Part 30

§ 189.1. =Preliminary History of the Council.=--When Pius IX. on the centenary of St. Peter made known to the assembled bishops his intention to summon a general council, they expressed their conviction that by the blessing of the immaculate Virgin it would be a powerful means of securing unity, peace, and holiness. The formal summons was issued on the day of St. Peter and St. Paul of the following year, June 29th, 1868. The end for which the council was convened was stated generally as follows: The saving of the church and civil society from all evils threatening them, the thwarting of the endeavours of all who seek the overthrow of church and state, the uprooting of all modern errors and the downfall of all godless enemies of the apostolical chair. In Germany the Catholic General Assembly which met at Bamberg soon after this declared that from this day a new epoch in the world’s history would begin, for “either the salvation of the world would result from this council, or the world is beyond the reach of help.” This hopefulness prevailed throughout the whole Catholic world. Fostered by the utterances of the _Civiltà Cattolica_, the excitement grew from day to day. The learned bishop _in partibus_ Maret, dean of the theological faculty of Paris, now came forward as an eloquent exponent of the Gallican liberties; even the hitherto so strict Catholic, the Count Montalembert, to the astonishment of everybody, assumed a bold and independent attitude in regard to the council, and energetically protested in a publication of March 7th, 1870, six days before his death, against the intrigues of the Jesuits and the infallibility dogma which it was proposed to authorize. But the greatest excitement was occasioned by the work “_Der Papst und das Konzil_,” published in Leipzig, 1869, under the pseudonym _Janus_, of which the real authors were Döllinger, Friedrich, and Huber of Munich, who brought up the heavy artillery of the most comprehensive historical scholarship against the evident intentions of the curia. The German bishops gathered at the tomb of St. Boniface at Fulda in September, 1869, and issued from thence a general pastoral letter to their disturbed flocks, declaring that it was impossible that the council should decide otherwise than in accordance with holy Scripture and the apostolic traditions and what was already written upon the hearts of all believing Catholics. Also the papal secretary, Card. Antonelli, quieted the anxiety of the ambassadors of foreign powers at Rome by the assurance that the Holy See had in view neither the confirming of the syllabus nor the affirming of the dogma of infallibility. In vain did the Bavarian premier, Prince Hohenlohe, insist that the heads of other governments should combine in taking measures to prevent any encroachment of the council upon the rights of the state. The great powers resolved to maintain simply a watchful attitude, and only too late addressed earnest expostulations and threats.

§ 189.2. =The Organization of the Council.=--Of 1,044 prelates entitled to take part in the council 767 made their appearance, of whom 276 were Italians and 119 bishops _in partibus_, all pliable satellites of the curia, as were also the greater number of the missionary bishops, who, with their assistants in the propaganda, were supported at the cost of the holy father. The sixty-two bishops of the Papal States were doubly subject to the pope, and of the eighty Spanish and South American bishops it was affirmed in Rome that they would be ready at the bidding of the holy father to define the Trinity as consisting of four persons. Forty Italian cardinals and thirty generals of orders were equally dependable. The Romance races were represented by no less than 600, the German by no more than fourteen. For the first time since general councils were held was the laity entirely excluded from all influence in the proceedings, even the ambassadors of Catholic and tolerant powers. The order of business drawn up by the pope was arranged in all its details so as to cripple the opposition. The right of all fathers of the council to make proposals was indeed conceded, but a committee chosen by the pope decided as to their admissibility. From the special commissions, whose presidents were nominated by the pope, the drafts of decrees were issued to the general congregation, where the president could at will interrupt any speaker and require him to retract. Instead of the unanimity required by the canon law in matters of faith, a simple majority of votes was declared sufficient. A formal protest of the minority against these and similar unconstitutional proposals was left quite unheeded. The proceedings were indeed taken down by shorthand reporters, but not even members of council were allowed to see these reports. The conclusions of the general congregation were sent back for final revision to the special commissions, and when at last brought up again in the public sessions, they were not discussed, but simply voted on with a _placet_ or a _non-placet_. The right transept of St. Peter’s was the meeting place of the council, the acoustics of which were as bad as possible, but the pope refused every request for more suitable accommodation. Besides, the various members spoke with diverse accents, and many had but a defective knowledge of Latin. Although absolute secresy was enjoined on pain of falling into mortal sin, under the excitement of the day so much trickled out and was in certain Romish circles so carefully gathered and sifted, that a tolerably complete insight was reached into the inner movements of the council. From such sources the author of the “_Römischen Briefe_,” supposed to have been Lord Acton, a friend and scholar of Döllinger, drew the material for his account, which, carried by trusty messengers beyond the bounds of the Papal State, reached Munich, and there, after careful revision by Döllinger and his friends, were published in the _Augsburg Allg. Zeitung_. Also Prof. Friedrich of Munich, who had accompanied Card. Hohenlohe to Rome as theological adviser, collected what he could learn in episcopal and theological circles in a journal which was published at a later date.

§ 189.3. =The Proceedings of the Council.=--The first public session of December 8th, 1869, was occupied with opening ceremonies; the second, of January 6th, with the subscription of the confession of faith on the part of each member. The first preliminary was the _schema_ of the faith, the second that on church discipline. Then followed the _schema_ on the church and the primacy of the pope in three articles: the legal position of the church in reference to the state, the absolute supremacy of the pope over the whole church on the principles of the Pseudo-Isidore (§ 87, 2) and the assumptions of Gregory VII., Innocent III. and Boniface VIII., reproduced in the principal propositions of the syllabus (§ 184, 2), and the outlines of a catechism to be enforced as a manual for the instruction of youth throughout the church. On March 6th there was added by way of supplement to the _schema_ of the church a fourth article in the form of a sketch of the decree of infallibility. Soon after the opening of the council an agitation in this direction had been started. An address to the pope emanating from the Jesuit college petitioning for this was speedily signed by 400 subscribers. A counter address with 137 signatures besought the pope not to make any such proposal. At the head of the agitation in favour of infallibility stood archbishops Manning of Westminster, Deschamps of Mechlin, Spalding of Baltimore, and bishops Fessler of St. Pölten, secretary of the council, Senestrey of Regensburg, the “overthrower of thrones” (§ 197, 1), Martin of Paderborn, and, as bishop _in partibus_, Mermillod of Geneva. Among the leaders of the opposition the most prominent were cardinals Rauscher of Vienna, Prince Schwarzenberg of Prague and Matthieu of Besançon, Prince-bishop Förster of Breslau, archbishops Scherr of Munich, Melchers of Cologne, Darboy of Paris, and Kenrick of St. Louis, the bishops Ketteler of Mainz, Dinkel of Augsburg, Hefele of Rottenburg, Strossmayer of Sirmium, Dupanloup of Orleans, etc.--Owing to the discussions on the =Schema of the Faith= there occurred on March 22nd a stormy scene, which in its wild uproar reminds one of the disgraceful _Robber Synod of Ephesus_ (§ 52, 4). When Bishop Strossmayer objected to the statement made in the preamble, that the indifferentism, pantheism, atheism, and materialism prevailing in these days are chargeable upon Protestantism, as contrary to truth, the furious fathers of the majority amid shouts and roars, shaking of their fists, rushed upon the platform, and the president was obliged to adjourn the sitting. At the next session the objectionable statement was withdrawn and the entire _schema_ of the faith was unanimously adopted at the third public sitting of the council on April 24th. =The Schema of the Church= came up for a consideration on May 10th. The discussion turned first and mainly on the fourth article about the infallibility of the pope. Its biblical foundation was sought in Luke xxii. 32, its traditional basis chiefly in the well-known passage of Irenæus (§ 34, 8) and on its supposed endorsement by the general councils of Lyons and Florence (§ 67, 4, 6), but the main stress was laid on its necessarily following from the position of the pope as the representative of Christ. The opposition party had from the outset their position weakened by the conduct of many of their adherents who, partly to avoid giving excessive annoyance to the pope, and partly to leave a door open for their retreat, did not contest the correctness of the doctrine in question, but all the more decidedly urged the inopportuneness of its formal definition as threatening the church with a schism and provocative of dangerous conflicts with the civil power. The longer the decision was deferred by passionate debates, the more determinedly did the pope throw the whole weight of his influence into the scales. By bewitching kindliness he won some, by sharp, angry words he terrified others. He denounced opponents as sectarian enemies of the church and the apostolic chair, and styled them ignoramuses, slaves of princes, and cowards. He trusted the aid of the blessed Virgin to ward off threatened division. To the question whether he himself regarded the formulating of the dogma as opportune, he answered: “No, but as necessary.” Urged by the Jesuits, he confidently declared that it was notorious that the whole church at all times taught the absolute infallibility of the pope; and on another occasion he silenced a modest doubt as to a sure tradition with the dictatorial words, _La tradizione sono io_, adding the assurance, “As Abbáte Mastai I believe in infallibility, as pope I have experienced it.” On July 13th the final vote was called for in the general congregation. There were 371 who voted simply _placet_, sixty-one _placet juxta modum_, _i.e._ with certain modifications, and eighty-eight _non placet_. After a last hopeless attempt by a deputation to obtain the pope’s consent to a milder formulating of the decree, Bishop Ketteler vainly entreating on his knees, to save the unity and peace of the church by some small concession, the fifty hitherto steadfast members of the minority returned home, after emitting a written declaration that they after as well as before must continue to adhere to their negative vote, but from reverence and respect for the person of the pope they declined to give effect to it at a public session. On the following day, July 18th, the fourth and last public sitting was held: 547 fathers voted _placet_ and only two, Riccio of Cajazzo and Fitzgerald of Little Rock, _non placet_. A violent storm had broken out during the session and amid thunder and lightning, Pius IX., like “a second Moses” (Exod. xix. 16), proclaimed in the _Pastor æternus_ the absolute plenipotence and infallibility of himself and all his predecessors and successors.--It was on the evening preceding the proclamation of this new dogma that Napoleon III. proclaimed war with Prussia, in consequence of which the pope lost the last remnants of temporal sovereignty and every chance of its restoration. Under the influence of the fever-fraught July sun, the council now dwindled down to 150 members, and, after the whole glory of the papal kingdom had gone down (§ 185, 3), on October 20th, its sittings were suspended until better times. The _schema_ of discipline and the preliminary sketch of a catechism were not concluded; a subsequently introduced _schema_ on apostolic missions was left in the same state; and a petition equally pressed by the Jesuits for the defining of the corporeal ascension of Mary had not even reached the initial stage.

§ 189.4. =Acceptance of the Decrees of the Council.=--All protests which during the council the minority had made against the order of business determined on and against all irregularities resulting from it, because not persisted in, were regarded as invalid. Equally devoid of legal force was their final written protest which they left behind, in which they expressly declined to exercise their right of voting. And the assent which they ultimately without exception gave to the objective standpoint of the law and the faith of the Catholic church, was not in the least necessary in order to make it appear that the decisions of the council, drawn up with such unanimity as had scarcely ever before been seen, were equally valid with any of the decrees of the older councils. Thus the bishops of the minority, if they did not wish to occasion a split of unexampled dimensions and incalculable complications, quarrels, and contentions in the church that boasted of a unity which had hitherto been its strength and stay, could do nothing else than yield at the twelfth hour to the pope’s demand that “_sacrificio dell’intelletto_” which at the eleventh hour they had refused. The German bishops, who had proved most steadfast at the council, were now in the greatest haste to make their submission. Even by the end of August, at Fulda, they joined their infallibilist neighbours in addressing a pastoral letter, in which they most solemnly declared that all true Catholics, as they valued their soul’s salvation, must unconditionally accept the conclusions of the council unanimously arrived at which are in no way prejudiced by the “differences of opinion” elicited during the discussion. At the same time they demanded of theological professors, teachers of religion, and clergymen throughout the dioceses a formal acceptance of these decrees as the inviolable standpoint of their doctrinal teaching; they also took measures against those who refused to yield, and excommunicated them. Even Bishop Hefele, who did not sign this pastoral and was at first determined not to yield nor swerve, at last gave way. In his pastoral proclaiming the new dogma he gave it a quite inadmissible interpretation: As the infallibility of the church, so also that of the pope as a teacher, extends only to the revealed doctrines of faith and morals, and even with reference to them only the definitions proper and not the introductory statements, grounds, and applications, belong to the infallible department. But subsequently he cast himself unreservedly into the arms of his colleagues assembled once again at Fulda in September, 1872, where he also found his like-minded friend, Bishop Haneberg of Spires. Yet he forbore demanding an express assent from his former colleagues at Tübingen and his clergy, and thus saved Württemberg from a threatened schism. Strossmayer held out longest, but even he at last threw down his weapons. But many of the most cultured and scholarly of the theological professors, disgusted with the course events were taking, withdrew from the field and continued silently to hold their own opinions. The inferior clergy, for the most part trained by ultramontane bigots, and held in the iron grasp of strict hierarchical discipline, passed all bounds in their extravagant glorification of the new dogma. And while among the liberal circles of the Catholic laity it was laughed at and ridiculed, the bigoted nobles and the masses who had long been used to the incensed atmosphere of an enthusiastic adoration of the pope, bowed the knee in stupid devotion to the papal god. But the brave heart of one noble German lady broke with sorrow over the indignity done by the Vatican decree and the characterlessness of the German bishops to the church of which to her latest breath she remained in spirit a devoted member. Amalie von Lasaulx, sister of the Munich scholar Ernst von Lasaulx (§ 174, 4), from 1849 superioress of the Sisters of Mercy in St. John’s Hospital at Bonn, lay beyond hope of recovery on a sick-bed to which she had been brought by her self-sacrificing and faithful discharge of the duties of her calling, when there came to her from the lady superior of the order at Nancy the peremptory demand to give in her adhesion to the infallibility dogma. As she persistently and courageously withstood all entreaties and threats, all adjurations and cruelly tormenting importunings, she was deposed from office and driven from the scene of her labours, and when, soon thereafter, in 1872, she died, the habit of her order was stripped from her body. The Old Catholics of Bonn, whose proceedings she had not countenanced, charged themselves with securing for her a Christian burial.--No state as such has recognised the council. Austria answered it by abolishing the concordat and forbidding the proclamation of the decrees. Bavaria and Saxony refused their _placet_; Hesse, Baden, and Württemberg declared that the conclusions of the council had not binding authority in law. Prussia indeed held to its principle of not interfering in the internal affairs of the Catholic church, but, partly for itself, partly as the leading power of the new German empire, passed a series of laws in order to resume its too readily abandoned rights of sovereignty over the affairs of the Catholic church, and to insure itself against further encroachments of ultramontanism upon the domain of civil life (§ 197). The Romance states, on the other hand, pre-eminently France, were prevented by internal troubles and conflicts from taking any very decisive steps.

§ 190. THE OLD CATHOLICS.

A most promising reaction, mainly in Germany, led by men highly respected and eminent for their learning, set in against the Vatican Council and its decrees, in the so-called Old Catholic movement of the liberal circles of the Catholic people, which went the length, even in 1873, of establishing an independent and well organized episcopal church. Since then, indeed, it has fallen far short of the all too sanguine hopes and expectations at first entertained; but still within narrower limits it continues steadily to spread and to rear for itself a solid structure, while carefully, even nervously, shrinking from anything revolutionary. More in touch with the demands of the _Zeitgeist_ in its reformatory concessions, yet holding firmly in every

## particular to the positive doctrines of orthodoxy, the Old Catholic

movement has made progress in Switzerland, while in other Catholic countries its success has been relatively small.

§ 190.1. =Formation and Development of the Old Catholic Church in the German Empire.=--In the beginning of August, 1870, the hitherto exemplary Catholic professor Michelis of Braunsberg (§ 191, 6), issued a public charge against Pius IX. as a heretic and devourer of the church, and by the end of August several distinguished theologians (Döllinger and Friedrich of Munich, Reinkens, Weber, and Baltzer of Breslau, Knoodt of Bonn, and the canonist Von Schulte of Prague) joined him at Nuremberg in making a public declaration that the Vatican Council could not be regarded as œcumenical, nor its new dogma as a Catholic doctrine. This statement was subscribed to by forty-four Catholic professors of the university of Munich with the rector at their head, but without the theologians. Similarly, too, several Catholic teachers in Breslau, Freiburg, Würzburg, and Bonn protested, and still more energetically a gathering of Catholic laymen at Königswinter. Besides the Breslau professors already named, the Bonn professors Reusch, Langen, Hilgers, and Knoodt refused to subscribe the council decrees at the call of their bishop; whereas the Munich professors, with the exception of Döllinger and Friedrich, yielded. A repeated injunction of his archbishop in January, 1871, drew from Döllinger the statement that he as a Christian, a theologian, a historian, and a citizen, was obliged to reject the infallibility dogma, while at the same time he was prepared before an assembly of bishops and theologians to prove that it was opposed to Scripture, the Fathers, tradition, and history. He was now literally overwhelmed with complimentary addresses from Vienna, Würzburg, Munich, and almost all other cities of Bavaria; and an address to government on the dangers to the state threatened by the Vatican decrees that lay at the Munich Museum, was quickly filled with 12,000 signatures. On April 14th, Döllinger was excommunicated, and Professor Huber sent an exceedingly sharp reply to the archbishop. After several preliminary meetings, the =first congress= of the Old Catholics was held in Munich in September, 1871, attended by 500 deputies from all parts of Germany. A programme was unanimously adopted which, with protestation of firm adherence to the faith, worship, and constitution of the ancient Catholic church, maintained the invalidity of the Vatican decrees and the excommunication occasioned by them, and, besides recognising the Old Catholic church of Utrecht (§ 165, 8), expressed a hope of reunion with the Greek church, as well as of a gradual progress towards an understanding with the Protestant church. But when at the second session the president, Dr. von Schulte, proposed the setting up of independent public services with regular pastors, and the establishing as soon as possible of an episcopal government of their own, Döllinger contested the proposal as a forsaking of the safe path of lawful opposition, taking the baneful course of the Protestant Reformation, and tending toward the formation of a sect. As, however, the proposal was carried by an overwhelming majority, he declined to take further part in their public assemblies and retired more into the background, without otherwise opposing the prevailing current or detaching himself from it. The second congress was held at Cologne in the autumn of 1872. From the episcopal churches of England and America, from the orthodox church of Russia, from France, Italy, and Spain, were sent deputies and hearty friendly greetings. Archbishop Loos of Utrecht, by the part which he took in the congress, cemented more closely the union with the Old Catholics of Holland. Even the German “_Protestantenverein_” was not unrepresented. A committee chosen for the purpose drew up an outline of a synodal and congregational order, which provides for the election of bishops at an annual meeting at Pentecost of a synod, of which all the clergy are members and to which the congregations send deputies, one for every 200 members. Alongside of the bishop stands a permanent synodal board of five priests and seven laymen. The bishop and synodal board have the right of vetoing doubtful decrees of synod. The choice of pastors lies with the congregation; its confirmation belongs to the bishop. In July, 1873, a bishop was elected in the Pantaleon church of Cologne by an assembly of delegates, embracing twenty-two priests and fifty-five laymen. The choice fell upon Professor Reinkens, who, as meanwhile Bishop Loos of Utrecht had died, was consecrated on August 11th, at Rotterdam, by Bishop Heykamp of Deventer, and selected Bonn as his episcopal residence.