Читать книгу Letters From Rome on the Council - Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger - Страница 9

Rome, Dec. 18, 1869.– After the solemn receptions, and the formal opening of the Council, visits, audiences, and homages, the time for serious business has arrived, and the Fathers have emerged from the dim twilight of early synodical dawn into the clear daylight. People have begun to get mutually acquainted, and to question one another. The first chaotic condition of an exceedingly mixed assemblage, some of whose members scarcely understand one another, or not at all, has been succeeded by a sort of division, through the rapprochement and closer combination of men of similar views. As we related before, two great parties of very unequal strength have organized themselves, and the shibboleth which caused this division is the question of Papal Infallibility, which is universally and consistently taken to imply that whoever is resolved to vote for this dogma is also ready to give his vote for all the articles of the Syllabus, and generally for every dogmatic proposition emanating from the Pope.

The Synod is unquestionably the most numerous ever held; never in the early or mediæval Church have 767 persons entitled to vote by their episcopal rank been assembled. It is also the most various in its national representation. Men look with wonder at the number of missionary Bishops from Asia, Africa, and Australia. If one considers the constant complaints of want of funds in the missionary journals, the great distance, the difficulty and expense of the journey, and how much these men are wanted in the ill-organized state of their dioceses, with so few priests, the question occurs, Who bears the cost, and what means were employed to rob so many millions for a long time of their spiritual guides? Meanwhile most of the Bishops are pupils of the Roman Propaganda, and obedient to every hint of its will. And the more the new dogma is combated, the more necessary is the imposing consensus of five quarters of the world – of Negroes, Malays, Chinese, and Hottentots, as well as Italians and Spaniards.

More than two-thirds of the Council are either completely agreed, or at least won over to the necessity of making the personal infallibility of the last 256 Popes, and their future successors, an article of faith now. Since the original design of carrying it by simple acclamation has been given up, Manning has renounced the rôle assigned to him of initiating it. But the Bishops of the Spanish tongue on both sides the ocean – in South America and the Philippine Isles – have declared, in a meeting held in the apartments of their Cardinal, Moreno, that they are ready to propose the dogma. A Roman Cardinal said lately of Bishops of this sort, “If the Pope ordered them to believe and teach four instead of three Persons in the Trinity, they would obey.”

The other party, opposed to the dogma, includes towards 200 Bishops, and this is more than even the most sanguine ventured to hope at first. To it belong the majority of the German, Austrian, and Hungarian Bishops, half the French, all the Portuguese, some Irish, at least half the North American and Canadian, and a considerable number of the Oriental. If the votes were not only counted, but weighed according to the intellectual standard of the voters, the 200 would be far the majority. Among the German Bishops, besides those already named, the two Tyrolese, Gasser and Riccabona, Leonrod Bishop of Eichstadt, and the Vicar of Luxembourg, belong to the Infallibilists. Ketteler of Mayence, half won over by his hosts – he lives in the German College19– half succumbing himself, is said to purpose deserting to the same camp. He, as well as Stahl, Leonrod, and Martin are hampered awkwardly by the Fulda Pastoral, which they subscribed, but when once the knot is loosened or cut, they have only to bring their assent to the new dogma.

It is said in the ruling circles that an opposition of 40 Bishops and under is so small and insignificant in so large a Council that no account need be taken of it. This would be to give up the principle always hitherto maintained, even at Trent, that no decision in points of faith could be issued without the physical or moral unanimity of the Council. But as the dogma in question is one which for the future will make all majorities and minorities of episcopal votes superfluous and valueless, it may very well be that by anticipation, or by virtue of an exception which is now to be made into a rule, the minority should in this case be pronounced non-existent and undeserving of any notice. I hear other curialists say that, as soon as the Opposition is reduced to 40, they, under a sense of their impotence, will give up all resistance, and either quit the field, or come over to the conquering side. And so the present strength of the Opposition must be greatly diminished, and this is being strenuously laboured at. There are plenty of means for the purpose, and as long as there are Bishops who think themselves fortunate if they gain the title of “Domestic Prelate to the Pope,” a gentle pressure or insinuation, the prospect of a privilege, or a robe of distinguished colour, will produce the desired effect on many. Such things act like those insects which bore through the hardest wood. The episcopate of course has still many men to show who are inaccessible to threats or seduction. But we should like to count up at the end of the Council how many have passed unscathed through the fiery ordeal. Meanwhile a confident certainty of victory prevails among the majority. Manning said the other day to an acquaintance of mine, “So sure as I stand here, the dogma of Infallibility will be proclaimed,” and on the other hand, one of the leading Bishops of the Opposition said lately, “I came here with small hopes, and with a feeling of oppression, but I have found everything worse than I expected.” A German priest had been summoned to Rome as theologian of his Order by the General, a Spaniard. At first greeting him the General said that the great end they were all bound to work for was to come to an understanding on the dogma of Papal Infallibility. And when the German professed an opposite opinion, and handed him a work he had written in that sense, the conclusion was soon arrived at: he was sent home at once as useless, and even mischievous. When he was taking leave of certain Bishops, one of them said to him, “I should rejoice if any one recalled me or sent me home; we Bishops have been ordered here to the Council, without being told what we are to deliberate upon, and now that I know it I would gladly turn my back on the Council and on Rome.”

The 500 Infallibilists have good ground for their confidence. It is but natural, to begin with, that they should trust the magical power of those resources of the Curia they have themselves had experience of. And, next, they are well aware of their excellent organization, which has hitherto proved irresistible. They are commanded from two centres acting in common, the Gesù and the Propaganda. The Jesuit General, Beckx, if by no means in harmony with the line taken by the Civiltà, which has been removed from his jurisdiction, thinks and feels about the Infallibility question in strict accordance with the doctrine and rules of his Order, and knows how to hold fast the threads with the support and counsel of his assistants. Not a few Bishops, without knowing it themselves, get drawn and moved round by these wires which meet in the Gesù. If they cannot be commanded at once, they will be slowly but surely led into the right road by a chaplain or secretary or consultor devoted to the Order. The Propaganda, as we said before, provides for all missionary Bishops, and it again is inspired from the Gesù. The whole machine works so accurately that lately, in the selecting of a Commission, 450 voting papers contained the same names. So admirably is the discipline managed that many a Cabinet majority might envy this scarcely attainable ideal of the Council.