the silent arbiters of the Catholic's destiny were
patiently framing the decrees. Week by week, and month by
month, decisions were being formulated. Men moved and com-
bined to prevent new fetters from being forged for their souls
next year; but link was being already noiselessly added to link,
by old, cool, and resolute masters. The Emperor set to defend
the Gallican liberties for the millions of France, and the Em-
peror set to uphold the Josephine safeguards for the millions of
Austria, had no access to the subterranean forge Antra Ætnæa,
where chains and thunderbolts were on the anvil, away from
the ears of men. Turnus had not less power over the island cave
where the arms by which he was to fall were being tempered.
But, on the other hand, the Vulcan of the Syllabus had more
than one Venus at the Court of each potentate, wooing in his
interests, and pleading for his will. The truth, however, was
to dawn upon their subjects, from behind gorgeous clouds of
their beloved pomps and ceremonies.
254
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
CHAPTER VI.
Agitation in Bavaria and Germany-The Golden Rose-Fall of Isabella-The
King of Bavaria obtains the opinion of the Faculties-Döllinger-Schwar-
zenberg's Remonstrance.
THE proximity of Bavaria to Italy
HE proximity of Bavaria to Italy on the one hand, and to
Protestant Germany and Switzerland on the other, had
assisted in giving to the schools of Munich a clearer insight into
the condition of theology south of the Alps, than perhaps any
other learned body north of them possessed, and, at the same
time, in giving to them a juster appreciation of the effect to be
expected in the world at large, from new additions to the dog-
matic burden which Catholics must carry, and from the conse-
quent narrowing of the terms of membership in their Church.
For a considerable time, a conflict had been silently growing
up between the theology of the German schools and that in
recent years imported direct from Rome by the new type of
priests there trained. The catechisms-even those prepared
by the early Jesuits-had been gradually altered, till first the
denial of Papal infallibility disappeared, and secondly the
statement of Church infallibility was so obscured as to prepare
the way for further change.
Jesuit establishments had been springing up in defiance of the
law. The Ultramontane press had raged against the unity of
Germany under the leadership of Prussia, writing so as to lead
foreigners to believe that France had only to invade Germany
and she would find the Catholics on her side. A littérateur
named Fischer being arrested at Landeck in June 1868, a letter
was found from Count Platen, saying, 'A league of the small
States with France, for the common end of breaking the power
of Prussia, is the duty of all.'
1
The feelings of the educated classes generally resented such
attempts with indignation. We have seen how Sepp spoke of
¹ Menzel, Weltbegebenheiten, band i., p. 123.
Isabella and the Golden Rose.
255
the canonisation of Arbues. The painter Kaulbach executed a
picture of an auto da fe celebrated under the eye of this new
celestial patron.
A priest preached against the sale of the
engravings; and Kaulbach wrote a letter, which was printed in
the Cologne Gazette, hailing such reproach as an honour, and
appending a sketch of the Roman twins drinking in the milk of
the she-wolf. Of his Romulus and Remus, one wore the crown
of imperial France, and the other the tiara.¹
German writers assert that Napoleon III. induced Queen
Isabella of Spain, in the spring of 1868, to pledge herself to
send into Italy forty thousand men to protect the Pope, in
case he should be obliged to withdraw his troops by entering
on a war with Prussia. Other authorites say that it was to
be in case of a war with Italy. At all events, the most
select favour the Pontiff had to confer on the worthiest lady of
his Church, the golden rose, was sent to her most Catholic
Majesty. The ablegate assured Queen Isabella that it was pre-
sented not only as a token of the special goodwill of the Holy
Father, but as a certain pledge of the celestial protection.'
This distinction placed Isabella on a level with the Queen of
Naples and the Empress Eugenie, the only two lambs in all his
fold hitherto held worthy by Pius IX. of this pontifical seal of
stainless whiteness. In acknowledgment the Queen said that
if possible it increased veneration and filial affection toward the
Holy Father in my heart, always rather more his than mine.'2
If in this event we do not see proof of Queen Isabella's
pre-eminent virtue, we cannot but see some criterion of the
virtuous sentiment of the Vatican. But to the daughter of
Queen Christina the golden rose proved to be the last rose of
her summer. In September 1868 this elect lady, after out-
living more insurrections than any sovereign in Christendom,
was compelled to flee. An Italian writer, as a full account of
the cause of her fall, said 'Pius IX. blessed her.' Many Italians
1 Menzel, Jesuitenumtriebe, p. 21.
2 Civiltà, VII., i., 740.
256
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
:
6
say that his Holiness has 'the evil eye,' and that ruin attends
all things which he regards favourably. An expression fell
from the Catholique of Brussels on the news that the crown of
Isabella was threatened, which throws light on the Ultramontane
dialect Spain will be lost to Catholicism, lost to the cause of
order in Europe, and the last Christian government will have dis-
appeared from the Old World.'1 This drew from Montalembert
the remark: 'To wish modern society, or any Christian born in
that society and destined to live in it, to esteem the condition of
Spain under Isabella II. more highly than that of England under
Victoria, and to wish this in the name of the Catholic Church,
in the name of the party of order in Europe, is to impute
to that party and to that Church the saddest of responsi-
bilities, and the most menacing.'
12 But in so great a ques-
tion as the spiritual life of a nation, might the Catholique
have replied, the personal vices of a sovereign were as a
speck on the sun. The thing essential was whether the nation
should or should not be held in obedience to the Vicar of
God. Should it rebel against him, by statute and by constitu-
tion, Christian it could not be. When, in March 1876, the
Voce della Verità, the daily organ of the Papist party in Rome,
spoke of the overthrow of Don Carlos, it spoke of his rule as
'the Christian kingdom,' in contrast to that of Alphonso, not
certainly because of the personal virtues of the sovereign-a
ground far too narrow-but because Don Carlos would have
administered Christian law,' that is, he would have taken the
law on faith and worship from the lips of him whom God had set
up among men to give the law.
Schrader, in the Papst und König,³ gives an allocution of
Pius IX., delivered three years after his original triumph in
adding to the creed. He rejoices over the inauguration of a
column to perpetuate the memory of that event. As this stood
¹ Quoted by Montalembert, Bibliothèque Universelle 1876, p. 194.
2 Ibid., p. 195.
3 P. 18.
Causes of the Decay of Spain.
257
near the Spanish embassy, in the Piazza di Spagna, he affection-
ately mentions his dearest daughter in Christ, Isabella, the
Catholic queen, and the next female name on his lips is that
of the Immaculate Virgin.
But all Catholic political personages were not as good Papists
as Queen Isabella.
Montalembert, full of thoughts suggested by the questions
rising in the Church, saw in her fall but an incident of the decay
of Spain, which, again, was but the most striking example of
the condition of most Roman Catholic countries.
He wrote
what, as we have seen, appeared only after his death. Confess-
ing that the reign of Isabella had lasted 'too long,' he traced
the ruin of the country to 'despotism, spiritual and temporal,
absolute monarchy, and the Inquisition.' After showing that
both municipal and parliamentary liberties had been well de-
veloped in Spain in the days when she struggled, rose, and took
the lead, he dates the beginning of her fall from the combination
of Church and State, under Charles V., to work unitedly in
quenching civil and religious liberty. Though no advocate of
the separation of Church and State, he says, 'A thousand times.
better the fullest separation, with all its excesses, than the
absorption of the State by the Church, or of the Church by the
State.' No better expression could have been chosen than the
former of these phrases to designate the effect of the Jesuit
polity of Church and State just about to be adopted by Rome.
He takes the social and political effects of the Inquisition to
have been disastrous :-' That monstrous institution ceased to
act only when it had no more to do, when it had substituted
emptiness, death, and nothingness, for the life, the force, and the
glory of the first nation of the middle ages, the one which we
may justly call the pearl of the Catholic world.' Aiming a two-
edged thrust at Bonapartist legislatures, and at the character of
the coming Council, he says that the 'ill-omened' Charles V.
was the inventor of consultative despotism, or representative
absolutism, of which the Napoleons are wrongly accused of being
VOL. I.
17
258 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
D
དཀ,
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the originators.' And what he meant by 'consultative despotism'
is keenly set in words that might have been written after reading
the Rules of Procedure laid down by Pius IX. for the approaching
Council The Cortes could no longer exercise a check, nor take
the initiative.' For one who had spent his life in battling for
the Papacy, but always with the hope of reconciling it to liberty,
it was bitter, when death was in view, to write: There is not in
the history of the world a second example of a great country
so ruined, so broken down, so fallen, without foreign conquest
or civil war having materially contributed to the result, but by
the sole effect of institutions of which it was the prey.'¹
6
There is something in this wail of Montalembert which
reminds us of a saying of the French historian of Spain: 'From
Charlemagne to Charles V. Europe expended much effort and
much blood in searching for an equilibrium, impossible to main-
tain, between the spiritual and temporal power.'
2
Had the Prime Minister of Bavaria at the juncture in ques-
tion been a Protestant, he would have been slower in seeing the
political bearings of what was taking place. One of the three
brothers of Prince Hohenlohe was a cardinal, and otherwise his
means of information had been good. Besides, though Bavaria
had often served the Papal cause to the hurt of Germany, it had
never, like Prussia, given up its placet and other guards of the
royal supremacy. The Prime Minister submitted questions for
the formal opinion of the two Faculties of Theology and Law, in
the University of Munich, as to the effect which the definition
of Papal infallibility as a dogma would have upon the relations
of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities.
The Faculty of Theology, in its reply, after referring to the
work of Schrader, and quoting some of his propositions, says :-
'Should these or similar conclusions be adopted' (i.e., the conclusion
of the Syllabus against freedom of religion, of the press, etc.), ‘it would
lead to great confusion. The counter-principles are so established, both
in the theory and practice of all European constitutions, that anything
¹ Bibliotheque Universalle de Lausanne, 1876, p. 27.
2 St. Hilaire, Histoire d'Espagne, vol. vii., p. 1.
Opinions of Learned Faculties.
259
contrary to religious equality and freedom of opinion can scarcely again
obtain a footing. Were it laid upon Catholics, as a duty of conscience,
to repudiate those principles, undeniably collision between their civil and
ecclesiastical obligations would result, and in certain circumstances con-
sequences would ensue, burdensome and hurtful both to the individual
members of a national Church and to the collective body."
The statesmen had asked the divines what was meant by
speaking ex cathedrâ. The Faculty replied that among those
who asserted the doctrine of Papal infallibility, there were
some twenty theories on the subject, none of them authoritative
or generally received, and all arbitrary; 'because here it is im-
possible to frame a theory from Scripture and tradition.'2
The Faculty of Law said :-
'Should the propositions of the Syllabus and the Papal infallibility
be made dogmas, the relations between State and Church hitherto sub-
sisting would be altered in their very principles, and nearly all the
legislation fixing the legal position of the Catholic Church in Bavaria,
would be called in question."
The chief of the Theological Faculty was Dr. Döllinger,
whose aged but erect head was to every scholar in the Uni-
versity a crown of glory. The professors were proud of him,
and of their attainments made under his eye.
In common
with the scholars of other Catholic seats of learning in Ger-
many, they habitually manifested contempt for the Doctores
Romani, the imported pupils of the Jesuits from the Collegium
Germanicum or other seminaries in Rome,-a feeling which
they extended to the great bulk of the men of the Curia.
Döllinger had been a firm Tridentine Romanist, devoutly
bearing the burden of the new dogmas which the Council of
Trent bound up and laid upon men's shoulders.
But being
profoundly versed in antiquity, he was not disposed for more
accretions of the same sort, and he had long been detested by
1 Friedberg Aktenstücke, p. 300.
2 Ibid., p. 302.
• Ibid., pp. 313-323. Archbishop Manning places the time when these ques-
tions were put about the month of September 1869,' being 'about' half a
year too late, as he places the publication of Janus about a year too early.
-Vatican Decrees, p. 114.
260 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
the Jesuits, as standing in the old paths and resisting their
innovations. Superstitions newly carried over the Alps did not
thrive under his eye. As a historian he had not feared to
narrate and censure the enormities of Popes.
While these agitations were arising in the provinces, the
secret preparations in Rome were being pushed forward. The
fact became known that the six Commissions were at work. The
names of those serving upon them no sooner transpired than
a cry arose that only favourites of the Jesuits were appointed.
So few names from Germany appeared that offence was given,
even in a national point of view. This feeling increased when
it appeared that celebrities of whom the Catholic faculties were
proud had been passed over, and that inferior men, known only
for devotion to the Curia, had been selected. These feelings
were partly theological, partly personal, and yet more strongly
patriotic. The Germans knew that a double peril for the
Fatherland lurked in the anti-unionist policy of Rome,-peril
of disruption from within, and of invasion from France
Dissatisfaction must have run tolerably high when Cardinal
Prince Schwarzenberg wrote to Cardinal Antonelli, formally
remonstrating as to the selection made. The fact, he submitted,
that all those selected belonged to one well-defined theological
school, was in itself open to objection. As to the reputation
of the favourites, he said, 'I have had fears lest their qualifi-
cations should not prove equal to their weighty responsibilities.'
He names Munich, Bonn, and Tübingen, as Universities where
fit men were to be found as well as at Würzburg, and goes so
far as to mention names, among them that of Döllinger.
This letter was politely answered by Antonelli, after a couple
of months. He said that Döllinger would have been invited
only that his Holiness had learned that he would not accept
the duty.¹
One of the theologians at whom the innuendo of Cardinal
'Both letters are given in Documenta ad Illustrandum Concilium Vaticanum,
I. Abtheil., pp. 277-280.
Intention to propose Infallibility intimated. 261
Schwarzenberg was aimed was Hergenröther. Yet Archbishop
Manning wrote to Macmillan's Magazine, and, after speaking of
the men of Munich as if they were of little more account in
the esteem of students than in that of ecclesiastical courtiers,
told us that if we wanted to learn anything of the true rela-
tion of Catholics to national law, we must not go to them,
but must study Hergenröther. 1
CHAPTER VII
Intention of proposing the Dogma of Infallibility intimated-Bavarian Note
to the Cabinets, February to April, 1869-Arnim and Bismarck.
IT
T was in February 1869 that the fears and hopes which had
long been more or less distinctly directed to a given point,
were both quickened by fresh light. The Civiltà Cattolica, in the
letter of its French correspondent, published suggestions that the
Council should sit for but a short time, that it should proclaim
the doctrines of the Syllabus, and that the infallibility of the
Pope should be adopted by acclamation. It was at once alleged
that the finger of Pius himself gave this sign. The suggestions
thus made explain what the Cardinals consulted in the first
instance meant when they hoped that the Council would not
last so long as some might think. They had in 1854 induced
the bishops to acclaim a new dogma, and in 1867 to accept
the Syllabus without demur, and surely they could get any
portions of that document which it was necessary, for greater
clearness, to formulate into decrees, passed in the same
delightful way; and this would be still more desirable for
the dogma of infallibility. Archbishop Manning treated the
idea of an intended acclamation as a pleasantry; but he
charged the ventilation of it on a wrong time and on a wrong
1 No. 183, p. 259.
262 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
(
publication. Janus first announced the discovery of the plot.'1
It may have been Janus who first clearly indicated a certain
English prelate as the man chosen by the party of acclamation
to give the signal. But he was long behind the first to an-
nounce the plot. The laity generally were offended and alarmed,
at least those north of the Alps, and many bishops who were
ready to vote for the Curia, did not feel flattered at having
the whole world informed that they were not wanted in Rome
as judges of the faith, but as adornments of a grand pageant.
The translation or assumption of the body of the Virgin was
also suggested in the same article, as a doctrine which it was
desirable to make into a dogma.
As time wore on, the excitement became more intense. In
France, the action of the government, as in most things under
the Second Empire, was ambiguous. It seemed to dread the
impending innovations, and every now and then what appeared
to the world as a menace was half uttered. Yet it was plain
that the Curia was not disturbed. Nothing can be more
tranquil than the letters in the Civilta from its French
correspondent. There is an apparent sense of solid support,
such as no gusts of the popular winds will seriously shake.
M. de Banneville, the acceptable representative of France in
Rome, continued in his post. When the question of the pre-
sence of princes in the Council was to be faced, Cardinal
Antonelli had the comfort of treating it with this trusty friend.
It was comparatively easy to convey to him the intimation
which, in a few words, represented, as M. Veuillot had showed,
a radical revolution in Church and State. There were no more
Catholic States. The term 'Catholic arms
Catholic arms' continued to be
applied, by official writers, to those of France and the other
countries which had reconquered the lost States of the Pope.
But arms are perhaps, like gold and silver to the Brahmans,
substances which never contract pollution. The monarchs were
outside the door. Even France, whose flag at Civitá Vecchia
¹ Privel. Pet., Part III., p. 37.
Princes not Invited.
263
was the only protection of the temporal power, was told that
she was no longer a Catholic State,-she, the eldest daughter
of the Church; she whom the Pope, in parting with General
Failly, had for love of her chassepots-the 'prodigious chasse-
pots,' as they were called-blessed as the 'most Christian
nation!' The Curia knew that the hold of the Pope on the
priests and schools was stronger than that of the Bonapartes
on army and nation; and they were rearing up their champions,
while the Empire was wearing out its own.
We have no account of the scene when the French marquis
learned that his country was no more a Catholic nation, from
the firm but mobile lips of the son of that Sonnino chief whom,
it is said, the French had condemned to die for brigandage. He
would, however, learn it in tones and with an air which would
do all that tone or air could do to divest it of every offensive
appearance. Very different would be the language of Antonelli
to the representative of a reigning Bonaparte from that of the
Curia over a fallen one.
The same number of the Civiltà which records the death of
Antonelli states the case in the following terms. The Pontiff
could not invite powers of which one, like Italy, was in open
hostility to the Church; of which another had, like Austria,
of her own motion, torn up the Concordat; and another had,
like France, a turncoat and a perfidious traitor to the Holy
See upon the throne.' However, proceeds the apologist, in
refusing to invite them the Pope 'did not in any respect
approve of the separation of Church and State, but adapted
his action to the state of things created by the apostasy of
the governments." A still later number of the Civiltá speaks
of the 'infernal cleverness' of Louis Napoleon.
1
The Ultramontane priests enjoyed this disfranchisement of
kings; but they were not yet all prepared to find that the Order
of Priests was also to be disfranchised. Not a man of them was
to be allowed to plead in presence of the Council. The Car-
1 Serie IX., vol. xii., pp. 397, 398.
264 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
=
dinals, in their close and still Commissions, were preparing to
put, not only laymen, but priests and bishops too, more on the
footing of a marching army than ever before.
On April 9th, 1869, Prince Hohenlohe addressed a circular to
the European Cabinets in the name of Bavaria. It was not
to be believed, he said, that the Council would confine itself to
purely theological questions, of which, in fact, none were press-
ing for solution. The only dogmatic point that Rome wished
the Council to decide, was that of Papal infallibility, for which
the Jesuits in Germany and elsewhere were agitating. This
question,' added the Prince, 'reaches far beyond the domain of
religion, and is in its nature highly political; for the power of
the Pope in temporal things over all princes and nations, even
such as are in separation from Rome, would be defined, and
elevated into an article of faith.'
The smooth reply of the German Jesuit organ was that
something of the kind had been said before in the Augsburg
Gazette. But the circle of Church authority would remain the
same, whether the organ of that authority should be the Pope
singly, or the Pope in conjunction with the bishops; just as the
powers of a national government would be the same in extent,
whether in the hands of a monarch or of a republican executive.
This is characteristic. The discussion was not about any
proposal to enlarge or contract the theoretic circle of Church
power, but about a proposal to declare that the Pope alone,
without the bishops, was the depositary of that power. If the
theory of Rome was correct, no extension of the circle of
power was possible, but the depositary of power was now to
be changed.
If, among ourselves, it was proposed to give the power of
life and death to the Crown, without judge or jury, we might
be told that the power of life and death was the same whether
exercised by royal warrant or through the traditionary courts.
The circle of power would not be extended.
The Bavarian note did not elicit a practical response from
Views of Count Arnim.
1
265
other cabinets. The reply of Austria was, perhaps, influenced
by the fact that Count Beust, then Prime Minister, was a Pro-
testant. His despatch bears marks either of non-appreciation
of the import of terms and acts, proceeding from the Vatican,
such as would be natural in one not trained to watch them, or of
a desire to evade the gravity of the question. He thought it
best to wait and to be on his guard. On behalf of Prussia
Bismarck also took up an attitude of observation, but with
more insight into the reasons for the suggestion of Prince
Hohenlohe. The Italian Government had expressed itself in
favour of common action, but practically let things take their
course. England, naturally, declined to interfere.
France, she thought herself protected by the Concordat against
all eventualities-another proof that her statesmen handled
affairs without mastering ideas. Perhaps not one of them had
read what Rome had lately been teaching as the true doctrine
of Concordats.
As to
The Unità Cattolica (June 23rd), however, put this tranquil
attitude of France in a different light
'Hohenlohe is sold to Prussia, and torments the Catholics of Bavaria
to push them to throw themselves into the arms of Prussia, where
Catholicism enjoys the utmost liberty, thanks to the fox-like policy of
Bismarck. This is known in Paris, and hence Napoleon is said to have
looked darkly on the perfidious proposals of the Bavarian Minister.'
Count Arnim, then German Minister in Rome, wrote to
Prince Bismarck on the 14th of May, a despatch, in which he
showed that ignorance of the practical bearing of the doctrine
of Papal infallibility which, appearing in many statesmen, sur-
prised Vitelleschi. This writer says, alluding to specific Canons,
the bearing of which the most heedless might see:—
'Rome was wisely content for the moment to sacrifice these Canons for
the sake of the dogma of infallibility, which virtually includes them all,
and as many more besides as may spring from the will of a single and
irresponsible individual. If the statesmen who directed the policy of
Europe had been more familiar with ecclesiastical matters, and less dis-
› Friedberg, pp. 325-328.
266
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
tracted by other important interests, they would have seen that the
dogma of infallibility was a far more serious matter than the Canons,
because the effect and limits of these latter are known, whereas those of
infallibility are infinite and boundless, as was apparent on all occasions
when they could be exercised' (p. 157).
In contrast with this view of the Roman, the German diplo-
matist wrote :-'The question is not one of those the decision of
which, in one sense or another, is of essential importance for
governments.' Later, he represents the question whether the
Pope is infallible alone or only when united with a Council, as
'an idle war of words, which is without influence on the posi-
tion of temporal governments.' This sounds as if he repeated
what some Ultramontane had told him. Still he admits that the
preparations of Reisach's Ecclesiastico-Political Commission may
involve the most serious questions for States.¹ Arnim having
soon afterwards to pass through Munich, Prince Hohenlohe
advised him to see Döllinger; and it would seem that conversa-
tion with him soon gave Arnim light on the difference between
an absolute and a limited power of settling all questions affect-
ing morals, so as to bind the consciences of whole nations.2
Count Bismarck replied on May 26th, declining to apply for
the admission of an ambassador, and taking the position that
Prussia would maintain 'the perfect freedom of the Church in
ecclesiastical affairs, and would firmly repel every trespass on
the domain of the State.' He felt that they must avoid what
would tend to the mixing up of the two sorts of questions. The
duty of Governments was to give plain notice that they would
not tolerate any trespasses. He felt that the existence of the
Politico-Ecclesiastical Commission showed that Rome was as-
suming the right to establish fixed rules for politico-ecclesiastical
affairs, without giving to the governments interested any oppor-
tunity of discussing the points: they were treated as if they
were not factors in the case. This fact he considers a sufficient
'See Cologne Gazette, April 19th, 1874.
2 Manning's Vatican Decrees, p. 114, whose authority, Daily Telegraph, as
quoted in the Tablet, October 31st, 1874.
Bismarck on the Prospect.
267
reason why the governments should give timely warning before-
hand, rather than wait to make idle protests against decisions
once announced. To promote such a united warning, but not
to promote the sending of an ambassador, he proposes to com-
municate with the Southern German governments.1 These two
documents yielded clear proof that Bismarck, instead of seeking
a conflict with the Church of Rome, wished to avoid it, and en-
deavoured to take the most open and practical way of warding
it off. Arnim's charge against him of not seeing the danger is
an undesigned, but a strong, confirmation of his pacific desires.
Certainly he had not then or ever an idea of peace at any
price; least of all at the price of surrendering the principle of
national supremacy, in any national establishment, be it called
Church, or school, or what else.
CHAPTER VIII.
Indulgences-Excitement-The Two Brothers Dufournel-Senestrey's Speech-
Hopes of the Ruin of Germany-What the Council will do-Absurdity of
Constitutional Kings-The True Saviour of Society-Lay Address from
Coblenz-Montalembert adheres to it-Religious Liberty does not answer
-Importance of keeping Catholic Children apart from the Nation-War
on Liberal Catholics-Flags of all Nations doing Homage to that of the
Pope.
ΟΝ
N the 11th of April, 1869, was issued another of those Bulls
proclaiming indulgences on which the world has almost
ceased to look as one of the forces of history. Nevertheless each
of them is a monument to an authority obeyed by disciplined
millions, as holding executive power both in this world and the
other. Once more were long Latin sentences filled out to tell the
faithful that he who had power to bind and to loose proclaimed
to them, on the occasion of the Council, full remission of their
sins, and indulgence, on condition of their visiting certain
basilicas, and saying certain prayers.2 This pardon,' says the
1
(
¹ Cologne Gazette, April 14th, 1874.
2 Acta, p. 18. Freiburg edition, p. 62.
268 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
3
Archbishop of Florence, 'was to extend not only till the opening
of the Council, but through the whole of its continuance.'1
Millions were thus put under the necessity of imbibing the con-
viction, that sin against our neighbour and our God admits of
being cancelled in such a way, or else of seeming to believe
what they did not believe, or of bowing and not asking them-
selves whether they believed it or not.2
The excitement steadily rose higher. The Augsburg Gazette
published articles which aroused general interest in Germany,
and attracted attention in England. What had hitherto been
treated as mere ravings in the Ultramontane press began to be
looked upon as worthy of notice. The priests who, in those
journals, preached down Italian and German unity, and lauded
France, pointing meanwhile to some swift approaching vengeance,
were only excited, not beside themselves. Vague knowledge of
great plans awakened hopes, and these led to an exaggerated view
of the forces available for a world-transforming struggle. The
swords of seventy millions combined against the Hohenzollerns
was a splendid dream, and not quite beyond the possibility of
realisation. It is often ascribed to Buss, a Professor at Freiburg
and Aulic Counsellor, as having been long before this crisis pro-
pounded by him in the highest places of Catholic Germany.3
In its number of January 4th, 1869, the Unità Cattolica had
an exulting report of a fête given by the Papal zouaves to his
Holiness, accompanied by the ex-King and Queen of Naples.
Telling of the prowess of these troops with their Remington
rifles, it said, 'Set four thousand of our soldiers to fire on a
body of men some eight hundred or a thousand yards off,
1 Cecconi, p. 144.
2 The extent to which the direct influence of the Curia, as against that of the
bishops and parochial clergy, may be increased by the system of indulgences
through the various orders of regulars, is traced in Der Mechanismus der Vati-
canischen Religion, by Friedrich. The power of moral disorganisation contained
in that system, and the power of loosening national ties, and of making the Pope
the centre of all things to the believer, is also clearly exhibited.
3 This plan, often alluded to in the German press, is related at length in the
Neue Freie Presse, June 1872, as quoted by Menzel, Jesuitenumtriche, p. 6.
The Brothers Dufournel.
269
for only five minutes, and in that time you would have two
hundred thousand hit.' On the twelfth of the same month it
welcomed General Dumont to Rome, and cited reports of war
materials coming from France. On the 16th it hailed the title
given to the newborn son of the Duke of Aosta as an omen
'of the victory of the Pope in the year of the Council.' That
title was Duke of Apulia, and the first who bore it, in 1059,
took an oath of fidelity containing the following words: 'I,
Robert, by the grace of God and of St. Peter, Duke of Apulia,
and, thanks to the grace of the one and the other, future
King of Sicily, will be faithful from this hour forth and for
evermore to thee, my Lord Pope Nicholas,'—a general promise,
which is subdivided into many particulars. Don Margotti
does not tell that Robert was a Norman invader used by
Nicholas against Italians, or Lombards already naturalised in
Italy. No more does he tell that the gift of the kingdom of
Sicily was a gift beforehand, in case Robert Guiscard should
conquer it from Greek and Saracen, who then divided it
between them.
About this time was inaugurated, with great display of digni-
taries, military and spiritual, a monument to two brothers.
Dufournel, who lie in St. Lorenzo. The monument bears all
the emblems of martyrdom which the art of the catacombs can
supply. Instead of the usual request to pray for the repose of
the soul, into which Romanism fell from Christianity, stands the
word of the early Christians, 'They rest,'-here applied because
martyrdom had merited what grace was no longer believed to
give. Emmanuel Dufournel, on meeting the Garibaldians,
shouted to his men, 'Here, lads, is the spot to die; in the name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, forward!' When
expiring, he said, 'I am pleased to see my blood flow from
fourteen wounds for the glory of Holy Church.' The people
of Valentano, where he died, said to his men, 'Let us kiss the
bier; we do not come to pray for his soul, but to commend
ourselves to him' (VII., vi., 547). 'Such,' adds the reverend
270 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
!
►
writer, 'Such is the Christian instinct which distinguishes
between combatants in any other cause, however just, and the
heroes of the Christian religion.' To develop instincts of this
sort, it is impossible to conceive writing more skilfully adapted.
And these are the men who, at every breath, call the Italians
Mussulmans!
6
The other brother, Diodato Dufournel,-young, handsome,
polished, rich,-soon after the death of Alfred, met Father
Gerlache at daylight entering St. Peter's: 'I go to say a mass
for our dead on the Apostle's tomb.' 'I go too,' replied the
Captain, and they entered the crypt. The priest asked the
Zouave what had caused his strange absorption in prayer.
Father, I was praying to the Virgin for the favour of dying
for Holy Church.' Ten days afterwards he fell mortally wounded
during the Garibaldian disturbance in Rome. When the white-
headed father arrived, it was too late to see either son alive, but
he was instantly received by the Pope. The sovereign tried
to fasten on his breast the order of the Piano, but was blinded
by his tears. Maria, the sister of Diodato and Emmanuel, came
between the two weeping old men, and, guiding the hand of
the Pope, fastened the decoration on the breast of her father.
The writer concludes by representing the ladies of the house
hereafter as pointing out to their little ones the glove, the sword,
the fatal ball, and other relics, the victor palm and the exulting
angels, and saying, 'Their souls are in paradise, lovely and
resplendent, and are interceding for us. Children, kneel down.
and pray to God that none of our family may degenerate from
the example of Diodato and Emmanuel Dufournel!' They are
further to tell the children that similar relics of Charles Alcan-
tara and of Bernard Quatrebarbes are preserved; the one in
Brittany, the other in Flanders; and that 'in those countries
these relics cause a new growth of crusaders continually to
spring up' (VII., vi., 552).
Bishop Senestrey, of Regensburg, known as a pupil of the
Jesuits and an ardent Ultramontane, made a speech at Schwan-
Revolution and War threatened.
271
dorf, which has not yet been forgotten in Bavaria, and was
soon heard of in other parts of Germany. He said :—
'We Ultramontanes cannot yield. The antagonism can have no issue
but in war and revolution. A peaceable settlement is not possible. Who
makes your temporal laws? We observe them only because a force stands
behind which compels us. True laws come from God only. Princes
themselves reign by the grace of God, and when they have no longer a
mind to do so, I shall be the first to overturn the throne.'¹
Reminiscences of this speech will occur during the sittings
of the Council. The offence given by it to Liberal Catholic
politicians was more serious than would have been the case with
us. We should have put some Protestant interpretation on the
expression 'reign by the grace of God.' But Liberal Catholics
knew that the meaning of that phrase was very definite in lips
like those of Bishop Senestrey. He was not the man to believe
that the grace of God would reach royal heads through channels
condemned by the Vicar of God. Jurists and journalists might
fancy that what the latter bound on earth would be left open in
heaven, but not so the Bishop of Regensburg.
To the Germans, who were just rising to a consciousness of
their unity, the threats of breaking them up again were cruel,
especially when coming from within. The foreigner,' said
Sepp, 'has always counted on the internal splits in the German
oak, to drive in his wedge, and rend us to pieces.'
Political vicissitudes, said the Stimmen aus Maria Laach, 2
may possibly change the face of all Germany, and the Lord
may, in a surprising way, remove all the barriers which hinder
the free action of the Church and break her bonds. One
of the complaints against Bavaria, immediately following these
ominous words, is that the ruling idea of religious equality gives
statesmen the impression that they may interfere in the affairs
of the Catholic Church in the same way as they do in those of
the Protestant.
At the very same time the rage of the Italian organs of the
¹ Menzel, Jesuitenumtriebe, p. 178.
2 Neue Folge, Heft iii., p. 76.
272 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
Curia against Italian unity was unbridled. Not to dwell on
words written for a day, we have the following language penned,
as Count Henri de Riancey says, 'under the radiance of infalli-
bility,' that is, by the direct sanction of the Pope; language put
into a work meant to go down in monumental form to future
ages, a bound copy of which costs forty pounds. The Count
says, 'Naples, Sicily, Parma, Modena, and Tuscany have seen
themselves deprived of their princes, capitals, independence, and
nationality. These nations, formerly so free, are now the slaves
of pro-consuls from the rugged summits of the Alps, coarse con-
querors, recalling those of whom Virgil complained. Barbarus
has segetes.¹ No wonder that with such views the Count looked
with horror on the prospect of the Holy City, which 'pastors
and people hailed as the country of their souls,' becoming by
any possibility 'the capital of that tyrannical unity which is
crushing the nationalities of Italy.'
The Archbishop of Salerno, in a pastoral, said: "The Council
will apply a remedy to the gangrened wounds now consuming
the social fabric, and will reconstitute society on the basis of
the faith.... The Church will dictate laws, will dictate lessons,
and two hundred millions of men will bow the head in docility
and obey; perhaps also with them not a few millions of non-
Catholics.' 2
(
Who will breathe into it
Bishop Macchi of Reggio, in his pastoral on the Council,
made society represent the Prodigal Son: We hear society
repeat the cry of the prodigal, I perish. Who will save this
society? Who will bring a remedy?
the breath of a new life?' He heard a voice asking, 'But what
is a Council that it should be thought the medicine for sick
society? . . . Mary is the bow of peace; behold the sun in the
Council, which will be the great work of illumination and pacifi-
cation for the cure of society.' These being the passages selected
3
¹ Frond, vol. i., General Introduction, p. xvi.
2 Unità Cattolica, Feb. 21th, 1869.
8 Civiltá, VII., vi., 709.
Alleged Effects of Liberty.
273
at the Vatican for circulation all over the world, it would seem
as if the Pope now felt sure that he had found his sick man.
C
Bishop Sannibale of Gubbio wrote: A few months hence
and Rome, the capital of the Christian world, with nations for
her children, kings for her sons, and empires for her provinces,
will see,' etc., etc.
In contrast to the tone of the Italians is an extract from a
German, Dr. A. Schneider, of Cologne. He speaks of the Church
re-acquiring her power over public life by first converting indi-
viduals, as she did in the beginning. That was said under the
Prussian flag (p. 718). From Holland a correspondent writes
in hope that the Council will bring the Liberalism which is the
plague and danger of the Dutch Catholics, to its end.
The scorn with which talk of recognising Italy was treated at
this proud moment, may be judged from the words of the Unitú
for January 27th, in an article headed, Dying with Italy or Living
with the Pope. The Marquis de Moustier, it remarks, having
promised to study a modus vivendi, proposed by Menabrea, was
seized by mortal illness. In a similar way Morny, Wallewsky,
Petri, and Billault were struck with death, by urgent study of
means for making revolution live side by side with the Pope.
Now Bonaparte was wishing to reconcile two banners, that of
Italy bearing a pair of sculls (those of Monti and Tognetti), and
that of Christ's Vicar, the way, the truth, and the life.
1
Parliamentary government, hateful everywhere, was viewed
as monstrous in Italy. The Civiltá cannot accurately study'
the proceedings in Florence, because of 'the ineffable weariness,
the disgust, the disdain with which the mind is seized, on reading
those speeches, often vulgar, and running over with sophism
and effrontery.' It proceeds to say that the famous boons of
1789, liberty of worship, liberty of meeting, liberty of the press,
and liberty of instruction, led in practice. 'to the triumph of
irreligion, to the tyranny of the State, to unbridled license in
handling through the press the most sacred and inviolable rights,
¹ Scrie VII., vol. vi., p. 234 235.
VOL. I.
18
274
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
and to the barbarising of the young by more infamous ignorance.'
Yet, at the same time, it records with satisfaction efforts of its
own friends to obtain liberty of instruction, after their ideal;
that is, the State giving up to the priest the control of what is
taught to its subjects with its own money.
The Civiltá gloried in the disappearance of the Liberal
Catholic priests, utterly extinguished, as it held, by the Syllabus
and by the prospect of the Council. There might still linger
some slight remnant of Liberal Catholics among the laity. But
Catholics in Italy were now to be noted for their hope, their joy,
and their perfect withdrawal from political life. They were no
more to be found seeking situations from the government, but
were all ardently drawing close to Pius IX. Since he uttered the
'prophetic word,' Let us wait upon events, above all since the
Council was summoned, they had betaken themselves to pious.
works and to waiting on the hand of the Almighty.¹
Clerical immunity from civil jurisdiction is once more.
asserted with great solemnity, as 'not only Catholic truth, but
of faith.' Just as Phillips turned the act of our Lord in paying
tribute into an argument why priests should not be required to
pay taxes, so did the Civiltá turn the fact of His refusing kingly
dignity into a reason why emperors should leave the Pontiff in
his spiritual action free from 'carnal intrusion,' and also why
he should resort to imperial laws only in the conduct of tem-
poral affairs. The Pontiff is not to be bound by imperial laws,
except in temporals,'-he interpreting that term; but he is to
command in all things that are not temporal.
In its own order, continues the article, the family is inde-
pendent, but, its end being subordinate to that of the State, the
latter can control the parental power by its laws, and can come
in as judge in any case where the domestic government becomes
hurtful to the public interest (p. 301).
'But this precisely demonstrates the impossibility of saying that it may
do the same with the Church. For it is not the Church that is subordi-
¹ Serie VII., vol. vi., pp. 226, 227.
War belter than Ecclesiastical Disabilities.
275
nate to the State, but vice versa, the State that is subordinate to the
Church, since it is not the religious end that is inferior to the political
one, but, on the contrary, the political that is inferior to the religious.
Hence it is not the State that has an indirect power over the Church, but
the reverse, the Church has an indirect power over the State, in what
regards the purely temporal order. And thus she can correct or annul
civil laws and the sentences of secular courts, when they are opposed to the
spiritual good. She can bridle the abuse of the executive power and the
abuse of arms, or indeed PRESCRIBE THE USE OF THEM, when it is necessary
for the defence of the Christian religion. The tribunal of the Church is
higher than a civil one. Now, the superior tribunal can review the
inferior one, not the inferior the superior.'
(
Hence, it is concluded that the dogmatic teaching of the Bull
Unam Sanctam settles the matter. If the civil ruler err, he is
to be judged by the spiritual one. If an inferior spiritual ruler
err, he is to be judged by his proper superior; and if the highest
spiritual ruler err, he is to be judged by God only. Hence, the
appeal ab abusu (i.e., from an ecclesiastical to a civil court) is
utter disorder, an appeal lying from a higher to a lower tri-
bunal. It takes away the sovereignty of the kingdom of
Christ, and subverts its divine constitution.' The right of placet
and that of appeal form two sores of the Church, more deadly
than the old investitures, to abolish which the Church did not
shrink from long and bloody wars. If the question of investiture
touched the 'independence of the Church in the creation of her
magistrates,' the placet and the appeal touch the independence of
the Church in giving laws to the faithful, and applying them to
their spiritual government. They are not to be allowed or tole-
rated. No physical evil can outweigh so great moral evils. They
impair the fundamentals of the Church and its social structure.
Had we, said the Unitá of March 3rd, instead of a Chamber
of Revolutionists, as Marco Minghetti called the present one, a
Chamber of Jesuits, what wise laws, what fruitful sittings, what
far-sighted measures would you see! You would see a forced
currency disappear as if by enchantment, financial equilibrium
established, public morals restored, and crime rapidly dimi-
nishing.
276 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
But in the same publications which struggled against unity
of nations, the loss of another unity was bitterly deplored.
'Catholic unity' in Spain, hitherto existing by law, alas,
exclaims the Stimmen, exists in fact no longer. By religious.
unity is meant the state of things which forbids men to worship
God except under direction of the Pope. Massimo D'Azeglio
exclaimed as to Italy, Religious unity is the only unity we have
left. We should say, No wonder !
The attempt to place the unity of Christians not in faith in
Christ and manifestation of His spirit, but in subjection to one
human being, has had just the same results as had the attempt
to place the unity of mankind in obedience to one sovereign,
treating all who did not yield as enemies. Human unity is
larger and nobler than one throne will ever shadow, and so is
Christian unity. The lust of uniformity that erected the Inqui-
sition, fettered the press, sentenced free opinion and free speech
to death, reformed the decalogue, and laid bonds upon the Bible,
has never given a nation rest, and has only been an endless
source of division and scepticism, by teaching men to curse
and shun one another even for differences often innocent,
perhaps advantageous. The Apostolic Council of Jerusalem,
instead of suppressing very grave differences which had spon-
taneously arisen, set up on a solid and permanent basis the
right to differ. This was a divine token of catholicity con-
demning retrospectively past attempts, and prospectively future
attempts, to reduce mankind to uniformity. Azeglio, in the
same breath in which he speaks of this 'unity,' calls Italy 'the
ancient land of doubt,' where even at the time of the Reforma-
tion people thought little of Rome and nothing of Geneva. And
the Stimmen says that those Spaniards who had broken down
'religious unity' were not Protestants but sceptics.' So that in
both Italy and Spain the result of that uniformity which is no
unity, was scepticism in religion and decay in politics.
To the race the bond of unity lies in a common Father, and
Neue Folge, Heft iii., p. 75.
୮
Society needs a Saviour.
277
to the Church in a common Lord. In the one case and in the
other the maintenance of unity consists not in putting down
variations, but in treating them with brotherly regard, as did
the apostles in council.
Very great political significance was lent by all the Papal
press to festivities in honour of the Pope's fiftieth year of
priesthood. The demonstrations of devotion to him at this
moment were fervent and grand, and the supplies of money laid
at his feet were immense. Great care was taken by the Civiltá
to ridicule the idea of the Opinione that these manifestations
had nothing to do with politics. On the contrary, cried the
leaders of the 'good press,' humanity, bewildered and almost in
despair, was hastening to the feet of the only deliverer. All
society needed a saviour, as every rational creature knew.
'The Pontiff is now almost alone in the world, the representa-
tive of truth, justice, and good sense.' And hence, the poor
world, swimming in error, fraud and absurdity- the world
sees in Pius IX. a true master, a true judge, a true sovereign,
and it cleaves to him as the bulwark of society.' The Syllabus
suffices to prove that the Pope alone declares the truth: the
Syllabus which burst like a thunderbolt out of a serene sky, both
illuminated and blasted.' Hence all. turn to the Pope, who
more than ever promulgates the 'ancient truth which seems
new.' The Pontiff is the 'living remedy and the constant
protest' against injustice, iniquity, tyranny, despotism, etc., etc.
6
'If there still exists in the world a type and model of
good and paternal government, it is found in Rome.' The
Pontiff, rather than abandon one Hebrew child converted to
the faith, braved the Masonic rage of the world.' The nations
seem to be saying, To whom should we go, but to the Supreme
Pastor of the Christian flock?-thou hast the words of eternal life.
Pius IX., by rejecting the counsels of the prudent, now has
become morally the strongest support of order in the world, so
that those who have fallen, and those who wish not to follow
them, lean upon him.' And not only so, but the
278
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
'new queen of the world, Public Opinion, is now altogether in favour
of the Roman Pontiff, and protects and saves him, almost of herself
alone, against every violence and every intrigue, so that it now may almost
be said that all those in the world who are not with Pius IX. from love
are with him by force' (VII., vi., pp. 310-311).
Turning again to the subject of constitutional government,
the writer proceeds :-
This,
'In fact, it is a truth plain to common sense, that the head must
govern; but it is a discovery of modern science that the king ought not
to govern.
Not governing, however, the king must do something in this
world. But what? If he governs in spite of the system, he is a traitor
to his oath; if according to his duty, in a constitutional State, he does
not govern, there he is a useless do-nothing. In either the one case or
the other he must be dismissed as a do-nothing, or as a traitor.
in a few words, is the history of all modern constitutional kings.
'This absurd system,' he goes on to say, 'will never be understood by
the common sense of the people, who on this account cast their eyes around
to seek for one who now really does govern, yet, nevertheless, with the
counsels of the wise, and without tyranny; and they find that this is clearly
exemplified in the Roman Pontiff, whether as a Pope or as a king; not,
forsooth, with constitutional fictions, more or less observed or violated, but
with Christian and evangelical clearness, as morality and propriety demand.
Yes, morality: for in truth it is not easy to understand how the good
conscience of a reasonable person can be preserved, who is placed in the
position of being forced to sign laws which other people make, under pain
of violating the constitution if he refuses his approbation to that which is
demanded by force-not the force of equity and of justice, but of numbers,
and even of a casual majority' (pp. 311, 312).
C
•
The writer then goes on to argue that the people can never
understand how one and the same person can have two con-
sciences, one as a constitutional king and the other as a man.
This, however, is a necessary condition of a constitutional king,
but it is not the case in the Pontifical States, where nobody
would ever suppose such a condition of things possible.
"The Pope has only one conscience, and neither majority nor univer-
sality of votes and suffrages would ever lead him to sanction that which
is contrary to morality, to justice, to equity, and to the well-understood
interests of his subjects and of the flock. The Pope can say with truth,
'Although all, not I;" and on this account the eyes and the hearts of all
in the world who hate fictions and impostures, and who love truth and
rectitude, are turned to the Pope thus reigning and governing' (p. 312).
A Prelate on Antonelli's Conscience.
279
We make no attempt to enquire how many consciences a
Pope may have. The Civiltá contends that he cannot have
more than one. We have heard Romans contend that one is
above the number. Liverani (p. 140), alluding with much
personal respect to Father Mignardi, the Jesuit confessor of
Cardinal Antonelli, who, though not Pope, had much to do with
the perfect model of government above commended, evidently
thinks that a director of Antonelli's conscience held a sinecure.
He asserts that no one knew that his Eminence had a conscience
till April 2nd, 1860, when he declared the fact in a despatch to
Count Cavour! And this is the language of a prelate!
The more distant prelates were already bidding their flocks
farewell. The Bishop of Montreal, in doing so, said that the
'Council was destined to destroy the errors and sophisms
which cause so much damage to man and to society.' More-
over, he cited the example of the valorous Canadian youths,
who had enrolled themselves among the zouaves to defend the
Pope at the cost of their blood, exhorting his clergy with
similar courage to contend against the errors pointed out by
the Pope. From Jerusalem five priests wrote to announce.
that they would commence a concert of prayer, on the slopes
of Calvary: 1. For the happy result of the Council; 2. For
the union of the Oriental schismatics; 3. For the conversion of
erring priests. At the same time that it announces this fact,
the Civiltá, quoting from the Tablet, says that in Russia,
'under the appearance of external unity, there is great division
of religious sects;' and that there is some desire for union
with Rome.2
1
3
Confident in the spiritual and political triumph approaching,
the Civilta for May opened with an article on Church and
State, which made a great impression. Beginning by proclaiming
Christ as the invisible, and the Pope as the visible, monarch of
the one kingdom, the Church, it roundly asserts that the Pope's
1 Civiltà, Serie VII., vol. vi., p. 229.
* Ibid., p. 229.
Ibid., p. 291 ff.
:.
280 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
t
right in any Christian country is as real as that of its own
prince, and of a higher order. It is not content with one asser-
tion of the closer dependence of subjects on the Pope than on
their king. The following is a reiteration, but ought to be read
carefully :-
"Without doubt, the relation of each single Christian to the Pontiff is
much more intimate than that in which he stands to his own civil govern-
ment; because it is a relation formed by a tie which God Himself has
immediately and positively bound with His own hand. It is a bond
which directly attaches the spirit and leads to the summum bonum of man,
eternal felicity. In fact, this relation is not distinct from that which
binds us to God; since it is not to be forgotten that the authority of the
Pontiff is the authority of Christ Himself, the place of whom he holds
upon earth, and whose work he follows out in the sanctification and
government of the faithful.’
Returning to the point at which it started, nearly twenty
years before, as we saw long ago, this authority again asserts
that the State is in the Church, not the Church in the State.
The Church is the whole, the State the part. What the family
is to the nation, the nation is to the Church.
In June 1869 the Catholics of Coblentz presented an address
to the Bishop of Treves, protesting against the innovations
proposed by the Civiltà Cattolica, and suggesting reforms in
a spirit contrary to that of the Syllabus. This was followed
by another address of the same purport to the Archbishop of
Cologne from the University of Bonn, where the Catholic
Faculty of Theology had obtained a very high position. Great
interest was excited by the warm adhesion of Count Montalem-
bert to the address of Coblentz. His services, both to the
spiritual and temporal power, had been conspicuous. He was
now in the grip of a mortal disease. France will always
respect his piety and his genius, but she will increasingly have
cause to deplore the direction of his influence, as the slow but
sure results of priestly power in education develop themselves.
"Twice within the last few weeks,' he writes, 'have I touched
the brink of the grave.' So he feels that he may speak of
this world as one whose personal interest in it is as nought.
Practical Results of Religious Liberty.
6
281
The dying man notes the journals whose words consoled him,
among them the learned and courageous Literaturblatt' of
Bonn. Speaking of the address, he says, 'I cannot express
how much I have been moved and charmed by that glorious
manifesto, flowing from the reason and conscience of Catholics.
At last I seemed to hear a manly and a Christian
tone, amid the declamations and adulations wherewith we are
deafened.' He would have signed 'every line' of it, but he
felt somewhat humbled that it did not proceed from French
Catholics, with whose antecedents it would have harmonised,
as well as with those convictions which made them, in the early
part of this century, the champions of religious liberty on the
Continent.1
It was hard for the Jesuits to own that Montalembert stood
in their path, to be pitilessly struck down. For the present
they tried to reason. Like him, many, especially in Belgium, had
imbibed the conviction that civil and religious liberty were good
in themselves, and might be made to work favourably for the
Church, which they thought incurred great danger by setting
herself in opposition to both, and by using her spiritual engines
for the overthrow of constitutional government.
Such men
argued that the perfect liberty existing in England, the United
States, and Belgium had many advantages for the Church.
To reasoning of this sort the Stimmen aus Maria Laach
replied by first of all uttering encomiums on religious liberty,
and also on those excellent Catholics who favoured it, thinking
it might prove best for the Church. But though this view of
the case had its noble aspects, there was another side to it.
Experience proved that under such a system the losses of the
Church were deplorable. Not to speak of Europe, the case
of the United States would suffice. As much as thirty years
ago, Bishop England, of Charleston, had said that whereas the
Catholics ought to have six millions of the population, they
really had less than two. And this terrible loss was ag-
¹ Friedberg. p. 88.
282 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
£
gravated at the present day, for considering the enormous
immigration of Catholics and the addition of Mexican territory
in the meantime, they ought now to number fifteen millions;
but in fact they did not dare to claim more than six. A good
authority had showed that the Church lost more souls in the
State of Winsconsin in a single year, than she gained in the
whole Union. The loss among the children of the Irish was
greater than among those of the Germans. This the writer
attributes to 'the pestiferous air' of non-denominational schools,
and complains that the system prevailing in America deprives
children of a well-ordered and continuous Catholic education,
such as would protect them, among other dangers, from the
necessity of learning English.'
6
1
This anxiety to keep up the German tongue in America
illustrates the cry raised in the German press against that
tongue being put out of the schools, both in Posen and in the
Tyrol. Liberty of instruction' had been so used that whole
districts, once speaking German, had been educated into the
use of Polish in the one case, and of Italian in the other. In
both these countries the same reason which in America made
it desirable for Rome to keep up German, turned the other
way. In America, the German tongue would enclose a people,
in the heart of the country, walled off and apart from the
nation. In the other cases, that tongue would be a channel
connecting the people with the ebb and flow of the national
mind. Even a comparatively small population, kept well in
hand, inaccessible to the common thought, and ready to obey
every touch of the leaders, may be made a formidable political
power. Had Wales been in the hand of Rome ! 2
Among the causes of chagrin to Montalembert would be a
recent article in the Civiltà, directed against the Liberal Catho-
lics by name, and plainly meant to thwart any influence with
¹ Stimmen, Neue Folge, Heft iv., pp. 59, 60.
2 Curious examples of this use of education are given by Menzel, Jesuitenum-
triebe.
Liberal Catholics Confuted.
283
which they might have hoped to approach the Council. A
pamphlet being taken as a text, the positions of the Liberal
Catholics are stated, as-1. That modern nations deserve
more liberty than ancient ones; 2. That liberty of worship
should be conceded, as now inevitable; 3. That 'the distinction
between Church and State' is not now to be got rid of, and has
its advantages; 4. That Catholics ought to avail themselves of
all liberties. On the first point it is replied that modern society
has made only material progress, but gone back in faith and
morals, and therefore deserves not more liberty than ancient
society, but less. On the second point, resenting an allusion
of the Liberal Catholic to the fact that Pius IX. had himself
granted a constitution at the opening of his reign, the Civiltá
alleges, first, that it was conceded in circumstances of imperious
necessity; and, secondly, that it was free from the essential
faults which would deservedly brand it as Liberal—‘it lacked
the criminal principles of liberty of worship, of the press, and of
meeting.' Moreover, it issued in the exile of the Prince, which
seems to be the inevitable result of modern constitutions.' So the
Pontiff was obliged to revoke it, and to condemn it to oblivion.
(
The Liberal Catholic writer had quoted passages, even from
Jesuits, to prove that it was lawful for princes, in given circum-
stances, to tolerate liberty of worship. Certainly, replies the
Civiltá, it is lawful to tolerate it, if imperious circumstances
render it necessary in order to avoid a greater evil. But that
is one thing, and admitting liberty of worship as a principle is
another. What meaning have the words of the present Pontiff
when he declares that liberty of conscience and of worship is
madness, and the pest of the nations?' What did he mean when
he condemned President Comonfort for admitting religious
liberty into Mexico? Did Gregory XVI. and Pius IX. talk to
the middle ages? Did they tell the present generation what
was suitable or not suitable for the middle ages? Catholics
may not be able to change the state of things where liberty of
worship already exists, but it is in their power to prevent its
284 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
entrance where it does not, and to demonstrate its criminality,
and its moral and social balefulness. The phrase 'a distinc-
tion between Church and State,' is soon crushed. What is
meant, alleges the Civiltá, is a separation. That is condemned
in the Syllabus. As to Catholics availing themselves of all
liberties, that idea is no patent of Liberal Catholics. Of course
Catholics avail themselves of all liberties of which they can
make use.
But to take part in the elections of a kingdom like
that of Italy, formed by iniquity, and binding up in itself a
perpetual sacrilege, is impossible. The words of the Bull
which hurled an excommunication against king and people,
are paraded, and the unfortunate Liberal Catholic is reminded
that those words apply to adherents of the spoliation.¹
The Paris correspondent of the Unitú felt satisfied that the
speech of the Emperor, made in June, to the troops in camp at
Chalons, on the anniversary of Solferino, meant war. The
correspondent of the Civiltà was not so sure; and was bitterly
disappointed that the Emperor, when expressly reminded at
Beauvais, by the Bishop, of the 'never' pronounced by M.
Rouher, and thus fairly offered the opportunity of repeating
it, did not deign to say one word pledging himself to keep up
the temporal power.
A London correspondent of the Civiltá told how the journals.
had at first affected to ignore the Council, but now began to
speak of it. The Anglo-Catholic party were discussing projects
of union, and he gives an account of a meeting for that purpose,
not naming time or place, but making the Rev. Edward
Urquhart prominent. It is said, he adds, that one bishop will
go to the Council; and the Ritualists think that many of their
party will do so. There is much cause for hope. Some persons
of high station have publicly said that they would submit to the
Council, and many say so privately. They do not feel safe in
Anglicanism. He dwells on Mr. David Urquhart, and his ideas
of what the Pope is to do for international interests.2
¹ Serie VII., vol. vi., pp. 445 ff.
2 Vol. vi., pp. 484-5.
National Flags under the Pontifical Flag.
1
285
The prelate who replaced the Bishop of Montreal in his
absence, delivered an address, from which the Civiltà repeats
these words, that Pius IX. had a mission, and his mission was.
to recall, to confirm, and to defend in the world, the law of the
'Most High,' the essential principle of authority, and thus to
'save at once both the Church and Society.' But as a while ago.
we heard of toasts in which the Pope, as universal king, was put
before the national king, so now on British ground is held up to
admiration the trophy of banners in the Church of St. Sulpice
as the fairest tribute of New France,' as Canada is called.
The flags of all the societies in Montreal, and also those of all
nations, were gathered together 'in homage to the standard of
Pius IX., to express the obedience of the Catholic nations to the
supreme authority.' ¹
CHAPTER IX.
Publication of Janus-Hotter Controversy-Bishop Maret's Book-Père Hya-
cinthe The Saviour of Society again-Dress-True Doctrine of Con-
cordats not Contracts but Papal Laws-Every Catholic State has Two
Heads-Four National Governments condemned in One Day-What a Free
Church means-Fulda Manifesto-Meeting of Catholic Notables in Berlin
-Political Agitation in Bavaria and Austria-Stumpf's Critique of the
Jesuit Schemes.
LITTLE more than three months remained before the opening
of the Council, when the intellectual movement respecting
it received a new impulse. A book, under the title of The
Pope and the Council, by Janus, issued from the German
press; and conjecture at once ascribed the principal authorship
to no less a person than Döllinger, although it was assumed
that he had availed himself of aid. The profound impression
made by this work may be accounted for, partly by the excite-
ment in the midst of which it appeared, and partly by its own
2 Ibid., p. 488.
Vol. vi., p. 488.
286 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
force. It combined a minute knowledge of the inner history
of the Church, with comprehensive views of the questions, both
doctrinal and constitutional, which were now raised.
After a few clear passages from modern utterances of autho-
rity, Janus strikes the keynote rather higher than he is prepared
to sustain it:-'So they find themselves under a delusion, who
believed that in the Church, the spirit of the Bible, and of old
Christianity, had got the upper hand of that spirit of the middle.
ages according to which she was a penal establishment, able to
send men to prison, to the gallows, or to the stake." The
Bible and old Christianity are here set up as the standards.
But how old? Would a Hebrew seeking to restore religion
in the days of Nehemiah, have accepted six centuries after
Moses as antiquity? or would he have sought the old truth in
the law itself? But if seeking the norm of Church order and
doctrine in the first six centuries is less scientific than seeking
it where those centuries sought it, the historical result is advan-
tageous, as elucidating the total absence of the modern Papal
dogmas in those early centuries.
Beginning with the Magna Charta which Innocent III. con-
demned, while he excommunicated the Barons, Janus cites case
after case in which the establishment of free institutions, and
especially of freedom of worship, brought down the solemn con-
demnation of the Pope. The case of Austria in 1868 is the latest.
With the quietness of scientific knowledge, he states what at the
time would have required, from an English writer, arguments
and proofs in detail, namely, the simple but most important fact
that the oft-quoted word of the Apostle, "We must obey God
rather than men," means, in the Jesuit sense, We must obey the
Pope as the representative of God upon earth, and the infallible
interpreter of the Divine will, rather than any civil superior, or
any law of the State' (p. 33).
6
The tone of Janus is calm, and scholarly, without being cold;
and the acuteness of his analysis is such as is found only where
clear intellectual insight is united to trained habits of weighing
Janus and Maret.
287
language, with reference to possible interpretations by such
casuists as are formed by the Curia and the Jesuits.
He clearly proved that the Church was on the eve of one of
the greatest constitutional changes ever effected in any com-
monwealth. If, in the past, the forged Decretals of the Pseudo-
Isidore had facilitated inroads upon the constitution of the
Church, how much more would an authentic article of the creed,
containing in itself the power of making any number of other
articles, and assuming as its basis the unlimited authority of the
Pope, pave the way to far-reaching civil and ecclesiastical en-
croachments! When Archbishop Manning said of Janus that
by some it was 'regarded as the shallowest and most pretentious
book of the day' (Priv. Pet., iii., p. 114), he greatly moderated
the tone of his Continental friends. Most bad things that could
be said against a book, or its writers, were said in very bad
language. The Archbishop himself could not let it pass without
twice calling it 'infamous,' and that in a pastoral.
The excitement in Germany now reached a point at which
the bishops began to be alarmed. The 'good press' undertook
to extenuate the importance of the changes dreaded, and threw
doubts on the probability of their being adopted. The perplexity
became greater when, in France, appeared a book in two
volumes from the pen of Monsignor Maret, said by some to be
the most learned prelate in the country, and who, at all events,
was Dean of the Theological Faculty of the Sorbonne. He com-
bated the proposed innovations with French tact and skill, raising
a voice, if not for the old Gallican doctrines as a whole, at least
for some remains both of them and of the liberties with which are
identified the names of the most renowned Churchmen in France
since the Reformation. The book made a profound but passing
impression. It was called Religious Peace and the General
Council; but the Jesuit historian Sambin (p. 47) styles it a brand
Monsignor Maret boldly quotes Eusebius as saying (Book II., cap. xiv.)
that Peter was not only the greatest and strongest of the Apostles, which is
like what he says, but that he was the prince and patron of them all, which he
288 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
increasing the conflagration. The question raised was that be-
tween a constitutional but oligarchical government and a personal
one for the Church. Maret holds that in her constitution a
check upon the monarch was provided by the 'aristocracy,' that
is, the bishops (vol. ii., p. 107). The democracy is formed by
the priests and the laity. But we may point out that this is
very loose language. Democracy means a people with power, not
a populace excluded from all functions of government. Tho
people in the Papal Church are absolutely stripped of all part
in government. They are a mere populace. The clergy aro
disfranchised officials. That Church is a society with a popu-
lace, but without a democracy. Before the Vatican Council, it
had a constitutional aristocracy. Since then, the bishops are
nobles without any but delegated power. Maret clearly states.
the familiar fact, that in the earlier centuries both clergy and
laity took part in the election of bishops. But when he comes
to speak of the part taken by kings in their election, the facts
glide out of sight, as noiselessly as writers of his school generally
say that they are wont to do in the hands of a Jesuit. A reader
might imagine that kings first got the idea of a right in the
election of bishops by some grant of the Church; whereas even
the Bishops of Rome were for a long time elected on imperial
or royal order, coming from Greek or Goth, from Arian or
orthodox prince, as the case might be.
Maret quotes Cardinal de la Luzerne as saying that a General
Council, in which the order of priests was not represented, would
be illegitimate though not invalid (vol. i., p. 125); and gives
it as the general opinion of theologians that their presence was
necessary. He also admits that the presence of laymen in the
Councils is attested by a large number of documents.
Maret places this dilemma before the Roman theologians-
Either you will state the conditions of a definition ex cathedrâ,
does not say. That is said for him by the Latin translator. The one word
πpoiryopov, 'spokesman,' or champion, of Eusebius is deliberately turned into
the two, prince and patron'--Principem et patronum,--Maret, vol. i., p. 97.
Marel and Shulle.
289
or you will not. If you do state them, the only condition.
which is of divine origin cannot bo omitted, the consent of the
bishops; and thus you gain nothing, for separate and personal
infallibility would still not be defined. If, on the contrary, you
do not state the conditions of a definition er cathedrû, you do
indeed gain the absolute, separate, and personal infallibility of
the Pontiff, his monarchy pure and indivisible, but at the same
time you effect the most radical of revolutions in the Church. You
overthrow the whole Christian and evangelical institute; you
destroy the limited monarchy of the Church; you abolish the
divine rights of the episcopate, nineteen centuries old; you
suppress the divine counterpoise to the pontifical authority.
In a word, you change the constitution of the Church. But in
changing the constitution, you are obliged to change also the
doctrine, and henceforth, in the Holy Sacrifice, we must chant,
I BELIEVE THE POPE, instead of I BELIEVE THE CHURCH,
Von Schulte reviewed this work in the Literaturblatt of Bonn
(v., pp. 2 and 54). Looking at it in a popular senso, Schulte
thought it was a book to mark an epoch. It was likely to pro-
duce a great effect among the clergy, little among the laity.
Time has not justified this anticipation. The fact is, all the
younger clergy had been educated out of French ideas and
sympathies, and such of the young laity too as had been brought
up by priests. Men were but beginning to find how the
Christian Brothers, and convent schools, and episcopal semi-
naries had changed France.
The Civiltà, in reply, objects even to Maret's formula, the
Pope with the bishops superior to himself alone. Such an objec-
tion implies that in Council all the bishops add to the Popo
nothing at all. So many mitres without any heads in them
would add at least as much. We believe, indeed, that great
thinkers have doubted whether a judge with his wig is not
superior to the same judge without his wig. But the Pope with
all the bishops is not superior to the Pope without any bishop!
The Jesuit writer says that he thinks he expresses the mind of
VOL. I.
19
290
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
,
(
Maret with exactness when he puts it thus, The supreme power
resides in the Pope together with the bishops; in the Pope as
supreme, whose strict duty it is, nevertheless, to obey; in the bishops
as subordinate, who, nevertheless, have the right to command'
(Civiltá, VII., viii., p. 257 ff).
The choicest auditories of Paris had often crowded noble
Notre Dame, quaffing with delight the sparkling eloquence of
the Carmelite preacher Hyacinthe. Now the ear of the country
was thrilled, for a moment, by a cry from that eloquent voice.
'By an abrupt change,' he wrote to the General of his order on
the 20th of September, 1869, 'for which I blame not your own
feelings, but a party in Rome, you now accuse what you did
encourage, and blame what you did approve, commanding me
to hold a language, or to preserve a silence, which would not
represent my conscience.'
Placed in this difficulty, he must forsake General, order,
and convent. He continues: 'My profound conviction is, that
if France in particular, and the Latin races in general, are
delivered over to social, moral, and religious anarchy, the prin-
cipal cause is, not assuredly Catholicism itself, but the manner
in which it has been understood and practised for a long time.'1
It was to the hands of Father Hyacinthe Loyson that Monta-
lembert committed his work on Spain and Liberty which has
already passed before us; and by M. Loyson was it at last
given to the public, after others had long refused to let it appear.
St. Peter's Day, always a great day in Rome, was, of course,
of surpassing importance in the year of the Council. The Civiltá
celebrated it in an article very like one of the Pope's Speeches.
This article yields an example of a dualism in the government of
the universe which must glide in as the unconscious but inevit-
able complement of the doctrine into which Papal writers fall, in
explaining away what to others seems the blight of Providence
on whatever they rule according to their own principles. They
begin by separating the God of providence from the God of
¹ See the original, Vitelleschi, p. 266.
The Pope Saving Society.
291
grace. They end by turning the bounties of Providence into
the bribes of the evil one. It will be seen that in what follows
national prosperity comes from the devil. The increase of our
fields, the blessing in our basket and our store, are in reality a
curse. This, though unseen to the poor Pope who teaches such.
things, presents a true and a very hurtful form of Manicheism.
It is another proof that they who readily forge and hurl bad
names are not safe from the errors which those names when cor-
rectly used denote. A lame beggar was sitting and looking up to
Peter. But what the beggar wanted was gold, and Peter could
not give him gold. But Peter could say, In the name of Jesus
Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. The beggar was Society.
There was another who did offer gold. He said to Society, Fall
down and worship me, and I will give you all the kingdoms of
the world, etc. And the societies that got rich did so by
worshipping the devil, their own head. Peter, however, can
say to Society, Arise and walk.
Peter has often pronounced that word, and just as often has
Society been saved. Rise, said Peter to the Roman world, and
law from a tyrant became a protector. Rise, cried Peter to the
barbarian world, and the rule of the stronger gave place to the
defence of the weak. Rise, said he to the German world, and
the despotism of dukes and emperors was changed into mild
paternity. Rise, he said to the feudal world, and the dissolution
of all ties was arrested, and societies hasting to ruin were
re-constituted. Rise, he said to savage society, and culture
replaced ignorance, gentleness of manners perversity. Peter
never spared his 'Rise and walk;' and that mighty word never
failed of effect.
To modern Society, Peter, by the lips of his successor,
addresses the reviving word: 'Gold and silver have I none, but
in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.' He,
by the Vatican Council, holds out to it the help to rise. The
ancient prodigies of that word will be confirmed by new pro-
digies. The Vatican Council will save modern Society. Good
292 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
Catholics have already heard the word of prodigy uttered to
modern Society. They see those apostolic hands extended
to shrivelled Society, offering it the miraculous cure, by means
of the Council. (Serie VII., vol. vi., p. 683 ff.)
What good Catholics saw we cannot say; but what cold
history saw was, not lame Society asking gold from Peter, but
Peter begging gold from the beggar he was going to cure. The
Pope calls contribution 'consolation;' yet he tells the nations
who have most 'consolation' that they get it by falling down.
and worshipping the devil.
In spite of all the secrecy surrounding the preparations, it
transpired that Cardoni, Archbishop of Edessa, in partibus, had,
in the Commission for Doctrine, read a paper on infallibility, and
that, with the exception of a single man who had the courage
to oppose the Presiding Cardinal and all his colleagues, the
dogma was unanimously approved. The opponent, Dr. Alzog,
of Freiburg, belonged to the German nation, and to a class of
men who were becoming inconvenient-the Church historians.
Meanwhile any bishops who made inquiries as to the intended
program were reminded that all were under the oath of secrecy.
But there was one subject on which they were not treated so
cruelly-the important one of dress. Ten months before the
Council, information on that head was requested by the Pro-
paganda for the benefit of the numerous bishops depending
upon it. An elenchus paramentorum, or inventory of vestments,
was sent. The Prefect of Ceremonies then wrote to the Under
Secretary of State, requesting that the same inventory might
be sent to the several nuncios, for the information of the
prelates within their respective bounds. On the 16th of Feb-
ruary his most Reverend Eminence the Secretary of State
sent off a despatch to each nuncio with the inventory. As to
pluvials every prelate was to have three, a white, a red, and
a violet, and so on with other vestments in proportion. (Cecconi,
pp. 491, 493.)
In June, the Curia had to set up a strong resistance to the
Austria resents the Concordat.
293
movement originated in Austria for the abrogation of the Con-
cordat. That instrument, which had formed the diplomatic
triumph of Cardinal Rauscher and had crowned the professional
reputation of Schulte, had legally restored to the Papal Church
much of what it calls its liberties; but the clergy complained
that they never practically got all that was promised upon paper.
In the Frond biographies of the Cardinals, that of Rauscher
describes the condition of the Church in Austria, under the
Josephine laws, as deplorable! Instead of leaving her, like
Protestant Prussia, to manage her own affairs, without having
defined either what 'manage' or 'her own' meant, Austria,
knowing how Rome interprets, had taken a different course.
There was left, according to our authority, no canon law, but
only such legislation as was imbued with Febronianism and
Cæsarism. Bulls, briefs, rescripts, and even the pastorals of
bishops were subject to the royal placet. Marriage was with-
drawn from under the control of the Church. The State pushed
into everything, and the Catholic Church had none of the
liberties claimed by the tolerance of the age, for all religions.'
Rauscher had succeeded in getting these grievances redressed,
but now the national spirit was rising against his work. His
Concordat bound Austria to concede to the Church all rights
and privileges to which by the divine order and by canon law
she is entitled.' Probably the Emperor but imperfectly com-
prehended what that implied. Rauscher comprehended it. He
was as honest a man as any Papal priest is likely to be. He
was the adviser of the Emperor, and his sworn personal friend.
Any one may tell what such friends do for princes who will only
master what Rauscher managed to bind his sovereign to. The
minister, Von Hasner, put the plea for the abrogation of the
Concordat on ground exceedingly offensive to the Pope and
those around him. When the Concordat was contracted, said
Hasner, Rome was an independent State. Now, it has ceased
to be so, and is sustained only by foreign arms.
The reply
from the Vatican was: So long as the Pope is sustained by
294 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
Christian arms, he can never be sustained by those of foreigners.
The reply of the politician would have been that in 1855, when
the Concordat was concluded, the Papal State was as much
dependent upon foreign arms as in 1867, the only difference
being that at the former time the arms holding a great portion
of it were those of Austria.
A paper in the Revue des Deux Mondes, by the well-known
Belgian Professor Laveley, excited the Civiltá.¹ Laveley quoted the
words of Baron Weichs, to the effect that Austria was much in
the condition of Japan, having one sovereign residing in the Burg
in Vienna, and the other, the Omnipotent Master, at the Vatican.
To this the reply was that every Christian must take the Church
as God has made it, that He has constituted a kingdom, and
'all and every man that is baptized is bound to obey the Monarch of
that kingdom. These are subjects of the Pope, and are his subjects just
because they are subjects of Christ, in the authority of whom the Pope
governs them.
For German Catholics, as much as for French ones, or
Belgian ones, or Spanish ones, and for all that form a part of the Church
of Christ, that which seems strange to the worthy Baron is perfectly true,
namely, that they have two sovereigns-the one, temporal, residing in
Vienna, Paris, Madrid, and so on; the other, spiritual, residing in
Rome, the metropolis of the Catholic world' (p. 22).
After this, by way of shutting up the German politician to the
faith, the writer quotes the great German Doctor of Ecclesiastical
Law, reinforcing his authority by the consideration that he is
a layman.
'The eminently learned Phillips,' he says, 'speaks thus: "In conferring
the supreme pastorate upon Peter, God has subjected to him the entire
human species, because every man, by right, belongs to the fold of Jesus
Christ. In presence of the crook of Peter, the mightiest prince upon
earth is no more than the humblest of the lambs." In contradiction to
this,' continues the writer, 'modern Liberals adopt the cry, We have no
king but Cæsar; and as for the Vicar of Christ, they would say, Crucify
him!' (p. 22).
'If, by divine institution, every baptized man is a subject of the Roman
Pontiff, necessarily every nation is governed by two authorities,-by
that of the civil sovereign for the affairs of temporal life, and by that of
the spiritual sovereign for affairs which relate to the eternal salvation of
Civiltà, VII., vii., p. 18-33.
The True Doctrine of Concordats.
295
the soul and the service of God. Those two authorities may certainly
enter into agreement between themselves, to terminate a contest as to the
domains of their respective powers, and to determine the exercise of them.
This is the generic idea of the origin of concordats. They are not con-
ventions between two distinct nations, or between the sovereigns of two
distinct nations, like international treaties, but they are conventions
between two supreme authorities, which, in different orders, rule over
the same people-the one in the temporal and the other in the spiritual
order. Therefore, they are conventions altogether sui generis.
'The two authorities which negotiate such conventions, belonging to two
different orders, of which one is inferior and subordinate to the other, it
follows that the concordats, although they may be called contracts binding
on both sides, so far as in due proportion they oblige each of the parties,
nevertheless cannot be called binding in the sense of the Regalists, in so
far as the conventions might imply a perfect equality in the contracting
parties, such as would exist between two parties equal and independent
as between themselves. The temporal prince, even as a prince, never
ceases to be a subject of the Pontiff. Nor does the political authority of
the one cease to be subordinate to the spiritual authority of the other, as
the end for which the one rules does not cease to be subordinate to
that for which the other rules' (p. 24).
Going on to state that concordats are particularly concerned
with mixed matters, the writer shows that in such affairs the
object of a concordat is to fix actual limits of jurisdiction as
between the two powers, according to the circumstances of the
particular country. Mixed matters, it must be remembered,
mean those in which both moral and material interests are
involved; such as affect only material interests being temporal,
such as involve only moral interests being spiritual, and all
into which any moral element enters being at least mixed. The
writer proceeds :-
'So far as it affects purely temporal things, a concordat may have
the nature of a contract, as there is nothing to forbid it. But not so in
regard to spiritual things, or to mixed ones, which are also spiritual on
account of the spiritual considerations they involve; for it is simony to
enter into a contract with regard to sacred things' (p. 28).
Then to show that a concordat is not a contract between two
princes, but a law given by the superior prince to the inferior
in his own land, the definition of Cardinal Tarquini is quoted :—
It is a particular ecclesiastical law, for a certain state, promul-
296
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
•
gated by the authority of the High Pontiff, at the instance of the
local prince, and confirmed by the special obligation of the said
prince to maintain it in perpetuity. The Civiltá does not, how-
ever, quote Tarquini's words, to the effect that a concordat is
to be classed with instruments called privileges.
An illustration of Laveley, in which he imagines the King
of France allowing the appointment of the officers of the army
to be subject to the King of Spain, is met by saying that no
Catholic is a foreigner to the Pope :—
'To be a foreigner to him you must be a foreigner to Christ, whose
place the Pope holds, and whose mission he continues upon earth.
Do you know what you say when you compare the Pope, in regard to the
Catholics of this or that kingdom, to what a temporal sovereign would be
to the people of another State? Catholics, be they French, German, or
Spanish, or whatever else, are more subjects of the Pope, as the head of
the Church and their spiritual prince, than they are of the king or em-
peror as the temporal prince; the ties which bind them as subjects, in the
first respect, being, beyond comparison, more intimate and more elevated
than those which bind them in the second. It is so by divine ordinance,
it having pleased God, the Universal Governor of all, to constitute two
authorities in the world for the government of the nations- the one,
spiritual, to direct human actions to eternal life; the other, temporal, for
the ruling of the same, in order to temporal business and peace among
As to the comparison respecting officers of the army, if it did
prove anything, what do you think it would prove? It would prove that
you cannot concede to the temporal prince any interference whatever, in
the nomination of bishops or of other sacred ministers, who are officers of
the army of the Church, whose sovereign is not the secular prince, but
the Pope' (p. 26).
men.
•
The next step in this argument brings out a principle which
shows how far the idea of sacred things may be extended into
what the common political mind would naturally look upon as
secular things:-
'Had the matters treated of in the Austrian Concordat been merely
temporal, even then the faith of the prince might easily have been engaged,
as promoting the spiritual good of his own subjects and in obedience to
¹ Juris Ecclesiastici, p. 83. In my copy, 4th edition, it is, p. 73, ' Concor-
datum recte definiatur: Lex particularis ccclesiastica pro aliquo regno Summi
Pontificis auctoritate edita ad instantiam principis ejus loci, speciali ejusdem
principis obligatione confirmata, se eam perpetuo serviturum.'
Canon Law the Common Law.
297
•
Christ the Lord. Having once engaged his faith, he could never with-
draw by his own will, both because the gift conferred upon the Church had
in the very act of bestowment taken on a sacred character, on account of
the spiritual end to which it thus became devoted, and also because the
prince has not power to withdraw his faith but by an authoritative
judgment, and the authoritative judgment belongs to the superior, not
to the subject. But the matters concerned were either spiritual or mixed,
and therefore directly belonged to the Church itself.
The inter-
pretation of concordats can only be given by the Pontiff, not by the lay
prince, much less can this prince annul them by his own will.
Concordats are not contracts (because it is an act of simony to make
contracts upon sacred matters), but a particular law made by the Pontiff,
and the kind of treaty or convention which is added to the law regards the
promise of the prince to procure the execution of it. Now since the law
made by the Pontiff for the spiritual government of a given nation binds
that nation, independently of any additional obligation, it is clear that
the Hungarians are bound to observe the concordat made by the Pontiff
for them also, even though the representatives of the nation have not
ratified it. The necessity of ratification by them exists for civil laws, but
not for ecclesiastical laws, regarding which no political parliament has
authority of any sort. Besides, Hungary would gain nothing by with-
drawing herself from the Concordat, for withdrawing from under a par-
ticular law she would fall under the obligation of the common law, which
is the canon law pure and simple' (pp. 28, 29).
<
It must be remembered that the Emperor, when he applied
his august mind, as we saw Tarquini note, to reform his code
under the guidance, not of legists or of courtiers, but of priests
(as if they were not both legists and courtiers), was not able
to impose his evangelical law' on Hungary, but only on his
hereditary States. The last word of our last quotation is never,
for one moment, to be lost sight of in reading or hearing what
Vaticanists say. If we let our English ideas push out of our
mind the correct idea which it presents, we read or hear in a
maze. The common law is, in the mind of the Church, canon
law. That law is as much above national law as the Pope is
above the king or president, as much as the Church is above the
State.
Another dictum in this article is, 'If the Pope should condemn
the fundamental laws of a country, it would be a manifest sign
that those laws were erroneous and to be condemned.'
298
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
M. Ollivier, who had soberly appealed to the Concordat, as
giving real guarantees to the lower of the two parties to it,
might well be acceptable to M. Veuillot.
On the anniversary of the Pope's accession, his speech, ad-
dressed to the Sacred College, contained the following passage:
The two societies of which the world consists, said his Holiness,
are, first, the Tower of Pride, i.e., Babel; secondly, the society
whose prototype is seen in the upper room, on the day of
Pentecost, where Peter, the Apostles, and thousands of the
faithful of different nations, heard one and the same language
and understood it.' Those who wish to form a clear idea of
what these two organs of two hostile societies are the Babel
tongue and the Pentecostal tongue-must just keep their eyes
open as we go on. (Civiltá, VII., vii., p. 130.)
The Pope, on the 25th of June, calling governments before
'his tribunal,' and sitting in judgment, pronounced censure on
the governments of Italy, Austria, Spain, and Russia. Italy was
discussing a law to subject students even for the priesthood to
the conscription. Austria was miserably wronging and injuring
the Church. Spain was doing likewise, or worse. And Russia
was persecuting the Polish bishops and sending them into exile.
The high spirits of the Court at this moment appear in the
comments on these sentences. We give a few specimens from
the Civiltá (VII., vii., p. 135, etc.) :—
'From no other lips could those words burst forth, save from those of
him who is set by God as ruler of His Church, with divine power, above
all human powers.
Only the Pope can thus menace, reprove, and
instruct, because he only is set in a region above all human greatness
between heaven and earth. . . . When science gloried in being Catholic,
and authority in being derived from God, both were, when they spoke,
echoes of the word of the Pope. But science and authority have become
unchristianised. The Pope has remained what he was-the herald, the
oracle of the Lord. . . . The only religion which has the moral liberty
of existence from God Himself is the Catholic, and the only worship from
which modern liberalism takes away every liberty is the Catholic. The
Catholic religion free means, in fact, the use of Canon Law free, the
possession and enjoyment of Church property free, the jurisdiction of
Plantier on Acclamation.
299
ecclesiastical ministers free, the rites and ceremonies of religion free, and
instruction in the sacred sciences free' (p. 139).
The article proceeded to show that the Pope had menaced
in the same breath one republic, Spain; two constitutional
monarchies, Italy and Austria; and one absolute monarchy,
Russia. This could not be done unless the Pope was king.
Then follows a specimen of history as it flourishes under
Pius IX. The Roman Emperors used to imprison the Popes,
in order to reign in Rome; and Constantine, not wishing to
imprison the Pope, abandoned Rome. But a king not Pope,
and a Pope not king, never were able to live here together, and
never will be able to do so. (Civiltá, VII., vii., p. 131, ff.)
Great attention was awakened by the prominence given
by the Civiltá (p. 210) to a publication of Bishop Plantier, of
Nîmes. It was 'splendid and profound.' Plantier spoke of
the suggestion that the two doctrines of Papal infallibility
and the assumption of the Virgin should be defined by accla-
mation. He alleged that such a mode of definition could be
conveniently and infallibly adopted, and asked if the Council
should adopt it, what would be the harm? He ridiculed the
idea that the assistance of the Holy Spirit would be given to
a decision by vote and not to one by acclamation. The
appearance of this in the Civiltá, after all that had passed,
quickened the fears of the anti-infallibilists and also of the
anti-opportunists, lest the Pope should be determined to carry
through the definition by acclamation. Plantier declared that
the Council would not be a whit frightened by threats to the
effect that it would have governments and people against it.
if it condemned liberty of worship and of the press, with the
other vaunted liberties of modern civilisation. This forecast of
Plantier was viewed very gravely by the Literaturblatt of Bonn
(vol. iv., p. 827).
Early in September the bishops of Germany met at Fulda,
and issued a collective pastoral. They solemnly deprecated the
rumours spread abroad as to the intentions of the Council.
-
300 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
These rumours, however, only echoed the voice of the Civiltá
Cattolica, and the doubts cast upon their probability soon fell
back upon the candour of those who expressed them. The
bishops went on to asseverate that the Council would never
define any new doctrine which was not contained in holy writ
or in tradition, but would define only principles which were
written 'on all your hearts by faith and conscience' (Friedberg,
p. 276). The Catholics of Germany took this solemn language
in its apparent meaning; and the persuasion that their bishops
would stand fast, and that the Curia would not ride roughshod
over such a body, tranquillised most men. Only ecclesiastics ap-
pear to have suspected that the assurance might amount to little
more than carefully dovetailed words. Even the governments.
seem to have taken comfort from the prospect of such powerful
opposition, knowing how pertinacious these same prelates
could be. But Menzel dryly says that they were stubborn
with cabinets because they seemed to be afraid of them, but
pliant with the Curia, by which they were always browbeaten.
1
The German bishops, in giving the assurance that nothing
but what the faithful believed would be defined, probably hoped
that the fact of their having to give such an assurance would
weigh, at Rome, as a hindrance to the plans in contemplation.
If so, they only furnished one more proof of the truth which we
in England have been told by Dr. Newman, that no pledge
from Catholics is of any value to which Rome is not a party!
How easily the language understood by the people of Germany,
in one sense, could be turned by the initiated in another,
received a shining proof when it was quoted with commenda-
tion by Archbishop Manning, in the highest Ultramontane sense.
This may have been only a joke at the unfortunate German
bishops. If meant as real praise, it was to their reputation a
blow in the eye, unfitting them to appear among men whose
word can be trusted.2 The Civiltà elaborately interpreted the
1 Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, p. 14.
2 Ecumenical Council and Infy., p. 136.
Meeting of Catholic Notables.
301
bilingual bishops in its own sense, as a 'triumphant' refutation
of the Liberal Catholics (VII., viii., p. 130).
If the German bishops read as little as Dr. Friedrich says
they do, they perhaps do not read the Unitá Cattolica. There
is no doubt that it, at least, speaks language agreeable in the
highest quarters. In its number for the preceding 1st of May,
it commented on the same assurance as having been flung
before the French people. If the Council,' says this real
echo, 'should only define what all believe, the Council would
be useless, for in points which all believe all are agreed.' To
say, it proceeds, that an Ecumenical Council should express.
what all the faithful think, is to confound the Teaching Church
with the Learning Church. The pen falls from our hands, and
we have not courage to contend against such nonsense.'
¿
After having put this assurance before their nation, certain
of the bishops felt it necessary to address a private appeal to
the Pope, drawn up by Dinkel, Bishop of Augsburg, repre-
senting the great danger to the Church in Germany which the
proposed alterations would involve, and praying him to abandon
A
'the far-reaching projects which were ascribed to him.'1
similar appeal was sent to his Holiness by the prelates of
Hungary, in which country a notable commencement had been
made in restoring the laity to a part in the management of
Church affairs.2
In June 1869 a remarkable meeting of Catholic notables was
held in Berlin; with an account of which Sepp opens his book.
The chair was filled by Peter Reichensperger, since noted for
his Ultramontane zeal, and Herr Windhorst, now the Ultra-
montane leader in the Reichstag, was present, with even Dr. Jörg,
of Bavaria, whose allusion, in the winter of 1874, to the attempt
of Kullman on the life of Bismarck called forth a remarkable
speech from that statesman. These gentlemen, thinking, or pro-
fessing to think, that their bishops would defeat what the Curia
1 Friedberg, p. 19.
2 See Lord Acton, Zur Geschichte.
302 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
had planned, adopted an address expressive of confidence in
them, and of their hope that the threatened collision between
the Church and their governments and nation might be averted.
Sepp himself went to Prague to present the document to
Cardinal Prince Schwarzenberg. The latter read it slowly,
thought it over, and said, 'It is far too weak. With Rome
you must hold very different language from that.' In further
conversation Sepp said to the Cardinal, 'You have in Prague
the first canonist in Germany (Schulte), the man who drafted
the Austrian Concordat, and surely he can be employed in
similar work for the Council.' The reply was: You have
in Munich the greatest Catholic theologian in Germany, and
the gentlemen in Rome will not hear of his being invited'
(Sepp, p. 4).
In October 1869 the Bishop of Passau addressed a protest
to the Central Committee of the Catholic Association, saying
that, while pretending to agitate for religion, the Association,
influenced from abroad, organised secret clubs, and carefully
concealed their movements from the bishops. He was thanked
by the King of Bavaria in a private letter, and threatened by
the Jesuit organs.¹
1
Large numbers of priests had been returned to the Bavarian
Parliament, all burning with zeal against Prussia, and against
union under it. In 1868 the clerical agitation had gone so far
that, in November of that year, President Badhauser, when
closing the Landsrath, addressed the members in unwonted
language:
'When the government of the country and its organs, the chamber
which represents the people, and the new laws, are daily held up to sus-
picion, mockery, and contempt, when the peasantry are excited against
the townspeople, and when men, throwing off all patriotic shame, feed
themselves with hopes of foreign intervention, threatening our German
warriors with the chassepots, then must every honourable man condemn
such proceedings; for the venom daily instilled will, in time, poison the
honest country people, as occurrences in Upper Bavaria, already show.'
1 Weltbegebenheiten, i., 330.
2 Ibid., 336.
2
Struggle in Austria.
303
Secret associations for Ultramontane objects were formed
even among children. Those of the clergy who would have
warned the authorities were kept still by secret terrorism.
The meeting of the Council and the necessity of overthrowing
Prince Hohenlohe were closely connected with this turmoil.
And the Liberals plainly said, "The whole Catholic world is to be
fanaticised, to enable the great Catholic powers, after crushing
Prussia, as they hope to do, to carry out a grand reaction.'1
(
The Vaterland went so far, when Napoleon III. took his last
plebiscite, as to tell its readers that a French intervention in
Germany would soon follow, that it was eagerly looked for, and
that all would join France to break the hated yoke of Prussia.
Morally, Prussia was already at an end, but it was for France
to put an end to her physically. Who can tell if we shall
have any North German Confederation, Zollverein, or Prussian
monarchy in 1871?'2 Similar hopes of great events often
pointed to the year of the Council, or the year after.
Civiltá did not scruple to tell Napoleon III. that he owed the
new plébiscite to Mentana. So far from concealing the Pope's
direct action in a question affecting the stability of a throne,
his confidential writers exaggerated his influence.
The
Yet
In Austria a struggle had set in against the supernatural
order. On the part of the people this struggle was conscious,
on that of the Emperor apparently it was somnolent.
he was even more interested than any one of the people could
be. Laws on civil marriage, education, and registry of baptism
were passed by the legislature, and tardily assented to by the
Emperor. The Bishop of Linz issued a manifesto saying that
he would not acknowledge the new illegitimate laws, of course
under the plea of obeying God rather than man. Turning on
the Emperor, he said that he had pledged his faith to the Con-
cordat as a man and as a kaiser. Other prelates, in milder
language, set Papal above Austrian law. Finally, as we have
already seen, on June 22nd, 1868, the Pope himself laid the
1 Weltbegebenheiten, i., 327.
2 Ibid., 340.
304
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
new laws under his condemnation. While to us that sentence
was only a criticism, to the Bishop of Linz it was the judgment
of the supreme tribunal, under which kings reign and princes
decree justice.
A Catholic meeting against the school law was being held
in the church at Schlanders, and while the curate was making
a speech Count Manzano, the local authority, declared the
meeting closed. Cries of 'Down with him! kill him!' were
raised. He was thrown to the ground, beaten on the breast,
and barely escaped to the barracks of the gensdarmes.
When the Council was closely approaching, great excitement
broke out in Austria against the religious orders. The spark
which kindled the blaze was the discovery of a nun confined
in the Carmelite convent of Cracow. She had been kept in
one cell for twenty years, with incredible privations and in
bestial filth. The rage of the public forced the government
to go as far as some show of action. Orders were issued for
the inspection of convents. Sentences of bishops condemning
priests to confinement in ecclesiastical prisons were declared
invalid unless the culprit voluntarily consented. The bishops
were also required to give in lists of the voluntary prisoners.
These measures were resented as an 'insult to the episco-
pate.' The Bishop of Brünn won himself an honourable
mention in the Civiltá by a circular in which he repelled the
pretensions of the government, refused the list required, and
told the superiors of monasteries to pay no heed to the orders.
While this second government was set up, beside that of the
country, the voice of Rome cheered it on in taking the upper
hand. The same voice railed against the constitutional minis-
ters, the parliament, and the laws.
The combative Bishop of Linz, in a great meeting, said
that he did not cast any doubt on the religious feeling of the
Emperor, but he was now nothing more than a constitutional
sovereign. Instead, therefore, of merely saying that they had
confidence in the Emperor, they must come to his aid. This was
(
Forecasts of War.
305
repeated in Rome, with the explanation that it had been said
that the bishop in this appeal for aid to the Emperor was only
uttering the sentiments of his Majesty as expressed to the
bishop. Thus were bishops commended by the organ of the
Papal Court for breaking the laws of their country, and credited
with influencing the mind of the sovereign in a sense hostile to
the constitution.¹
The Ultramontane party had frequently, during the year, been
encouraged by correspondents in Paris to expect a war of France
against Prussia. On March 10th the Unitá contained a letter
expressing fears that Austria and Italy might agree to remain
neutral, but quoting a passage from the Volksbote in favour
of French invasion of Germany. On April 23rd it was said
that for a year past the Emperor had allowed no opportunity
of rousing the war spirit to pass. A week later a crusading
significance was given to the approaching anniversary of
Joan of Arc. It was announced that more than twelve
archbishops and bishops would attend--among them Cardinal
Bonnechose-and that the Empress would grace the scene.
On May 1st the fact that the appearance in Paris of Bene-
detti, the French ambassador at Berlin, was officially said
to have no connection with political prospects, was noted for
a smile.
On the 12th of the same month it was plainly
said, 'Every one believes that at the first cannon shot
which passes between France and Prussia, a French regiment,
as the Pays expresses it, will be sent to occupy Belgium.'
And on the 13th the display at the festival of Joan of Arc
at Orleans, with a great array of prelates, was described as
one of the noblest ever connected with war and religion,
well adapted to excite a nation which aims at uniting the cross
with the sword.' On June 19th it was said that the mission
of General Fleury to Florence was with reason taken as a
sign of approaching war.
Yet, while the Emperor of the French was looked to as leader
VOL. I.
¹ Civiltà, VII., viii., pp. 209 ff.
20
306 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
6
against the foe whom the Church had marked out for the first
victim, every sign of discord in France, every outbreak or dis-
order, was eagerly paraded as proof of the anarchy to which all
countries must come under any regime but that of the Church.
At the same time every crime, riot, or difficulty in Italy was
magnified and dwelt upon with the same moral. Let the
Chamber invoke the authority of the Council, and proclaim its
canons as the laws of the State,' was the demand of the Unitá
eight months before the Council met (March 21st). And it
seems to be a kind of tacit canon, among interpreters of Vatican
indications, that the utterances of Don Margotti in Italy, and of
M. Veuillot in France, more frequently express the real inten-
tions of the Court than things that fall from more responsible
personages. Another saying was, There are three Italys—the
Italy of Pius IX., which prays; the Italy of Mazzini, which con-
spires; the Italy of Menabrea, which trembles (March 27th).
Menabrea was then Premier. Again:-
'The Council is drawing near, and Babylon is trembling, hell is blas-
pheming, and before long the world will hear the infallible word of truth
and righteousness. Hallelujah!
The revolution which for nine
years has been bent on marching to Rome is disgraced, senseless, divided.
The traitors are betrayed, the robbers plundered, and the rebels plotted
against by rebellion. Hallelujah!' (March 28th.)
The Unitá found that the threefold opposition of governments,
rationalists, and heretics showed itself most strongly in May,
the month of Mary, which only means that the Immaculate has
set her heel on the three heads of the Hydra. Here the mention
of governments as one head of the Hydra is no slip of the pen,
that is, governments which dwelt in Babylon, as we have just
read, or in the Tower of Babel, as it is more frequently expressed.
Three days later (May 23rd) the Unitú cries, 'It is time for
Catholics to be up in defence of the Council. It is the only
plank of safety for shipwrecked society.' The Mémoriale Diplo-
matique says that 'governments are less and less disposed to
interfere in religious questions, unless their rights are infringed;
but such reserve is war against the Council, which being infallible
Italian Unity to Perish.
307
cannot infringe any right!' The italics here are our own; and
would that we could print the words on the mind of every rising
man in England. That would save vast waste of words.
The courage of the Civiltà was stimulated by the French elec-
tions in the summer, and its hatred of United Italy boiled over.
The ever faithful Univers had given the watchword to the elec-
tors, ‘The temporal power, and liberty of higher instruction!'
In the cry 'liberty of higher instruction,' we have the popular
side of the original call of the Civiltá for universities all over
Europe, canonically instituted. One hundred and twenty deputies
were pledged to the program, and the French electors ought
to be proclaimed as having deserved well of Catholicism. The
illustrious Louis Veuillot,' as the Civiltá styles him, had showed
that what the Voltairians wanted was the separation of Church
and State, from which would follow the decay of Christian wor-
ship to such a point that it might be feasible to annihilate it.
If the temporal power was done away with, the separation of
Church and State would soon follow:
•
Out of this would rise a war worse than civil war, a war of conscience,
to be fought out not by discussion but with laws, with irons, with the
knife. And for the benefit of whom? Of Cæsarism, the refuge and the
scourge of nations which permit themselves to be separated from God.
For France, the fact of the Pope having become a foreign subject would
be enough. We should not proceed to the separation of Church and
State, at least, we should not stay at that point long; we should pass
over to the religious system of Russia.'
Noble, Catholic, chivalrous France is contrasted, by the
Civiltá, with vile Italy. The latter, in a serious catalogue of
crimes, is said to have 'reduced the bishops to the extreme of
poverty, has at its own caprice impeded the divine word, and
showed more than sixty dioceses widowed of their pastors.' The
French voters had said, We go to the urn 'as the delegates of the
universal suffrage of Christendom.' 'The monstrous edifice of
Italian unity must crumble,' says this Romanist, who was no
Roman. It is founded on the ruins of the temporal power of the
Pontiff, which cannot perish. (VII., vi., 611,
ff.)
•
308
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
The plea of the Liberal Catholics for freedom of conscience
became more and more offensive to the Catholics. The Fathers
of Laach, in censuring the address of the laymen of Coblentz,
went so far as to say that the treatment of the Jews in Rome
'showed no want of humanity or civil tolerance.' These edu-
cated laymen well knew that the proper condition of heretics,
according to the same principles, ought to be much worse than
that of the Ghetto Jews. The latter, not being baptized, were
theoretically not subject to the jurisdiction of the Church, but
the others, as Bellarmine shows, though not of the Church, belonged
to the Church. Stumpf, writing in the Bonn Literaturblatt,
did not content himself with questioning the intolerant doctrine.
of the Jesuits; he directly attacked it. He took an important
step further,―one, indeed, which seems like a new life in the
Roman Catholic intellect. He told the Jesuits plainly that their
exclusive principle of one fold rendered religious freedom and
unity impossible. Here he touched the distinction between
the grand and the huge, which Romanists carefully keep out
of sight, and which the sincerest advocates of liberty in their
ranks had hitherto overlooked. They took for a grand concep-
tion that of the unity of Christians, as consisting in submission
to one human head. That conception is narrow and illusory. It
fails of grandeur by monstrous disproportion. It is the same
thing as making the unity of man consist in submission to one
king, a violence to the order of God and to the lofty and blessed
truth of a unity lying deeper and reaching higher than any
which absolutism can ever confer. Stumpf goes on to declare
that the absolute dominion of the Church over the State,
although the favourite doctrine, as he admits, in Rome, is in
contradiction to the fundamental principle of Christianity. He
would no longer be content, as a Liberal Catholic, to plead for
freedom of conscience merely as a compromise. He says, We
now represent a principle. The theocratic principle menaces
society, and that principle will never be satisfied till the acknow-
ledgment of civil rights is made to depend upon the profession of
Stumpf on the Jesuit Tenets.
309
the Catholic faith. He adds that a promise to compromise till we
had the power would content no one, because the modern world
has learned that nothing is settled till the principle is settled.
He understands the Jesuit meaning of 'independence,' when the
Church is in question, to involve the logical fault of confounding
independence with omnipotence. He had clearly in his eye the
fact that the two apparent extremes of the Papal and the socialist
theories of the State practically meet in the point where one all-ab-
sorbing centralised power annihilates the liberty of the individual,
and reduces his life to a mechanism. He clearly understands
both ideas, and he does not want either. He says, We are de-
termined to have the Church a Church, and the State a State.
But this is a postulate which demands, as its condition, individual
freedom. This he thoroughly feels, protesting that the individual
must be free to fulfil his religious and moral duties in each of
the two spheres included within the natural order and the super-
natural order, following their respective laws. According to
him it was Christ that introduced among men the idea of inde-
pendence, and that of a limit existing to the power of the State,
by distinguishing His own kingdom of love and grace from
that of law and compulsion. When the Church authorities,'
says Stumpf, 'do admonish the rulers of the State, their first
counsel should be to consider it their highest duty to protect
freedom of conscience. They ought to warn them, before any
other kind of unrighteousness, against the use of force, for or
against any form of religion which is not inconsistent with the
maintenance of moral law;' and he adds, what we shall empha-
sise, 'privation of civil equality is an employment of force.' Such,
he says, was the counsel given by the early Christian teachers;
and though later teachers reversed it, their course is not to be
justified before the law of Christ.
6
Stumpf faces the practical point of the difficulty-Are states-
men to learn Christian principles from standard teachers of
Christian morals, and then to apply them in preparing statutes
as being themselves responsible before God; or are they to take
310
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
their instructions in framing laws from the ecclesiastical au-
thorities? He shows that what the Stimmen demands is that
they should do the latter. That demand he not only contests,
but also resents. In that case, he argues, legislators, whenever
they had to frame a statute, would have to go to the heads of the
Church to seek their directions, and to faithfully carry them
out; but, argues Stumpf, it does not follow that because a
Church teaches the revealed moral law, she is entitled to pro-
nounce 'authoritatively' upon the righteousness, necessity, or
expediency of a law of the State. The word 'Church' here
That Church which claims
is manifestly used in two senses.
to dictate laws to statesmen is nothing more than the bishop
representing the Pope. That Church which upholds moral law,
on the contrary, includes the Christian judge or minister of
State quite as much as the prelate. And in this case the judge
or minister is doing the work to which it has pleased God to
call him, being set 'for that very thing;' while the minister of
the Gospel (if indeed he would not himself consider that descrip-
tion an affront) is leaving his appointed work, the ministry of
the Word of God, to do work for which rulers and lawgivers are
raised up. The sharp division of the Church into two bodies, the
Teaching Church and the Learning Church, is without a shadow of
support in holy writ, except that it is the office of some to devote
their life to teaching, but such a division is of essential necessity
in order to give a foundation for the exclusive jurisdiction of the
central power.
The end of the State, as viewed by Stumpf, is
much loftier than that assigned to it in the Papal theory. In
the great collection of families called by men a State, he does not
see a body politic without a moral mission, existing, according
to the ruinous theology of Rome, only for temporal ends,—a
body politic which would be unworthy of God or man. Accord-
ing to Stumpf, the end of the State is the maintenance of general
moral order. This theory does not bind the families of a country,
acting in their collective capacity, to prescribe the creed and cult
of individuals. No more does it bind them, on the other hand,
Has a State any Moral End?
311
to resign all moral aims, leaving every moral question to be
decided for them without any appeal to the common conscience,
to fruits, or to the Bible, by a power which in order itself to
direct the course in every important transaction, would strip the
State of every moral quality, and would also prescribe the creed
and cult of all. The theory of Stumpf holds that the collective
authority of the nation, in the affairs common to all the families.
of that nation, is called to regulate action so far as action affects
the common good, but does not hold that it is called to regulate
belief. The separate authority of each house-father, in his own
family, is called to be a terror to evil-doers and a praise to them
that do well. Let but the State fulfil this simple yet glorious
moral end, and it will then secure to all lawful temporal ends the
best opportunity of fulfilling themselves, and will also secure
to the Christian Church all she wants,-room and leave to
lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty,
reclaiming those who do ill, building up those who do well,
and blessing with intercession and with thanksgiving law-
givers and rulers who to her give nought but the greatest of
all boons, good government in the land. Claiming for the
Church the full right of asserting and urging moral principles,
Stumpf, with great solemnity, claims for the legislator free-
dom to frame law according to his own conscience, and to
his belief in what tends to the maintenance and the perfecting
of moral order. This he has to do without the direction of any
ecclesiastic, but knowing that he must give account to God.
No omnipotent word of Church authorities can or shall deter us
from this work. Then he interjects, Would it not be pleasant to
have to consult the theologians of the Civiltá and the Stimmen?
The Jesuits, he alleges, had no conception of any exercise of
moral power upon one another but in the way of commanding
and obeying. The Church, in the middle ages, by her influence
in secular affairs secularised herself, and lost her moral influence,
which was never recovered to Christianity till the States had
done what the Jesuits call apostatising from Christ, and so
JorM
312 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
opened the way for a return of true moral Christian influence.
The early Church, he truly and nobly points out, was able, in
the face of the omnipotent heathen authorities, to pervade society
with her true moral influences; and he contends that nothing
can give back to the Church her position as the first force in
culture, but the recognition of the independence of the State.
One very curious part of this grave and forceful essay is the
protest of the layman against the twisting of Scripture by the
Jesuits. He puts together a number of the texts upon which
they ring the changes, making them prove their own ideas by
the simple process of putting those ideas into them, and reiterat-
ing them again and again. The first of the texts which he
quotes is, 'Teach all nations.' He, apparently, is not aware that
this is now as handy a weapon with those theologians as 'obey
God rather than man.' In their lips 'teach' means 'make laws,'
and 'all nations' means, not every creature, but, collectively, all
States. Therefore the words 'teach all nations' are, in the lips
of the Jesuits, a commission to the Pope to give laws to all
countries, or, in highflown language, ' to exercise the supreme
magisterial office.' The Jesuits had saucily told the laymen of
Coblentz to ask the nearest theologian for an explanation of the
relations between the natural order and the supernatural. But
this particular layman gave them as good as they brought.
When men write as he does, they have begun to be Catholics,
have ceased to be Papists, and are, however unconsciously, in
process of ceasing to be Romanists.
The Allocution of June 22nd, in which the constitution and
new laws of Austria were condemned, had proved as distasteful
to Liberal Catholics as it had been agreeable to the Jesuits.
'The Curialistic notion,' says the author of Reform in Head and
Members, an Austrian (p. 174), that the law of the Church
must be the inviolable rule for all laws and statutes, and
for all and every kind of activity in the life of the State, runs
through it, like a black thread. The Austrian Magna Charta
Maou
6
Tarquini's Principles.
313
of civil, political, religious, and scientific freedom was called a
sacrilegious law. Moreover, the Pope,' he proceeds to say, 'had
declared that these laws themselves, together with all that should
arise out of them, are and ever will be invalid and of no effect.
Every enlightened person among the Catholics of Germany
and France concealed himself in silence and in mourning at
this rude opposition of Rome to the public law of the entire
Western world.' Count Beust, in a despatch dated about ten
days after the Allocution was delivered, said that 'the Holy
See had extended its animadversions to subjects "which we by
no means can allow to be under its authority." We shall hereafter
see how clearly and completely Count Beust had now grasped
the question as between the Papacy and the life of nations.
As the scholastic basis for the future structure had been in
process of elaboration ever since the movement of restoration
began, it will repay us to spend a little time in mastering the
outline of Cardinal Tarquini's system. It is not very long, and
to men who know that principles will in time make institutions,
and that treating affairs without understanding ideas is blunder-
ing work, it will be interesting. We shall see what in reality
is the teaching to which the English public has been strangely
pointed as modern and mild-modern, indeed, but carrying
the doctrine of the sword and the fagot further than it was
carried in abstract propositions by writers of equal rank in old
time. While shaping the doctrine by which he wrote his way to
the purple, Tarquini might easily have seen that circumstances
would often arise in which it would be desirable to keep it
back. He can scarcely have foreseen that, almost immediately
after his death, he would be represented to the English public
by an Englishman, as the modern writer whose mild doctrine
on the relations of the civil and temporal authority ought to
dispel all idea that Rome held tyrannical or persecuting prin-
ciples. But the following is the language of Cardinal Manning
(Vatican Decrees, p. 94) :
'Our older writers, such as Bellarmine and Suarez, when treating of
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The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
this subject, had before their eyes a generation of men who always had
been in the unity of the faith. Their separation therefore was formal and
wilful. Their separation from the unity of the Church did not release the
conscience from its jurisdiction; but if Bellarmine and Suarez were living
at this day, they would have to treat of a question differing in all its moral
conditions. What I have here laid down is founded upon the principles
they taught applied to our, times. Cardinal Tarquini, in treating the
same matter, has dealt with it as it has been treated here.'
Another of the sayings of Cardinal Manning, as to the civil
and ecclesiastical authority, is, 'It is mere shallowness to say that
between the civil authority, as divinely founded in nature, and
the spiritual authority of the Church there can be opposition.'¹
Any jurist who will weigh the principles of Tarquini which were
before the Cardinal will be able infallibly to fix the sense in
which there can be no opposition between the two authorities.
The principle whereon perfect harmony may be established
was well indicated when the Civiltá refuted the pretensions of
the State to hear appeals from the ecclesiastical courts, or to
hear causes arising out of complaints as to some alleged abuse
of the authority of the sacred ministry. It alleged that a
pretension to such a right rested on the political error of
supposing that the State was the only social power.
'This,' continues the Civiltá, 'is entirely false. Human society is
also subject to the religious authority of the Church, and to its authority
much more than to that of the State. For, absolutely speaking, the indi-
vidual and the family are not under any moral obligation to enter into
and to continue in the body politic; but on the other hand it is most
strictly the duty of every man, of every family, and of every nation, to
enter into and to continue in the society of the Catholic Church, and to
be subject to the authority of its supreme head, under pain of eternal
damnation' (VII., ii., 285).
THE DOCTRINE OF THE PERFECT SOCIETY.
The idea of the Perfect Society is the central one around which the
Jesuits construct the fabric of their cosmopolitan system. According to
Tarquini (Institutiones, p. 3), any company of men, joined together for
the attainment of one end, is a Society; and any such company forms a
Perfect Society, if it possesses within itself means sufficient for the attain-
ment of its end.
1 Vat., Dec.. 46.
The Perfect Society.
315
Perfect Societies are among themselves divided into different orders,
according to their end. Any Society, the end of which is subordinate to
that of another Society, is of an order subordinate to the order of the
other. Every Perfect Society lawfully claims to have in its possession
means necessary to the attainment of its own end. If it be of a superior
order, it may claim those means from a Society of an inferior order; but if
of an inferior, it cannot claim them from a Society of a superior order.
Every Perfect Society embraces within itself three powers-the LEGISLATIVE,
the JUDICIAL, and the COMPULSORY (p. 8). The power it has over its own
members consists in the right of requiring everything that is necessary to
the attainment of its end. These three powers provide for the three
necessary elements of government, namely, propounding the means to the
end in an obligatory form (i.e., making laws), applying the means so pro-
pounded in the way and in the sense in which they were propounded,
compelling, by the use of force, those who refuse to apply them, and
checking those who hinder. No Society has any legislative power, as
touching the things of a superior order, unless it may be to forward the
execution of what has been already determined by him to whom the care of the
superior order is committed (p. 9). It is repugnant to the notion of a law
that its acceptance by the people should be necessary to give it the
force of law (p. 11). Suarez is quoted as saying that acceptance by the
people cannot be required for any reason except two: first, that the
power of the prince is imperfect, he having, through the peculiar con-
stitution of his Society, received it under a condition of dependency (i.e.,
he acts under a constitution), or else because he is, out of gentleness,
disinclined to use his absolute power. Tarquini defines a merely arbitrary
power as one without the capability of compulsion. Of two societies, con-
stituted of the same members, the one which is of an inferior order, that
is, which has an end of an inferior order, ought as such to serve the Society
which is of the superior order at the least negatively. It ought also to serve
it positively in that which the Society of a superior order demands as ne-
cessary to its own ends. A Society of a superior order ought to afford aid
to the one of inferior order, in so far as the nature of its own end demands;
but otherwise it is not bound to do so. Negative service is rendered when
an inferior Society does not pursue its end so as to offer any impediment
to the end of the superior one. The inferior Society cannot, by any right
of its own, claim the service of the superior Society. Co-ordinated Societies
Tarquini defines as those which are so connected one with another that the
end of the one Society is in the nature of means to the end of the other
(p. 21). When two Societies are thus co-ordinate, the subordinate is
bound, as far as possible, to aid the chief one; but the chief one is not
at all bound to aid the other, unless its own end requires such aid. Two
equal Societies would be two which had an equal end; and when two
Societies come into conflict, that one ought to prevail the end of which
is the higher (p. 22). The true notion of a Society is that the end is the
316
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
predominating element, and the means a subservient one (p. 24). Again,
it is not true that the Society ought to prevail which is based upon neces-
sity, and that to give way which is based only upon utility (p. 25). In case
of conflict, the right of final judgment belongs to the superior Society;
that is, to the one that has the superior end (p. 27). No two Societies
can be absolutely supreme (p. 28). Absolute supremacy is distinguished
from the supremacy of a Society in its own order, which is the supre-
macy it has over minor Societies, or companies, included within itself,
and of its own order. [That is, the supremacy of the State over guilds,
companies, municipalities, or families.] The conclusion is, first, that the
Church is the Perfect Society (p. 30); secondly, that, in relation to
others, it is the Society of a superior order, and altogether supreme.
Anticipating the objection, though not formally raising it, that the Church
has not within herself all the means that Rome claims as necessary to her
ends, Tarquini says that any Society has those means if it possesses them
virtually, though not really. 'Virtually' he explains to mean that it can
in its proper right, claim those means from another Society, and that
the other Society has no authority to deny it, or by its own judgment
to determine the matter (p. 30). Any Society, he says, which by its
nature is supreme, and is not subordinate to another, is perfect in its
nature, and hence ought to have all the means for the attainment of its
end within itself. It is absurd that the Supreme Society should be sub-
ordinate to another, or should depend upon it. That Society is supreme
of which the end is supreme; but the end of the Church is supreme, ergo,
etc. That Society is not subordinate to another, the end of which is not
subordinate to another end; but the end of the Church is not subordinate
to another end, ergo, etc. (p. 31).
Tarquini proceeds to demonstrate the superiority of the ecclesiastical
society over the civil society, that is, of the Church over the State. The
definition of the duties of the State, which affirms that it is to moderate
and defend all the rights of its citizens, is rejected, as containing more vices
than one (p. 45). Such a definition would lead, Tarquini says, to the
inference that the State is to protect all the rights of its subjects; hence,
even their religious rights. Out of this would arise the error that if any
one thought himself injured by an ecclesiastical court, he might appeal
to a civil one.
The State is not to hold itself passive as to all matters which pertain to
religion and probity. Care for these affects even temporal happiness;
but the State is to care for them only in the manner which God has
appointed, namely, in dependence upon the Church; otherwise its power
would be disorderly. Therefore the true definition of the duties of the
State is that it has directly only the care of temporal happiness, but in-
directly the duty of defending religion and probity, yet in dependence upon
the Church (p. 47).
Civil societies are arranged in three categories: 1. Those which obey
The Perfect Society.
317
the Church, or Catholic societies; 2. Those which are indeed under its
power, but separated from it, that is, heretical societies; 3. Those which
are exempt from its power, that is, societies of the unbaptized (p. 47). Of
course the word 'society' here means 'nation.' Under the first head, it
s stated that a Catholic civil society, or nation, is composed of the same
persons as the Church itself. It does not form a different body. The
¡ame men composing both societies seek temporal happiness under the
ivil magistrate, and eternal under the direction of the Church. A Catholic
ivil society is, therefore, a company of men who so pursue temporal
appiness that they confess it to be subordinate to the pursuit of eternal,
vhich they believe to be attainable only under the government of the
Catholic Church.
The Church has no power in civil society in temporal things taken in
espect to the temporal end. The reason of this is that the temporal end
s outside of the end of the Church. Therefore in temporal things, when
hey relate to the temporal end, even a Catholic society is independent of
he Church. Tarquini quietly asserts that when the Fathers spoke of
he independence of the State, they meant it only in this sense. Having
hus limited the independence of the State to actions that have no rela-
ion to the spiritual end-which is, in fact, limiting it to actions that have
o moral quality-he proceeds to define the powers of the Church.
The Church, according to him, rightfully exerts her power in all affairs,
ven though they be temporal, in which, either by their own nature or by
ccident, the spiritual end becomes involved, and civil society ought to
ield to the Church (p. 49). The proof of this is the one with which we
re already familiar--that a Society with an inferior end ought to yield to
ne with a superior end. Therefore, in all such affairs as would involve
onflict between the temporal end of the civil society and the eternal end
f the spiritual, the civil ought to yield to the spiritual.
Then follows the usual argument about obeying God rather than man.
Ve may pause to remark that this pocket-pistol which the Jesuits always
arry about, is no lawful weapon of theirs. It was not, as Liberal Catholics
oint out, to the civil authority that Peter made that reply, but to the
clesiastical. He made it on a question relating exclusively to faith and
´orship, and not relating to any civil institution or law of the temporal
overnment. Moreover, in making it, he directly rejected the ecclesias-
cal authority, he who, in the eye of ecclesiastical law, was a mere lay-
Lan.
The ecclesiastical authorities attempted to bind Peter's religious
eedom, by their ecclesiastical censures, without the warrant of divine
W. He appealed from them to God. That appeal is the charter of
rivate judgment, the charter of appeal from the tribunal of priests to
e Almighty. It is a strange case to choose as furnishing the charter for
riests to take the law into their own hands and to set aside the rulers
id the tribunals of their nation, in subserviency to a guild of political
riests in another country. Peter did not claim to be exempted from the
318
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
(
law of the Emperor, nor did he claim, if he broke it, to be exempted
from its penalties. He did protest against the attempt of priests to shackle
his rights, as secured by the Bible. Moreover, the priests wished it to be
assumed that their deeds were irreformable. You intend,' cried they, 'to
bring this man's blood upon us.' They had done the deed, and it was to
be taken as well done. But Peter did not believe in their infallibility.
They had no divine warrant for gagging him. The civil law had not given
them the right to do so. He stood upon his double freedom, under the
Bible and under the constitution; and, furthermore, the signs he wrought
showed that God was with him, while the additional but equally divine
proof arose of obedience to law increased by the influence of his doctrine.
Teachers whose disciples are practically found harder to govern than
other populations or other sections of the population are stamped, by
the hand of Providence, as a social blight.
Tarquini next goes over the usual round of Church authorities teaching
that the State must be subject to the Church, as the body to the soul
He spends considerable strength in refuting a conclusion often drawn
from the words of St. Optatus, who said that the Church is in the State
not the State in the Church. Texts of Scripture in Jesuit hands often go
in at one end of a set of paragraphs with their natural meaning, and come
out at the other end with a meaning exactly opposite. So this much
cited patristic saying comes out of Tarquini's paragraphs thus :—‘It i
plain, Optatus denies that the Church exists in a State where the doctrine
of the regalists prevail.' Another conclusion is that what Optatus di
affirm amounted to saying, 'The Church needs the protection of the Stat
against her enemies, not the State that of the Church.' This is orthodo:
doctrine, not tainted with the errors of the regalists (p. 56).
Our author denies that the Church is formally in the State, and doe
not admit that it is in it even materially. It cannot be in it formally
because the end of the Church cannot be contained in that of the State
He cannot admit that it is materially in the State, because the Churc
embraces the whole world, and further, in the mind of God, the frame
of both societies, the Church is prior to civil society. Therefore it shoul
rather be said that the State is in the Church, not the Church in the Stai
(p. 57). Tarquini meets the assertion that the Empire was constitute
before the Church, and in full possession of liberty, and that therefore :
ought not to be disturbed in its possession, by asserting that the Empir
did not exist before the Church, which had been constituted from th
1 The words quoted from Optatus are, Non enim Respublica est in Eccles
sed Ecclesia in Republica est, id est in imperio Romano. . . . Ubi et sacerdot:
sancta sunt et pudicitia et virginitas quæ in barbaris gentibus non sunt et
essent tuta esse non possent (p. 53). Tarquini assumes that Optatus denies th
the Church exists in barbarous States, whereas the latter only says either th
such and such institutions of the Church do not exist in them, or cannot exist :
safety.
The Perfect Society.
319
beginning of the world, and also that it was false to say that before Christ
the Empire possessed the liberty asserted by the objectors (p. 58). As to
the right of previous possession, he argues that in speaking of the Church
you speak of a divine institution. What then? Would you set up a right
of previous possession as against God? Hence he regards the complaint
that the State, in entering the Church, is curtailed in its civil rights, as
unreasonable; for no one cares about resigning some slender rights in
return for great advantages, and the advantages secured to princes in
entering the Church are so great that what they have to resign is not to
be compared with them. He denies that the Church, even when taken
distributively, is part of the State. If that were the case, the Church would
have as many bodies as there are nations. Moreover, as the Church is a
society diverse from civil society by reason of the diversity of its end, and
much more excellent, it is absurd to call it a part of it.
The objection that in the Jewish religion priests were obedient to the
temporal rulers, is met by saying that the end of the Jewish religion was
not purely spiritual, but also included the temporal end of instituting a
nation which should procure temporal happiness. The further objection
that the priests of the heathen were subject to the kings, is first treated
as an insult to the Christian religion. Next it is affirmed (p. 61) that the
whole aim of the heathen priesthood and worship was temporal good,
and as that lies within the sphere of the king, it was fitting that the priests
should be subject to him.
Afterwards follows the proposition that the supremacy of the Church
over civil society springs out of her nature and out of the divine will; and
who will say that this can be abrogated or changed by human facts? This
is advanced in reply to the objection that the authority of kings in
ecclesiastical matters had often been recognised by Christian bishops. If
they recognised it when power had been delegated to the kings by the
ecclesiastical authority, the recognition was just; if otherwise, it was
unjust. When, for example, Emperors acted at the request of Pontiffs,
or embodied in edicts what the canons had already decreed, the power of
the State legitimately came to the support of the Church. The same may
be said also of certain edicts of the kings of France, which were really
framed by the bishops themselves.
Then follows the demand that, in doubtful cases, the right of the Church
must be preserved to define what matters really belong to the category of
religious matters. This comes in direct connection with the affirmation
that the State cannot be atheistic, which is defined as being indifferent in
religious matters. We do not remember that Tarquini ever notes the dis-
tinction made by Phillips between an indifferent State-that is, one which,
like America, does not establish any form of religion—and an atheistic
one, which would to us be one like France at a certain stage in her great
Revolution. For the purpose of the Roman author, the two cases appear
to differ so little, as not to be worth distinguishing from one another.
320
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
As the State cannot be indifferent, it follows that civil society is by
all means bound to lend physical force to the Church when she requires it for
her own necessities, even though the physical force of society may have
passed from individual hands into those of its head. It has passed,
carrying its obligations with it; those, namely, which bind all individuals
to give to the Church, whose members they are, whatever is necessary for
her, and therefore even physical force (p. 63).
The Christianity of physical force, which Liberal Catholics had hoped
to supersede by a Christianity superior to the use of such a power, just
as a steamer is superior to that of the animal force of oarsmen, instead of
being disavowed by modern Rome, was being rehabilitated both by popular
pens in her journals and by scientific writers like Tarquini, and spread
with new vigour of argument and enthusiasm.
Even in supplying physical force the prince is not to be free. He is so
to defend religion that he shall not anticipate the judgments of the Church,
but follow them (p. 65). It is urged that it must be evident that members
of the Church, in granting her things necessary for her, are bound to do
so, not according to their own judgment, but according to that of her
head. Only the Church can know what belongs to religious affairs and
what promotes the good of religion. Therefore should the prince, in
defending religion, anticipate the judgment of the Church, he might
easily invert the due order of the subordination of temporal to spiritual
ends. As he who sacrifices when he is not a priest commits sacrilege, so
does he violate order who disposes of any matter which has not been
committed to his charge. Further, as the navigator who determines the
ultimate end of the ship gives command to the ship-builder how to con-
struct it, and as the citizen who determines the ultimate end of the
weapon gives command to the smith what kind of weapon he shall make,
so ought the Church, to whose end that of the State is subordinate, to
command the State in all things which affect eternal salvation (p. 67).
The reply of Tarquini to the objection that it is not well that man
should be compelled by the kingly power to obey the Church, is candid,
and when taken in the strict and scientific sense in which it was written,
shows exactly under what conditions the Church can suffer a prince to
'Account is to be taken of the
allow religious toleration in his States.
circumstances of the State. If they are such as to forbid the use of
power, such toleration is to be shown as is often shown in permitting
other crimes (malefactis), provided always that the prince holds himself
passive and negative, and does not approve anything contrary to the good
of the Church' (p. 67).'
The breach of 'unity' is thus shown to be a crime; but if the attempt
to suppress this crime by force would endanger the throne of a Catholic
prince, or threaten the Church with other evils greater than that of
1 Quoted by Tarquini from Auctor de Regin. Prin., lib. i., c. 15.
The Doctrine of the Perfect Society.
321
tolerating the crime itself, the moral possibility of the prince resorting to
force is taken away, and with the moral possibility goes the obligation.
Hence, as any other crime that cannot be put down must be tolerated, so
must heresy; but let the circumstances change, and the possibility arise
of applying force with success, then with the moral possibility comes back
again the moral obligation; and the prince is bound, whenever the Church
calls for it, to use his physical force towards all baptized persons.
Tar-
quini, in a note, gives the following summary of principles as to toleration :
1. In the absence of a positive law, toleration is illicit, for two reasons,
because it is wicked to co-operate in the superstitions of the heterodox,
and because it is wicked to expose Catholics to the dangers of seduction.
2. In order to justify toleration, the same conditions are required as those
which would justify co-operation in the sin of another, or such conditions
as are commonly held by theologians to render it lawful to expose oneself
to the occasion or danger of sin. 3. Nothing is to be determined in this
matter without consulting the Pope, both because it touches a weighty
question as to the state of the Church, concerning which only the Pope
can judge, and also because civil toleration is prohibited by ecclesiastical
law. 'Finally, the propositions condemned by our most holy lord, Pius IX.,
in the Syllabus are to be kept before the eye. They are the seventy-
seventh and the eightieth.'
We presume that the obligation to consult the Pope applies both to the
case of granting toleration where it did not exist, and to that of abolishing
it where it did exist. In our own day instances of both kinds have
occurred. The censures of the Popes against those who granted toleration
are facts of history. Where are the instances of his censures against any
government for doing away with toleration? They exist, but always
when the intolerance, real or alleged, was directed against Romanists.
The objection that, by teaching intolerance towards heretics, while
claiming liberty for herself, the Church uses a double measure, is met by
Tarquini in a straightforward manner. He denies that she refuses any
real right to the heterodox while claiming it for herself. He admits that
she does refuse to the heterodox rights which belong exclusively to the
truth, and are incommunicable to error. Lunatics cannot have the same
rights as sane persons, not even because they do not think themselves
lunatics. We have to look at three things: the conscience of the Church,
that of the heretics, and the matter in itself.
The conscience of the Church assures her, on divine testimony, that
she holds the truth, and that heretics err. As to the conscience of the
heterodox, if they are sincere, they will have the same rights as lunatics,
to whom the things they do in their madness are not imputed. As to the
matter itself, the marks and tokens of the case are so manifest that there
is no just person who ought not to recognise the rights of the Church.
Heretics either do or do not weigh seriously, and with right intention,
the evidences of credibility displayed by the Catholic Church and those
21
VOL. I.
322 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
t
of falsity attaching to their own sects. If they do not weigh them, their
ignorance cannot be consistent with good faith. If they do weigh them,
still less can it be admitted that they persist in their error in good
faith. No one is entitled to acquit them before man on the ground of
their good faith. Therefore every pretext vanishes for the charge, that
in denying them the liberty she claims for the truth, the Church measures
with two rules.
Under the special head of jurisdiction over heretics, what Tarquini says
is short but not sweet. The one all-important point is, heretics are bound
by the ecclesiastical laws. The proof of this is that they are baptized.
This proof is confirmed by the consideration that no one is released
from the obligation of the law because of his own crime. And it is only
because of their own crime that heretics are outside of the Church, ergo,
etc. It is further confirmed by the consideration that if heretics are not
subject to the jurisdiction of the Church, they cannot be punished by her
for their heresy; but (as Bellarmine, who has carefully expounded this
doctrine, shows) they can be punished by her for their heresy, ergo, etc.
Therefore, he adds, Bellarmine said correctly that heretics were not of the
Church but belonged to the Church, both because they are subject to her
jurisdiction, and because they are under obligation to return to her. He
shows, of course, that there may be circumstances in which the exercise
by the Church of her rights over heretics would do harm instead of good,
and in such cases the Church must be held to wish heretics not to be
bound by her will.
Protestants sometimes speak as if the principles of the Papacy
bound its followers to persecute under all circumstances. By
no means. The principles of war do not bind a general to
attack when, by all the rules of war, that course would lead
to the injury of his cause. And just so with the Papacy.
CHAPTER X.
Conflicting Manifestoes by Bishops—Attacks on Bossuet-Darboy—Dupanloup
combats Infallibility-His relations with Dr. Pusey-Deschamps replies-
Manning's Manifesto-Retort of Friedrich-Discordant Episcopal Wit-
IN
nesses.
N November 1869 the Bishop of Versailles, writing of Bossuet,
said that the fame of the Eagle of Meaux was from day to
day declining (Friedberg, p. 81). This was but a symptom of
Bossuet barely Tolerated.
323
the new war against nationalism. Professor Ceccucci, though
writing for a French audience, did not scruple to say, 'If
Bossuet escaped excommunication, he owed it to the benign
and paternal indulgence of the Holy See' (Frond, iv., p. 112).
Bishop Dupanloup soon took occasion to show that Inno-
cent XI. sent Bossuet two briefs congratulating him on
having written in a manner calculated to win back heretics
and increase the propagating power of the Church.¹ And,
as we have seen, Bishop von Ketteler could at this very time
utilize the name of Bossuet in Germany. If the Church, even
before infallibility had been proclaimed, began to be so con-
scious of its narrowness that it could hardly contain Bossuet,
what will it be when a few centuries more have passed over it?
As the opening of the Council drew nearer, feeling grew
warmer in political and religious circles. Archbishop Darboy
sketched the impending dangers in a pastoral:
'You have been told that articles of faith which hitherto you have not
been bound to believe, are to be imposed upon you; that points affecting
civil society and the relations of Church and State are to be treated in
a spirit opposed to the laws and usages of the age; that a certain vote is
to be carried by acclamation; that the bishops will not be free, and that
the minority, even if eloquent, will be treated as an opposition, and will
soon be put down by the majority. . . . It must be owned that much
has been done to spread these alarms by writers taking different sides.'"
Bishop Dupanloup, when about leaving home for the Council,
published a memorable letter. He seemed to regard the desire
of the French clergy for centralisation as the origin of the cry
for a dogma. The change, however, from a national to a Papal
spirit was natural. Was it likely that youths from the schools
of the Christian Brothers, passed through an episcopal seminary,
would comprehend the national spirit and episcopal convictions
of Darboy or even of Dupanloup? The lower education of
3
1 Letter as printed in Otto Mesi, p. 413, and now (but also in French) in Eight
Months at Rome, p. 277.
2 Friedberg, p. 287.
• The author of Reform in Head and Members says (p 156): The theo-
logical lecture-rooms of the Sorbonne are empty, and the fame and splendour
324 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
"
the country had been just long enough in the hands of Rome
to begin to bear fruit. Dupanloup meant no ill to France when
he succeeded in binding Louis Philippe to Gregory XVI. by
inducing him to give the priests their way in schools, in return
for forbearance in baptizing the Comte de Paris, as the son of
a mixed marriage, and of a mother who refused to abjure her
Protestantism. But he then did one of the most hurtful deeds
to France, and to the future of European peace, that man could
have done.
•
•
"This letter,' cries Sambin, 'gave an episcopal head to the revolt;
the objection was pointed against the opportuneness of defining the dogma
of infallibility, but it was hardly possible to be deceived—the principle of
infallibility itself seemed to be attacked. The acts of the sovereign
Pontiff were presented in a light so far from the truth, that a feeling of
profound astonishment passed through the ranks of pastors and people.
They were grieved to see the paling away of the triple halo which had
hitherto hovered around the author's brow' (Sambin, p. 49).
This was published in France in 1872, after Dupanloup had
'submitted,' and rendered new and conspicuous service to the
Papacy. As Dupanloup's pamphlet will be hard to find here-
after, and as it is a representative document, we may give a
general idea of the argument it presents.
For two years, says Dupanloup, thousands of printed papers
have been circulated in the streets, containing a vow to believe
in the personal infallibility of the Pope. Agents have got
them signed by persons who did not understand the first word
of the question.
He contrasts the confidence and freedom of speech granted
to the Civiltá and the Univers with the secrecy observed toward
bishops. Naming Manning and Deschamps as the leaders in
the agitation for the new dogma, he adds, 'I say new, because
of France in theological science, in which she once took so high a place, have
been extinguished, since the clergy began to receive their education-that is,
as much education as was indispensable-in the smaller episcopal seminaries,
and their theological training in the greater ones. There is no theological
science at all in France now.' He supports this broad assertion by details
given by Bouix, a well-known Ultramontane writer.
Dupanloup's Manifesto.
325
for eighteen hundred years the faithful have not, on pain of
ceasing to be Catholics, been bound to believe it.' Alluding to
the freedom which, it was said, the bishops would have in the
Council, he asks what freedom was left to them even now,
when any who expressed an unwelcome opinion were denounced
in the papers, beforehand, as schismatics or heretics. . . . After
having taught for eighteen hundred and seventy years, the
Church is now to come and ask in a Council, Who has the
right of teaching with infallibility? . . . When the oak is
twenty centuries old, digging to find the parent acorn under
the roots is the way to shake the tree.'
The Bishop proceeds, with tact and great earnestness, to plead
for the necessity of moral unanimity in defining new dogmas.
He relates a fact of interest, and one very closely affecting
the person of Pius IX. We have seen that, in 1864, the Pope
formally initiated official preparations for the Council; that he
had long before 1867 decided important questions as to its con-
stitution and procedure; that he had set commissions to work,
consulted bishops in different countries, and ordered nuncios to
select theologians; and that it was only political perplexity
which prevented the assembly of 1867 from being the General
Council.
Yet Bishop Dupanloup, whether then aware of these facts or
not, makes the following statement, in which the appeal to the
testimony of other bishops as eyewitnesses would rather en-
courage the impression that he felt as if the statement-very
simple if the fact stood alone-was liable to be called in question,
because of some relation it might have to other facts :-
'I well remember, and more bishops than one who were present in
Rome in 1867 can recall, the fact that one of the most serious anxieties
of Pius IX., before deciding on holding the Vatican Council, was, lest
questions should arise calculated to provoke stormy discussions, and
divisions in the episcopate. But the Pope remembered the sagacious con-
duct of the Council of Trent and of Pius IV., and proceeded, in the hope
that it would not be forgotten at the future Council.'
One of Dupanloup's solemn sayings is, 'I have read and
326
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
read again the catechism of the Council of Trent, on purpose to
find if it spoke Yes or No about the infallibility of the Pope;
I have ascertained that it does not say a word about it.'
Again, he states that in 1867 one hundred and eighty-eight
Anglican ministers wrote to the Pope asking for the basis of a
union. In his reply, the Pope spoke of the authority of the
Church and the supremacy of the Pope, but he did not speak of
his infallibility. Yet journalists, screening themselves behind
his name, tried to shut the mouths of bishops by attacks full of
violence and gall. This was meant for M. Veuillot, who was
not slow to reply.
As to Greeks and Protestants, Dupanloup points out that
what is proposed amounts to telling them, 'A ditch now
separates us; we are going to make it an abyss.
Two
years ago, Dr. Pusey said to me in Orleans, "There are eight
thousand of us in England, daily praying for a union.
When Pitt thought of relaxing laws against Catholics in England
and Ireland, he asked several learned bodies what was the real
doctrine of the Roman Church on the power of the Pope.
'I
have under my eyes the replies of the Universities of Paris,
Douay, Louvain, Alcala, Salamanca, and Valladolid.' They all
'answer expressly that neither the Pope nor the Cardinals, nor
yet any body or individual in the Roman Church, hold from
Jesus Christ any civil authority over England, any power to re-
lease the subjects of his Britannic Majesty from their oath of fide-
lity.' Such doctrine was calculated to reassure Pitt, as against
the contrary doctrine, professed in celebrated Bulls by more
Popes than one. But what if the Pope be declared infallible?
As to Catholic governments, their standing jealousy of the
ecclesiastical power would be increased. Had not Boniface VIII.
taught that the temporal sword also belonged to Peter, and that
the spiritual power had a right to institute and judge the tem-
poral? Had not Paul III. released all the subjects of Henry VIII.
from their oath of allegiance, offered England to any one who
would conquer it, and given all the goods of the dissident English,
Dupanloup's Manifesto.
327
real and personal, to the Conqueror? Was not that Bull a
great misfortune to Christendom? 'I am sad-and who would
not be sad?-in recalling these great and painful historical
facts; but they force us to it, those whose levity and rashness
have stirred these burning questions.' After the dogma shall
have been proclaimed, he contends that from the point of view
occupied by governments, all civil and political rights, like
all religious belief, will be in the hand of a single man.' The
journals which claim to be purest in their Romanism treat
the doctrine, so strongly held by the Catholic sovereigns, as well
as others, that each of the two powers is independent in its own
sphere, as tainted with atheism.'
The following passage in the Bishop's argument suffices to
show that there may be more senses of the statement that
Catholics do not owe any divided allegiance, than plain English
folk ever dreamed of in their philosophy:-
'We lately read, as quoted with praise in a French paper, the following,
which compares those to the Manicheans who deny that the two swords are
in the same hand: "Are there two sources of authority and power, two
supreme ends for the members of the same society, two different objects
in the intention of the Being who orders all, and two distinct destinies in
one and the same man, who is both member of a Church and of a State ?
Who does not see the absurdity of such a system? It is the dualism of
the Manicheans, if not atheism.
We ought to interject the remark that 'the two swords in the
same hand' is not strict but popular language. The two are in
the same power, but only one is in the spiritual hand. Again,
the taunt of Manicheism frequently falls from Jesuit pens.
Boniface VIII. set the example of calling people something like
Manicheans, if they believed in any supreme power in princes
on a level with that of the Pope.
Coming to the crucial question, What is speaking ex cathedrâ?
Bishop Dupanloup shows that the diversity of doctrine on this
point is almost endless, and perplexing beyond belief. The lay
Professor of Theology in the seminary of the Archdiocese of
Westminster, Dr. Ward, formerly an Anglican minister, goes
328 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
ら
​beyond the great majority. They hold that a condition necessary
to an infallible utterance is that the Pope shall address the whole
Church, but Dr. Ward thinks that this is not necessary.
The
majority think that the intention of binding the belief of the
faithful must be clearly expressed, but Dr. Ward again thinks
that it need not be so. Phillips, the German doctor, holds
that the Pope need not consult a Council, the Roman Church,
the Cardinals, or any one; nor is it necessary that he should
maturely deliberate or carefully study the matter by the light of
God's written word and of tradition, or even that he should put
up a prayer to God before pronouncing sentence. Without any
one of these conditions,' says the Bishop, 'his decision would not
be less valid, authentic, or obligatory on the whole Church, than
if he had observed every condition dictated by faith, piety, and
good sense.' He adds the words of Phillips, that the definition
ex cathedra may be verbal or written, and with or without
anathema, but must be given by him to all believing Christians
as Vicar of Jesus Christ, in the name of the Apostles Peter and
Paul, or in virtue of the authority of the Holy See, or in other
similar terms. The Church, he says, according to Phillips, has
no right to fix any condition or restriction whatever. We do
not remember these words in Phillips, but if only an inference,
they are perfectly fair.¹
Citing the cases of Popes Stephen VI., Honorius, and Pascal II.,
Dupanloup shows that heavy facts obstruct the historical path
to the new dogma.
He proceeds to point out that the difference between the
universal infallibilists and the dogmatical infallibilists is very
grave. The former argue that the dogma, if adopted in the sense
Phillips says (Kirchenrecht, 2 Band, 3rd Edition, p. 305), 'Why must
we wait for a Council as for a new Messiah, when the representative of Messiah
has come already? Again (p. 339), 'A General Council may be called or not, but
it alters nothing as to the infallibility of the Pope.' As to the possibility of the
Pope deciding without reflection, consultation, reading, or prayer, the words of
this oft-cited Doctor are (p. 342):- If he neglects to do so, he burdens himself
with guilt, but nevertheless his judgment has just the same force and validity,
and, hence, it is perfectly obligatory on the whole Church.'
Dupanloup's Manifesto.
329
of the latter, would involve a peril. A Pope infallible in some
cases and fallible in others is, they think, a contradiction. If,
as a private teacher, the Pope should err in doctrine, might he
not impose his error on the Church? If this is not possible, you
have either a Pope who thinks one thing and defines another, or
a perpetual miracle! And why distinguish, ask the universal
infallibilists, when Christ has not distinguished? That thy faith
fail not '—that means the faith of Peter in every sense, personal
and pastoral. These theologians contend that a Pope could not,
even if he would, fall into an error, public or private.
(
6
As to the effect of the change on the episcopate, Dupanloup
contends that Councils will be rendered superfluous. Hitherto,
the bishops have been judges of the faith, real judges, though in
union with the Pope,-co-judges, as was said by Benedict XIV.
But if the proposed change is made, their judgment before or
after will be of little account; as Monsignor Manning has said,
the Pope can determine without the episcopate, and indepen-
dently of it.' The bishops, he proceeds, are now Doctors, not
mere echoes. With the Pope they constitute the Teaching
Church. After the change they will not be a voice, only an
echo. Again, he proceeds, 'where Peter is there is the Church,'
does not mean that the Pope is the Church, but that he is the
head of it. In divisions, we know where the Church is by
where the Pope is. Thus we know that the Greek or Anglican
Church is not the Church of Jesus Christ, because the Pope is
not with them.
Drawing a glowing picture of the services of the French
bishops to the Papacy, he says :—
'Ah! I dare to affirm that so much devotion to Rome and to the
Catholic world gives to the Church of France the right to be trusted, to be
heard.' He adds, anticipating his arrival in Rome, 'I shall no sooner touch
the sacred ground, no sooner kiss the tomb of the Apostles, than I shall
feel myself in peace, out of the battle, in the midst of an assembly pre-
sided over by a father and composed of brethren. There the noises will
all die away, the rash interferences will cease, the indiscretions will dis-
appear, the winds and waves will be calmed down.'
330
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
The statement, frequently repeated, that Bishop Dupanloup in
this letter admitted the doctrine, and contested only the oppor-
tuneness of defining it, is incorrect. This was pointed out at the
time by Dr. Reusch, of Bonn, in the Literaturblatt. Dupanloup
once or twice says that he will not touch the question of its truth,
one way or the other. He never, directly or indirectly, indicates
belief in it. Many of his arguments more than indirectly oppose
the very substance of the doctrine. He plainly feels that it is
unscriptural, uncatholic, and unwise; but he knows that it is
and has long been gospel in Rome..
•
Bishop Dupanloup was replied to by Archbishop Deschamps,
of Malines. Monsignor Deschamps was following the straight
path to the purple. He roundly lectured Dupanloup. 'Why
should not that trouble me which rejoices the enemies of the
faith and of the Church?' 'You have committed an error, Mon-
signor,' he says, repeatedly. He correctly states that Dupanloup
has not confined himself to the question of opportuneness. 'You
have handled the principal question,
your fears have
disturbed your vision.'¹ Dupanloup prepared a rejoinder to
Deschamps, but was prevented from publishing it by circum-
stances which taught him that in leaving France for Rome he
had not passed from disturbance to tranquillity, but from regu-
lated conflict to all-triumphant violence, compelling inaction,
unless action was on its own side. In Rome, where any move-
ment of an ecclesiastic is often accounted for by the prospect of
some ribbon, robe, or perquisite, it was freely said that Napoleon
had promised Dupanloup the archbishopric of Lyons if he would
head the Gallicans. An English paper repeated this Roman
scandal, fathering it on well-informed circles. Certain circles are
always well informed as to the motives of men who oppose them.
The pastoral from the banks of the Thames forms a contrast
to that from the banks of the Loire. True, Archbishop Manning
no longer speaks of the extinction of Protestantism, or the
restoration of the Pope's dominion over the East, as probable
Stimmen, N. F., vi., p. 57.
Manning's Manifesto.
331
effects of the Council. He even shows some dawning conscious-
less that the war which he had announced in 1867 with a light
heart, would not be carried through so lightly. In the earlier
art of his treatise he more than once coolly speaks of the
›ishops as being unanimous in the belief of Papal infallibility!
Before the conclusion, Bishop Maret's work extorts the ad-
nission that he must now call that doctrine Ultramontane which,
wo years before, he had asserted to be Catholic. He none the
ess eagerly presses for the carrying out of the program. The
Church is far too large. She permits differences of belief, which
tre not only unseemly, but dangerous. After an outbreak
of questioning thought and conflicting will, such as had been
ccasioned by a simple demand for only one or two new dogmas,
ighter and tighter binding up seems to Dr. Manning to be not
nerely becoming, but even necessary.
While panting for additional fetters for his own Church, he
peaks of Protestants as sighing for something beyond insular
arrowness. In fact, it would seem as if he had no perception
f the difference between a big sect and a large creed, or of the
ossible harmony between a local organisation and a universal
rotherhood. There is no insular narrowness, much less Pontine-
Marsh narrowness, in the definition of a Church given by the
Inglish Church, whereby she marks her relation to all other
'hurches. That definition is large, catholic, and scriptural. It
aves the English Churchman free from any obligation to
nchurch other Christians, and therefore he may rest and be
hankful, when others feel bound, by the narrowness of their sect,
› unchurch him. He may do more than rest, he may smile,
hen he finds those who are already tied up so tightly that they
nust unchurch him, crying for a tighter twining of the cords,
nd thinking that with increasing tightness they gain increas-
ng unity. The Church of Christ was catholic when she could
umber only one hundred and thirty adherents in the whole
orld. She will never become more catholic than she was then.
To sect can increase its catholicity by adding millions of igno-
332 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
rant and bigoted people, and calling them Christians. No sect
could do other than make itself more sectarian by adding new
terms of membership, and excluding from its communion all who
will not accept them. Insular narrowness, when the island is
England, would be, at the worst, infinitely more respectable thar
what we have called Pontine-Marsh narrowness. True, the in
sular Church would make itself ridiculous if it tried to faster
itself upon all mankind, and called that catholicity. Still, it
would have a broader base and a nobler code than the municipa
Church of Rome ever had.
Dr. Manning resented, as a sort of rebellion, objection
taken against multiplying terms of membership, and adding nev
conditions of salvation. To him every increase of narrownes
seemed an increase of unity. If there are men in the English
Church sighing in a similar way for bonds and anathema
which, thank God, our island does not forge, they are not the
men inspired by the catholic creed of their own Church, bu
men infected by the municipal creed of the Popes.
Like Dupanloup, Archbishop Manning made an attack and
provoked a retort. He denounced the historical school o
theologians in Germany, and especially in Munich, and wa
pitilessly cut up by Friedrich, in the Literaturblatt. The
Archbishop, like Auguste Comte, had reached a point in the
development of theory when it was necessary that it should
conquer history. Preparatory to the attack on the Catholic
Faculty of Munich, he writes in mother English matter like the
following (p. 10): The day is past for appeals to antiquity. I
Christianity and the Christian Scriptures are to be maintained
in controversy against sceptical criticism, the unbroken, world
wide witness of the Catholic Church must be invoked.'
A number of equally exposed positions are taken up in face
of the Liberal Catholic scholars, and that with all the contemp
which official power often feels for reasoning power :—
'They who, under the pretensions of historical criticism, deny th
witness of the Catholic Church to be the maximum of evidence, even in
Manning's Manifesto.
333
historical sense, likewise ruin the foundation of moral certainty in respect.
to Christianity altogether' (p. 125). 'It is not, therefore, by criticism on
past history, but by acts of faith in the living voice of the Church at this
hour, that we can know the faith' (p. 126). 'No historical certainty
can be called science except only by courtesy. It is time that the pre-
tensions of "historical science" and "scientific historians" be reduced to
their proper sphere and limits. And this the Council will do, not by
contention or anathema, but by the words "It hath seemed good to the
Holy Ghost and to us (id.).
") )
However confused in his ideas of catholicity and of historical
authority the Archbishop had become, the struggle he had done
something to occasion and to exasperate already began to awake
him to the difference between an ordinary addition to the creed
and that change of base which he was moving heaven and earth
to procure:-
'There is a difference, also, between a definition of the infallibility of
the Pope and that of any other Christian doctrine. In the latter case the
authority of the Church may be sufficient to overcome any doubt. In the
former it is this very authority, the principle and foundation of all certainty
in faith, which is in question' (p. 31).
These protentous words tell where Dr. Manning had placed
himself,-in pupilage to a power which, having left the divine
'fountain of all certainty in faith,' was disputing as to what
cistern, of all the cisterns it had hewn out, was the one into
which the true spring overflowed. Where will the dogma be
found to conquer the history made by the Archbishop's own
hand when he wrote those words,-history proving that after
he had been for years flourishing before Anglicans his Papal
Society as affording absolute certainty in faith, he himself
declared her to be in the throes of a combat as to the principle
and fountain of all certainty in faith? Where will a dogma
be found to conquer the history made at the moment when
his Papal Society, in accordance with his wishes, adopted an
unchangeable decree, which, if true, proves that for all the
time of her existence she had not only been fallible but had
ndeed failed, and that right grievously,-failed as to the
loctrine of her head, by withholding from him the recognition
(
334 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
of his attributes and rights? If from the beginning the
Popes were infallible, the Church, which never consented to
recognise them as such till 1870, had up to that year failed
in the doctrine of her head, and failed in opposition to her
head. If they were not from the beginning infallible, she in
1870 failed in the doctrine of her head, and failed in con-
junction with her head. The decree of 1870 fixes her in the
fork, and out of it she cannot wrestle: if the decree was true
she had been in a fault of faith up to that day; if it was not
true, she committed that day a fault in faith.
Archbishop Manning did not fail to hold out once more a
warning to the governments. For some months past the tone
of the Vatican press had been that of men who felt that they
now held the internal peace of many a nation at their mercy:
being able to menace almost any government with serious
unrest, and some with overthrow. The habit of insinuating.
such threats seems to be native to the bad air which Dr.
Newman truly speaks of as hanging around the foot of the
Pope's rock. But the following is too close a copy of those
revolutionary vaticinations for the banks of the Thames:—
1
'The Catholic Church now stands alone, as in the beginning, in it
divine isolation and power. "Be wise now therefore, O ye kings; b
instructed, ye judges of the earth." There is an abyss before you, int
which thrones, and rights, and laws, and liberties may sink together
You have to choose between the Revolution and the Church of God. A
you choose, so will your lot be. The General Council gives to the world
one more witness for the truths, laws, and sanctities which include al
that is pure, noble, just, venerable upon earth. It will be an evil day
for any State in Europe if it engage in conflict with the Church of God
No weapon formed against it ever yet has prospered' (p. 130).
The last words might be enough to account for Cardina
Manning's dislike of history. They flatly contradict it, and i
flatly contradicts them; for by the Church of God is her
meant the Church of the Pope. The weapons which hav
most prospered from the days of the Reformation to this da
1 Letter to the Duke of Norfolk.
Manning's Manifesto.
335
The
are those that have been turned against the Pope.
nations that have most prospered have been those that have
declared him a pretender; and in these nations the reigns
that have been distinguished for prosperity have been the
most decidedly Protestant. England was long ago put to the
choice between the Reformation and the Church of the Pope,
and happily chose the good part, and as she chose, so, ever
blessed be the God of nations, has been our lot. We will
repeat the choice of our fathers, and the lot of our children
shall be better and better. And they will have to pity, even
more than we are called to pity, those who, having rejected
reformation, have placed themselves under a continual terror
and a liability to a periodical outburst of revolution.
The great favour in which France, at this juncture, stood with
the projectors of the future world, is reflected in the sentence
which follows the above threat, and seems to set the lot reserved.
for wise nations that lend their power to the Pope, in contrast
with that of foolish ones that nurse it for good purposes. 'The
attitude of France,' says the Archbishop, 'is wise and de-
liberate, worthy of a great people with the traditions of Catholic
history at its back.' Yet the weapons which France, in the
service of the Pope, had for many years been brandishing in
the face of Italy, and occasionally dyeing in her blood, did not
prosper. In allusion to the fact that France had forbidden the
execution of the disciplinary decrees of the Council of Trent
did not go down
(a fact to which she largely owes it that she
so low as Spain went), and the possibility that she might take
a similar course with regard to those of the Vatican Council,
should they prove unacceptable to her rulers, the Archbishop
says, 'The guardians and defenders of the principles of 1789
ought to rise as one man against all who should violate the
basis of the political society in France.' Then praying that God
might lead the rulers of the kingdoms and nations to a spirit
of wisdom and justice at this crisis of their trial, he says, 'The
Council will assuredly be for the fall and the rising again of many.
336
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
If Christian nations be desolated, then would come the alterna-
tives of anti-Christian Socialism or the Catholic Order of the
world, purified in fire, and reunited to the centre of stability and
justice from which it is now departing.' Thus, there is to be a
tribulation, a fiery purge, a fall and a rising again of many, a
possible desolation of so-called Christian nations; and all these
threats point to the one end of forcing us to choose between
the Catholic Order and anti-Christian Socialism. This language
reflects the substance of many Vatican warnings and forecasts
with regard to the Council and its issues.
Friedrich, in the Literaturblatt (v., p. 164), replied to the
attack on the historical theologians of Munich. He said that the
abuses of the middle ages had crept in through the total neglect
of history. On the other hand, Protestant theology had risen
up and had matured as a strictly historical theology. Baronius
had attempted to win this weapon back to the service of Rome,
and the Munich scholars had followed in his steps. If archives
and original works were to be wrested out of their hands, it
meant nothing more nor less than laying down their arms in
the presence of their antagonists. Friedrich would not allow
the ambiguous expression 'the witness of the Church' to cover
anything more than her infallible utterances.
He said that the Archbishop had a false idea of the way in
which a Council should proceed, because he seemed to think
that the Church might speak without first using all human
means to ascertain the truth. If he thought so, he was under
a delusion of which a careful study of the history of the
Councils might cure him. The statement of Manning, 'I
have already said' that the proofs of Papal infallibility out-
weighed those of the infallibility of the Church without the
Pope, provoked the remark that as the Archbishop had ad-
duced only his own authority, 'I have already said,' we
might still doubt the infallibility of the proofs until he had
produced his credentials as one inspired. Friedrich says that
while blaming others for attempting to influence the Council,
Friedrich's Retort upon Manning.
337
Manning himself tried to impose his authority upon it, in
such a manner that it might be fancied that the Council was
not to utter the words of the Holy Ghost, but those of the
Archbishop of Westminster. Thus he indignantly flings back
in the face of the prelate the assertion that it was an attempt
to interfere with the freedom of the Council when the Theo-
logical Faculty of Munich gave an opinion to the king of the
country in answer to questions put by him. The Archbishop,
he protests, has no title to deprive theologians of their calling,
or of their right to investigate historical evidences or to give
their views, so long as the Church has not spoken.
He reminds the Archbishop that, severe as he is against those
who do not go as far as himself, even he does not go far enough,
for his allies now begin to require people to say, that the Church
may define dogmas without having any support in the Bible
and tradition, and that indeed when nothing but apocryphal
documents are in favour of the definition. And, moreover, that
the authority of a General Council (as distinguished from that
of the Pope) is only human authority. These innovations, says
the sturdy German, we abhor; and then he leaves the English-
man to the care of his Jesuit allies with these words, 'If what
everybody here says' (he writes in Rome) is true, that the
Archbishop, at every opportunity, declares we have only one
school to fear, the historical school, I grant to him and grant
to his allies that they have the light of history to fear.'
With various feelings the bishops now set forth to bear witness
as to the faith of their respective Churches. This was the most
dignified of the professed duties of a bishop in Councils, as they
used to be. It had some show of a foundation so long as the
rule of apostolic' tradition was adhered to. Of course, how-
ever, that became antiquated. So 'ecclesiastical' tradition was
set up side by side with apostolic, as what was so called had
been set up side by side with the Word of God.
Of late, however, the words' Church' and 'Pope' had been
approaching to a confused identification. Ecclesiastical tradi-
VOL. I.
22
338 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
tion had been growing to mean anything to which the Popes
had committed themselves. If the identification of 'Pope' and
'Church' by the multitude was confused, not so with the Curia.
They perfectly understood the difference between identification
from below and from above. They had no idea of the Church
setting up to be Pope, but a great idea of the Pope becoming
the Church. The body, they argued, could not be the head, but
the head, though not the whole body, was surely the commanding
member. Still the form of bearing witness to the faith of their
respective Churches lingered for the bishops-one of the his-
torical traces of old ideas, underlying sandheaps of innovation.
Deschamps went to
Dupanloup went to
the faith in Orleans.
Darboy set out, from his diocese of two millions of souls, to
bear witness that the doctrine of Papal infallibility was not the
faith, and never had been, on the banks of the Seine. Manning
set out to testify that it was the faith and the tradition on the
banks of the Thames. Clifford set out from Clifton to declare
that it was not the faith on the Avon.
prove that it was the faith in Malines.
prove that it was not, and never had been,
Cullen left Dublin to demonstrate that it was, and ever had been,
the true faith of Ireland. MacHale left Connaught, bracing up
his fourscore years, to go and bear witness that it was not the
faith he had learned, no, nor any of his coevals. Spalding em-
barked from Baltimore to testify that it was the ancient faith in
America. Kenrick set forth from St. Louis to protest that this
was the reverse of the truth, and to prove that he had never been
taught it in Maynooth, and even to tell of the first time when the
doctrine was broached within the walls of that college. Rauscher
left Vienna and Schwarzenberg Prague; Haynald left Hungary
and Strossmayer Croatia; Von Scherr left Munich, Melchers
Cologne, and Förster Breslau, to testify that the faith and tradi-
tion of their Churches had not ignored, but had withstood, the
new doctrine. They had to add that the conscience of the people
was so set against it that it was as much as the authority of
the Church was worth to attempt to impose it upon them.
Von
Conflicting Tradition of Bishops.
6
339
Ketteler left Mainz to testify loudly, but with so uncertain a
sound that no ordinary man could know what was piped or
harped.'
On the other hand, the bishops of Spain, Italy, and South
America almost unanimously sallied forth to testify that in their
Churches the new dogma was an old doctrine.
Their testimony was reinforced by some from more ancient
sees. Hassun set out from New Rome, as the Orientals call
Constantinople, to bear witness, as Patriarch of Cilicia, that the
City of Paul, and the Churches planted by him, had always held
the faith and tradition of Papal infallibility. Valerga turned his
back on the Mount of Olives, on Sion, and on Bethlehem, to
give evidence, in the sight of God and man, that the Church of
Jerusalem had always held the faith, and conserved the tra-
dition, that the Roman Pontiff was infallible and his decrees
irreformable.
Darboy, in his farewell pastoral, said to the Catholics of
Paris, 'In these matters, bishops are witnesses who prove, not
authors who invent.'
Had the contest lain between these two forces, the weight of
talent, character, and supporting Churches would have decided
it in favour of the status quo. But bishops sailed from Jaffna in
Ceylon, and Jaro in the Philippines, from India, China, and
Siam, from Swan River and New Caledonia, to swamp with
their traditions those of bishops from Churches which might
pretend to have a tradition. The fact that theirs could not set
up any such claim was one objection urged against their votes,
another being that they were dependent on the Propaganda.
With these came also a number of Oriental bishops, in the same
financial position, of whom Vitelleschi says that they brought
the finest wardrobes and the steadiest votes. In aid of these a
thick growth of bishops in partibus sprang out of the well-
warmed conserves of Court patronage.
Roughly stated, the result was, that out of Italy and Spain
old and educated Churches, when represented by prelates
340 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
trained in their own bosom, generally declared in opposition to
the new dogma. Where they did otherwise, they were often
represented by prelates trained in Rome, and, like Cullen and
Manning, specially selected to imbue the National Church with
the municipal theology of Rome, and, in case of need, to impose
it upon the clergy. Those from really ancient cities, like
Jerusalem, who supported the Curia, were dependents of the
Propaganda. With these came the occupants of sees created by
Pius IX., most of which, from Westminster to Oceania, were
represented by witnesses in favour of infallibility.
Many of the bishops had for travelling companion a small
pamphlet. It was called Considerations (Erwägungen), and put
the case against Papal infallibility in a form and compass seldom
equalled, in any composition, for clearness, depth, fulness, and
compression. It was no secret that the author was Döllinger,
but he had not chosen to put his name on the title.
In this manner was prepared for the world a drama of many
scenes, which has left permanently in the eye of history four
great spectacles :-(1) How an ancient aristocracy, claiming
to be the senate of humanity, was made the instrument of
destroying its own legislative rights; (2) How masters of
ceremony, habituated to employ it for both political and religious
ends, were made its victims, ceremony being brought into
operation to carry away surreptitiously their constitutional
forms, and with them their legal privileges; (3) How they
who had declared 'ecclesiastical' tradition to be as good a
foundation for doctrine as the Word of God, went through the
process of building on the sand; (4) How a Head of the
human species, a King of kings and Lord of lords, was erected
by priests, and humiliated by Providence.
Diplomatic Fencing.
341
CHAPTER XI.
Diplomatic Feeling and Fencing in Rome, November 1869-Cross Policies on
Separation of Church and State-Ollivier, Favre, De Banneville-Doctrines
of French Statesmen ridiculed at Rome-Specimens of the Utterances
approved at Court-Forecasts of War between France and Prussia-
Growing Strength of the Movement in France for Universities Canonically
Instituted.
THOSE who arrived in the autumn months in Rome, perhaps
with the hope of preventing the dreaded proposals from
being brought forward, or with the intention, if they could not
succeed in that, of organising an opposition to them, found to
their surprise that the tone of the Curia was very gentle. The
Cardinals and Monsignori, for their part, really did not care
about infallibility. Indeed, the subject might have been passed
over in silence had not such false rumours as to the designs of
Rome been set afloat. Lord Acton names Cardinals Antonelli,
Berardi, and De Luca, and also Bishop Fessler, the Secretary of
the Council, as declaring that the utterances of the Civiltú were
not to be relied upon, and that if the idea of proposing infallibility
had been entertained, it was given up. He also quotes a letter
written home by a bishop, afterwards known among the Opposi-
tion, saying that there was no ground for the idea that in Rome
they meant to make infallibility a dogma. That seemed to be
an imagination, spread abroad with no good design. Still, after
the agitation which had taken place the Council could hardly
pass the matter over in silence. The Holy See would not curb
the zeal of the bishops if they resolved to give effect to their
persuasion, but would not itself take the initiative. But if
anything was done, it would be some moderate measure, that
would satisfy all, and give no pretext of a party triumph.
Lord Acton further says, what is confirmed from many quar-
ters, that Cardinal Antonelli feared that the Pope was about to
bring upon himself difficulties similar to those which beset the
earlier years of his pontificate. Some treat Antonelli's apparent
coldness as a ruse. But, Englishmanlike, Lord Acton takes the
342 The Fope, the Kings, and the People.
hypothesis that requires least dissimulation, crediting the fore-
sight of Antonelli with real apprehensions.
Lord Acton also states that the Pope himself requested the
diplomatic corps to help him to allay the excitement in Germany.
He said to one ambassador, 'The Civiltá does not speak in my
name.' To another he said that 'his approval would never be
the
given to a proposition which would sow discord among
bishops.' To a third his words were, 'You come to witness a
scene of peace-making.' More than once, when addressing a
group of bishops, did the Pope express himself to the effect that
he would not do anything which could, by any means, raise
contentions among them, and that he would be content with a
declaration fixing a proper standard on the question of tolerance
and freedom of conscience. He certainly wished Catholicism in
England and Russia to enjoy the benefit of toleration, but the
principle must be rejected by a Church which had to maintain
the doctrine that salvation was to be found in her alone.
Lord Acton expresses a belief that there might have been
some idea of finding a substitute for infallibility in the suppres-
sion of freedom of faith and conscience; with the expectation
that the most prominent hindrance to the new dogma would be
removed so soon as the Inquisition should be recognised as
having one and the same legal position with Catholicism itself.
He thinks that a great step in that direction would have been
taken if the proposition of the Syllabus had been confirmed
which condemns the assertion that the Pontiffs and Councils had
ever transgressed the bounds of their power, or usurped the
rights of princes. As to usurping the rights of princes, a writer
like Lord Acton is at a disadvantage, compared with one like
Professor Ceccucci, who wrote the history of General Councils,
for the voluminous work of Frond. Ceccucci settles the point
with an ease of which Lord Acton has no idea. The Church
'never did usurp political power; that possessed by her has
always been the most legitimate on earth' (Frond, vol. iv.,
p. 358).
De Banneville and the Pope.
343
But one point stated by Lord Acton is that infallibility had
been looked upon as a means to an end; and this is the kernel
of the matter. Just as, logically, the doctrine of infallible
judgment was developed out of that of unlimited power, so,
practically, unlimited power must be exercised by an infallible
judge. Admit that God has given all power upon earth to
one man, and surely you will not deny that, in mercy to His
creatures, He will make that man infallible. Admit, on the
other hand, that the judgment which bids the secular arm
smite this and shield that is infallible, and surely you will
own that the secular arm should obey. Liberal Catholics
were, not unnaturally, incensed at the writing in the Civiltá
at a moment when those in power might have been expected to
set an example of moderation. The Freemasons were told that
the reason why they dreaded the Council was that they would
be condemned, and that no respectable persons would join them
after that. And the Liberal Catholics were told that their reasons
for dreading the Council were much the same. They professed
similar principles with those of the Masons, which were some-
times called Principles of '89, sometimes Principles of Modern
Society, or Toleration, or Liberty of Conscience and the Press,
or Modern Constitutions, or the Rights of Science, or the Boons
of Progress, or Liberalism. No wonder that men who had
championed the Church of Rome as the Catholic Church, should
tremble when they saw her sinking into a sect so straight as to
put all these principles under ban (Civiltá, VII., viii., p. 285).
On the 9th of November the Pope received the Marquis de
Banneville, newly returned to his post as ambassador of France.
After many signs of vacillation, the Emperor had finally
decided not to ask for the admission of an ambassador. This
policy met the views both of the Papal party and of those who
desired the entire separation of the Church and the State. The
latter had adopted the notion that they took a step towards
separation by leaving the Church, while still an establishment of
the State, to legislate for the nation over the head of the State.
344 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
As early as July 10th, 1868, M. Emile Ollivier, in the Corps
Législatif, dwelling on the fact that the Pope, in his Bull, did
not name the Emperor, and that he held all those addressed in
it bound by it simply through its being posted up in Rome,
said: It is declared that, by the simple fact of its being issued
in Rome, every bishop in France is bound and must betake
himself to Rome, on pain of disobedience. The Emperor or the
civil power is not thought of. It is the gravest act accom-
plished since 1789. It is the separation of Church and State,
proclaimed, for the first time, by the Pope himself.
\
A joke of M. Pelletan contained a real answer-All the
better, he renounces the budget.' No, the Pope never did re-
nounce the budget; and M. Ollivier's inference was hasty. What
was signified was, not the separation of the Church from the
State, but, as Montalembert, who had studied the subject, said,
the absorption of the State in the Church. The ordinary ground
alleged by Vatican writers for no longer paying attention to
governments was, that the modern State had separated itself
from the Church. Of course it was not meant that it had dis-
established the Church, but that it had withdrawn legislation
and executive action from under the supremacy of the Pope.
M. Veuillot said: 'Three orators spoke-M. Guérolt, M. Ollivier,
and M. Baroche, who replied. The first is not a Christian, the
second is not a Catholic, the third is Minister of Worship. All
three are good Gallicans' (vol. i., p. lxxii.). In M. Ollivier,
Veuillot evidently recognises his man; we do not mean his con-
scious, but his effectual, ally, for the Ultramontanes habitually
find their best helpers in those who, proudly rejecting their ends,
consent to employ their means. He speaks of the greatest fact
of the age as lying in the substitution of the 'indifferent' State
for the Catholic one. The 'indifferent' State recognises all re-
ligions and prefers none, and this constitutes 'the rupture of the
necessary union of Church and State.' It will be remembered
that France was not 'indifferent,' but 'Paritarian,' i.e., it re-
cognised four Churches, and paid them all, and of course preferred
Loose Ideas of French Statesmen.
345
those before all others by paying them, and among the four it
preferred Romanism before the other three by many and great
privileges. But the State, as such, had ceased to be 'Catholic.'
M. Veuillot does not fail to tell statesmen and journalists that
the faith of the Church will conquer them both. It will
dominate journals, parliaments, and armies, will raise up great
men and martyrs, and will make history (vol. i., p. lxxxi.).
He did not fail to hint repeatedly at the coming travail of all
mankind, of which he spoke with so much feeling on the first
announcement of the Council.
One of his hints was, Should God by the act of the Council
'add some greater splendour to the power of His Vicar, it will
be because circumstances are approaching in which it will be
necessary to obey more fully, more quickly, and from further
away.'1
On April 9th, 1869, Ollivier again raised the subject, pro-
testing that the abstention of the government from the Council
amounted to an abrogation of the organic articles of the Con-
cordat. Jules Favre said that it was the separation of Church
and State, and as such he gratefully accepted it. These con-
sequences were denied by the minister M. Baroche, who asserted,
'After the Council, the rights of France will remain entire.'
(
This boast passed in France, but not so at the Vatican. The
Unità Cattolica for April 14th showed that the usual ambiguity
of the Bonaparte policy marked the replies of the ministers on
this critical occasion. The bishops were to go to the Council with
'their conscience in full liberty,' and yet after the Council the
rights of France were to remain entire.' 'What,' asks the Unitá,
'does that mean? Does France want to be free either to be-
lieve or to oppose what the Council will define? After having
permitted her bishops to take part in an assembly which every
Catholic must believe to be infallible, does Napoleon III. mean
to hold himself free to prosecute them if they preach the doc-
1 Vol. ii., p. cix.
346
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
trines defined, and enforce the discipline enjoined by the
Council?
This straightforward question shows that M. Picard hit
nearer to the point than either Ollivier or Favre; for he cried,
'It means a Church free in a State not free.' Even that is not
quite the truth; which strictly is, A State not free in a Church
which is free; for the State is part, and the Church whole; or,
to recall the image from the early pages of the Civiltá, the State
is the leg and the Church the man. We have seen it roundly
asserted by the Civiltá that the Church free means canon law
free. That being so, for any man to speak of the State being
free, in any modern sense, is trifling. In its expositions of the
Syllabus the Civiltá had laid down the true doctrine as follows:-
The first condition of an efficient alliance of the laws of the State
with the laws of the Church, is the application in every case
wherein spiritual penalties are insufficient of the means of coercion
whereof the State disposes. The voice of the pastor has not
always efficacy sufficient to drive away the rapacious wolves
from the fold of Christ. Therefore does it appertain to the
prince invested with the authority of the sword, to arm himself
with its force, in order to repel and put to flight all the enemies
of the Church (VI., ü., 137). Refusing to stand in this position
ii.,
is, in the esoteric sense, separating the State from the Church.
To a conscientious Ultramontane it is as absurd to say that a
State in this manner subject to the Church is not free, as it
would be to say that a body ruled by its informing mind is
not free. That is the figure of speech which recurs at every
turn of discourse on the subject.
After it had been determined to ratify the policy censured by
Picard, De Banneville had his interview. Most writers describe
him as a willing tool of the Curia, and as doing all he could
to lead France in the way which it might trace out for her.
Lord Acton regards him as honestly hoping to compose a
difference between the Italian and German schools of theology,
1 Friedberg, pp. 93, 94.
The Pope mystifies De Banneville.
2
347
by the moderating weight of French influence.¹ Banneville's
despatch, on the occasion now in question, would rather seem to
countenance the former opinion than the latter. But the Pope
in the interview did not say a word indicating his personal
opinion as to the questions to be decided. He did, however,
say that all must be left to the wisdom of the Fathers, as if all
had not been prepared, and doubly prepared. He further said
that the rash conjectures of hasty spirits-in manifest allusion
to the Civiltá—were to be regretted, as also the premature
discussion of questions which would have been better reserved
to the Council itself.
It is not probable that this deceived M. de Banneville as to
the past, for he well knew how the Pope had encouraged the
'premature discussions ;' but he might take it as the covering of
a retreat from a position found to be too advanced. But a wary
man might have felt that perhaps the retreat was only a feint.
What, asked M. Veuillot, would M. Baroche do at the Council
as ambassador? Not belonging (as minister) to any Christian
communion, he does not represent any. And as to the members
of the Council, what is the French State to them? If he pro-
duced his French ideas on matters of religion, the Fathers would
reply with one word-Anathema. The 'indifferent' govern-
ments of our day have but one duty in respect to the Council-
not to put hindrances in its way.3
Had two governments, those of France and Italy, taken
M. Veuillot at his word, and said, All we shall do is not to put
hindrances in the way, France would have withdrawn her troops
from the Papal States, Italy would have said, We sit still, and
the 'revolution' in earnest would soon have been afoot, and
not far from the walls of Rome.
The despatch of M. de Banneville shows that Pius IX., like
1 Zur Geschichte.
2 Friedberg, p. 330.
• Here Veuillot treats France as if it was 'indifferent,' but apparently uses the
term in a popular, not a strict sense. America is 'indifferent,' France is
only 'Paritarian' (vol. i., p. xcvii, f.).
348
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
every Italian, knows how to keep his own counsel. Even his
renowned saying, I am tradition-La tradizione son io-is no
more than what M. Veuillot had said in proving that the Pope
could not be an innovator- Peter can no more be an innovator
than the Holy Spirit, which reveals tradition to him.'1
The tranquillity of the Curia on this occasion was that of
perfected preparation. The dissimulation would not provoke a
remark from a Roman. The effect of both was to prevent the
anti-infallibilists from organising any opposition.
Meanwhile the 'good press' was preparing the world for events.
Bishops who, in their pastorals, boldly advocated infallibility,
were at the Metropolis marked for praise. The Liberal Catholics
were remorselessly written down. The assumption of the Virgin
was frequently mentioned as having being taught in speeches
or pastorals. Any sign of crusading zeal for his Holiness was
celebrated. For instance, in Belgium, at a festival of a college
in Mons, in presence of the nuncio, it was told how forty of
the youths executed military movements in the uniform of
zouaves, raising cries of ' Piux IX. for ever!' 'To Rome!' Gifts
of different kinds, but specially those sent in money, were
registered and applauded.
Much attention was attracted by the announcement of a
formal call issued by the Academia Romana, of the Immacolata,
to professors, men of science, and men of letters generally.
The object was declared to be that of obtaining a homage of
the intellect and a submission of science to the Church. It was
necessary in our day that a formal protest should be made, to
the effect that the sciences are subject to her as the supreme
teacher. The adhesion of the savants was not to be merely
internal. Ornamental cards were issued on which each ad-
herent was to enter his name, with his degree or titles, under
the printed words Tribute of adhesion and obedience to the
Vatican Council. The signer was, moreover, to state what
1 Vol. i., p. cxxi.
Costly Gifts to the Pope.
349
pecuniary contribution he would give. It was announced that
all these cards would be presented to the Holy Father.¹
Some examples of the points kept before readers arriving
at the Holy City at this particular time may be of permanent
interest. The Canadian Bishop of St. Hyacinthe was quoted as
writing, 'Sublime assembly, in which the eye of faith contem-
plates with wonder, poor and simple mortals who, sitting as
judges, do not hesitate to impose the responsibility of their de-
cisions and judgments on the Holy Spirit, because they know
and believe that they form together with Him one tribunal.'
The emphases are given as we find them.²
A Latin pamphlet on the crisis, by a layman, was ridiculed,
and one point, which seemed most comical to the reviewer, was
that the author proposed two such queer anathemas; first if
any one offends against charity, let him be anathema; secondly,
if any one begins war, let him be anathema.
The Archbishop of Lima, being ninety-four years of age, was
unable to come in person, but sent his pastoral staff as a
present to the Pope. It was of pure Peruvian gold, and of
the value of two thousand pounds.
(
From the thrice-blessed Republic of Ecuador came the Arch-
bishop of Quito, presenting a chalice of gold, rich with precious
pearls. He bore valuable gifts in addition. That illustrious
Catholic,' the President, Garcia Moreno, had, on a public
occasion, been presenting prizes to students, when they joyfully
laid down their medals to send them as an offering to the Holy
Father. On seeing this, the President took from his breast a
medal of rare value, all studded with gems, which had been
presented to him by the government for distinguished services
to the country. This he added to the tribute of the youths, and
the Archbishop had the joy of laying the united oblation at the
feet of the Pontiff.3
¹ Civiltà, VII., vii., p. 356.
2 Civiltá, VII., viii., 335.
Under Moreno, Ecuador attained the distinction of being often mentioned,
with solemn commendation, as the one and the only Catholic State in the
world; the one in which the principles of the Syllabus were applied.
350 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
From Venezuela the Archbishop brought more than three
thousand pounds in money. His people had also laden him
with their valuables, ladies having taken off earrings, bracelets,
necklaces, and rings to send, as tokens of their devotion to the
impoverished Pope.
Had our English journalists devoutly pondered the elaborate
description given at this cheerful juncture of a bell designed
by a priest, and presented for the use of the Presidents in the
Council, they would not have wasted so much criticism as they
did on the rhetoric of a speech reported in the Daily News, in
1875, as having been made by the Pope, censuring Mr. Glad-
stone. His Holiness spoke of that gentleman as a viper attacking
the bark of St. Peter, or something of that sort. Now the bell
in question was described as being symbolic, within and without.
The clapper of it was the ship of Peter, round the hull of which
was coiled a serpent attempting to board the vessel, but it was
finally precipitated with its head down, and the three-forked
tongue shooting out.
The doubt of our men of letters as to whether the Pope could
use a metaphor describing a snake attacking a bark, illustrates,
in general, what Cardinal Manning said of those gentlemen on
the particular occasion of the Council:-'When English Pro-
testants undertake to write of an Ecumenical Council of the
Catholic Church, nothing less than a miracle can preserve them
from making themselves ridiculous." It would require a miracle
to prevent any one from making himself ridiculous who should
criticise the Speeches of Pius IX., assuming that his metaphors
must have been subject to some rule.2
1 Priv. Pet., iii., p. 3.
2 Civiltá, VII., viii., 490. The inscription on the bell in question is as
follows:
'Invocata-Immaculata
Pius Nonus-Pastor bonus
Per Concilium-Fert auxilium.
Mundus crebris-tot tenebris
Implicatus-obcœcatus
Per hoc Numen-et hoc Lumen
Extricatur-illustratur.'
New Meaning of the Word of God.
351
We find the revolution called by the Civiltà 'the executioner
of the Church;' and it is said that the Pontiff in his distress is
' rendered more and more like Christ upon the Cross, whom he
represents, and with whom he can repeat, "My God, my God,
why hast Thou forsaken me? (Id., p. 514.)
>>>
The Word of God is shown to be the source of human
redemption, and then the following applications are made of
this principle: ¹—
1
'The State indeed must be civilised and modernised by separating it
from the living Word in the Church, that it may die. . . The laws must
be civilised and modernised by putting them in opposition to the laws of
the Word, that they may be laws of death. Some would wish the
Word to reconcile Himself with Satan. Schools must be civilised
and modernised by separating them from the schools of the Word, that
they may be schools of death. Wedlock must be civilised and modernised
by separating it from the consecration of the Word, that it may be the
wedlock of death. Public speech must be modernised and civilised by
separating it from the influence of the Word, that it may be the speech
of death. Everything, in fine, must perish, since everything must be
secularised, or torn away from that God who upholdeth all things by the
Word of His power.
The modern revolution, inspired by Satan, would
find that all its weapons directed against the Vatican were destined to
have no other effect than that of multiplying the victories of the Word of
God, who reigns there in the humble person of His Vicar' (p. 522-526).
The certain success of the Council, it was foretold, would
result in that restoration of order, first in ideas, next in facts,
which was the end aimed at by the Holy Father in calling it.
This reminds us that almost the same language was used at the
time of the publication of the Syllabus, in describing what its
effects would be,-first, the silent restoration of order in ideas,
and then restoration in facts. A prelate honoured with notice
was the Bishop of Le Mans, who was quoted as saying that
perhaps among the doctrines which the Church would define
would be that of the Assumption of the Virgin. He imme-
diately afterwards assured his flock that in no case would the
¹ The term verbo is employed, which in Italian has about the same effect as
logos would have in English writing.
352
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
Church invent doctrines, but she would only define those which
have always formed part of her creed (p. 599).
6
In the chaos now formed, according to the bishops, by society,
the newspapers would appear to be the roaring winds, smiting
all things and rooting up not only ancient trees but even the
sacred groves which used to cast an inviolable shade over the
shrine of an oracle. Lies, calumnies, and outrages of every
sort,' were charged against them by the Bishop of Laval, while
his brother of Galtelli-Nuovo declared that society was a com-
plete intellectual, moral, civil, and social anarchy. God only,
said the Bishop, could save society, and He would save it by
the Council.
Bishop Mermillod, at Geneva, was quoted as saying that
God had displayed clemency to the age by giving it the remedy
of the Council. Speaking as he did to a Swiss audience, he
describes the evil of our time in rejecting the supernatural
order, not as withdrawing society from under the authority of
the Church, which is the most frequent terminology in Rome,
but as withdrawing it from under the authority of Christ. Of
course to a conscientious Ultramontane, this comes to the same
thing, for 'Christ living, reigning, and teaching His Church in
Peter,' exercises His authority through 'the living Christ,' as
the editor of the Pope's Speeches calls him; but the sound of
the two words in Geneva would be different.
In a work of a French professor, Allemand, which is greatly
praised, a portion selected for quotation is that which shows
that our Lord's words, 'My kingdom is not of this world,' mean,
It did not originate from the earth :—
'If the Church is queen, her visible head is king. . . . The Pope is
the least imperfect image of the Father who is in heaven. Therefore
has this viceroy of souls been invested with infallibility. He sends the
bishops as Christ sent the Apostles, and as the Father sent the Son'
(p. 602).
This curious passage seems to ground the infallibility of the
Pope on the basis of his personal holiness. This is not, as yet,
•
Vain Solicitude.
353
any part of Papal doctrine. But the selection of it at the
Vatican for quotation, while it may be without any deliberate
intention, would almost seem to favour the idea that such a
notion is not unacceptable.
6
We find Pius IX. hailed with the title 'The Pope of Prodigies.'
The Court, if we may judge by its organs, was deeply affected
at the want of faith displayed by many Catholics, who ex-
pressed fears lest the Council should define anything that it
ought not to define. Did they not know that the Holy Ghost
would preserve it unerring? Why then all this solicitude?
Could they not trust a body so guided to go right, without their
advices and warnings? They treated it as an ordinary human
assembly.' This sounded like mockery to those who had any
idea of how much Rome had done in employing art and man's
device to prevent the Council from going wrong and to forestall
all possible impulses in any direction not predetermined. Had
they only known of the long labour and the jealous precautions
which we shall see gradually coming to light, the retorts they
did make would have been much more indignant.
CHAPTER XII.
Mustering, and Preparatory Stimuli - Pope's Hospitality — Alleged Political
Intent-Friedrich's First Notes The Nations cited to Judgment—New
War of the Rosary.-Tarquini's Doctrine of the Sword-A New Guardian
of the Capitol-November and December, 1869.
WHILE the chiefs of the Curia and the leading prelates
WHILE
were testing their diplomatic skill, and the former were,
on that field, meekly winning the prizes, the rank and file of
the hierarchy were flocking in from all the winds of heaven.
The Roman nobles in many cases gave up their palaces to the
Fathers of the Council. With his habitual personal liberality,
the Pope freely offered hospitality to all who would accept it.
23
VOL. I.
354
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
This simple act, natural to his station, and still more to his
disposition, was smiled at as a good bid for votes. About
three hundred bishops made themselves, in whole or in part,
dependent for their daily expenses on the bounty of the man
upon whose exaltation they were to decide. The Civiltá, as
if to emphasise their dependence, told how they were lodged,
supported, and assisted by him in all the necessaries of life.
Hence the mocking name of 'the Pope's boarders,' which
greeted any manifestations of opinion on their part. The
Civiltà again speaks of Pius IX. as having in this case become
the treasurer and dispenser of the temporal charity of the
faithful; a proud position for him, but not flattering language
for his venerable brethren whose votes were in question, This
mention of his charity leads the Civiltá to say that, for the last
ten years, the annual average of his income from the offerings of
the faithful had amounted to four hundred thousand pounds.¹
It is said that his expenses for the entertainment of the
bishops amounted to one hundred pounds per day.
A case of history repeating itself is suggested by these
allegations as to the diplomatic value of the Pope's hospi-
tality. Dr. Karl Benrath has restored to his place among
Italian worthies one of the most picturesque figures of the
many-hued life of that nation in the sixteenth century. This
was Frà Bernardino Ochino, the all-eloquent General of the
Capuchins, whom the blot of the Inquisition had covered from
the common eye for three centuries. Ochino, who became a
guest of Cranmer and a prebendary of Canterbury, wrote on
the banks of the Thames, among other works, one called 'The
Tragedy.' Conceiving of the Papacy exactly as all modern
Italian Protestants do, as the anti-Christ, and the master-
piece of Satan, he traces the rise of this dread power. Besides
supernatural sources of ascendancy, he alleges the fact that in
early ages the Bishops of Rome entertained bishops out of the
provinces when they fled to the capital from persecution, or
''Cento milioni di lire in dieci anni.'-Serie VII., vol. ix., p. 15.
The Pope's Boarders.
355
came from other causes, and thus the Roman prelates acquired
great influence over the others. Their object then was 'Pri-
macy,' out of which infallibility was in our day to come. Ochino
puts into the mouth of the secretary to the Emperor, after he
has discovered the Pope's yearnings, the following words: “O
Lord God, that there can be so much ambition in the heart
of a man! it is no marvel that he entertains in so friendly
a manner all strangers who come to Rome.'
Besides bishops came a mixed multitude-the devout
Catholic, the keen politician, the commonplace tourist from
every country, the gay sightseer, the American politician,
the artist, the charlatan, the Indian civilian on furlough, and
the learned official theologian. Few, but intent, came a new
class of spectators-Italian Protestants, watching with eyes as
open to all priestly arts as men of the sixteenth century, but
with a readiness to affiliate each part of a Roman show on its
Pagan original, much beyond what was even then common
among our countrymen.
The Count Henri de Riancey, beholding the hierarchy
pressing to the sacred walls, exclaims :-
'Open then thy gates, metropolis of the world; open thine everlasting
gates, that the Queen of glory may come in! And who is this Queen
of glory? It is the Church. Make way, then, for the angels of the
•
Churches, spoken of by St. John. Make way for the divine hierarchy,
the ranks of which are moving, with order, force, and holiness, terrible as
an army with banners' (Frond, vol. i., p. 9).
One of the theologians has published a diary (Tagebuch),
which will always remain one of the original sources of in-
formation on the Council. Its accuracy, like that of the
Letters of Quirinus, has been assailed, and with not dissimilar
result. Strong general assertions and weak proof, except on
such minor points as show that the substance is unassailable,
leave its accuracy but slightly impeached, and its truthfulness
not at all discredited. The author states things which, by
our standard, would be held private; but however that may
C
356
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
be by the standard of his own country, the things, when once
published, take their place among the materials of history.
Dr. Friedrich, a professor of Munich, was appointed theo-
logian for the Council to Cardinal Hohenlohe. He began his
diary before leaving home. He found that it was vain to seek
in the palace of Archbishop Von Scherr for such works in the
original as a set of the Fathers, or a collection of the Acts of
the Councils. The Reverend Secretary said, 'You know little
of bishops if you think that those people study anything'. This
gentleman, who was to be the Archbishop's theologian at the
Council, himself read only pamphlets. When Friedrich was
on the railway platform, observing the two Archbishops of
Munich and Bamberg taking their departure for the Council,
the confidential servant of the latter came up to the Professor
and said, You are not surely coming to Rome as a spy?'
Answering not the man but the master, he replied, 'Let
bishops take care that they do not betray the Church, for just
as they are bound to speak to the best of their knowledge
and conscience, so am I as a theologian.'
Thus Friedrich evidently expected to have to speak, as it
would seem that Newman also did. He did not know how
the secret plans had put aside all such possibilities. But, if
surprises awaited him as to the new part reserved for the
doctors, there were surprises for the bishops also.
Friedrich remarked that, as he travelled farther south, less
and less respect was shown to the clergy, till in Italy the
difference, as compared with. Germany, became painful. At
Trent, a scholar warned him to beware of poison, and said
that it was well that Döllinger had not gone to Rome, as he
would never have returned. The same gentleman said that
the wealth of the Jesuits enabled them to buy Italian states-
men, and named one of the successors of Cavour as having
been purchased. The theologian, full of the lore of Munich,
standing in the quaint Alpine city, on the Adige, with the
image in his mind of the doctors who, three hundred years
Professor Friedrich.
357
ago, there disputed before the bishops and before the world,
would naturally form an exalted idea of the work awaiting
him in the grander assembly on the banks of the Tiber. The
elegant but small church of St. Maria Maggiore would swell,
in his anticipation, into St. Peter's; the listening prelates to a
threefold or fourfold array; the doctors, the Sotos and Catarinos,
whose dialectics are commemorated by Paolo Sarpi, would be
represented by men of several schools. The struggle itself was
to be much more concentrated, turning on one vital point. It
was not now merely a question as to what was to be taught,
but as to who was the divine teacher. It was not a dispute
about one doctrine or more, but about the very fountain of
doctrine. Then it was not any question between the Church
and her enemies, but one between the Church and her head.
It was to be decided whether or not she had existed all these
years without confessing what a head she had. It was to be
decided whether the oracle was the whole Church, or the Pope.
without the Church. The dispute was awkward. Raising it
showed Protestants that Rome, while claiming infallibility,
had not yet settled where it lay.
Doubtless the Doctor would brace himself up for the battle
by the memories of Trent, little knowing that the Curia had
taken care that the bishops should not be agitated by Church
historians, like him. Still less did he suspect that the very
day when he was quietly leaving Trent, the bishops were in
the Sixtine Chapel gazing with dazzled eyes on a new and
bewitching 'function,' under cover of which the self-organising
powers of a General Council, and the traditionary rights of
the hierarchy in maintaining those powers, were being, with
incomparable sleight of hand, conveyed out of view, to re-
appear no more.
After a narrow escape of being murdered on the railway
near Terni, Friedrich reached the Holy City. Such was the
throng, already, that he had to pay ten francs for the use of a
room for a while in the afternoon, before going to his home in
358
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
the Palazzo Valentini with Cardinal Hohenlohe. That palace
stands in the Piazza of the Twelve Apostles, full of reminis-
cences of days when Alberich and his descendants ruled the
city, and held the Popes, sometimes in prison, but always in
subjection to the chiefs springing from Theodora and Marozia.
On the 28th of November, a discourse was delivered in St.
Peter's, by Father Raimondo Bianchi, Procurator-General of
the Dominicans, which was thought sufficiently important to
be printed with the Freiburg edition of the Acta (p. 130). If
good preaching lies in saying much and suggesting more, in
the least time, this sermon is perfection; for it occupies less
than four octavo pages. We give a brief outline of it. A note
which we have already heard delicately touched by Arch-
bishop Manning, a note at that time as often sounded as any
in the episcopal scale, was given forth with full power-‘Be
wise, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth.'
The most imposing view of Christ in the eyes of the faithful, says
Father Bianchi, is that which unites His humiliation in the manger with
His glories and terrors as a Judge. It is precisely of this view that a re-
presentation is now about to be offered in His body, the Church. Amid
wars assailing her, amid fears among men of little faith, amid mockings of
the wicked, by whom she is treated as dying, if not dead, will the Church
arise to judgment, with her youth renewed as the eagle's, clothed with
glory and majesty, and filled with the Holy Ghost; while Peter, in Thee,
Most Blessed Father, the angels of all the Churches attending him, will
judge the whole earth in truth and righteousness. . . . When God sent
His Son into the world, He committed to Him all judgment and power.
So Christ, founding His Church upon a rock, gave to her all judgment
and all power, which He had received from the Father, that all men
should honour her, even as they honour Him by whom she was built.
He who sits on the right hand of the Father, has made her queen on His
throne. What she looses He does not bind, and what she binds He does
not loose; for her judgments are ratified in heaven. Now the day of the
great judgment draws nigh, and all men will behold the Church, the
spouse of Christ, leaning on her beloved, glorious in humility, mighty in
meekness, thrice faithful in guarding her treasure of truth, and even the
unwilling wicked will be compelled to confess her divine. The signs of
judgment appear, as they will at the judgment of Christ-commotion in
heaven and earth; some exulting because redemption draws nigh, some
shrivelled up with fear; hell raging and trembling. 'Behold, I shake the
A Significant Sermon.
359
heaven and the earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake the
nations also.' . . . The judgment is set, and the nations will behold the
Vicar of Christ in great power and majesty, and with him the angels of al
the Churches, who will judge the nations in truth; they, the Holy Spirit
inspiring, will judge, and with His fan in their hands will they throughly
purge their floor, separating the wheat from the chaff, and, once more
uttering words first uttered in Jerusalem, will they say, It seemed good
to the Holy Ghost and to us. They will encourage the good, reclaim the
erring, coerce and condemn the heretic. They will judge and will restore
the Christian and civil commonwealth, and renew the ancient beauty and
honour of the spouse of Christ. They will judge, and their judgment will
be ratified in heaven, and will endure for ever, an eternal monument of
the divinity of the Church, against which the kings and the princes
set themselves, and the people imagine a vain thing. . . . Rejoice, O
heavens, and be glad, O earth, because our Church comes to judgment.
And you, Fathers, the lights and stars of the Church, sing praises, and
bless Him who, being appointed Judge of the quick and dead, hath set
up you also in His house, committing all judgment to you.'
Father Bianchi would seem to have been more deeply im-
bued with the spirit of the movement than initiated into the
plans of the Curia. He fully comprehended the purpose of
changing fulminating words into solid thunderbolts, destined
to smite not individuals but nations; but he did not seem to
comprehend the means. The Tridentine episcopal doctrine
and the true Papal doctrine jostled against one another in his
discourse, as they had long done in the Church. The Council
that filled his imagination was the historical one, a Council
framing its own decrees, and speaking in its own name. He,
too, had been, not inside but outside the door of the Secret
Council, and knew not how far it was from the intentions of
'Peter, in Thee, Most Blessed Father,' to grant the old attri-
butes to the so-called General Council.
1
Such language as the above, on such an occasion, in such a
¹ Bryce (p. 177) quotes from the second excommunication of Henry IV. by
Hildebrand as follows: Come now, I beseech you, O most holy and blessed
Fathers and Princes, Peter and Paul, that all the world may understand and
know that if ye are able to bind and to loose in heaven, ye are likewise able on
earth, according to the merits of each man, to give and to take away empires,
kingdoms, princedoms, marquisates, duchies, countships, and the possessions of
all men.'-Holy Roman Empire.
360 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
presence,-language, too, reproduced in a collection of the con-
stitutional and judicial acts of the Church,—would call for
reflection, no matter from whom it fell. Coming from a high
officer of the order identified with the history of the In-
quisition, it did not lose any of its suggestiveness. As one
looks at it and into it, with the image of the black and white
Dominican in one's eye, it resistlessly calls up the memory of
the famous picture in Santa Maria Novella in Florence. There
Emperor and Pope sit side by side, their respective officers
around them, and the faithful as a flock of sheep at their feet.
The sheep are attacked by wolves, which, as all the learned
tell, are heretics, and these in turn are beaten off by a pack of
spotted hounds, which all men grant to be the Domini Canes,
the Lord's dogs, the Black and White Friars of the Holy Office.¹
On December 4th the Dominicans appeared again. The
Pope, departing from the usual course, had appointed Father
Jandel as their general; some say selecting him that he might
amend the theology of the order, the members of which were
known to be weak Immaculatists, and suspected of not being
sound Infallibilists. Father Jandel now broke out in a cir-
cular, which twenty years ago we should have smiled at as at
new gri-gri, but which now seems to be more like to the red
cross of the Muster. We shall presently see how scientifically
Tarquini had demonstrated that the right of directly wielding
the temporal sword did, in spite of all denials, belong to the
Pope and a General Council, and we have already seen with
what fascination popular pens were surrounding the life and
death of the 'soldier of the Cross.'
'We hasten,' exclaims Jandel, 'to announce to you the joy-
ful tidings, and we make speed to convey to you the pontifical
brief which grants new indulgences for the recitation of the
rosary during the whole continuance of the Vatican Council.'
The brief thus heralded looks as if the inspiration of St. Peter
This picture is fully described in Bryce's Holy Roman Empire, p. 129.
The same idea is reproduced in some pictures in Rome.
The Weapon that crushed the Albigenses.
361
Arbues, 'first inquisitor of the kingdom of Aragon,' was be-
ginning to operate. The Pontiff informs the faithful that St.
Dominic, armed with this rosary, as with an invincible sword,
crushed the infamous heresy of the Albigenses. Therefore, in
the present crisis, equipped with the same armour, and with
the authority of the Vatican Council, they will be enabled to
' overthrow and extirpate the manifold monsters of error that
prowl around.' To invite all to arm themselves with this holy
weapon, special indulgences are granted to those who will
daily recite ten rosaries, so long as the Council lasts. We
believe a rosary consists of one Paternoster, ten Ave Marias,
and one Gloria; so that each week seven hundred prayers to
the Virgin, seventy to God, with seventy doxologies, would
have to be repeated. The Pope strongly expresses his simple
faith in the efficacy of this expedient.
1
Father Jandel, not content with the triumph of the rosary
against the Albigenses, cites another triumph calculated to
touch the national Italian party. Their ears had been tuned
to the epithet 'Mussulman' ever since 1860, when General
Lamoricière unsheathed his 'rosary,' and in doing so, used
that epithet in his first general order to the 'oecumenical
army.' Father Jandel informs the faithful that it was by
virtue of this holy prayer' that Pius V. obtained the victory of
Lepanto over the Turks; and, therefore, he is confident that
by the same weapon Pius IX. will vanquish the present foes
of religion, more embittered even than the Turks. In the
battle of Bagnorea in 1867, if the Civiltá be correct, the
crusaders of St. Peter-the few forerunners of the great
crusade yet to come-killed fifty-five Garibaldians, with the
loss to themselves only of Heykamp, 'the first of the zouaves
who hallowed with his blood the crusade of St. Peter.' And
on that miraculous day, eve of the holy rosary, surely, says
the writer, many rosaries passed through the hands of those
who so bravely plied the bayonet, and many hung round their
¹ Guérin, pp. 61, 62; Friedberg, p. 82.
362
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
necks. A public address from Rome to these soldiers said:
'You are blessed by two hundred millions of the faithful,
who applaud you as heroes, who call you the favoured
martyrs of the liberty of the Church and of the world.'1
Jandel calls his own order, the heirs of the sacred patrimony
of St. Dominic! Moreover, he quotes from a public appeal
of Cardinal Patrizi, in which the feats of St. Dominic, and
his destruction of the Albigenses by the rosary, are called
glorious fruits' and 'grand recollections.' It is a familiar
fact that of all his predecessors the one selected as his model
by Pius IX. is Pius V., who conquered at Lepanto, who was
first inquisitor, then Pope, and finally was canonised.
All who know what has been going on in Europe of late
years know that the time for smiling at rosaries is past. A
charm or a chupattie ceases to be a trifle when it becomes the
symbol connecting devotion with deeds of blood. At a time
when millions upon millions of children are in the hands of
those who, with gentle manners and profoundly conscientious
views, instil antipathies which time can scarcely extract,
charms become formidable when to such antipathies they are
the symbols of-as the Civiltá puts it-a pure conscience, a
sublime cause, and an immortal hope.
The significance of these demonstrations was greatest for
those who had watched the doctrines which were being ela-
borated by the Jesuits and diffused both through periodicals.
and such scholastic books as that of Tarquini. The doctrine of
Boniface VIII., that the material sword was not in the hand
of the priest, but only at his beck, was being replaced by a
higher one. Boniface accused those of Manichean dualism
who did not confess that both swords were in his power. But
it proved that he had himself leaned too much towards
dualism, for he denied the material sword to the priest's own
hand. This doctrine would no longer do. Cardinal Tarquini,
who, it must not be forgotten, is set before us by Cardinal
¹ VII., iii., 43-50.
Tarquini's Doctrine of the Sword.
363
Manning as the modern example of teaching milder than
that of Bellarmine and Suarez, goes beyond the theology of
former times, and claims the direct right of the sword, even
in war, for the hand of the Pope and a Council, though still
denying it to inferior ecclesiastical authorities.
'I admit,' says Tarquini (p. 39), 'that the Church is a spiritual
society as to its end; I deny that it is so as to its substance,-that is, as
to the members composing it, since they are not mere spirits but men.
I admit that it ought to use spiritual means, that is, means which are
adapted to the attainment of the spiritual end. I deny that it should use
only means which are spiritual in themselves and in their nature. Every
one who is not a simpleton knows that men (in whom soul is joined with
body) are to be moved, corrected, and coerced; hence they cannot be led
to an end, even a spiritual one, by purely spiritual means. But the
matter, quality, and proportion of the means is to be determined by the
requirements of the end.'
As to the words of our Lord, that His disciples shall not
exercise lordship as the kings of the Gentiles do, he admits
that they bind the Church to shun dominion so far as that
means a spirit of ambition whereby any one might subject
others to himself for his own glory or advantage; but he denies
that they require her to shun dominion in so far as it means
the office of ruling, and that of administering means contri-
buting to the attainment of her end.
He labours to meet the objection against the use of force by
the Church, drawn from her own doctrine that men are to
be called to her bosom freely and without compulsion. He
asserts that liberty here means freedom from intrinsic neces-
sity, but not from extrinsic necessity, or coaction. This co-
action or compulsion does not prevent either merit, or the
attainment of the spiritual end; indeed, when applied by
the Church, greatly promotes them. He admits that compul-
sion is not to be used towards infidels—that is, unbaptized
persons—but denies that it is not to be used towards baptized
persons.
As to the objection founded on 2 Tim. iv. 2-5, that 'the
weapons of the Church are altogether confined to exhortations
364 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
and tears,' he simply says, I deny it. Then he argues that
the words of St. Paul in this place rather weaken than sup-
port those who oppose the use of force; because the terms
he employs are both general and sharp: reprove, rebuke, be
instant in season and out of season. All means which neces-
sity may call for are included. He admits that longsuffering
and doctrine are to be employed, if necessity demands no
harsher means; but denies that they are to be employed
exclusively. He demands that the character of the times in
which these texts were written shall not be forgotten, namely,
times in which the Church, being under the unfriendly
government of the heathen, was not able to put forth the
fulness of her power.
After arguing that the Fathers are not adverse to the use
of force, he comes to the crucial point, advancing his own
doctrine incidentally, while refuting the assertion that all the
doctors deny the use of the SWORD to the Church. First, he
says that, as to the authority of all the doctors, the assertion
is false, for there are not wanting doctors who severely censure
those who deny such power to the Pontiff and a General
Council.
He then asserts that this direct power of the sword is not
to be exercised merely by authority of the ecclesiastical law,
or by inferior magistrates of the Church. But as to the
Roman Pontiff and a General Council, whose power cannot
be restricted by any ecclesiastical law, these points are to be
weighed :-
(1) They indisputably have this power, at least mediately;
that is, in such wise that they have the right of demanding
from a Catholic prince the use of the sword against delinquents
if the necessity of the Church require it.
(2) But it cannot be proved by any arguments that this
right (jus gladii) may not be immediately exercised by the
supreme magistracy of the Church, if necessity call for it; for
the contrary indeed may be demonstrated from natural law,
Tarquini's Doctrine of the Sword.
365
since the Church is a Perfect Society; and no passage can be
cited from positive divine law in which it is really prohibited,
for Matthew xxvi. 52 is quite inapplicable, where Christ says
to Peter, then a private man, 'Put up again thy sword into
its place;' and 2 Cor. x. 4, where Paul, declaring the might
of his own power, says, 'The weapons of our warfare are
not carnal (that is, are not fragile or futile), but are mighty
through God to the pulling down of strongholds.' The argu-
ment drawn from the gentleness of the Church is equally
inapplicable; as if the necessary administration of justice
was opposed to the true virtue of gentleness. Even the one
rather more solid argument from the example of the Church
does not rise to the height of a proof, since we cannot deter-
mine whether her abstinence arose from a defect of power,
and not rather from a defect of opportuneness, either because
a greater evil might be apprehended from the use of the power,
or because it was more expedient to employ the ministerial
action of civil society.
This reasoning makes these points plain: (1) That no eccle-
siastical law could restrain the Pope and Council; (2) That
they might command any Catholic prince to take up the
sword against delinquents; (3) That they might also draw
the sword by their own immediate act, if necessity required;
(4) That the moral necessity would arise whenever more
benefit would accrue to the Church from the direct exercise
of the power of the sword, than from the ministerial action
of temporal powers; (5) That only the supreme magistracy
of the Church could determine when this case had actually
arisen.
And it is to be remembered that when Tarquini wrote, the
'supreme magistracy' might have been described as the Pope
and a Council, or as the Pope acting with the consent of the
Church. But the writing of divorcement afterwards given
to the poor Church by her Bridegroom, as he is often called
(sposo), in the words 'not by consent of the Church,' leaves
366
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
"
no doubt that all which he then could do with her consent
he now can do without it.
The second of the above points is familiar. But the others,
when put together, are very serious, and to some extent new,
at least in form. They prepare a logical foundation for an
œcumenical army,-not only an army of the Holy Office, but
a regular cecumenical army. This foundation is now being
firmly laid in the minds of the hundreds of thousands over the
world who are being trained for the future service of the
Vatican Church, or for the Crusade of St. Peter. The fact
that the meaning of carnal weapons is coolly assumed to be
fragile or futile ones, is not to be overlooked. It would
naturally follow that the chassepots at Mentana, which were
neither fragile nor futile, were not carnal weapons. Of course
Tarquini would have said that though in their proper nature
carnal, when serving a purely spiritual end they took on a
spiritual character. But we cannot forget that the 'strong-
holds' which the weapons of Paul were mighty to pull
down were 'imaginations,' and the captives they led bound
were 'thoughts.' That is a sphere in which the proper weapon
is not either shot or fetter, but the word and the works of
men whom God makes wise to teach and holy to charm.
There is one symbol which the Vatican never sees, that of the
true and only Head of the Church, with no sword in His hand,
much less two, but one sharp sword with two edges proceeding
out of His mouth. That alone is the weapon that is not carnal
but mighty through God.
We now begin to see the grounds cropping out on which
Mr. Bryce's doctrine of two heads to the Catholic State, one
civil and one spiritual, was condemned. The days of dualism
and Manicheism in any form were numbered.
With their complaints that the Jesuits, both in the con-
fessionals and in their text-books, corrupted Catholic morality,
the Liberal Catholics mingled loud and bitter complaints that
they sought to make the people superstitious and to keep
New Superstitions.
367
them ignorant. It was often alleged that even their schools,
or those under their virtual if not ostensible control, were
themselves preserves of ignorance and superstition, keeping
the scholars from an education, according to their capacity,
for one 'suited to their position,' and at the same time pre-
paring them to receive all kinds of fables and 'lying wonders,'
--a term not infrequently quoted by Liberal Catholics. Those
fables and wonders would open a field so large, and one lying
on a level so low, that we have not cared even to glance at
them. As found in local clerical papers, or books of what is
called 'devotions,' they are so gross that a writer could hardly
repeat them without incurring loss, not only in the respect of
others, but in self-respect. Liberal Catholics, however, know
that they are a real power in Jesuit hands, one of the powers
in the future war against science, the press, and free govern-
ment, and through these, against Protestantism. One specimen.
of the higher order we may give, from which some opinion
may be formed of those vented in small places, by ignorant
men, through low publications.
We speak of the great Civiltá,¹ of the 'metropolis of the
Christian world,' and of a deliverance of the Capitol itself.
The plan of the Garibaldians, insists the Civiltá, in October
1867, was to seize the Capitol and to ring the great bell,
at the sound of which all over Rome their hordes were to
rise. But Anna Maria Taigi, who had died thirty years
before, in the odour of sanctity, had seen prophetic visions of
Rome wasted with fire and sword, and dreadful with heaps
of unburied corpses, breeding dire pestilence. Some thought
that 1849 might have been the fulfilment of the vision;
others that it was the attempt of 1867. But by the special
'devotion' to this saintly woman, such dread event was to be
averted. On the evening when all felt that the shock was
coming, but no one saw whence or how, a priest of ninety
years old, 'well known to all in Rome,' said to another, 'I feel
VII., vii., 432 f.
368
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
assured that the venerable Anna Maria will defend the city;
and her image must at once be carried to the Capitol, for that
is the point they will aim at; the Capitol once saved, Rome
belongs to the Pope.' The other priest objected that the hour
was late and the streets unsafe. The old man insisted, reassured
him, blessed him, and sent him away with the image, charging
him to place it on the highest point. As the priest, bearing
the image, reached the steps of the Capitol, a friend from
a window, perceiving him, earnestly warned him to go home.
Trembling, yet resolute, he pressed up the hill. All was silent
as a desert. Having reached the utmost height under the
bell-tower, he was fixing up the image, when he heard people
move, and a door opened. A woman appeared. 'I came,' said
he, solely for the purpose of setting up an image.' It would
appear that it was a picture, for he had brought wafers
with him to fasten it. Carlotta (for that was the woman's
name) looked at the image, and cried, 'Why, that is the
venerable Anna Maria Taigi; I also practise devotion to her.'
The priest withdrew in silence and in haste. Meanwhile a
priest from Bologna went in to visit the nonagenarian devotee
of Anna Maria. Don Pedro,' cried the old man, 'the Vene-
rable has taken possession of the Capitol in the name of
the Pope, and she will defend it from the Garibaldians.' The
attempt on the Capitol was almost immediately made and
failed. Those who remember the tale of the Capitol when
Brennus was the Garibaldi will be tempted to ask how great
is the present elevation of faith above that of the days of the
sacred geese.
Pro-Synodal Congregation.
369
CHAPTER XIII.
Great Ceremony of Executive Spectacle, called a Pro-Synodal Congregation, to
forestall Attempts at Self-Organisation on the part of the Council-The
Scene-The Allocution-Officers appointed by Royal Proclamation-Oath
of Secrecy-Papers Distributed-How the Nine had foreseen and forestalled
all Questions of Self-organisation-The Assembly made into a Conclave, not
a General Council-Cecconi's Apology for the Rules.
THE
HE event now to be described was called a Pro-Synodal
Congregation. Being designed to give parliamentary
effect to secret decisions of the Court, it was in reality a
Ceremony of Executive Spectacle. Such a description seems
obscure, but the official name is misleading. Congregation
is the word used in Councils for deliberative sittings, in which
measures are proposed and debated, in contrast to Sessions,
which mean only grand public solemnities, where decrees.
already voted are formally adopted. Therefore the word
Congregation would suggest deliberation and some sort of
consultative participation, by the bishops, in the proceedings.
This prelude to the Council was not a vain show, but had
been contrived by the best diplomatic and artistic skill of
the Curia. After the Directing Congregation had spent nine
months in elaborating rules of procedure to bind the bishops
neck and foot, the Nine began to see that, should the Council
meet before it was organised, it might fall into the temptation
to organise itself. Some one skilled in parliamentary forms
might move to elect officers, and to have, as in former times,
open discussion, in order to hear questions of theology argued
by the doctors, before they, the judges, began to frame their
sentence. Some one might even suggest that they should agree
upon their own rules of procedure. Now, all these points had
been irrevocably settled beforehand against the episcopate by
its superiors, and any attempt to discuss them might cause
the greatest confusion. If some spirit, perhaps like Darboy,
as is gravely said, 'excessively enamoured of liberty,' should
24
VOL. I.
370 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
once stir such questions, the records of Trent were there to
show that it might cause trouble to settle them. Therefore
the Nine were disquieted. Such possibilities must be fore-
stalled.
Moreover, it had been resolved that, to take time by the
forelock, the all-important Rules should be printed in advance,
and should, before any possible self-action of the Council, be
distributed during the grand public ceremonial of opening.
Doubtless, when first adopted, this resolution seemed not only
satisfactory, but far-seeing. It would be a direct assertion
that in the presence of the Council, as in its absence, the
Pope could and would make law by edict. It would place
the bishops in the dilemma of either accepting as law to the
Council what was merely an edict of the Pope, or of rebelling
against a Bull actually issued. This would at first seem
decisive. It was not till as late as the month of August that
some one pair of eyes among the Nine caught sight of the fact
that, the opening ceremony being legally a Session of the
Council, some advanced spirit' might take advantage of that
circumstance to assert that the Rules, being issued in a sitting
of the Council, were an act of the Council, and therefore were
liable to revision by it. That would never do. Therefore, at
two sittings, on August 16th and 22nd, the former resolution
was rescinded, and the ingenious expedient was devised of the
Ceremony of Executive Spectacle now to be described.' The
Rules could be issued as part of the ceremony, and thereby
would every pretext for declaring them an act of the Council
be forestalled. Of course Cecconi spends few words in nar-
rating those vast transactions, yet every now and then the
naïveté of his expressions, in the apology he presents for them,
is amusing to those in whose ideas free deliberation and con-
stitutional forms are not alarming, and to whom the idea of
taking away from venerable legislators, by ceremonial legerde-
main, prescriptive rights of their order necessary to give any
¹ Cecconi, p. 153.
The Scene in the Sixtine Chapel.
371
reality to their deliberations is not only alarming but morally
offensive.
As
The Sixtine Chapel, connected in the imagination of the
Fathers with all the glories and sanctities of their Church,
was specially fitted up for the event. From every region
under heaven gathered prelates richly attired, each feeling
the splendour of the scene, and consciously augmenting it.
Their susceptibilities of spectacle were vividly awake.
boys, those susceptibilities had been trained and forced.
As men, they had themselves trained and forced the same
susceptibilities in others. Now, in old age, they came to
have the art of government by spectacle practised upon them-
selves; practised by masters to whom their consciences, sym-
pathies, and imaginations taught them to look up. Under
the skilled touch of those masters were they now about to let
drop, without a word, and for the most part unconsciously,
privileges of their order, which had been guarded by their pre-
decessors as carefully as they would themselves guard their
episcopal rings. The place, the men, the scene, the coming
displays, and the dawning future, big with events, were, for
the moment, all in all to them. It was the historic eve of the
day of days; and deep feeling fluttered under their silk and
brocade and gold.
Before their eyes spread the wonderful painting of Michael
Angelo, in which, according to M. Frond, he 'reproduced' the
scene of the last judgment. It is a monument to the power of
genius, even when driven to work on what the true æsthetic
of the painter told him should be left to the imaging of the
spirit, and should not be attempted by the pencil. There,
again, stood the vacant throne, waiting for him who, when he
first ascended it, had, as the reader will remember, these words
solemnly impressed upon his ear, in the house and by the
ministers of God:-" Know that thou art Father of princes and
of kings, and art Governor of the world."1
¹ Professor Massi's Life of Pius IX. Frond, i., p. 16. Also Fitelleschi.
372
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
The Cardinal Priests and Cardinal Bishops were on the
right of the throne, the Cardinal Deacons on the left. Near
it stood Patriarchs, Primates, and Archbishops, in regular gra-
dation, and after them in regular gradation came Bishops,
Abbots, and Generals of Orders. Every brilliant figure in that
throng was standing, except the Cardinals. Through a door,
preceded by his household, was seen entering the form of him
who holds the place of God upon earth. The Sacred College
stood up, all clad in violet, with rochette, mantelleta, and
mozzetta. Then all cast themselves down upon their knees.¹
The Pontiff, blessing his prostrate vassals, moved to the throne,
seated himself, and, with beaming visage, looked paternally
down on the rulers of docile millions,-rulers whose many
tinted splendour was but the effluence of his own majesty.
Now, in his hale, ringing voice, the Pope read an allocution.
It expressed much affection for his venerable brethren, and
solicitude for the success of their approaching deliberations.
To those who had come up full of confidence in the modera-
tion of the Curia, all that they heard was reassuring. To those
who had been troubled with fears of hazardous innovation, the
bearing and words of the initiated had been soothing, and so
was all that now fell from the throne. Still, the few who
really studied would look in vain for light on the questions
which had been agitated. Were they here for a 'free
Council,' or only to receive ready-made resolutions, and vote.
upon them? Were they to treat religious matters, or to be
spurred on to a crusade against the parliaments, press, and
universities of the Old World and the New? Who were to be
entitled to vote? What kind of votes were bishops to have?
Would they have a right of initiative? Would their right.
to meet privately, to print, to hear theologians discuss, to elect
This is what is stated in the descriptions; but the Acta do not seem
entirely to sustain it (p. 26). Cardinales surrexerunt, caeteri qui aderant
genua submiserunt, is language which seems to indicate that the Cardinals did
not kneel.
Acts in the Sixtine.
373
their own officers, and to fix their Rules of Procedure, be con-
scientiously respected ?
Questions like these, touching the essence of free delibera-
tion, would occupy the minds only of those who thought of
something more than the pleasure of grand displays, and the
privilege of sharing in the holiest and most fruitful solemnities
of the Church. Those who had such questions in their minds.
did not know that from December to the middle of October
the Nine had been engaged in answering them, and had
already taken care that every seam through which any con-
stitutional liberties might leak in should be tightly calked.¹
Nor did they know that they were to-day gathered to-
gether for the very purpose of having many of these questions
laid so deep that they should never rise again. Had they
known the whole plan, was there one of them man enough to
defeat it? Mighty against civil authority, were they not
weak as water against a higher and more domineering priest?
Even the few would hardly have time to realise the fact
that the paternal and cordial allocution gave no light upon
practical matters, when lo! Cardinal Antonelli on the right
of the throne, and Cardinal Grassellini on the left! And,
presently, Cardinal Clarelli, the Secretary of Briefs, comes
forth and proclaims
Our Most Holy Lord Pius IX., Pope, for the good ordering of things
to be done in this Council, as more largely contained in the Letters
Apostolic to be forthwith distributed, hath elected and named Presidents of
the General Congregations, to preside over the same in his name and with
his authority, the Most Reverend Lords Cardinals Charles de Reisach,
Bishop of the Sabina, Antony, de Luca, Joseph Andrew Bizzarri, Aloysius
Bilio, and Hannibal Capalti' (Acta, p. 30).
This was immediately followed by the proclamation of the
name of Bishop Fessler as secretary, and the names of other
high officials. Upon this announcement the Pope solemnly
gave the pontifical benediction. Without the Council, and
before the Council, he had bound on earth the question of
Cecconi, p. 161.
374 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
presidents, of secretary, of officers, and of rules. But his first
deed was not bound in heaven. Reisach, proclaimed by him
as chief president of the Council, was never to behold it.
As the Fathers took their seats, the master of the ceremonies
led in Prince Orsini in the insignia of Prince-in-Waiting. The
temporal prince kissed the sacred foot, and then took his place
on the steps of the throne.
Now a long line of dignitaries was presented, and going
down on the ground, formed a crescent of beautiful kneeling
figures before the sovereign. Two Cardinal Deacons brought
out the volume of the Holy Gospels, and, standing close to the
Pontiff, held it above his knees. Monsignor Jacobini then read
out as follows:
'We, elected by your Holiness officers of the General Vatican Council,
promise and swear upon the Holy Gospels, faithfully to discharge the
duties required of us respectively, and moreover not to divulge or dis-
close to any one outside of the bosom of the said Council any of the
matters proposed for examination in the said Council, nor yet the dis-
cussions, nor the speeches of individuals, but on all these, as also upon
other matters committed to us, to observe inviolable secrecy."
Thereupon, each one rising in turn, and advancing in
front of the priest-king, laid his right hand upon the book,
held by the two Princes of the Church, and then said:
'I, N. N., promise, vow, and swear, according to the tenor of
the words just read. So help me God and these God's Holy
Gospels!' He then kissed the book and the sacred foot.2
About the middle of the long succession rose John Baptist
de Dominicis Tosti, and stood to take the oath as one of the
promoters of the Council. Suppose that a voice had at that
moment cried.: Some two years hence, this De Dominicis-
Tosti and Prince Chigi shall sit side by side with two ministers
of the Reformed Faith, as joint presidents over a public
discussion, in this city, on the question whether Peter ever
visited Rome, between Catholic priests on the one side,
1 Acta, p. 32. Also Civiltá, December 1869, p. 740. Cecconi, Documenta, lix.
2 Frond.
Position of the Temporal Prince.
375
and Evangelical ministers on the other.' What an anathema
would have burst from the disgusted prelates! No such
shadow of an impossible shade dimmed the brilliancy of the
scene.
While under the various charms of that scene, the beauty
of the colours, the perfection of the postures, and the grace
of the men, few would remark that the form of oath, binding,
as it did, to strict secrecy on the very subjects discussed, and
even on speeches, turned their forthcoming assembly from a
General Council into a Roman conclave. A few indeed might
see, but the overwhelming majority would not see, that
several points which Councils had settled for themselves, even
when they met under Emperors, were now being splendidly
settled for them beforehand,—in their presence, indeed, but
without their co-operation, and scarcely with their conscious-
ness. How could they think of such commonplace affairs in
a moment like that? What with the glorious garments of
the Sacred College, the stars and ribbons of Prince Orsini, the
beauty of the enthroned Priest-King, the crescent of kneel-
ing dignitaries before him, and the touching symbol of the
temporal prince kissing the priestly foot and reverently waiting
at the priestly throne, there was enough to dazzle men less
under the spell of robes. True, the temporal prince was here
but a pale reminiscence of better days,—of those days which
some of them had called to the mind of the people since the
gathering of 1867; days when kings, ere they received the
crown, lay prostrate before the altar, and swore on their
knees to administer canon law; days when they had, more-
over, to take both sword and sceptre from the hands of the
bishop.¹ Still, this temporal prince served to assert rights
which had never been renounced, and was a comforting token
of brighter times after the Council.
No sooner was the swearing of the officers over, than the
A picture of this scene, full both of regrets and latent desires, will be found
drawn since the Council in Manning's Four Great Evils, p. 87.
376
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
Pope took his departure. Then came the master of the cere-
monies, and distributed some papers to the Fathers.¹
All this time, those who thought only of the spectacle, with
its splendid novelties and venerable antiquities, formed no
small portion of the prelates, including numbers of the best
and the worst, the confiding good and the self-seeking bad.
Both of these classes would also be much occupied with
another subject, the only one touching the part they should
themselves have to play in the Council, respecting which
they were in a position intelligently to prepare. On it their
information was complete, -as complete, indeed, as it was
defective on matters relating to divinity or the constitution
of the Church. This subject was Dress. The inventory
sacrorum paramentorum had, indeed, given them full in-
structions; so that in saying that the minds of some Fathers
would be occupied with the subject, we do not mean that
they would be distracted by doubts as to the proper number
of vestments, or as to the colour of any of them. That would
have been intolerable; and even the Nine would scarcely have
dared to trifle with bishops on that ground. But to have all
in order for the most effective appearance, was of sacred
importance, not only for the honour of their respective sees,
but also for the glory of the Church Universal, involved, to
a high degree, in the success of the forthcoming demonstra-
tion. To men whose minds were engaged on questions of this
sort, the papers distributed by the master of ceremonies would
not be exciting. They proved to be the Allocution just de-
livered, the Program of Ceremonies for the opening of the
Council, and another document, Letters Apostolic,—longer,
and seemingly duller, than the Program. But this, too, was
distributed by the master of ceremonies. At Courts where
government by spectacle is preferred to government by reason,
ceremonies enclose a wide area. We have already seen street-
¹ Stimmen aus Maria Laach, Neue Folge, Heft vi., pp. 154-155. Civiltá,
Serie VII., vol. viii., pp. 739-740. Frond, vol. vii., pp. 64-71.
The Rules of Procedure.
377
lighting treated of among ceremonies. Those who looked
would see that these letters which the Pope found it necessary
to address to men who were present, related to the order to
be observed in the Council. But that might only mean
It
godly advice. It did, however, mean a good deal more.
fixed, without the Council, and before it, the points which had
more to do with its proceedings than anything else, except the
men of whom it was composed. It revoked the immemorial
rights which made a council a legislature, and instead of
constitutional legislation it established what Montalembert
happily called 'consultative despotism.' This Bull, Multiplices
Inter, has already been quoted thousands of times, and will
be quoted thousands more. The program of ceremonies
for the opening day, however, would, for the present, cast
Multiplices Inter into the shade as much as a Roman
Monsignore, in full pontificals, would cast into the shade
our Minister of War appearing before Parliament (Acta, p.
33-46).
What was the right of proposition, or the right of definition,
or the right of public discussion, or the right of printing, or
the right of meeting, in comparison with the proper places,
forms, and postures? Besides, seeing that the directions for
the pageant extended over one hundred and forty-eight articles,
it was not a light matter to master them all, and at the same
time to do so was all-important for those to whom an imposing
'function' was the efflorescence of divine and human beauty.¹
Did not Article 136 direct that the sacred pallium was to be
taken off the Holy Father by the Cardinal Deacon, and to be
delivered over to the Sub-Deacon Apostolic? Did not Article
39 direct that the Sub-Deacon Apostolic, accompanied by two
judges of the High Court of the Signet, should bear the
slippers to the throne; and Article 40 direct that the Pontiff
should put them on ?2 Did not Article 23 direct that the
¹ Acta, p. 228-242. The title is Methodus Servanda in prima sessione.
2 Signaturæ Votantes; see Frond, iii., p. 10.
378
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
Pontiff should make another genuflexion before the Host,
and having assumed the mitre, should enter into the Council
Hall, and there having blessed the Fathers and having taken
off the mitre, should go and pray at the altar? Probably, for
one bishop who, after retiring, looked first into the fateful
Rules, ninety would look into the Program.
It was two days after the issue of these documents that
Professor Friedrich arrived in Rome. He found the Arch-
bishops of Munich and Bamberg and the Bishop of Augsburg
with the Program in their hands, and also the Rules of
Procedure. They were full of confidence that the Curia did
not intend to propose anything dangerous. But Friedrich
wanted to learn what were the subjects to be proposed, on
which point the bishops knew nothing. The members of
Commissions had all been bound by oath to conceal, even from
their own diocesans, what was prepared for them to vote. It
was to be presented to them with this alternative-Vote it,
or become marked men !
On reaching the Palazzo Valentini, Friedrich found that
all that was known by Cardinal Hohenlohe as to the subjects
which he would have to vote upon amounted to this;-a few
days previously Cardinal de Angelis had asserted that nothing
would be done beyond condemning the principles of 1789.
This proves that the purple, at least of Cardinal Hohenlohe,
was kept as far aloof from the secrets of the Nine as the black
of Friedrich. Cardinal de Angelis, not being one of the Nine,
probably did not know all, but from his age and position in
the Curia it is scarcely conceivable that he was so innocent as
he appeared to be to his too liberal brother. If he was so, he
soon, by an able electioneering manoeuvre, did service which
lifted him to a chief seat. Quirinus says (p. 77) that the most
distinguished theologian in Rome, Cardinal Guidi, was not
only kept in perfect ignorance of all that was being prepared,
but was never admitted to an audience with the Pope after he
had expressed to him his own views. Another notability is said
Serious Points settled by Ceremonies.
379
by the same author to have been also out of the circle of the
trusted, and many writers share this view; this was Father
Beckx, the General of the Jesuits. Words ascribed to him by
Quirinus are these: 'To recover two fractions of the States of
the Church they are pricking on to a war against the world;
but they will lose all.'
<
The first remark of Friedrich on the Program savours of
the Church historian as strongly as that of some bishops would
do of the master of ceremonies:-'The Council is called the first
Vatican Council; that means that others are to follow.' This
observation has been repeated, but it is not justified by the
document as printed in the Acta. There we read the first
session of the Vatican Council,' not 'the first Vatican Council.'
He soon, however, had matter for remark which admits of no
question. He found that the decision of constitutional points
of vital importance was to be wrapped up in a gay gauze of
ceremonies. The very form to be given to the Decrees was
slipped in among the items of the pageant. The conciliar
formula used at Trent was replaced by that of Papal Bulls.
The collective hierarchy were not to be permitted to say,
It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us; nor to say,
This Holy Council ordains and decrees. The name of the
Pope alone was to appear as decreeing, and the only words
in the decree indicating the existence of any Council were
'The Holy Council approving.' Matters like this, affecting
not only the framework of the Church, but the seat of dog-
matic authority, were settled without a note of preparation,
in a program of ceremonies, among directions about fald-
stools, incense, and the Pope's slippers. It was as if the
Lord Chamberlain, when the Queen was about to open a
new Parliament, should put out a program of precedence,
costumes, and ceremonies, foisting in a few clauses indi-
cating that her Majesty would promulge a statute or two,
with the approbation of the assembled Lords and Commons.
It would be no trifle if he did so of his own motion, but
380
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
would become tremendously serious if it had been done with
full cognisance of the monarch.¹
No wonder that the keen-eyed Professor was driven from
the Program to the Rules of Procedure. But the fact that
the other was the document first read, even by him-a man
in whom the decorative element is evidently too feeble for a
useful priest, and the critical element too strong-indicates the
direction which the studies of gentlemen like his archbishops
and bishops would take; gentlemen who, knowing that they
had been jealously kept in the dark respecting what they were
to be called to vote upon as the faith of their Church for ever,
were nevertheless satisfied, by a few bows and smiles, that it
was to be something of no importance.
Friedrich was deeply moved by what he found in the Rules,
coupled with what he considered the ignorance of the bishops.
'Every adept,' he cries, must see that virtually the form here used in
propounding decrees contains Papal infallibility. It is the Pope, and he
alone, that defines and decides. Infallibility is even now attributed to him,
and not to the Council, and then, seeing that this formula is to be acted
upon in the first session (or public ceremony), it is the Pope who formulates
the decree without having taken even the advice of the Council, and
without any discussion on its part. It is not so much as known what are
to be the subjects of the Decrees which the Council will adopt; and yet
Decrees containing definitions are announced for the 8th. What can this
mean? Are we really to have Papal infallibility carried by acclamation,
as the Civiltá suggested, or shall we only have a Decree, as they had at
Trent, declaring the Council open, and regulating the mode of life of its
members? Who can tell? For my own part I am uncommonly disquieted'
(p. 10).
This disquietude of Friedrich represented the first shock of
Theiner, speaking of the relation of the three Popes under whom the
Council of Trent sat, to that Council, says: It is as clear as the sunlight that
those Pontiffs were not Dictators but Approvers of the laws which the Fathers,
in conjunction with the Legates, framed. In support of this he cites two letters,
one from Paul III. and the other from Pius IV. They both faithfully promise
to confirm whatever the Council adopts. The former says, Even though it may
somewhat conflict with he decisions of former Councils, or with the privileges
of the Holy See. When this was read in the Council, the Bishop of Fiesole
cried out: Let it be without prejudice to the universal authority of this
Council.' (Acta Genuina, vol. i., pp. xvi. and 154.)
Procedure settled without the Council.
381
collision against sunk fences, which had cost the Nine long
labour. According to their faithful historian, the 'most ar-
duous and thorny of their tasks was that of settling the
procedure.'
Cecconi is perfectly satisfied that it would never have done
to leave the Council to arrange its own form of procedure.
One argument which weighs with him is, that it took nearly
ten months for a few persons of almost one mind to complete
the work.
Cecconi, curiously enough, quotes Jeremy Bentham, to show
that the good done by deliberative bodies depends, first, upon
the persons of whom they are composed; and, secondly, upon
their methods of procedure. The Nine even deigned to discuss
whether the Pope had a right to lay down rules beforehand.
We need not say that his right was affirmed. Clear, however,
as, on the Papal theory, that right was, the troublesome old
times could not be silenced. Even the Archbishop of Florence,
in comparing the prelates with the Pope, lets the awkward
expression drop, that with him the bishops are true judges
and legislators. For this slip we must blame history, not the
historian. The latter, however, must have the credit of the
assertion that this does not imply the right of settling the
mode of discussion and the form of judgment. Here he makes
the word 'settling' cover all the ground that we should cover
by the expression 'having one word to say to it.' We presume
that the secondary judges, in any case, do not settle the modes
of procedure without their President. But it scarcely follows
that he fixes it behind their backs, and compels them to follow
it, without hearing a word from them. As to legislators, true
legislators, the idea of their having forced upon them Rules of
Procedure which take away the right to bring in a question
and all its concomitant rights, and regulate the minutest
points in a restrictive sense, is absurd. It was admitted by
the Nine that, even in the fifth Lateran Council, the question
was put to the Fathers, whether the Rules drawn up were
382 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
acceptable. It was also feared that the bishops might be
offended if the Pope settled the Rules without hearing their
opinion. But, on the other side, there were three arguments:
first, the danger of 'interminable' discussions; secondly, the
danger of 'some spirit excessively enamoured of liberty, and
of too advanced opinions;' and, thirdly, the history of former
Councils (p. 148). So in June it was finally determined that
the Council should not be permitted to have a word to say
to its own rules and forms of procedure. And in August,
as we have seen, the perfect plan of forestalling all attempts
to say a word upon them was contrived.
One possible objection was brought under attention, by the
history of previous Councils, namely, that there might be a
danger of the Pope restraining the rightful liberty of the
bishops. This idea, however, was dispersed by the light logic
which passes at Court. 'It would be no less a folly than an
insult to think that a pontifical law could aim at lessening
the liberty of the Council' (p. 147). In this happy sentence
the now mitred historian refines on the words of M. Veuillot,
who was content to say that all would be free because the
Pope would be free.
The consultations of the Nine must have been serious upon
the critical point of denying to the Council the right of intro-
ducing proposals. The course finally decided upon called for
boldness in the deed, combined with art in the drapery. It
was first settled that the right of proposition belonged to the
Pope alone. Then it was argued that if this right was granted
to the bishops, 'it would turn the Council itself into a con-
stitutional assembly,'-which was just what, with all their
faults, the earlier Councils had been, and even that of Trent,
in an inferior degree.
The serious question of excluding all members of the Church
but those constituting the Council had to be faced. Cecconi
cannot conceal that at Trent the entrance to the Council Hall
during the discussions of the Doctors, was free. Massarellus
Doctors and Laymen at Trent.
383
the indefatigable secretary of that Council, in his minute of
those present at the first session, gives more names of laymen
than of archbishops. The insertion of their names means more
than that they were in the building,-they had seats of honour."
The number of the order of priests present at that first sitting,
far exceeded that of the bishops. True, they had no vote; but
they had a most important office, that of discussing points of
doctrine, in the presence of the bishops, before the latter
themselves began to do so. They were the Bar, the prelates
the Bench. Massarellus himself, secretary from the beginning,
was only a doctor, till the Council reached the days of Pius IV.,
who made him a bishop.²
All the dragooning of the middle ages had not taught men
that it was right for millions to sit outside in the dark, while
a few priests consulted, and determined how their creeds,
catechisms, ordination vows, marriage obligations, parental
rights, and national duties were to be altered. The vast
changes. consummated at Trent had not yet done their work
in reducing the human mind to servility. The Bible had
not been shackled by a General Council. The press had not
been scientifically gagged. Authors and booksellers had not
felt the scourge of the Index. Schools and colleges had
not been shut up against discussion and free inquiry, in
any such degree as was then introduced. Consequently the
Western Catholic of that day, though in a sense Roman, was
by no means that passive creature of priestly authority into
which three centuries of the sway of the Tridentine Decrees,
administered by a monarch never checked by a public legisla-
ture, have moulded the modern layman.
At Trent the people were present to hear what was said. At
the Vatican their political position and religious belief were
both to be decided upon by decrees not reformable, like all
Post prælatos sedent nobiles, si qui adsunt.'-Massarellus, Acta Gen., i., 5.
2 Acta Genuina, vol. i., 29, 30. Licet sub Paulo III., et Julio III., essem
tantum utr. jur. doct. et protonotarius apostolicus, sub Pio autem IV. eram
episcopus Telesinus.-Acta Gen., i., p. 5.
384
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
that men do; but irreformable, as if God had made them. Yet
the presence of the people was looked upon as 'the interference
of persons from without,' and this, it was felt, would be 'a
deplorable inconvenience,' notably aggravated by the temper
of the times because of the enormous diffusion of the press.
The journals could not be prevented from writing about the
Council; but means were sought to keep the subjects under
discussion from the knowledge of the 'democracy,' as Maret
calls priests and people. They should learn the tenor of
Decrees adopted only when they were ratified (Cecconi,
p. 253). To this end, three points were resolved upon: first,
the General Congregations (that is, the deliberative sittings)
should be altogether private; secondly, the public Sessions
(that is, the grand solemnities for adopting and promulgating
Decrees already framed and voted) should be open only in
the liturgical part, the legislative part being strictly close;
thirdly, all the Fathers and officers should be bound to the
deepest silence (p. 254).
We are far from saying that the bishops of the time before
Trent would have accepted a Roman conclave like this, in
lieu of a General Council of the Catholic Church; but if they
had done so, the laity of that time, from Emperor to burgher,
would not have suffered it. The laity then did not represent
the offspring of ten generations successively confined in the
Tridentine cribs. Their rights, though roughly defined, were
readily asserted, and sturdily maintained.
In justification of this measure Cecconi says little. His
first argument is, that the vulgar-and the vulgar are so
many-do not respect a law the real or supposed defects of
which are pointed out before it becomes law. Thus 'public
discussion, going before the adoption of a law, is always a
detriment to the principle of authority. It is in those com-
munities in which the practice of previous discussion is oldest
and freest, that laws, even when unpopular, are kept with the
least physical force to back them.
Reasons for Secrecy.
385
The second argument of Cecconi in favour of this secrecy is
a quotation from an Italian writer to the effect that all associa-
tions have some part of their proceedings secret. The British
government has many parts of its proceedings secret; but that
does not prove that, when it is about to make laws, it should
seal them up, till they are in the statute-book. Yet, if it had
even done so, the law, once made, might be modified or indeed
repealed the following year. But in the case in hand the
law, once made, is incapable of either amendment or repeal.
Moreover, a breach of the civil law carries, at the worst,
only a temporal penalty. The next attempt to support the
measure is by finding something in the history of Councils,
and all the author can do, he does; that is, he says that
the neglect of such precautions at Trent caused much in-
convenience. Did the adoption of secrecy at the Vatican
Council prevent inconvenience ?1
The Directing Congregation, having now existed for nearly
five years, had preordained all that was to come to pass
in the Council. It had held fifty-nine formal meetings, very
many of which were devoted to the Rules of Procedure.
Beyond the purpled Nine, not a soul was ever admitted, save
only Monsignor Giannelli, their secretary. Five of the Nine
were the destined Presidents of the Council. So that, of the
whole College of Cardinals, only four besides the Presidents
were in the secrets of this body. Just at a few of the last
meetings, Bishop Fessler, the secretary of the Council, was
called in. It is not needful to say that the Directing Con-
gregation was in constant official communication with the
'What Cecconi alludes to were complaints made at Trent, by the Legates, of
breaches of prudence rather than of secrecy,-such complaints as might have
been made in those days in any legislative assembly. They were made late in
the proceedings, and were restricted to the one point, that persons, by sending
away Drafts of Decrees still liable to all sorts of changes before their final
adoption, had caused such to be published as if they were definitive Decrees of
the Council; a sort of difficulty that can never be avoided by anything but the
fullest publicity, and by the effects of it long acting upon the public mind.
VOL. I.
25
386
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
Pontiff.
Cecconi's defence of the network of restrictions which
it was deemed well to cast over the heads of the bishops the
moment they entered the Hall, deserves serious study from
both statesmen and divines. We shall see in practice how,
step by step, the bishops found out that the net entangled all
their movements.
CHAPTER XIV.
The Eve of the Council-Rejoicings-Rome the Universal Fatherland-Veuillot's
Joy-Processions-Symbolic Sunbeams-The Joybells-The Vision of St.
Ambrose-The Disfranchisement of Kings.
THE Civiltà described how, in beholding prelates daily arrive,
the joy of Rome rose higher and higher; joy resembling
but surpassing that of the great events of 1854, 1862, and
1867. Not only prelates came, but champions of the sword,
the pen, and the tribune, ready to face the world in the cause
of the Pope-King. Count Henri de Riancey begs pardon of
Rome for indulging, at such a moment, in a word for France.
Yet his heart does not turn to France, except on account of
what she has done for the Pope.
'Let Rome, the fatherland of all fatherlands, permit to us this flash of
patriotism.
It is France which has the honour of guarding the last
fragments of the pontifical dominions . . . She has loved righteousness;
and that is the reason why she is anointed with the oil of gladness above
her fellows' (Frond, vol. i., p. xix.).
Poor France! that love of righteousness, which had made
her slay so many Italians to keep up the temporal power,
was not to avert from her, 'in the year of the Council,' a
baptism other than that of the oil of gladness.
Ordinary Christians would not catch the reference in the
above quotation. To them, 'loving righteousness,' especially
when connected with the person of the Messiah, is not
1 Cecconi, p. 268.
Great Joy of the Ultramontanes.
387
identified with, but in holy opposition to, the idea of setting
Christian ministers in rank before secular princes, and in
power above kings. But 'He loved righteousness and hated
iniquity' stands upon the tomb of Hildebrand, who sought
to establish the 'dominion of Christ,' the 'kingdom of God,'
the reign of righteousness,' or as many similar expressions as
you please, by subjecting all the kings of the earth to the Priest.
of God. Pius IX. is frequently spoken of as the founder of
the lordship of the Pope over the whole earth in the future,
as Hildebrand was the founder of his lordship over it in the
past. Therefore the sweetness felt by a good Ultramontane in
connecting the two together.
'I am bewildered with joy,' cried M. Veuillot. 'I try to depict that
joy, to swim in life. There is an unspeakable gladness in men's souls.
People feel an aurora. I picked up a number of journals, and was going
to answer a lively article against myself, in the Gazette de France; but
the author has no idea how all his eloquence falls short of a man who, in
one and the same day, has seen Pius IX., Rome, and the Sun.'
Pius IX. had not admitted M. Veuillot to kiss the sacred
foot for merely literary service. The devoted advocate laid
at the feet he kissed three thousand pounds in money,
collected, through his paper, for the expenses of the Council.
M. Veuillot scolds M. Taine grandly, for having made some
comparison between Rome and Paris,-Paris, stretching from
the field of Pantin on one side, to the Follies Belleville on
the other; and Rome, which has no limits but those of the
world, and does not accept those ;-Paris, which gives birth
to M. Rochefort; and Rome, which directs the Nineteenth
Ecumenical Council! Had M. Taine seen Rome yesterday,
full of processions of all colours, and bishops of all countries,
he would have said it was more lovely than Paris.
The processions of all colours were no fancy stroke. Nine
days of solemn service in honour of the approaching anniver-
sary of the Immaculate, and at the same time of the Council,
gave an opportunity of showing to strangers all the confra-
388 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
ternities of Rome. They marched to the various basilicas
especially to St. Peter's; the ostensible object being to worship
the sacred relics which, with uncommon magnificence, were
exposed to their veneration.
All visitors to Rome can set the costume before their eyes—
a loose, long garment, covering the person to the foot, and a
hood, shaped exactly like an extinguisher, and often drawn
over the head and face, with a pair of holes for the eyes.
When the dress is dark, the day thunderous, the scene the
Coliseum, and the confraternity a group of twenty or thirty
tall men marching with frequent and irregular turning of
heads, the effect is one of the oddest to be witnessed any-
where.
:
One is told that it is penitence, or, perhaps more literally,
penance; and the imagination seems challenged to picture
what penitence is going on in there, where the masked man
looks out on all the world, and no one can look in on him.
At the time we now describe, all these bodies were set in
motion. One troop in the blue of St. Joseph, another in the
white of St. Catherine, yet another in the blue and white of
St. Mary of Divine Help; then the brown of St. Felice, the
violet of St. Bartholomew, the scarlet of the Trinity, the
white and scarlet of Gregory, the scarlet and white of Jesus,
the black of Death, and the red and purple of the precious
Blood, and so on through almost every combination of colours.
These, crossing the masses which thronged the narrow streets,
and crossing one another in all directions, winding through
quaint little piazzas of every shape, under the shadow of
churches, of stern-looking convents, and of palaces with win-
dows grated as if violence was at every door, amused the
sight-seer and delighted the Catholic eye with the double
solace of colours and of a show of spiritual life and physical
force.
The clergy of all lands saw and were seen with wonder and
delight. When therefore,' said Eusebius, speaking of Nicæa,
(
Days Memorable to Pius IX.
389
'the Emperor's order was brought into all the provinces,
persons set out as if for some goal, and ran with all imaginable
alacrity, for the hope of good things drew them, and the par-
ticipation of peace, and lastly a new miracle, to wit, the sight
of so great an Emperor.'¹ Dr. Friedrich does not express
himself so prettily as Eusebius on the appearance of the
assembled clergy. The Asiatic cries, And one city received
them all, as it were some vast garland of priests, made up
of a variety of beautiful flowers.' The Bavarian says, 'The
clergy of every country have sent a strong contingent, from
the proud monsignore to the dirtiest village priest.'
'
The importance of sunny weather for public events, great
everywhere, is perhaps exaggerated in Rome. Pius IX. is
believed to be peculiarly susceptible to sunbeams. Three of
his most memorable days are, by his adorers, connected with
a sunburst which shone for him especially. Professor Massi
relates how, on the day of his 'taking possession,' the
apostolic cortége followed the 'brilliant carriage' of the new
Pope from the Via Sacra up the Coelian Hill, the Cardinals
being mounted on 'steeds richly adorned '-doubtless worthy
to be compared with those Sicilian steeds which bore Gregory
the Great, of whose stud Gregorovius soberly says, 'We
scarcely doubt but that Pindar would have thought the
apostolic horses worthy of an ode.' The day was overcast-
which omen had a damping effect-but just as the new Pope
approached the Lateran, a glorious rainbow spanned the east,
gladdening all with the certainty of a reign of peace. In like
manner, Professor Massi tells of that proud April evening
when the Pontiff, after a long exile, once more looked down
upon the earth from his own Olympus. The clerical writers
do not exactly call it heaven, but content themselves with
speaking of the figure of the Pope so exalted, as 'standing
between earth and heaven,' or as a spectacle which reminds
¹ Life of Const., lib. iii., cap. 6.
2 Geschichte der Stadt., rom. ii., p. 60..
390 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
us of the Divinity (Frond, i., p. 16). The secularising of
sacred terms, till we come down to 'apostolic cortéges' and
'apostolic horses,' and the materialising of spiritual terms,
till the kingdom of Christ' sometimes means the temporal
power, is a process which must go on until the heaven of
the materialised imagination will be levelled to the height of
the noblest dome, and to the beauties of the best decorator.
The peerless piazza of St. Peter's was, on the day in question,
filled with French uniforms. At the foot of the great stair-
case rose a platform covered with purple, and decked with
flying banners. The heavens, all day covered with clouds,
suddenly turned azure, and the setting sun poured his beams
on the dome of Michael Angelo, on the cross of the Obelisk,
and on the statues which adorn the Colonnade, just as
Pius IX. 'raised his paternal hand to bless the arms which
had avenged his throne.' The third day on which the sun
shone expressly for Pius IX. has been already mentioned,
that of the Immaculate Conception. In contrast with all
this, no one who was in Rome at the Easter of 1860 can
forget the impression made on both 'Catholics' and 'Liberals'
by the fact that 'the weather had turned revolutionist;' that
is, it rained so hard that the Pope could not assemble the
people under the balcony, and give the benediction thence
to the city and the world. Professor Massi does not mention
that bad omen, but he does call 1860 the most fatal of years
for Italy, because it was the year of Marsala, of the Volturno,
and of Castelfidardo.
It was not only, as some say, the nuns, but also priests and
literateurs who took it as both indispensable and certain that
St. Peter's should be bathed in the brightest gold the skies
could send on the day which was to unite three glories-the
anniversary of the Immaculate, the opening of the General
Council, and the probable acclamation of Pius IX. as infallible.
On the 7th of December, when the mid-day gun was fired
from St. Angelo's, a peal of joybells rang out from more than
A Great Rejoicing.
391
four hundred churches. From the distant Coelian came the
deep note of the Lateran, floating over Coliseum and Capitol ;
from the Esquiline came that of Santa Maria Maggiore, float-
ing over the Quirinal. These two met the boom of St. Peter's
swinging across the Tiber, and, blending with it, formed, in
that sea of sound, a rolling base for the billows, on whose
crests every variety of bell-note clashed and sparkled. Far
beyond the gates, the lone and beautiful St. Paul's lifted up
its voice, as if bidding the untilled plains to tell the unfre-
quented shore that there was joy in the cloister capital.
Hints from Jesuit pens lead us to see some of the Order
standing on the Janiculum, by St. Pietro in Montorio, drink-
ing in the view of the renowned panorama, while the impres-
sions of years would be brought to a focus by the sensations
of a moment. Every thrill would be taken either for a proof
or a promise. Things done by the Order were being glorified,
things to be done were being assured by the voice of many
Churches. Before memory would rise the figures of Hilde-
brand, Dominic, Ignatius, illuminated by the imagination of
the past. Before hope would rise the figure of the new
Hildebrand, with his now unlimited sceptre, and new Loyolas
and Dominics, illuminated by the imagination of the future.
Other German Henrys would be seen standing in penance,
other English Johns signing away their supremacy; and
surely if at Ingolstadt the Order had trained a Ferdinand II.,
another could now be trained, and the Virgin and St. Ignatius
would not fail to raise up a more successful Tilly, and a more
faithful Wallenstein. 'Be wise now therefore, O ye kings;
be instructed, ye judges of the earth,' would seem ringing
with articulate speech from the tongue of every bell.
Close by St. Pietro in Montorio were the bases, already
laid, of a column to commemorate the Council. Week after
week, the digging for a foundation had discovered only
sand, which clerical writers lamented, without noting it as
symbolic. But fifty or sixty feet down the tufa was reached;
392
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
and the trophy was to tower above the city, commanding
Vatican, Quirinal, and Capitol, and in sight of the Sabine and
the Alban Hills, and of Mount Soracte. It was to be built of
rare ancient African marble, found in recent excavations, close
under the Aventine. The column was to be supported on
blocks of marble numbering as many as there might be
bishops at the Council. Thus were the treasures amassed by
the Cæsars destined, said the Civiltá and its manifold echoes,
to enrich the triumphs of the Church. Liberal Catholics told
how the architect had purposely chosen his ground, and there-
by had relieved the Church of a few thousands extra of her
riches, by the enormous cost of the foundations.
The exuberant joy of M. Veuillot might be taken for French
vivacity, but Italian and German Jesuits all feel an aurora.'
The Order is about to be mistress of the Church, and the
Church to be mistress of the world. So, very sweet to
them was the silence after the Angelus, and the Jesuit
calmly wrote down that the joy-peals had told the faith-
ful throughout the world that in a few hours the greatest
event of the age would open. Who now could fear for the
throne of the Father of kings and princes, the Governor of
the world? Every fighting fibre in the sons of Loyala would
vibrate, as to a call from the sky. It was to this left bank that
Evander pointed, indicating the unlooked-for Etruscan auxili-
aries; when the heaven-sent hero heard, in this very air now
pulsating with the voice of bells, the clang of the heaven-sent
armour, swung and struck by his celestial mother. Like
Æneas, the Society said: I am called for by Olympus! The
haud of the Virgin and St. Michael had swung the bells.¹
1
From another of the commanding points we may suppose eyes
illuminated with different lights looking at the same moment
on the landscape. There is scarcely a finer view of the Roman
panorama than that from the tower of the Palazzo Caffarelli,
¹ Eneid, VIII., 427.
Associations of the Place.
393
the German embassy, on the Capitoline. Thence probably
would Count Arnim and some of his countrymen survey the
scene that day. They knew much more of the past than most
Romans, and were not unaware of the grandiose future which
was meant to be rung in by the chimes. They knew that the
plans of that future provided for a fresh disruption of the
Fatherland, as well as of that Italy which lay over yonder
hills. At such a moment a German, familiar with Niebuhr,
Bunsen, and Gregorovius, could not meditate upon that field,
his imagination marching to the music of the bells, without
seeing many a vision of the past flitting and eddying amid
the mists of the future, and whirling the imagination round
and round in utter defiance of order :-Numa, the first of
the function-concocting Romans; Romulus, the first to whom
they prayed after his death; Theodoric the mighty Goth, igno-
rant as either; Paul in bonds; Cæsar in his car and in his
blood; Cecilia and her strains; Titus and Jerusalem; Cicero
and Catiline; Sulla and all his blots; Genseric and the
temple vessels; Benedict IX. and his vices; Anthony and
Cleopatra; Regulus and his fortitude; Macbeth a penitential
pilgrim; Otho III. dwelling and dreaming just over there
on the Aventine; Charlemagne kneeling at St. Peter's tomb;
Christina of Sweden; Belisarius sole hero of Byzantium in
Italy; Galileo and Bellarmine in debate; Luther on the holy
stair seeking pardon by penance, and finding mercy by faith;
Hannibal on yonder Sabine heights; and there on Mount Mario,
beyond the dome, the gibbets of Crescentius and the twelve
Roman chiefs waving before the pilgrims on the April morn,
telling them that the two cousins, flaxen-haired lads, Kaiser
and Pope, were not to be trifled with,—all this, mingled with
many a tumult and many a slaughter, with fabric of relics
and parade of dead men's bones, with orgies in apostolic
palace and pining in secular home, with ever and anon a
confused rush across the scene of rioters and conquerors, of
prætorians and inquisitors, and at intervals strangely rising up
394 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
amid soiled figures in the frock, and ensanguined figures in
the helm, a Christian form in pure linen, clean and white.
As the Ave Maria sounded in the sunset, the guns of St.
Angelo saluted the happy eve. The Pope rode in state to
the Church of the Twelve Apostles, and the crowd lined the
entire way. The Jesuit writers heard enthusiastic cheers at
every point. Some partial illuminations were attempted, but
the weather was unfavourable. This, however, damped not the
spirits of any one, for there was to be a glorious illumination
on the morrow, when the rain was bound to cease. M. Veuillot,
buoyant as were his spirits, admitted that, with all his love
for Rome, he could not deny that it rains there in winter.
But hope was exulting, enthusiasm unbounded. The pre-
paration of ideas had, it was thought, done its work; the
restoration of facts was now not far off. The Civiltá asks,
Did ever Council meet under such a Pope, with his graces and
his virtues, his rich experience, his burden of palms won in
incessant victories over the enemies of Christ; the restorer of
the hierarchy in two nations, the founder of many dioceses,
the conqueror of the fallacies, hypocrisies, and fraudulence of
the politicastres of our day, the glorifier of the Virgin, who
'sensibly' covers him with her mantle, and takes delight in
twining roses with the thorns whereof the tiara that crowns
him is altogether composed?¹ The words of a French layman
equal those of the Italian Jesuit. It is again the Count Henri
de Riancey who cries, 'The Father of the Fathers, Sovereign
Pontiff of the bishops, refuge of the bishops; he is the Uni-
versal Patriarch, the Prefect of the house of God, the Guardian
of the vineyard of the Lord. He it is who confirms the faith
of Christians; he is Abraham in his patriarchate, Melchisedek
in order, Moses in authority, Samuel in jurisdiction, Peter in
power, Christ in unction' (Frond, i., p. xxx.).
It was St. Ambrose's day. M. Veuillot, in imagination,
saw the saint 'appear on this threshold on which the eyes of
¹ Serie VII., vol. ix., p. 21.
Ambrose and the Kings.
395
the human species are fixed, full of hope.' But M. Veuillot
seldom meets with a saint, dead or living, but a political end
soon appears. This was, he cries, a felicitous rencounter. What
made it so? (1) When Ambrose was appointed prefect, he
was told to act like a bishop. Now, though just at present
people would feel affronted by having a prefect appointed to
act as a bishop, 'the time is coming when the nations will
demand this affront. Perhaps it is not far off.' (2) When
Ambrose had become bishop, he excommunicated the Emperor
Theodosius for the crime of inhumanity. His image in this act
is to M. Veuillot evidently the prototype of Pius IX. leaving
the kings out of the Council. But it is one thing to refuse
the Communion, which was open for the humblest believer, to
the greatest potentate alive, because his word has wantonly
handed his subjects over to death; and it is another thing to
refuse to all believers in existence a place, even as hearers, in
the chamber where new laws binding them and their children
for ever are to be decreed. Constantine, before he was even
baptized, was not only present in a Council, but was convener
of it; and, indeed, its most influential speaker, if Eusebius is
trustworthy. The princes were left out, being the heads of
the people; but they were left out expressly on the ground
that they now represented their people. Had they claimed to
hold authority from God, not through the collective fathers of
their respective nations, but through the Pope, to be exer-
cised, first, by 'observing and causing to be observed' Canon
Law, and, secondly, by personally submitting their measures
to the supreme judge, one prince would have been more wel-
come than a score of bishops. But the representative principle,
as is often shown by Court writers, destroys the very theory
of the 'kingdom of God among men.'
It is this evil of popular representation and deliberative
assemblies which galls M. Veuillot and all his school. King
or president does not matter so much, if either would only do
two things: first, reign by the grace of God,' in the Jesuit
396 The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
sense; and, secondly, govern the realm as a 'part' of the
dominion of Christ,' in the same sense. M. Veuillot goes over
ground familiar to all readers of the clerical papers, about the
first deliberative assembly being the one that built the Tower
of Babel. Of course our modern parliaments build nothing
else but Towers of Babel, rather they 'reject, break, dissolve,'
although they 'try to build with the mud of the deluge in the
midst of earthquakes.' But now, in contrast to all this, the
'supreme legislature' is about to assemble around the Vicar
of Christ. These old men did not choose themselves. God
chose them. They are the true representatives of humanity.
The scene at Milan, and that at St. Peter's, similar to the
ardent Ultramontane, would strike us rather by contrast. On
the former threshold we see a Christian pastor guarding the
Lord's Table. On the latter, a king, and an aspirant after
universal political supremacy, guarding the secret of his own
counsels. Outside the Milan threshold we see one sinner in
purple, while the common Christians are free to approach.
Outside the Vatican are all members of Churches whom the
king in purple and scarlet acknowledges as members of his
own Church. The people are disfranchised with the princes.
at their head. No doubt they value their Church, but they
do not value the place in its counsels which their forefathers
would have defended with their might. Outside are also the
whole of the priests. They, too, are disfranchised, with their
doctors at their head. They are but of the democracy now.
They are proclaimed not to belong to the Teaching Church.
They are ostentatiously told that to the mere priesthood does
not belong any claim to rule the Church. On the one hand,
pastor is expounded to mean bishop, in opposition to the lower
clergy; and, as if by a design, to form a humorous counter-
part to this, sheep is expounded as meaning bishops in
relation to the Pope, while priests and people are lambs. The
priests had long been losing their franchise in the election of
their bishops. More recently they had been losing their free-
Changes affecting the Clergy.
397
hold in their parishes. When the Jesuits obtained possession
of Pius IX., the parish priest had a life interest in his parish
subject to good behaviour. But this formed too much of a tie
to the nation. The parochial clergy had to be mobilized. So,
gradually, they had been put into berths only by temporary
appointment, and held the place ad nutum, at the nod of the
bishop. They had been glad that the sword in the hand of
the king should not be in his power, but at the nod of the
priest. It was scarcely so pleasant that the parish, in the
hand of the priest, should be at the nod of the bishop. The
making of it so had already to a large extent been accom -
plished. It was now to be completed; but those tyrannous
kings might attempt to check the move by what they would
call protecting the lower clergy, what the Vatican would call
destroying the liberty of the Church.
The whole spirit of the Jesuit press at this period indicated
that the Modern State had so wearied out the Vatican that
the only chance for kings to make their peace with it would
lie in separating their cause from that of parliaments and
constitutions. If they meant to be tolerated long after the
Council, they must not only reign but govern—govern
Catholic States under the Syllabus. A feeling also seems
to transpire, but is not clearly uttered, that republics, of the
South American type, are rather more tractable than kings.
Hereditary monarchy and a constitution combined seem to
be found hard either to bend or break. A President, of the
American type, is almost as bad. One of the Ecuador type.
is commendable. But the form is apparently not the ques-
tion. A ruler by divine right,-which among the baptized
means one instituted by the Pope and corrected by him,-
is the essence of the matter. 'THE POPE AND THE PEOPLE!'
is the last exclamation of M. Veuillot, on the eve of the day
when the nations were to come to judgment;-on the eve of
the day when the salutary conspiracy recommended by the
Civiltú with its first breath was to hold its crowning conclave,
398
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
when the holy Crusade, heralded with the same breath, was
to receive both its legal warrant and its world-wide impulse.
Great way had been made, and a triumphal arch was to mark
the completion of a stage of toil and the entrance upon a stage
of transformation. 'THE POPE AND THE PEOPLE. I believe
that these words are invisibly written on the door of this
Vatican Council, which door forms the entrance to a new
world; rather is it a triumphal arch erected on the rediscovered
highway of the human race.
1
These popular forecasts anticipated the practical application
of Tarquini's principles. The prospect, clear and even bright
to eyes anointed with the eyesalve of privileges and profits
wherewith Court favour blessed M. Veuillot, was nevertheless
overcast to those of Liberal Catholics. The words of Ce Qui
se Passe au Concile sum up what
said :-
many said
'The problem of the relations between civil society and the religious
society rises up obscure and menacing. Internally, the harmony of Church
and State; externally, the reconciliation of the independence necessary to
the head of the Catholic Church, with the modern principle of the rights of
nations: never did these problems raise questions more burning or more
formidable' (p. 3).
Modern principle of rights of nations! Even to Liberal
Catholics the right of a nation to dispose of its own destiny
was a modern principle! Because the right of the Pope to
dispose of it was the ancient one! Such is their antiquity.
tc
That triumphal arch and that rediscovered way of the
human species which, to M. Veuillot, made the entrance to the
Vatican Council sublime, invested it, to the eyes of Liberal
Catholics, with clouds of doubtful omen. The triumph
vaunted was real and even stupendous, but it was a triumpł
over the principles in the name of which Liberal Catholics hac
fought and won the battles of the Church. The rediscovered
way was no other than the broad road of clerical dominior
over spiritual and temporal things which, in the ages before
1 Vol. i., p. 14.
Jesuit Morals and the New World.
399
the Reformation, had led the Church down to a degree of cor-
ruption now denied by none;-a broad road, which had since
then been swept and mended, but to which had in the mean-
time been added the countless sidepaths of Jesuit morals. If
all those sidepaths should by authority be opened for the
winding and the straying of human guile and passion, what
would the Catholic nations come to? Every teacher would
become an adept in the art of asserting a good principle in
order, by qualifications, to rob it of all force; and every disciple
would become an adept in the corresponding art of self-govern-
ment; that is, in the art of evoking the praise of conscience
and of hushing its blame, according to a man's private judgment
of the lawfulness of the end he proposed to himself when he
employed evil means, and according to his judgment of the
lawfulness of the means he had employed when he accom-
plished an end that was obviously bad. Studious Liberal
Catholics were aware of the two sides of the Jesuit system
of morals, whereof Protestants generally were cognisant only
of one. These knew, indeed, that a lawful end renders the
means to it lawful; but Liberal Catholics knew that it was
also taught that an unlawful end did not infect with guilt
the means by which it had been reached, provided only that
in themselves those means consisted of acts not necessarily
unlawful. Thus on both sides-that of seeking a lawful
end by unlawful means, and that of employing lawful means
for an unlawful end-was the gate made wider, the road
broader, and the way more smooth for guile to creep or
passion to roll downward, but attended all along by the com-
forts of absolution, and sprinkled with holy water.¹
And as to the new world to which the Council was to be an
entrance, Liberal Catholics had seen the Pope's special college
1 See Gury, especially his Casus Conscientia. A small duodecimo Doctrina
Moralis Jesuitarum (Celle, 1874), gives copious extracts from Jesuit authors with
a German translation. For the English reader, Mr. Cartwright's work on the
Jesuits supplies a good outline.
400
The Pope, the Kings, and the People.
of writers, in the Civiltá, dwell upon the act whereby
Alexander VI. drew a line from pole to pole, and gave to
Spain all regions that should be discovered to the west of it,
and to Portugal all those that should be discovered to the east
of it; and contend that the Pope, in saying of those regions,
I give, concede, and assign them to this king and to that,
acted simply as the Vicar of Christ; nay, that by that act
the autonomy of the Indians was not in the least offended;
that, indeed, the concession was a sentence of the compe-
tent authority, which resting upon right, moved for the
'supernal' good of religion; that praise and not blame was
due to the Pope for his sentence, and that, moreover, what
in the jargon of infidel and of heretics was called the
pretensions of Rome, was nothing else but the exercise of
a clear and sublime right, resorted to by the Pope in seek-
ing a solid protection, in new countries, for the autonomy of
nations and of individuals, when otherwise, to the offence of
religion, it might have been violated by barbarians.¹ But was
this supreme power to dispose by sentence of the lot of nations,
even though unknown, without in so doing offending in the
least against their rights, to be exalted into eternal dogma?
If so, and if mankind would endure it, well might the door of
the Council be regarded as the entrance to a new world. But
whether future ages will reckon it as the entrance to a new
world or not, we are about to see that it was indeed the
entrance to an arena on which was to be witnessed a process
of revolution from above and a struggle of priest with priest,
a process as instructive, a struggle as curious, as any that
our age has produced, among its many transformations of
polity and redistributions of power.
¹ VI., i., 662-680.
APPENDIX A.
THE SYLLABUS WITH THE COUNTER PROPOSITIONS OF
SCHRADER.
By reading the latter in the right-hand column the view which the Church
asserts is at once obtained.
SYLLABUS OF THE PRINCIPAL ER-
RORS OF OUR TIME, WHICH ARE
STIGMATISED IN THE CONSISTORIAL
ALLOCUTIONS, ENCYCLICAL AND
OTHER APOSTOLICAL LETTERS OF
OUR MOST HOLY LORD, POPE
PIUS IX.1
SECT. I.-Pantheism, Naturalism,
and Rationalism Absolute.
1. There exists no Divine Power,
Supreme Being, Wisdom and Provi-
PROPOSITIONS OF FATHER SCHRADER,
being in each case the logical
contrary or contradictory of the
propositions condemned; and
therefore, being those which
the Church would assert as
opposed to those denied. Schra-
der says, 'The contradictory, and
not the contrary, is to be taken
by the Catholic as the rule to
guide his thoughts, words, and
actions, as to the sense in which
the several errors must be con-
sidered as being rejected, forbid-
den, and condemned according to
the will and command of the Pope.'
Schrader himself, however, some-
times gives what is clearly not
the contradictory but the con-
trary.
SECT. I.-Pantheism, Naturalism,
Absolute Rationalism.
(Note of Schrader. — Absolute ra-
tionalism is that error which holds
that revelation is impossible.)
1. There is one most high, all-
wise, all-provident, and divine
To give a translation from a Catholic source we use one issued at the office
of the Weekly Register.
VOL. I.
26
402
Appendix.
dence distinct from the universe,
and God is none other than nature,
and is therefore mutable. In effect,
God is produced in man and in the
world, and all things are God and
have the very substance of God.
God is, therefore, one and the
same thing with the world, and
thence mind is the same thing
with matter, necessity with liberty,
true with false, good with evil,
justice with injustice.
2. All action of God upon man
and the world is to be denied.-
(All. Maxima quidem, June 9th,
1862.)
3. Human reason, without any
regard to God, is the sole arbiter
of truth and falsehood, of good and
evil; it is its own law to itself, and
suffices by its natural force to secure
the welfare of men and of nations.
4. All the truths of religion are
derived from the innate strength
of human reason, whence reason
is the master rule by which man
can and ought to arrive at the
knowledge of all truths of every
kind.
5. Divine revelation is imperfect,
and, therefore, subject to a con-
tinual and indefinite progress which
corresponds with the progress of
human reason.
6. Christian faith is in opposition
to human reason, and divine revela-
tion not only does not benefit, but
even injures the perfection of man.
Being, distinct from this universe
of things; and God is not the
same as nature, and therefore not
subject to change. God does not
actually come into existence in men
and in the world. All is not God
and has not the proper essence of
God. God is not one and the same
with the world, and hence mind is
not the same as matter, necessity
not the same as freedom, truth not
the same as falsehood, good not the
same as evil, nor righteousness the
same as unrighteousness.
(Remark of Schrader.-But God is
in man and in the world, because He is
omnipresent.)
2. All operation of God upon the
world and upon man is not to be
denied.
3. Human reason is not to be the
arbiter of truth and falsehood, of
good and evil, without any regard
to God. It is not a law to itself
and it is not sufficient, by its native
powers, to provide for the welfare
of man and of nations.
4. All the truths of religion do
not flow from the natural force of
human reason; therefore reason is
not the highest rule by which men
may arrive at the knowledge of
truths of every kind.
5. Divine revelation is not im-
perfect, and therefore is not subject
to a continual and unlimited pro-
gress which would respond to the
progress of human reason.
6. The Christian faith is not
contradictory to human reason;
and the divine revelation not only
is no hindrance to human perfec-
tion, but is serviceable to it.
Appendix.
7. The prophecies and miracles
told and narrated in the Sacred
Scriptures are the fictions of poets,
and the mysteries of the Christian
faith are the result of philosophical
investigations. In the books of the
two Testaments there are contained
mythical inventions, and Jesus
Christ is Himself a mythical fic-
tion.
SECT. II.-Rationalism moderate.
8. As human reason is placed
on a level with religion, so theo-
logical systems must be treated in
the same manner as philosophical
ones.
9. All the dogmas of the Christian
religion are, without exception, the
object of natural, science or philo-
sophy; and human reason, in-
structed solely by history, is able
by its own natural strength and
principles to arrive at the true
knowledge of even the most ab-
struse dogmas, such dogmas being
proposed as subject-matter for the
reason.
10. As the philosopher is one
thing and philosophy is another,
so it is the right and duty of the
philosopher to submit himself to
the authority which he shall have
recognised as true; but philosophy
neither can nor ought to submit to
any authority.
11. The Church not only ought
never to animadvert upon philo-
403
7. The prophecies and miracles
reported and related in Holy Scrip-
ture are no inventions of poets;
and the mysteries of faith are not
the sum of philosophical research.
In the books of the two Testaments
there are no mythical inventions,
and Jesus Christ Himself is not a
mythical fiction.
SECT. II.-Moderate Rationalism.
(Note of Schrader.-Moderate ra-
tionalism is the error of those who do
not hold revelation to be impossible,
but would have it subjected to reason.)
8. As human reason may not be
placed on a level with religion,
theological studies are not to be
treated exactly as philosophical
ones.
9. All doctrines of the Christian
religion are not, without distinction,
subjects for natural science or for
philosophy, and human reason can-
not from its natural powers and
principles arrive at the knowledge
of all, even the most obscure, dog-
mas, if such dogmas be only pro-
posed to reason as its object.
(Note of Author of the present
work. In this proposition Schrader
omits one clause of the original-
Historice tantum exculta. This is
evidently a mere oversight. These
words should come after human
reason.')
10. Although the philosopher is
one thing and philosophy another,
the former has not only the right
and the duty to subject himself to
the authority which he recognises
as true, but also philosophy itself
can and must submit to authority.
11. The Church must not only
sometimes proceed against philo
404
Appendix.
sophy, but ought to tolerate the
errors of philosophy, leaving to
philosophy the care of their correc-
tion.
(Remark of Author of the present
work. Animadvert' is the reproduc-
tion of the original word, not the
English of it. The French renders it
sérir, to act rigorously towards; the
German, forgehen gegen, to proceed
against; the Italian, corregere, to
correct, making it synonymous with
'correct' in the last clause. Even the
maddest theorist would hardly deny
to the Church the right to animad-.
vert upon philosophy' to her heart's
content.)
12. The decrees of the Apostolic
See and of the Roman Congrega-
tions fetter the free progress of
science.
13. The method and principles
by which the old scholastic doctors
cultivated theology are no longer
suitable to the demands of the age
and the progress of science.
14. Philosophy must be treated
of without any account being taken
of supernatural revelation.-(Id.,
ibid.)
N.B.-To the rationalistic system
belong in great part the errors of
Antony Gunther, condemned in
the letter to the Cardinal Arch-
sophy, but she must not tolerate
the errors of philosophy itself, and
must not leave it to correct itself.
(Remark of Schrader.-The Church
has the right and the duty of proceed-
ing against false philosophy. She
must not tolerate the errors of this
philosophy, but must expose them to
it, and demand from it that it put
itself into harmony with revealed
truth.)
12. Decrees of the Apostolic See,
and of the Roman Congregations,
do not hinder the free progress of
science.
(Remark of Schrader.-Because the
Apostolic See is appointed by God
Himself as the teacher and defender
of the truth.)
13. The method and the prin-
ciples according to which the old
scholastic doctors pursued the study
of theology completely correspond
with the wants of our time and with
the progress of science.
(Remark of Schrader.-They have
been frequently quoted by the Church
with the highest expressions of praise,
and have been earnestly recommended
as the strongest shield of faith, and as
formidable armour against its enemies,
and have been productive of great
utility and splendour to science, and
perfectly correspond with the wants
of all time and the progress of
science.)
14. Philosophy must not be pur-
sued without regard to supernatural
revelation.
N.B.-The errors of Antony
Günther for the most part were
connected with a system of rational-
ism, which errors were rejected in a
brief to the Archbishop of Cologne,
Appendix.
bishop of Cologne, Eximiam tuam,
June 15th, 1847; and in that to
the Bishop of Breslau, Dolore haud
mediocri, April 30th, 1860.
SECT. III.-Indifferentism-Tolera-
tion.
(Note of Author of the present
work. The original word is not
toleration, but, as Schrader gives it,
latitudinarianism.)
15. Every man is free to embrace
and profess the religion he shall
believe true, guided by the light of
reason.
16. Men may in any religion find
the way of eternal salvation, and
obtain eternal salvation.
17. The eternal salvation may at
least be hoped for of all those who
are not at all in the true Church of
Christ.
18. Protestantism is nothing more
than another form of the same true
Christian religion, in which it is
possible to please God equally as
in the Catholic Church.
405
Eximiam tuam, June 15th, 1847;
and in the brief to the Bishop of
Breslau, Dolore haud mediocri,
April 30th, 1860.
SECT. III. —Indifferentism and Lati-
tudinarianism.
(Note of Schrader. Latitudina-
rianism is that error which although
it does not declare all religions to be
alike good, yet does not hold the
Catholic Church to be the only one
which brings salvation.)
15. Every man is not entitled to
embrace and to profess that religion
which he may hold for the true
one, led by the light of reason.
(Remark of Schrader.-But he must
embrace the revealed truth in the
Catholic religion.)
16. Men cannot find the way of
eternal salvation, and obtain eternal
blessedness, in the practice of every
kind of religion.
(Remark of Schrader.-For it is to
be held as of faith that out of the
Apostolic Romish Church no one can
be saved.)
17. The eternal salvation of all
those who do not live in any way
in the true Church of Christ is not
to be hoped for.
(Remark of Schrader.-But only are
we to admit that they who suffer from
ignorance of the true religion are not
held guilty on that account before
God if their ignorance be invincible.)
18. Protestantism is not merely
a different form of the same Chris-
tian faith; and it is not given to be
equally well pleasing to God as in
the Catholic Church.
(Remark of Schrader.-But it is a
falling away from the full revealed
truth.)
406
Appendix.
SECT. IV. Socialism, Communism,
Secret Societies, Biblical Societies,
Clerico-Liberal Societies.
Pests of this description are fre-
quently rebuked in the severest
terms in the Encyc. Qui pluribus,
Nov. 9th, 1846; All. Quibus quan-
tisque, April 20th, 1849; Encyc.
Noscitis et nobiscum, Dec. 8th,
1849;
All. Singulari quadam,
Dec. 9th, 1854; Encyc. Quanto
conficiamur mærore, Aug. 10th,
1863.
SECT. V. —Errors concerning the
Church and her Rights.
19. The Church is not a true and
perfect and entirely free associa-
tion she does not enjoy peculiar
and perpetual rights conferred upon
her by her Divine Founder, but it
appertains to the civil power to
define what are the rights and limits
within which the Church may exer-
cise authority.
20. The ecclesiastical power must
not exercise its authority without
the toleration and assent of the civil
government.
21. The Church has not the power
of defining dogmatically that the
religion of the Catholic Church is
the only true religion.
22. The obligation which binds
Catholic teachers and authors ap-
plies only to those things which are
proposed for universal belief as dog-
mas of the faith by the infallible
judgment of the Church.
23. The Roman Pontiffs and Ecu-
menical Councils have exceeded the
limits of their power, have usurped
the rights of princes, and have even
SECT. IV. Socialism, Communism,
Secret Societies, Bible Societies,
Liberal Clerical Associations.
(Note of Schrader.-Liberal Catho-
lic associations mean associations of
Italian priests who are enthusiastic
for a free Church in a free State. Such
pests have often, and in the severest.
words, been condemned, as in the
Epist. Encycl. Qui pluribus, Nov. 9th,
1846; in Alloc. Quibus quantisque,
April 20th, 1849; in Epist. Encycl.
Noscitis et nobiscum, Dec. 8th, 1849
in Alloc. Singulari quadam, Dec. 9th,
1854; in Epist. Encycl. Quanto con-
ficiamur mærore, Aug. 10th, 1863.
;
SECT. V.-Errors respecting the
Church and her Rights.
19. The Church is a true and
perfect society, entirely free, and
possesses her proper and permanent
rights granted to her by her divine
Founder, and it does not belong to
the State to define what are the
rights of the Church, and what are
the limits within which she can
exercise them.
20. The Church may use her
authority without the permission
or consent of the State.
21. The Church has the power
dogmatically to decide that the re-
ligion of the Catholic Church is the
only true religion.
22. The obligation which com-
pletely binds Catholic teachers and
authors must not be limited only to
subjects which are propounded to
all, to be believed as articles of faith
by an infallible utterance of the
Church.
23. The Pope of Rome and the
General Councils have not exceeded
the limits of their power. They
have not usurped the rights of
Appendix.
407
committed errors in defining matters princes; and in defining doctrines
of faith and morals they have not
erred.
of faith and morals.
24. The Church has not the power
of availing herself of force or of any
direct or indirect temporal power.
25. In addition to the authority
inherent in the Episcopate, further
temporal power is granted to it by
the civil authority either expressly
or tacitly, which power is on that
account also revocable by the civil
authority whenever it pleases.
26. The Church has not the
natural and legitimate right of
acquisition and possession.
27. The ministers of the Church
and the Roman Pontiff ought to be
absolutely excluded from all charge
and dominion over temporal affairs.
28. Bishops have not the right of
promulgating even their apostolical
letters without the sanction of the
government.
(Remark of Author of the present
work.-Apostolic Letters mean Papal
not episcopal manifestoes; therefore
the expression 'their apostolic letters'
is not clear, and is not in the Latin.
29. Dispensations granted by the
Roman Pontiff must be considered
null, unless they have been re-
quested by the civil government.
30. The immunity of the Church
and of ecclesiastical persons derives
its origin from civil law.
31. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction for
24. The Church has the power
to use external force. She has also
a direct and an indirect temporal
power.
(Remark of Schrader.-Not minds
merely are subject to the power of the
Church.)
25. Beyond the power inherent
in the Episcopate no other temporal
power has been conceded to it by
the State either expressly or tacitly,
and therefore not any power which
the government of the State can at
its pleasure withdraw.
26. The Church has an innate and
legitimate right of acquisition and
possession.
27. The ordained servants of the
Church and the Roman Pontiff are
by no means to be excluded from
all control and dominion over tem-
poral affairs.
28. Bishops themselves may pub-
lish apostolical letters without per-
mission of the government of the
State.
29. Graces granted by the Pope
are not to be regarded as invalid
if they are not requested by the
government of the State.
30. The immunity of the Church
and of ecclesiastical persons has not
its origin in civil law.
(Remark of Schrader.-But has its
root in the proper rights of the Church
granted her by God.)
31. Spiritual jurisdiction for tem-
408
Appendix.
the temporal causes, whether civil
or criminal, of the clergy, ought
by all means to be abolished even
without the concurrence and against
the protest of the Holy See.
32. The personal immunity exo-
nerating the clergy from military
service may be abolished without
violation either of natural right or
of equity. Its abolition is called
for by civil progress, especially in a
community constituted upon princi-
ples of liberal government.
(Note of Author of the present work.
-Most English translations make this
apply not to students for the priest-
hood, but only to the clergy. The
word in the original is not clerus, but
clericus, which certainly in Rome
means not only a clergyman, but also
one in training for the clerical office.)
33. It does not appertain ex-
clusively to ecclesiastical juris-
diction by any right proper and
inherent, to direct the teaching of
theological subjects.
34. The doctrine of those who
compare the Sovereign Pontiff to
a free sovereignty acting in the
Universal Church is a doctrine
which prevailed in the middle
ages only.
35. There would be no obstacle
to the sentence of a General Council
or the act of all the universal peoples
transferring the pontifical sove-
poral causes of the clergy, both
civil and criminal, is not, by any
means, to be abolished, and not
without consulting the Apostolic
See or against its protest.
(Remark of Schrader. For it is
founded in the proper right of the
Church, and can be handed over to the
temporal tribunals only through the
express consent of the Pope.)
32. The abolition of the exemp-
tion of the clergy and students for
the priesthood from military service
cannot take place without a violation
of natural right and of justice; and
the progress of the State does not
demand its abolition, especially in
a State which is constituted with a
free government.
(Remark of Schrader.-The abolition
of the personal exemption of priests and
students for the priesthood from mili-
tary service violates not only natural
right and justice, but also the rights
of the Church. The progress of the
State does not only not demand it,
but is opposed to it; and the more
freely a society is constituted, so much
the more must it respect the personal
exemption of the clergy and the stu-
dent for the priesthood from the mili-
tary service.)
33. It belongs exclusively to the
power of ecclesiastical jurisdiction,
and that of proper and innate right,
to control theological studies.
34. The doctrine which compares
the Roman Pontiff to a free prince
employing his own power in the
Church, is not a doctrine which
prevailed only in the middle ages.
(Remark of Schrader.-But is one
which corresponds with the constitu-
tion of the Church, and therefore must
prevail in all times.)
35. There are grounds which for-
bid that either through the decisions
of a General Council or the act of
all nations the pontificate should
Appendix.
reignty from the Bishop and city
of Rome to some other bishopric
and some other city.
36. The definition of a National
Council does not admit of any sub-
sequent discussion, and the civil
power can settle an affair as decided
by such National Council.
37. National Churches can be
established after being withdrawn
and separated from the authority
of the Roman Pontiff.
38. Many Roman Pontiffs have,
by their too arbitrary conduct,
contributed to the division of the
Church into Eastern and Western.
SECT. VI.-Errors about Civil So-
ciety, considered both in itself and
in its relation to the Church.
39. The State is the origin and
409
be withdrawn from the Bishop of
Rome, and handed over to another
bishop or another city.
Neither
(Remark of Schrader.
through the decision of a General
Council, nor through the deed of all
nations, can it be overthrown that
the pontificate is given to the Bishop
of Rome and to the city of Rome.)
36. The decision of a National
Council does admit of further dis-
cussion; and the government of a
State cannot submit any matter to
this decision.
(Remark of Schrader.-The decision
of a National Council requires in order
to its validity the consent and con-
firmation of the Holy See; and the
government of the State cannot appeal
to the decision of a National Council
as the ultimate tribunal, but must
appeal to that of the See of Rome.)
37. No National Churches can be
erected which are withdrawn from
the authority of the Pope of Rome,
and fully separated from him.
(Remark of Schrader. - National
Churches which are withdrawn from
the authority of the Pope of Rome,
and fully separated from him, cannot
be set up; because that is no less than
rending and breaking up the unity of
the Catholic Church, and because the
power and manner of this unity im-
peratively require that as the members
are connected with the head, so all
believers upon earth must be united
with, and joined to, the Roman
Pontiff, who is the vicegerent of
Christ upon earth.)
38. The excessive and arbitrary
acts of the Roman Pontiffs have had
no part in bringing about the divi-
sion of the Church into Eastern and
Western.
SECT. VI.—Errors relating to Civil
Society, both in itself and in its
relations with the Church.
39. The State does not possess as
410
Appendix.
:
source of all rights, and possesses
rights which are not circumscribed
by any limits.
40. The teaching of the Catholic
Church is opposed to the well-being
and interests of society.
41. The civil government, even
when exercised by an infidel sove-
reign, possesses an indirect and
negative power over religious affairs.
It therefore possesses not only the
right called that of exequatur, but
also that of the (so-called) appellatio
ab abusu. ['Appel comme d'abus.']
42. In the case of conflicting
laws between the two powers, the
civil law ought to prevail.
43. The lay power has the autho-
rity to rescind, declare, and render
null solemn conventions or con-
cordats relating to the use of rights
appertaining to ecclesiastical im-
munity, without the consent of the
Apostolic See, and even in spite of
its protests.
(Note of Author of the present work.
It is noteworthy that while in Rome
the doctrine of concordats, as taught
by Tarquini and in the pages of
the Civiltà, was that they were not
bipartite treaties, but laws issued by
the Pontiff at the instance of the tem-
poral prince, in Austria and Germany,
Schrader and Bishop Martin (see his
Katechismus des Kirchenrecht), in
order to uphold concordats, taught
that they were solemn treaties.
44. The civil authority may in-
terfere in matters related to religion,
morality, and spiritual government,
whence it has control over the in-
structions for the guidance of con-
the origin and fountain of all rights
an unbounded right.
(Remark of Schrader-The State is
not the origin and fountain of all
rights, and hence does not possess
any unbounded right.)
40. The doctrine of the Catholic
Church is not contrary to the wel-
fare and advantage of human so-
ciety.
(Remark of Schrader.-But even
helpful to it.)
41. The State has not a direct
and positive nor an indirect and
negative right in religious things,
and still less when its power is
wielded by an unbelieving prince.
It has neither the right of exe-
quatur nor the right of appellatio
which is called ab abusu.
42. In case of conflict between
the laws of the two powers, the
temporal law does not prevail.
43. The temporal authority has
not the power to revoke solemn
treaties commonly called concor-
dats, which have been made with
the Holy See in respect to the
exercise of the rights of ecclesiasti-
cal immunity without its consent
or against its opposition, nor the
right to declare or make them void.
44. The authority of the State
cannot interfere in matters of re-
ligion or morals, or of spiritual
government. It cannot therefore
judge of the admonitions which chief
Appendix.
sciences issued, conformably with
their mission, by the pastors of the
Church. Further, it possesses power
to decree in the matter of adminis-
tering the Divine Sacraments and
as to the dispositions necessary for
their reception.
45. The entire direction of public
schools in which the youth of Chris-
tian States are educated, except (to
a certain extent) in the case of
episcopal seminaries, may and must
appertain to the civil power, and
belong to it so far that no other
authority whatsoever shall be recog-
nised as having any right to inter-
fere in the discipline of the schools,
the arrangement of the studies, the
taking of degrees, or the choice and
approval of the teachers.
46. Further, even in clerical
seminaries, the mode of study to be
adopted must be submitted to the
civil authority.
411
pastors of the Church in pursuance
of their office issue as a rule for
the guidance of consciences. Also
it cannot decide upon the adminis-
tration of the Holy Sacraments nor
the dispositions necessary to their
reception of them.
45. The entire direction of public
schools in which the youth of a
Christian State are educated, ex-
cepting episcopal seminaries in some
particulars, cannot and must not
be given to the State, even so that
no right of any other authority to
interfere in the discipline of the
school, in the arrangement of
studies, in the conferring of de-
grees, or in the choice and approval
of teachers can be recognised.
(Remark of Schrader.-The supreme
direction of public schools in which the
youth of a Christian State are educated
pertains to the Church. It is her duty
to watch over all public and private
schools, so that in the entire school
system, but especially in what relates
to religion, teachers may be appointed
and books may be employed which
shall be free from every suspicion
of error; and that thus masters and
mistresses of the most approved recti-
tude may be chosen for the schools of
the children and youth in the earliest
years. The Church would act against
the commands of her Divine Founder,
and would be unfaithful to her most
important duty committed to her by
God, to care for the salvation of the
souls of all men, if she gave up or in-
terrupted her wholesome ruling influ-
ence over the primary schools, and she
would be compelled to warn all be-
lievers and to declare to them that
schools out of which the authority of
the Church is driven, are schools hostile
to the Church, and cannot be attended
with good conscience.)
46. The direction of studies in
clerical seminaries is in no way in
the hands of the State authority.
412
Appendix.
47. The best theory of civil so-
ciety requires that popular schools
open to the children of all classes,
and, generally, all public institutes
intended for the instruction in
letters and philosophy and for con-
ducting the education of the young,
should be freed from all ecclesiasti-
cal authority, government, and in-
terference, and should be completely
subjected to the civil and political
power in conformity with the will
of rulers and the prevalent opinions
of the age.
48. This system of instructing
youth, which consists in separating
it from the Catholic faith and from
the power of the Church, and in
teaching it exclusively the know-
ledge of natural things and the
earthly ends of social life alone,
may be perfectly approved by
Catholics.
49. The civil power is entitled to
prevent ministers of religion and
47. The best mode of regulating a
State does not demand that the
national schools, which are open to
all classes of the community, and
generally public institutions destined
for the higher scientific instruction,
and the education of youth, should
be withdrawn from all ecclesiastical
authority, and completely handed
over to the direction of the temporal
and political authority, and should
be conducted according to the plea-
sure of the government and the
standard of current opinion.
(Remark of Schrader.-Such a cor-
rupting method of instruction sepa-
rated from the Catholic faith and the
influence of the Church already exists,
and is of great disadvantage to indivi-
duals and society in respect to learned
and scientific instruction, and to the
education of youth in public schools
and institutions destined for the higher
classes of society. But still greater evils
and disadvantages spring out of this
method if it is introduced into the
national schools; and all efforts and
attempts to exclude the influence
of the Church from national schools
emanate from a spirit extremely hostile
to the Church, as from all the efforts
to extinguish the light of our most
holy faith among the people.)
48. Catholic men cannot put up
with a kind of education of youth
which is entirely separated from
the Catholic faith and the authority
of the Church, and which keeps ex-
clusively in view the knowledge of
natural things and the ends of
earthly social life as the great ob-
ject.
(Remark of Schrader.-An instruc-
tion of youth which imparts only the
knowledge of natural things, and keeps
in view only the ends of earthly social
life, cannot lead youths to necessary
salvation, but must draw them away
from it.)
49. The State authority is not
allowed to hinder bishops and be-
Appendix.
the faithful from communicating
freely and mutually with each other
and with the Roman Pontiff.
50. The lay authority possesses
as inherent in itself the right of
presenting bishops, and may re-
quire of them that they take
possession of their dioceses before
having received canonical institu-
tion and the apostolical letters of
the Holy See.
51. And, further, the lay govern-
ment has the right of deposing
bishops from their pastoral func-
tions, and is not bound to obey the
Poman Pontiff in those things which
relate to bishops' sees and the in-
stitution of bishops.
52. The government has of itself
the right to alter the age prescribed
by the Church for the religious pro-
fession both of men and women;
and may enjoin upon all religious
establishments to admit no person
to take solemn vows without its
permission.
53. The laws for the protection
of religious establishments and
securing their rights and duties
ought to be abolished; nay, more,
the civil government may lend
its assistance to all who desire to
quit the religious life which they
have undertaken, and to break
their vows. The government may
also extinguish religious orders,
collegiate churches, and simple
benefices, even those belonging to
private patronage, and submit
their goods and revenues to the
administration and disposal of the
civil power.
413
lievers from holding free communi-
cation with the See of Rome.
50. The temporal authority has
not the right of itself to present
bishops, and cannot demand of them
that they shall enter upon the ad-
ministration of their dioceses before
they have received canonical insti-
tution and the apostolic letters from
the Holy See.
51. The temporal government has
not the right to withdraw from
bishops the exercise of their pasto-
ral office, and it is bound in what-
ever relates to the episcopate and
the appointment of bishops to obey
the Pope of Rome.
52. The government cannot of
its own right alter the age pre-
scribed by the Church for the
taking of vows, whether by men
or by women. Nor can it forbid
religious orders to admit any one
to the taking of vows without its
permission.
53. Those laws may not be abo-
lished which relate to the protection
of religious orders, and to their
rights and duties; and the govern-
ment of the State cannot grant sup-
port to all who forsake their chosen
condition in any order, and wish to
break their solemn vows. Also it
cannot abolish houses belonging to
the orders, the collegiate churches,
or their endowments, even when
they are subject to a right of pa-
tronage, and cannot hand over their
property to the administration and
discretion of the State.
(Remark of Schrader.-Those laws
which relate to the protection of re-
ligious orders, to their rights and to
their duties, must not be abolished,
but every government must far rather
414
Appendix.
54. Kings and princes are not
only exempt from the jurisdiction
of the Church, but are superior to
the Church in litigated questions
of jurisdiction.
55. The Church ought to be
separated from the State, and the
State from the Church.
SECT. VII.—Errors concerning Na-
tural and Christian Ethics.
56. Moral laws do not stand in
need of the divine sanction, and
there is no necessity that human
laws should be conformable to the
law of nature and receive their
sanction from God.
grant protection to the religious orders.
If the government of the State grants
support to those who forsake their
chosen condition in any order, and
wish to break their solemn vows, it
acts against the spirit and the will of
the Church. If they do away with the
houses of the orders, their collegiate
churches, or private endowments, even
though they are subject to rights of
patronage, and if they hand over their
property to the administration and
discretion of the State, they thereby
rob the Church of her legitimate pro-
perty, and they fall under the greater
excommunication. as also under the
other censures and pains which have
been established by the Apostolic Con-
stitutions, the Holy Canons, and the
Decrees of General Councils, in particu-
lar of the Council of Trent. Sec. 22,
cap. ii., against the violators and dese-
crators, and against the usurpers of
the rights of the Apostolic See.)
54. Kings and princes are neither
excluded from the jurisdiction of
the Church, nor do they stand
higher than the Church in deter-
mining questions of jurisdiction.
(Remark of Schrader.-But as mem-
bers of the Church they are subject to
the decision of the pastors, and espe-
cially of the chief pastors. Princes
should much rather remember that the
kingly power has not been delivered to
them only for the government of the
world, but especially for the protection
of the Church, and what is done by
them for the welfare of the Church is
done for their kingdom and for its
peace.)
55. The Church is neither to be
separated from the State, nor the
State from the Church.
—
SECT. VII. · Errors relating to
Natural and Christian Ethics.
56. Moral laws need a divine
sanction, and it is necessary that
human laws should be brought into
accord with natural right, and should
receive their binding force from
God.
Appendix.
57. Knowledge of philosophical
things, and morals, and civil laws,
may, and must be, independent of
divine and ecclesiastical authority.
58. No other forces are to be
recognised except those which re-
side in matter, and all moral teach-
ing and moral excellence ought to
be made to consist in the accumula-
tion and increase of riches by every
possible means, and in the enjoy
ment of pleasure.
59. Right consists in the material
fact. All human duties are vain
words, and all human acts have the
force of right.
60. Authority is nothing else but
the result of numerical superiority
and material force.
61. An unjust act being success-
ful inflicts no injury upon the
sanctity of right.
62. The principle of non-inter-
vention ought to be proclaimed and
adhered to.
63. It is allowable to refuse
obedience to legitimate princes;
nay more, to rise in insurrection
against them.
415
57. Philosophy and philosophical
ethics, as well as civil laws, should
not and must not deviate from divine
revelation, and from the authority of
the Church.
58. Other powers are to be ac-
knowledged besides those found in
matter, and the discipline and come-
liness of manners should not be
placed in the accumulation and
multiplication of riches of every
kind, and in the enjoyment of plea-
sures.
(Remark of Schrader.-There are
other powers to acknowledge, belong-
ing to a higher mental order than
those which are found in matter, and
also morality and propriety is de-
stroyed in the mere accumulation and
multiplication of riches, and the in-
dulgence of evil lusts according to the
words of the Scripture- If ye live
after the flesh ye shall die, but if ye
through the spirit do mortify the deeds
of the body ye shall live.')
59. Right does not consist in the
material fact. The duties of men
are no empty name, and all human
facts have not the force of right.
60. Authority is something more
than numbers and the sum of ma-
terial forces.
(Remark of Schrader. - Otherwise
fools would form the highest authority,
for it is said of them in the Scripture
that their number is infinite.)
61. Unrighteousness, even when
attended by good fortune, tarnishes
the sacredness of right.
62. The so-called principle of
non-intervention is not to be pro-
claimed and not to be observed.
(Remark of Schrader.-For it is a
fatal principle, and opposed to the
spirit of love and order.)
63. Obedience must not be de-
nied to legitimate princes, much
less must they be rebelled against.
416
Appendix.
64. The violation of a solemn
oath, nay, any wicked and flagi-
tious action repugnant to the eternal
law, is not only not blamable, but
quite lawful, and worthy of the
highest praise when done for the
love of one's country.
—
SECT. VIII. Errors concerning
Christian Marriage.
65. It cannot be by any means
tolerated to maintain that Christ
has raised marriage to the dignity
of a sacrament.
66. The sacrament of marriage is
only an adjunct of the contract and
separable from it, and the sacra-
ment itself only consists in the
nuptial benediction.
67. By the law of nature the
marriage tie is not indissoluble, and
in many cases divorce, properly so
called, may be pronounced by the
civil authority.
(Remark of Schrader.-For it is
written, 'Be subject to every human
creature for God's sake; whether to
the king, who is the highest, or to his
lieutenants as such, who are appointed
by him;' and he who sets himself
against the ruler with force, he resists
the ordinance of God, and they that
resist shall receive condemnation.)
64. The breach of every oath and
every godless and shameful action
in contradiction to the eternal laws
are not only worthy of condemna-
tion but also are eternally to be re-
probated, and are not praiseworthy
even when they are done out of
love to one's native country.
(Remark of Schrader.—But by such
criminal and perverted reasonings all
propriety, virtue, and righteousness
are entirely destroyed, and the evil
conduct of the thief and assassin is
defended and recommended with un-
heard-of impudence.)
SECT. VIII. — Errors relating to
Christian Marriage.
65. It is not to be in any way
denied that Christ has elevated
marriage to the dignity of a sacra-
ment.
(Remark of Schrader.-Many proofs
can be brought forward that Christ
did elevate marriage to the dignity of
a sacrament.)
66. The sacrament of marriage is
not something simply accessory to
the contract, and to be separated
from it, and the sacrament does not
lie simply and only in the benedic-
tion of the marriage.
67. By natural law the marriage
bond is indissoluble, and in no case
can divorce in the proper sense be
legally pronounced by the temporal
authority.
(Remark of Schrader. - Christian
marriage is truly and properly one of
the seven sacraments of the evangelical
law, instituted by Christ the Lord,
Appendix.
68. The Church has not the
power of laying down what are
diriment impediments to marriage.
The civil authority does possess
such a power, and can abolish im-
pediments that may exist to mar-
riage.
69. In the later ages, the Church,
when she laid down certain impedi-
ments as diriment to marriage, did
so not of her own authority, but
by a right borrowed from the civil
power.
70. The canons of the Council of
Trent, which pronounce censure of
anathema against those who deny
the Church the right of laying down
what are diriment impediments,
either are not dogmatic, or must
be understood as referring to such
borrowed power.
71. The form of solemnising
marriage prescribed by the said
Council, under penalty of nullity,
does not bind in cases where the
civil law has appointed another
form, and decrees that this new
form shall effectuate a valid mar-
riage.
72. Boniface VIII. is the first
who declared that the vow of
chastity pronounced at Ordination
annuls marriage.
73. A merely civil contract may
among Christians constitute a true
marriage, and it is false either that
the marriage contract between
Christians must always be a sacra-
ment, or that the contract is null
if the sacrament be excluded.
VOL. I.
417
Therefore it belongs altogether to the
ecclesiastical authority to decide upon
anything which in any way regards
marriage.)
68. The Church has the authority
to set up impediments invalidating
marriage, but this does not belong
to the temporal power, neither does
it belong to the latter to annul im-
pediments already existing.
69. The Church has not only
in later centuries begun to set up
impediments invalidating marriage,
and she has done so out of her own
rights, and not out of rights lent to
her by the temporal authority.
70. The canons of the Council of
Trent which pronounce an anathema
upon those who dare to deny the
right of the Church to set up im-
pediments invalidating marriage are
dogmatic in their nature, and are
not to be understood as of a bor-
rowed power.
71. The Tridentine form is bind-
ing under penalty of invalidity, even
where the law of the State has pre-
scribed another form and makes the
validity of marriage dependent upon
it.
(Remark of Schrader.-The State
law is invalid.)
72. Boniface VIII. has not been
the first to declare that a vow of
chastity taken in ordination renders
marriage null.
73. No true marriage can exist
between Christians by force of a
civil contract, and it is true that
either the contract of marriage be-
tween Christians is always a sacra-
ment, or that the contract is null
if the sacrament has been excluded.
(Remark of Schrader.-And thus,
27
418
Appendix.
74. Matrimonial causes and es-
pousals belong by their nature to
civil jurisdiction.
N.B.-Two other errors may tend
in this direction upon the aboli-
tion of the celibacy of priests and
the preference due to the state of
marriage over that of virginity.
These have been refuted; the first
in the Encyclical Qui pluribus,
Nov. 9th, 1846; the second in the
Letters Apostolical Multiplices in-
ter, June 10th, 1851.
SECT. IX.
Errors regarding the
Civil Power of the Sovereign.
75. The children of the Christian
and Catholic Church are not agreed
upon the compatibility of the tem-
poral with the spiritual power.
76. The abolition of the temporal
power of which the Apostolic See
is possessed would contribute in the
greatest degree to the liberty and
prosperity of the Church.
therefore, every connection entered
upon between man and woman among
Christians, by virtue of a civil law,
and without the sacrament, is nothing
else than a shameful and corrupt con-
cubinage condemned by the Church.
Therefore the marriage tie can never
be separated from the sacrament.)
74. Matrimonial causes and causes
arising from betrothals, from their
nature do not belong to the tem-
poral jurisdiction.
SECT. IX. Errors relating to the
Temporal Principality of the
Roman Pontiff.
75. There is no contention among
the sons of the Christian and Catho-
lic Church in regard to the compa-
tibility of the temporal dominion
with the spiritual.
(Remark of Schrader.
they are persuaded of it.)
Because
76. The abolition of the temporal
dominion possessed by the Apostolic
See would not at all contribute to
the freedom and to the happiness
of the Church.
(Remark of Schrader.-The happi-
ness and the welfare of the Church will
be much more compromised, if not an-
nihilated, since it is through a special
decree of Divine Providence that after
the division of the Roman Empire into
several kingdoms and various terri-
tories, the Roman Pontiff, to whom the
government and care of the whole
Church is entrusted by the Lord Christ,
received the temporal power, certainly
for this reason, that he might possess
Appendix.
N.B.-Besides these errors, ex-
plicitly noted, very many others.
are rebuked by the certain doctrine
which all Catholics are bound most
firmly to hold touching the temporal
sovereignty of the Roman Pontiff.
These doctrines are clearly stated
in the Allocutions Quantis quan-
tumque, April 20th, 1849, and Si
semper antea, May 20th, 1850;
Letters Apost. Quam Cattolica
Ecclesia, March 26th, 1860; Allo-
cutions Novos, Sept. 28th, 1860;
Jamdudum, March 18th, 1861, and
Maxima quidem, June 9th, 1862.
C
SECT. X.-Errors having reference
to Modern Liberalism.
77. In the present day it is no
longer necessary that the Catholic
religion shall be held as the only
religion of the State, to the exclu-
sion of all other modes of worship.
78. Whence it has been wisely
provided by the law, in some
countries called Catholic, that per-
sons coming to reside therein shall
enjoy the free exercise of their own
worship.
419
that entire freedom for the govern-
ment of the Church, and the preserva-
tion of her unity which is demanded
for the fulfilment of his high apostolic
functions.)
N.B. - Besides these expressly
stated errors, many are implicitly
rejected, through the statement
and assertion of the doctrine which
Catholics must hold with respect to
the temporal dominion of the Pope
of Rome. This doctrine is clearly
set forth in the allocutions of April
20th, 1849; May 20th, 1850; in
the Letters Apostolic of Sept. 28th,
1860; March 18th, 1861; and June
9th, 1862.
SECT. X.-Errors relating to Modern
Liberalism.
77. In our time, it is still essen-
tial that the Catholic religion should
be held as the only State religion,
to the exclusion of all other forms
of religion.
(Remarks of Schrader.-The Pope
also demands in those States in which
only Catholics reside, the domina-
tion of the Catholic religion alone, to
the exclusion of every other form of
religion, and therefore has he in the
Allocution of July 26th, 1856. re-
claimed against the violation of the
first article of the Spanish Concordat :
in which the exclusive dominion of
the Catholic religion in Spain had been
stipulated; and be rejected the law by
which freedom of worship had been
introduced, and declared it for null and
void.)
78. Therefore it was not well that
in certain Catholic lands immi-
grants should be guaranteed the
free exercise of their religion.
420
Appendix.
79. Moreover it is false that the
civil liberty of every mode of
worship and the full power given
to all of overtly and publicly mani-
festing their opinions and their
ideas conduce more easily to cor-
rupt the morals and minds of the
people, and to the propagation of
the pest of indifferentism.
80. The Roman Pontiff can and
ought to reconcile himself to, and
agree with, progress, liberalism,
and modern civilisation.
79. It is true that freedom of
worship granted by the States, and
permission given to every one to
publish all manner of opinions and
views, leads easily to the corruption
of manners and of sentiments among
the nations, and to the diffusion of
the bane of indifference.
(Remark of Schrader.-Through the
unbridled freedom of thought, speech,
and writing, morals are deeply sunken,
says Pius IX. in his Encyclical of
Nov. 9th, 1864. The holy religion has
fallen into contempt, and the majesty
of divine worship is despised; the
authority of the Apostolic See attacked,
and the authority of the Church con-
tested and laden with shameful fetters.
The rights of bishops are trampled
under foot, the holiness of marriage
is violated, every authority of govern-
ment is shaken, and thus many other
damages arise both to Church and
State.)
80. The Roman Pontiff cannot be
reconciled to modern civilisation
and progress, or compromise with
them.
(Remark of Schrader.-For those
who defend the righteousness and the
rights of our holy religion do right-
fully demand that the unchangeable
and immovable principles of eternal
righteousness shall be observed entire
and unimpaired, and that the power of
our salutary and divine religion shall
be upheld. The faithful shall be led
in the sure way of salvation, and not
upon the downward road of destruc-
tion. The Holy See is the highest
support, protector, and pastor of the
faithful. Therefore it cannot connect
itself with liberalism, and with modern
civilisation, without the most serious
violation of conscience, and without
the greatest universal scandal.)
APPENDIX B.
RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO THE BAPTIZED, AND
ESPECIALLY TO HERETICS.
THE following passages from the standard work of Phillips indicate the
tenets of Rome on this subject, in the more moderate aspect of their
recent phases. They are all found in the second volume of the Kirchen-
recht, and we give the page with each separate citation :-
P. 435. By virtue of the supreme powers given to her, the Church
has indeed a dominion over those who are without [not baptized]; but
over these she does not give sentence in the same sense as over those
who through the door of baptism have entered into the Church, and who
through this sacrament have received the indelible token of membership
in the kingdom of Christ. These latter have in baptism sworn the oath
of allegiance; they have sworn Fideltas and Homagium, the oath of
personal believing fidelity [fidelitas] and that of the vassal (Lehnseid),
of true and active service with the talents which have been granted to
them in fee (Zu Lehen).'
P. 436. No one is exempt from this obedience,-all are confided
to the Church to be guided and brought up for heaven; for all, there-
fore, without exception, is the Church an authority instituted by God.
The possibility of attaining to his highest end, that of glorifying God,
which man through disobedience had lost, Christ has given back to him
again; but this end can be attained only in the way of obedience.
Disobedience against the divine Word, the rejecting or doubting even
of a single one of the divine truths announced by the Church, puts the
individual human being again in the way of perdition, on which our
first parents entered to their own ruin and that of their posterity,
when they, instead of believing the simply and clearly announced Word,
chose another exposition of the same, which was more agreeable to
them.'
P. 438. 'Hence in particular must they grievously offend God who
422
Appendix.
either directly put away from them the faith of the Church, or else
accept it only in so far as it appears to them correct according to the
selection [out of her tenets] which they have made; or, again, who so
break the bond of the unity of the Church as to declare themselves
loose from obedience to the lawful authority which in her has been set
over them by God. Thus are we led to speak of the three ecclesiastical
crimes-apostacy, heresy, and schism.'
P. 440. 'As to apostacy, which is the total rejection of the Christian
faith, and the falling away into Judaism, or heathenism, or Islamism,
it is here only to be remarked that in the view of the Church it is as
the crime of insulting the majesty of God. The apostate must be com-
pelled to return to the Church by force, and a milder judgment may
be pronounced upon him only in the case of one who was compelled
to deny his faith by the unbelievers.'
P. 441. 'In opposition to the entire rejection of the Christian faith,
heresy implies the wilful selection of a number from out of the dogmas
of the Church which are to be believed by men in all their fulness,
and the restricting of faith to such selected doctrines as the man still
adheres to; in general to this is added the acceptance of false articles
of faith. In this wider sense, all those are called heretics who accept
only particular doctrines of the Church; but we must distinguish between
such. We must part off error from heresy. Any man may fall into
error, with regard to one or another doctrine of the Church, against his
own will, out of simplicity, or from want of instruction, or because he
has received wrong instruction. Such an error of the understanding is
called 'material heresy ;' but proper heresy, which is called formal
heresy,' has its seat in the will. The latter consists in this, that to
error is added obstinacy of the will, which is disinclined to depart from it.
If any one announces a doctrine and then learns that the Church teaches
otherwise, thus discovering that he was in error, he does not fall into
heresy if he only ceases to defend the doctrine which he has set forth,
and submits himself to the teaching of the Church. On the other hand,
one who does know that the Church teaches otherwise, and still affirms
that something is an article of belief which is not so, or, contrariwise,
that something is not an article of belief which is so, doing this in spite
of the fact that the Church has delivered the truth upon the subject,
he by so doing haughtily prefers his own judgment to that of the Church;
and through this obstinacy, the characteristic mark of heresy, he becomes
a heretic in the strict sense of the word.
'It is not necessary to heresy that the person shall, as a heresiarch,
found a new sect, or that, by free choice, he shall go over to a sect
condemned by the Church; but heresy is already present whenever
any one in the bosom of the Catholic Church departs from only one
single point of the faith, or understands one single passage of Holy
Scripture otherwise than as the Church, with the assistance of the Holy
Appendix.
423
Ghost, expounds them. For so great is the importance of heresy that
through want of faith even on one point, the proper foundation of faith
itself is destroyed, so that he that makes himself guilty with regard to
one dogma, becomes at the same time guilty as to every dogma of the
Church. Thus not only is he who rejects one of the articles defined by
the Church a heretic, but also he who after such a definition maintains
that the point is still doubtful.'
P. 445. 'The Church prays for the return of her separated members,
and she is entitled to proceed to compulsion by virtue of the jurisdiction
over heretics as baptized persons which belongs to her; but she uses, by
prayer and by the instruction which is permitted to all, the only means
by which she can now enter into communication with them, at least as
relations at present stand.
'She may, indeed, tolerate the heathen, because they err through igno-
rance; she may tolerate the Jews as witnesses for the truth; but she
cannot tolerate heresy, because this shakes the foundation of the entire
faith. The synagogue makes way for the Church as a dutiful handmaid,
bringing her the Holy Scriptures. Heresy, however, lifts itself up as a
mistress above the Church, discredits her utterly, sets itself to judge over
her, and would condemn her out of Holy Scripture according to its self-
chosen exposition, closing her mouth like that of Christ. It commences
with the divine Word, but it treats that word like a lyre, from which
every one, at pleasure, may draw whatever note will suit him.
'The Church pardons error, but she cannot subject herself to the obsti-
nately erring will, but must destroy its dominion and its tyranny. She,
as the teacher of the truth, cannot conclude a peace with such a will. She
cannot lift it up to the throne beside her, she cannot share her dominion
with it. Understood in its proper and true signification, heresy is a
frightful crime. Do the heathen blaspheme God out of ignorance? Heresy
tears truth to pieces consciously. Did the Jews crucify Christ according
to the flesh? Heresy fastens the Church, His mystical body, to the cross.
Therefore the Church cannot at all tolerate heresy, because the greatest
danger of seduction is attached to it. The Christian can easily shun the
heathen and the Jew, but not the Christian who by the baptismal vow
is connected with him, but by heresy is separated from him.
'On these grounds is explained the complete intolerance which the
Church, in all her laws, and especially in the Bulla Cond, has manifested
against heresy. Hence are explained the certainly hard-sounding expres-
sions with which she speaks of heresy. Hence the punishments against
heretics, the delivering up of the same to the temporal arm, and the
calling upon temporal princes by law and by arms to come to her help
in rooting out heresy. When the Church pronounces cæcommunication
upon heretics, it is nothing more than a declaratory sentence of that which
had already been announced by the heretics themselves; for, all the more
because these are Christians, must she separate them from herself, that
424
Appendix.
they may not be accounted as of her, and that she may not appear a
chargeable for their obstinacy.
'Hence it will be understood that the Church employs all means to keep
her members from being infected with heretical teaching. She has there-
fore, with the apostle, forbidden intercourse with heretics; yet she makes
this apply, according to the Bull of Martin V., Ad evitandos, only to those
who are personally, and by name, excommunicated on account of their
obstinacy. To a like end the Church forbids to the faithful the reading
of heretical writings, which still retain that character even when the
author perhaps erred only out of ignorance, and has given his books to
the fire. So according to the diversities of times and circumstances does
she require from her members the assurance of fidelity in making the
confession of faith, causing those who return into her bosom to abjure
heresy, and prohibiting all to preach who have not thereto an express
mission, and forbidding the laity to dispute as to the faith, except in
cases in which especial exceptions are justified.'
P. 451. Schism, in its proper meaning, consists in this, that the
baptized person, while not doubting as to the faith, and while not intending
to separate himself from it, declares himself free from the authority which
God has set over him in the Church. In a looser sense of the word, schism
may refer to one's own bishop, as well as to the Pope; properly, however,
it requires separation from the centre of Church unity, from the Pope,
to constitute a schism, although revolt against the proper bishop, recog-
nised by the head of the Church, comprehends in itself separation from
the entire Church. And how will the schismatic, separated from eccle-
siastical unity, preserve himself in purity of doctrine? Does heresy lead to
schism? So infallibly does schism lead to heresy, inasmuch as only through
false doctrine can it be justified. Therefore does the Church regard
schism as a crime just as great as heresy, and in general has dealt with it
in the same manner.'
END OF VOL. I.


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