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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 6, 1864—Meeting of Congregation—All but Cardinals sent out—Secret Order—Events of the 8th—Solemn Anniversary—A historical coup de soleil.

On December 6, 1864, Pope Pius IX held in the Vatican a memorable meeting of the Congregation of Rites. That body consists of some eighteen or twenty cardinals, 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 canonization 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 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 prayer, the Pontiff commanded all who were not members of the 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 communicated 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 convoking 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 proceedings of the five years which intervened between this meeting and the opening of the Vatican Council. But, while telling us what took place on December 6, 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, 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 Civiltá Cattolica, "was, in fact, bruised under the heel of the Immaculate, when Pius IX., by his own authority, laid down the definition."[5] 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. The Pope sought, in the great fresco of Podesti, to popularize 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 is the light by which he reveals the truth to men.