y* I ^ A^ »• •'? I' A, A' f^iSs ^^0t:MI Uttwmitg pitovg if- THE GIFT OF ., (Jn^vvM (iiMmt l/U^MH A..i2.;:.b-^^ ll/zjjlff... Cornell Catholic Union Library. Date Due ^ t9.^ im^ "niBBi *iQy^o.f 10—, ■, ^\ ^"^l ■;--*>'S,' 1'- '■' ..-^..— ^- :-- ' Cornell University Ubrary BX830 1869 .M28 1880 True story of the Yfjttoan Council, b^^ olin 3 1924 029 359 266 Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029359266 Cornell Catholic Union Librarv. THE TRUE STORY VATICAN COUNCIL. Cornell Catholic Union Library. THE TRUE STORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. HENRY EDWARD,^\, CARDINAL ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER, M'^ILAVW./Vaa-V- SECOND EDITION. LONDON : BURNS & OATES, Limited. NEW YORK : CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY CO. The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved. PREFACE. This brief story of the Vatican Council was written at the request of two lay friends, who thought that a true and sufficient estimate of the Council was seldom to be found in what is called public opinion. I call it a Story, because to write a History of the Vatican Council would be the work of a man's life. Slight as I know it to be, I know it also to be true. The facts narrated rest partly upon the authority of the Archbishop of Florence, and none can be more amply pro- vided with documents ; and partly upon that of the Secretary of the Council, the Bishop of St. Polten. To this I may also add that, for many details, I have before me the Diary of a very learned and distinguished Bishop present in the Council ; and also my own knowledge of facts of which I was personally a witness. Archbishop's House, Westminster, September 8th, i8yj. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. First thoug'ht of holding an CEcumenical Council proposed by Pius IX. — Commissiqp given to certain Cardinals. — Their answers. — Commission of Direction. — Cardinals and Theologians, Roman and Foreign. — Interrogatories to the Bishops.— Their Answers. — True motive of the Vatican Council an adequate remedy to the disorders, intellectual and moral, of the Christian world. — Disintegration of Europe, and impending dangers. pp. 1-40 CHAPTER II. Eighteenth Centenary of St. Peter's Martyrdom. — The assemblage of 500 Bishops in Rome a powerful cause of the Definition. — First announcement of the future Council. — Address of the Bishops. — Council of Florence. — Historical outline of the Infallibility. — Bull of Indiction, June 29, 1868. — Conspiracy against the Council. — Diplomatic Agitation. — Prince Hohenlohe. — Commission of Direction. — Partition of work. — Letters to the Bishops of the Oriental Churches, and to the new Catholic bodies of the West. — Constitution to regulate the Council. — Subjects to be treated. — Infallibility set aside, . pp. 41-85 CHAPTER III. Opening of the Council, Dec. 8, 1869. — Bishop Fessler. — Cardinal de Reisach. — Commission of Postulates. — Commissions of Faith, Discipline, and Religious Orders. — First Public Session. — Pro- fession of Faith. — Method of Discussion, and Voting of amendments and reports in the General Congregations. — First Constitution on Catholic Faith passed unanimously in the Second viii Contents. Public Session, and confirmed by Pius IX. — Schema on the Church of Christ.— Petitions for and against the introduction of the Infallibility. — Reasons for and against. — Conclusion of the Majority. — Petition granted. — Chapter on Infallibility, added to the Scheme on March 7, 1870. — Synopsis of the First Constitution on Catholic Faith. — Intellectual aberrations in Philosophy. — Society and Science subject to Faith, pp. 86-137 CHAPTER IV. Discussion of the Schema on the Church. — On the Infallibility. — Sixty-four Speakers. — A hundred inscribed to speak on Gen- eral Discussions. — Five Special Discussions still to come. — Closing of General Discussion. — Amendments, and final vote in General Congregation on July 13th. — Protest of Cardinal Presi- dents. — Fourth Public Session, July 1 8th. — First Constitution on the Church of Christ passed and confirmed by the Pope. — Franco-German war broke out on the next day. — Opposition in the Council. — Exultation and disappointment of the world. — Defeat of rationalistic intrigues. by Bishops of Rottenburg and Mayence. — Freedom of the Council. — Archbishops of Paris and of Cologne. — Tumults and tragedies in the Council. — Cardinal Vitelleschi, Pomponio Leto. — Bishop Strossmayer. — Unity of the Episcopate throughout the World, . . pp. 138-169 CHAPTER V. The text of the Definition of the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. — What it does not mean. — What it does mean. — Apotheosis. — Deification. — Divine Attributes. — Divine Nature, and other absurdities. — Decree of the Coimcil of Florence. — Evidence of Original MS. — Reasons for the remodelling of the Consti- tution, and for its speedy discussion, — Consequences imputed to the Council. — Failure of Old Catholic Schism. — True effects of the Council, like those of Trent, to be seen hereafter; — Unity and solidity of the Church to be seen now, . pp. 170-209 The True Story of the Vaticaiz Council. CHAPTER I. THE ORIGIN AND MOTIVE OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. Few centuries since the Christian era have seen events of greater magnitude, or more far-reaching in consequence, than the age in which we Hve. It has seen the extinction in 1806 of the Holy Roman Empire, the heir and representative of the Caesars ; the rise and fall of two Empires in France ; the setting up of two French republics ; the overthrow of more dynasties, and the abdication of more kings, than any former age. It is, characteristically, the century of revolution. It has seen great wars which shook the whole of Europe from Madrid to Moscow ; and lately two great empires overthrown in a few weeks or in fewer months. It sees now a German Emperor and a king of Italy. Once it has seen the head of the Christian Church carried away prisoner 2 2 The True Story of the Vatican Council. into France, once driven by bloodshed out of Rome, and now we; see him stripped of all the world can clutch ; twice it has seen Rome seized and held. These are not common events. Finally, after a lapse of three hundred years, it has seen an CEcumenical Council, and it has occupied itself profusely and perpetually about its acts, its liberty, and its decrees. Few events of the nineteenth century stand out in bolder relief, and many will be forgotten when the Vatican Council will be remembered. It will mark this age as the Council of Nicsea and the Council of Trent now mark in history the fourth and the sixteenth centuries. Therefore it will not perhaps be without use, nor, it may be, without interest, if we review its history. The title prefixed to these pages implies that many stories of the Vatican Council have been published which are not true. It is not my in- tention to enumerate them. As far as I am able I shall avoid reference to them. My purpose is to narrate the history of the Council, simply and with- out controversy, from authentic sources. In the present chapter I shall narrate only the origin of the intention to convoke the Council. Hereafter I hope to show what were the antecedents of the Council and their effect upon it ; then I will en- deavour to explain its acts, and lastly to trace out the effects which have followed from it. The True Story of the Vatican Council. 3 I. In the year 1873 Pius the Ninth gave com- mission to Eugenio Cecconi, then canon of the MetropoHtan Church of Florence, and now Arch- bishop of the same see, to write the history of the Vatican Council. All authentic documents relating to it were put into his hands. The first volume, entitled Storia'del Concilio Ecumenico Vaticano scritta sui Documenti Originali, has been published. It extends over the period from the first conception of convoking an CEcumenical Synod to the close of the preparations for its work. I propose to give a condensed account of this first period, following' closely the text of the Archbishop of Florence, and of the documents printed in the appendix to his work. I cannot omit to commend this volume to all who appreciate the purity of the lingtia Toscana, of which it is a rare example. Its simplicity and transparent purity belong to the classical period of the Italian language. It was on the 6th of December 1 864, that Pius the Ninth for the first time manifested his thoughts on the convoking of an CEcumenical Council. He was presiding in the Vatican Palace over a session of the Congregation of Rites, consisting of cardinals and officials. After the usual prayer by which all such sessions are opened, the officials were bid to go out. For some time the Pope and the cardinals re- mained alone. The officials were then re-admitted, 4 The True Story of the Vatican Council. and the business of the Congregation was des- patched. This unusual event caused both surprise and curiosity. Pius the Ninth, in that short interval, had made known to the cardinals that for a long time the thought of convoking an CEcumenical Council as an extraordinary remedy to the extraordinary needs of the Christian world had been before his mind. He bade the cardinals to weigh the matter each one by himself, and to communicate to him in writing, and separately, what before God they judged to be right. But he imposed rigorous silence upon them all. This was the first conception of the Vatican Council. The duty of weighing and delivering a written and separate opinion on the subject of convoking an CEcumenical Council was thus imposed on all cardinals then in Rome. In the course of two months fifteen written opinions were delivered in. Others soon followed, until the number reached twenty-one. The Archbishop of Florence, after a careful study of all these documents, has analysed and distributed the matter of them into the following heads. They treat of — 1. The present state of the world. 2. The question whether the state of the world The True Story of the Vatican Council. 5 requires the supreme remedy of an CEcumenical Council. 3. The difficulties of holding an CEcumenical Council, and how to overcome them. 4. The subjects which ought to be treated by- such a Council. (i.) In describing the present state of the world no reference was made by the Cardinals to its material progress in science, arts, or wealth, but to subjects strictly in relation to the eternal end of our existence. Under this aspect it is affirmed in these answers that the special character of this age is the tendency of a dominant party of men to destroy all the ancient Christian institutions, the life of which consists in a supernatural principle, and to erect upon their ruins and with their re- mains a new order, founded on natural reason alone. This tendency springs from two errors — the one that society, as such, has no duties towards God, religion being an affair of the individual conscience only ; the other that the human reason is sufficient to itself, and that a supernatural order, by which man is elevated to a higher knowledge and destiny, either does not exist, or is at least beyond the cog- nisance and care of civil society. From these principles follows, by direct consequence, the ex- clusion of the Church and of revelation from the sphere of civil society and of science ; and, further 8 The True Story of the Vatican Council. Four, who thought a Council to be the remedy- required by the evils of these times, nevertheless doubted if the moment were opportune, but still they admitted that, at least, all necessary prepar- ations should be made for its convocation. (3.) The Consultors have enumerated the ob- stacles in the way of holding a Council : — the confusions and disorders of the times ; the ani- mosity of the unbelieving and the profane, who would neither respect the authority of the Council nor fail to make pretexts out of its acts for attacking it more bitterly ; the attitude of all civil governments, which are either hostile or indifferent ; the probability of European wars which would disperse or endanger the Council. Then again they suggest the difficulties internal to the Church ; the absence of bishops from their dioceses ; the danger that dissensions and parties might arise in the Council itself, and thereby divide the unity of the Catholic episcopate — a danger common to all times, but especially to these in which the subjects of possible divergence are so delicate and so wide-spread in their consequences. These reasons made some hesitate, and some pronounce against the holding of the Council. And even the majority who advised its convocation were fully aware of these opposing reasons, and did not deny their great weight, The True Story of the Vatican Council. g Nevertheless they were of opinion that the need that a Council should be held was greater than the dangers of holding it. They believed that, grave as are the political and religious confusions, higher and nobler aspirations are not extinct ; that a tendency to return towards the order of divine and supernatural trijjh is to be seen not only in indi- viduals, but in the masses ; that among the Catholic peoples a new life has sprung up, a great return of fervour, and an outspoken resistance to erroneous doctrines. They thought, therefore, that a Council Avould encourage and consolidate the faithful and fervent members of the Church, and, by its witness for truth, weaken the pretensions of those who oppose it ; that the world could not do more against the Church after the Council than before it ; that the Council of Nicasa was held in the face of the Arian contentions, and the Council of Trent when the north of Europe was on the verge of schism ; that difficulties and dangers and the opposition of civil powers since the fourth century have threatened all Councils, but that Councils have always done their work which remains to this day. They said, too, that the great and lasting good gained by the Council for the whole Church would more than outweigh any harm from the temporary absence of bishops from their dioceses ; and, finally, that if there should be dissensions and lo The True Story of the Vatican Council. parties, so there were at Trent, but that when the Council had made its final decrees all returned to submission and concord. So it would be in the future Council. One of the Cardinals wrote as follows : In these great affairs of the Church, they who have to treat them ought to rise high above those who are busied in politics. Men of the world trust in subleties, astute- ness, duplicities, and in means and views purely human. They who rule the Church trust in the prudence of the Gospel, in the truth, in the discharge of their own duties, and in the special assistance promised to the Church by its Divine Founder. Therefore it is that oftentimes what appears to be imprudent in the eyes of those who go by human prudence alone is an act of evangelical prudence, and is both good and a duty, as well as an act of Divine ' Providence. Another writes: I see that whensoever the Church has deliberated about holding an (Ecumenical Council, there were diffi- culties to surmount not less than those of to-day, and that if Divine Providence not only overcame them, but made them turn to the greater good of the Church, so assuredly this assistance of the Holy Spirit, who sweetly and mightily orders all things, will not be wanting in a time when so many reasons concur to show the oppor- tuneness of the same remedy, which, in all times when- soever it has been applied has always produced the happiest and most imposing effects. A third said : God, who has suggested to your Holiness the thought of an QEcumenical Council to raise a strong defence The True Story of the Vatican Council. 1 1 against the vast evils of our time, will make the way plain, overcome all difficulties, and give to your Holiness and to the bishops a moment of truce ; peace, and time enough to fulfil so great a work. (4.) The last point of consultation was of the matters to be treated. The Consultors first suggest the condemnation of modern errors the exposition of Catholic doctrifie, the observance of discipline, its adaptation to the needs of the present time, and the raising of the state of the clergy and of the religious orders. Some of the cardinals touched upon special points, such as the licence of the press, the secret societies, civil marriage, the impediments to marriage, mixed marriages, ecclesiastical posses- sions, the observance of the feasts,abstinence,fasting, and the like. Two only spoke of the infallibility of the Pontiff: one of these spoke in general of Gallicanism. A third spoke also of Gallicanism, and of the present necessity of the temporal power of the Roman Pontiff in .order to a free exercise of his ecclesiastical office. But this Consultor was one who opposed the holding of the Council. A fourth mentioned the temporal power. One only spoke of the syllabus, and he also was opposed to the holding of the Council. The Archbishop of Florence then goes on as follows : Certainly we must say that if the course of history does not prove that a pretended Jesuitical conspiracy controlled 12 The True Story of the Vatican Council. the programme of the Council, the cause of those who tell us, usque ad nauseam., that " Rome by hidden schemes of that celebrated society, conceived the idea of concen- trating all power, ecclesiastical and civil, in the hands of the Supreme Pontiff, and setting up in the Church a new and exorbitant authority by the servility of the bishops," will be irreparably lost.* Other points were touched upon by the cardinals. Many expressed their ardent desire that our breth- ren separated from the Catholic Church might through the work of the Council find a way of return to the true mother of all the children of God. II. After such full and careful deliberation, many might expect that Pius the Ninth would have proceeded to decide npon the convocation of the Council of the Vatican. Indeed many have said that he was so strongly bent upon it, for the special purpose of his own " apotheosis," that he waited for no consultation, and endured no advice. History tells another tale. All that had hitherto been done was no more than a preliminary deliberation ; and that only as to whether the subject of holding an OEcumenical Council should be so much as proposed for further deliberation. In the first days of March 1865, Pius the Ninth directed several of the cardinals to meet and confer together, by way of a preliminary discussion, on the veryquestion whether an CEcumenicalCouncil should * Cecconi, lib. i. t. i. p. 17. The True Story of the Vatican Council. 13 be convoked or not. He ordered, likewise, that the written voti, or judgments of the Consultors, of which account has been already given, should be reduced to a compendium for the use of the new commission,. This was done by the Procurator-General of the Dominican Order, in a brief form, under the title "Sketch of the Qpinions expressed by the Cardinals invited by Pius the Ninth to advise on the Convoca- tion of an CEcumenical Council." The compendium begins as follows : " The cardinals, to the number of thirteen, advised affirmatively for the convoking of a Council ; one answered negatively, submitting his judgment to that of the Holy Father ; one other concluded that a Council ought not to be convoked." The new commission then was com- posed of the Cardinals Patrizi, Reisach, Panebianco, Bizzarri, and Caterini. The secretary of the commission was the Arch- bishop of Sardis, now Cardinal Gianelli, then Secretary of the Congregation of the Council, that is, for the interpretation of the Council of Trent and of all similar questions. The first session was held on the 9th of March 1865, and the Consultors proceeded to re-examine the four heads, of which a hasty sketch has been already given. The compendium was then subjected to a new and rigorous examination ; and under the first 14 The True Story of the Vatican Council. head came the question of the necessity of Councils. It has been already said that the holding of Councils is not of absolute but only of relative necessity for the government of the Church. The meaning of this judgment is as follows. There is no divine commandment, no divine obligation, requiring that the bishops of the Universal Church should meet in one place. The government of the Church is adequately provided for in the divine institution of the Primacy and of the Episcopate. Nevertheless, for a multitude of reasons, both of natural and supernatural prudence, the Church, following the example of the Apostles, has always held not only diocesan and provincial synods, but also QEcumeni- cal Councils. For the first three hundred years no General Council was convened ; for the last three hundred years no General Council has been summoned. For eighteen centuries, before 1869, only eighteen Councils had been held. General Councils, there- fore, though useful and sometimes necessary, rela- tively to particular errors or particular times, are not absolutely necessary to the ofSce of the Church. The Church is not infallible by reason of General Councils, but General Councils are infallible by reason of the Church. The Church does not depend on General Councils for the knowledge of the truth. Councils meet to give The True Story of the Vatican Council, i s to truth, already known by divine tradition, a more precise expression for common and universal use. The whole Church, both the Ecclesia docens and the Ecclesia discens — that is, pastors in teaching, and the flock in believing — diffused throughout the world, is guided and kept in the way of truth at all times. The Church discharges its office as witness, judge and teacher, always and in all places. The Pri- macy in Rome and the Episcopate throughout the world, by the assistance of the Spirit of Truth abiding with it for ever, can never err in guarding and declaring the divine tradition of revelation. In the three hundred years before the Council of Nicaea, the living voice of the Church sufficed for the promulgation and diffusion of the faith ; in the intervals between Council and Council the voice of the Church was sufficient in its declarations of truth and its condemnation of error. In thfe three hundred years since the Council of Trent, the Church has taught with the same divine and unerring authority. If it be asked, then, what need there can be for an CEcumenical Council, the answer is, that in applying remedies to the evils of the whole world, a knowledge of these wide-spread evils is necessary. More is seen by a multitude of eyes and heard by a multitude of ears. The collec- tive intelligence, culture, experience, instincts, and discernment, natural and supernatural, of the Epis- 1 6 The True Story of the Vatican Council. copate, is the highest light of council upon earth. Such is the meaning of the words that the holding of Councils is not absolutely but relatively neces- sary.* As to the obstacles in the way of holding the Council, the first was a doubt as to the disposition of the civil powers to permit the bishops of their respective jurisdictions to attend. Fear was es- pecially entertained on this point in respect to the governments of France, Italy, and Portugal. It was remembered that in 1 862 the government of Italy hindered the Italian bishops from coming to Rome for the canonisation of the martyrs of Japan. But if the governments of Germany, Spain, Bel- gium, Holland, England, and America should put no hindrance, it was certain that a sufficient num- ber of bishops would obey the call of the Supreme Pontiff. As to the course to be pursued towards the sove- reigns and civil powers, it was known that in all times, in convening CEcumenical Councils, the Church has endeavoured to act in accordance with Catholic sovereigns. This procedure was always held to be both fitting and useful, though not of necessity. Paul the Third, in convoking the Council of Trent, sought to obtain not only the assent of sovereigns, but their presence. In the * Petri Pi-ivilegitim, part i., pp. 76-81. Longmans. The True Story of the Vatican Council. 1 7 Bull of Convocation he says : — " We asked the opinion of the princes, as it seemed to us that their assent to such an undertaking was above all expedient and opportune." And afterwards he adds : — " We urgently invited the Catholic sove- reigns to come to the Council, and to bring with them the prelates of their respective countries." But he found the sovereigns undecided ; and there- fore, after many ineffectual attempts, he resolved to convoke the Council. We desired (he said) to effect this object in accordance with and by the good-will of the princes of Christendom. But while we were waiting on their will, and looking for the time appointed by Thy will, O God, we felt ourselves at last impelled to declare that all times are surely ac- ceptable to God, in which deliberation is taken in respect to things that are sacred and pertaining to Christian piety. Wherefore seeing, to our immeasurable sorrow, the Christian world gradually growing worse, Hungary trodden down by the Turks, the Germans in peril, all other peoples afflicted with fear and grief, we have decided to wait no longer for the assent of any prince, nor to look to anything but to the will of Almighty God, and to the welfare of the Christian commonwealth.* It was therefore thought fit that the Catholic sove- reigns should be invited to appear by their legates at the Council of the Vatican, " according to the usage of the Church and the precedent of the Council of Trent." Next it was proposed to call certain ecclesiastical * Bulla Pauli III. Initia nostri. 1 8 The True Story of the Vatican Council. persons from all parts of the world for previous consultation, inasmuch as the "benefit of the Council consists for the most part in knowing the state of the various regions and the remedies which there exist." Finally, the Consultors recommended that all matters to be treated should be fully prepared and set in order before the assembling of the bishops, not only to avoid loss of time, but above all to pre- clude wandering discussions, and uncertainties of procedure, and the multiplication of innumerable questions. When the commission came to deliberate upon the likelihood of the Council being interrupted, dispersed, or suspended by reason of the state of Europe, they carefully reviewed the history of the Council of Trent, which was convoked in 1536 to meet at Mantua in May of the following year. It was then, by reason of opposition, prorogued till November 1537. Then it was deferred till May 1538, to meet at Vicenza. So few bishops came, by reason of war and of the disturbed state of Europe and of Italy, that the Pope, weary of pro- roguing, suspended the Council indefinitely. The Turks were still victorious, and Germany was every day losing its faith. Paul the Third, therefore, without asking the assent of princes, convoked the Council to meet in November 1542 in the city of The True Story of the Vatican Council. 19 Trent. Three legates went to Trent, and waited many months for the bishops, who were still unable to assemble by reason of war and the dangers of travel. The Council was again sus- pended till a more favourable time. After three years it was again fixed for March 1545. After this came another delay ; and the Council opened in April following. After fifteen months it was trans- ferred to Bologna, where the bishops were so few that no decree was made ; and after five months it was again indefinitely prorogued. It then remained suspended for four years. Under Julius the Third it began once more in Trent in May 1551. It sat for a year: then in April 1552 it was suspended for two years, but the tumults of the world were such that it remained suspended for ten. In January 1562 it was opened again. In December 1563 the First Legate dimissed the bishops to their homes ; and in January 1564 Pius the Fourth, by the bull Benedictus Deus, confirmed the work of the Council of Trent. Such were the fortunes of the Council of Trent, without doubt the most momentous and fruitful Council of the Church in modern history. For three hundred years it has governed the Church throughout the world. And yet it could not meet till ten years after its convocation ; twice it was suspended for two and for ten years ; in eighteen 20 The True Story of the Vatican Council. years it was at work only five, in the midst of universal conflict. Its enemies might well deride its delays, prorogations, suspensions, and wander- ings from city to city. But it did its work. All these facts were weighed in the first deliberation whether, in the uncertainties of our times, an CEcumenical Council should be held. The commission then took, in order, the follow- ing questions : — 1. Whether the convoking of an CEcumenical Council was relatively necessary and opportune. 2. Whether a previous communication should be made to the Catholic princes. 3. Whether, before publishing the bull for con- voking the Council, the Sacred College ought to be consulted, and how it should be done. 4. Whether it was opportune to form an extra- ordinary congregation, which should occupy itself with the direction of matters concerning the Council. 5. Whether the aforenamed congregation, which should take the name of Congregation of Direction, ought, after the publication of the bull, at once to consult certain bishops of various nations, that they might point out in a summary way the matters, whether of doctrine or of discipline,, which they might think it opportune for the Council to treat, regard being had to the needs of their respective countries. The True Story of the Vatican Council, z i To these questions the five cardinals answered in the following way : — To the first, the fourth, and the fifth affirm- atively. To the second negatively. But they added that it was nevertheless good and convenient that, at the time of publishing the bull, such steps as were opportune should be taken by the Holy See in respect to the Catholic princes. To the third they answered affirmatively, but they added that it belonged to the Pope to decide in what way the Sacred College should be consulted. As to the reference to the Catholic sovereigns, it is to be remembered that if certain sovereigns at this day continue to be Catholic, it is as in- dividuals, not as sovereigns. The governments are not Catholic. The concordats which bound them to the Holy See have been abolished, not by the Holy See, but by their own revolutions, or by their legislatures, or by their liberal parties. Catholic sovereigns, therefore, no longer represent Catholic Kingdoms ; they have declared their states as such to have no religion, and have withdrawn their public laws from the unity of the Church and faith, and from obedience to the Holy See. To invite them to sit in an CEcumenical Council would be like, inviting the public 22 The True Story of the Vatican Council. authorities of the United States to sit in the British ParHament. The Consultors then requested one of their number to draw up an outline of the organisation whereby the matters to be treated would be sub- divided and prepared with the greatest precision. These resolutions of the commission were reported by the secretary to Pius the Ninth, who approved them with one modification in the fifth question. He ordered that the reference to the bishops should be made before the publication of the bull of indiction. The Commission of Direction was then formally instituted, comprising the five cardinals already named and certain others. Afterwards were added theologians and canonists selected in Rome and from other nations. The following distribution was made of the subjects to be prepared : — i. Doctrine ; 2, Politico- Ecclesiastical or Mixed Questions ; 3. Missions and the Oriental Churches ; 4. Discipline. The affairs of the Holy See are committed to various " Congregations," or, as we should say. Departments of government, namely : The Holy Ofifice, which deals with matters of faith ; the Congregation of Propaganda, which directs the Church in all countries of which the sovereigns or governments are not Catholic ; the Congregation The True Story of the Vatican Council. 23 of Extraordinary Affairs, which deals with all mixed questions in the relations of the spiritual and civil powers ; the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, which treats all questions of external jurisdiction ; the Congregation of the Council, instituted by Pius the Fourth at the instance of St. Charles Borromeo for the interpre- tation of the decrees of the Council of Trent. Now it was wisely determined, in accordance with the judgment of the Commission, that the sections of the Congregation of Direction should each be, as it were, engrafted on the departments with which they had affinity. The Congregation of Direction was therefore divided into four Sections. The section of Doctrine had for its centre the Holy Office ; that of the Mixed Questions, political and ecclesiastical, the Congregation of Ecclesiastical Affairs ; that of Missions, the Congregation of Propaganda ; and that of Discipline was attached to the Congrega- tion of Bishops and Regulars, with the Congre- gation of the Council described before. The object of this was to engraft these new con- sultative sections upon the departments in which the traditions of the Holy See and the maturest learning and experience in each separate matter are incorporated by immemorial usage. The special labours of these sections were to be afterwards laid 24 The True Story of the Vatican Council. before the entire Congregation of Direction. These minute details are given in order to show with what extreme and vigilant care the work of the Council was provided for. Nothing that human diligence could devise was omitted. III. Thus far we have seen with what deliberation Pius the Ninth called to his Council the cardinals, theologians, and canonists of the Church in Rome. To these he proceeded also to add theologians and canonists from other nations to elaborate with pro- longed examination, as we shall hereafter see, every part of the subject-matter to be proposed in the Council of the Vatican. But even this was not deemed to be sufficient. The Pope then gave a further order that a circular letter should be sent to a number of the bishops of all nations, selected for their knowledge in theology and canon lawand for their experience in the gov- ernment of the Church. In this Pius the Ninth called to his aid those who were set as doctors by Christ Himself to teach the Church of God. Every bishop is, in virtue of his office, a doctor or teacher of the faith. It matters not how large or how small his diocese may be, whether it be in the Catholic unity or in partibus infidelium, whether he have a flock under his jurisdiction or not. The bishop of the least See in this is equal to the bishop of the greatest. He has been constituted a guardian of The True Story of the Vatican Council. 25 the faith by a divine commission, and his testimony as a witness is not greater or less in weight because the city over which he rules is greater or less in magnitude. It is the same in all. St. Jerome says that in this all bishops are equal, and that the episcopate of the Bishop of Rome is no greater than that of the Bishop of Eugubium. We shall hereafter see the value and application of this prin- ciple. This order was made in the audience given by Pius the Ninth to the Secretary of the' Congregation of Direction on the 27th of March 1865. Letters, under strict secret, were at once written to bishops selected from various parts of Europe, enjoining them to send in writing an enumeration of the subjects which they thought the Council ought to treat. These letters were addressed on the loth of April to thirty-six bishops. Lettei« of like tenor were then despatched to certain bishops of the Oriental Churches. The answers were all returned to Rome by the month of August. Although the injunction contained in the letters regarded only the matters to be treated, yet the bishops, in their replies, could not refrain from ex- - pressing their joy that the Pope had decided to hold an CEcumenical Council. The letters exhibit a wonderful harmony of judgment. They differ, indeed, in the degree of conciseness, or diffuseness. 26 The True Story of the Vatican Council. with which the several subjects are treated ; but in the matters suggested for treatment they manifest the unanimity which springs from the unity of the CathoHc episcopate. The bishops note that in our time there exists no new or special heresy in matters of faith, but rather a universal perversion and confusion of first truths and principles which assail the foundations of truth and the preambles of all belief That is to say, as doubt attacked faith, unbelief has avenged faith by destroying doubt. Men cease to doubt when they disbelieve outright. They have come to deny that the light of nature and the evidences of creation prove the existence of God. They deny, therefore, the existence of God, the existence of the soul, the dictates of conscience, of right and wrong, and of the moral law. If there be no God, there is no legislator, and their morality is independent of any lawgiver, and exists in and by itself, or rather has no existence except subjectively in individuals, by customs inherited from the conventional use and the mental habits of society. They note the wide-spread denial of any supernatural order, and therefore of the existence of faith. They refer to the assertion that science is the only truth which is positive, and to the alleged sufficiency of the human reason for the life and destinies of man, or, in other words, deism, independent morality, secularism, and The True Story of the Vatican Council. 27 rationalism, which have invaded every country of the west of Europe. The bishops suggest that the Council should declare that the existence of God may be certainly known by the light of nature, and define the natural and supernatural condition of man, redemption, grace, and the Church. They specially desired^ the treatment of the nature and personality of God distinct from the world, creation, and providence, the possibility and the fact of a divine revelation. These points may seem strange to many readers, but those who know the philo- sophies current in Germany and France will at once perceive the wisdom of these suggestions. They then more explicitly propose for treatment the elevation of man by grace at creation to a superior natural order, the fall of man, his restora- tion in Christ, the divine institution of the Church, the mission entrusted to it by its Divine Founder, its organization, its endowments and rights, the primacy, and the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff; its independence of civil powers, and its relation to them ; its authority over education, and the present necessity of the temporal power of the Holy See. These points have been here recited in full in order to show that the one subject for which, we are told, the Council was assembled, was hardly so much as mentioned. Out of thirty-six bishops a few only suggested the infallibility of the head of 28 The True Story of the Vatican Council, the Church, though his primacy could not be treated without it. They are very few (writes one of the bishops) who at this day impugn this prerogative of the Roman Pontiff; and this they do, not in virtue of theological reasons, but with the intention of affirming the liberty of science with greater safety. It seems that with this view a school of theologians has sprung up in Bavaria, at Munich, who in all their writings have principally before them, by the help of historical dissertations, to lower the Apostolic See, its authority, and its mode of government, by throwing contempt upon it, and by attacking, above all, the infallibility of Peter teaching ex cathedra. With these few exceptions the bishops occupied themselves with Pantheism, Rationalism, Naturalism, Socialism, Communism, indifference in matters of religion, Regalism, the licence of conscience and of the press, civil marriage, spiritism, magnetism, the false theories on inspiration, on the authority of Scrip- ture, and on interpretation. Many of them refer to the syllabus as giving the best outline of matters to be treated, and express the desire that the errors there- in condemned should be condemned in the Council, "nonut majori firmitate,set utmajori solemnitate,pro- scribantur." These points have been here recounted in order to show that what some persons would expect alone to find was hardly so much as named in the midst of an interminable list of subjects. It is needless to say that the doctrine of infallibility is not to be found in the syllabus, which consists of The True Story of the Vatican Council. 29 the condemnation of eighty errors classed under ten heads, namely: i. Those that relate to the existence of God ; 2. To revelation ; 3. To indif- ferentism : 4. To Socialism ; 5. To errors as to the Church and its rights ; 6. To errors in respect to politics and the State ; 7. To errors as to natural and Christian morality ; 8. To errors respecting Christian marriage ; 9. To errors respecting the temporal power of the Roman Pontiff; 10. To the errors of modern liberalism. Once more, this out- line of the syllabus is given because it may well be believed that of the thousands who denounce it few have read it. If they would read it, they would be not a little astonished to find that, with few excep- tions, any sincere believer in Christian revelation would condemn as erroneous what is condemned in the syllabus. "The theories of Naturalism," said one of the bishops, " have introduced into modern society habits altogether sensual and material, far removed from the Christian life." He hoped that the Council would go into details of practice, and con- demn the excess of luxury, the indecent amuse- ments, the haste to get I rich by questionable honesty the abandonment of domestic life, the profanation of marriage, the disregard of the days consecrated to God's service, the neglect of divine worship, the practice of usury. They further asked for a cate- 30 The True Story of the Vatican Council. chismus adpopulum, as the Council of Trent ordered a catechismus ad parochos. They desired, further, a new code or digest of the canon law, from which should be excluded all that is obsolete and, by- reason of the transformation of modern society, no longer expedient or of possible observance. They desired also that the relations between the Church and State, or the spiritual and civil powers might be clearly defined. They asked that broad and intelligible principles might be laid down from which they could never depart in judging of those mixed questions ; that the Council would define in what way they ought to comport themselves in the presence of such facts as the civil liberty of the press and of worship, and of the protection which governments afford to error. They desired especially that the Council should make some declaration on the imminent danger of Christian governments lapsing into the tyranny of pagan Csesarism, by which the state is deified, and all that is called God or worshipped is included in the sphere of its arbitrary power. Lastly, they desired that the Council should declare that the temporal power of the Pontiff is no obstacle to any progress founded upon the laws of the Christian world ; that the unhappy conflict between the spiritual and civil powers which now convulses the world arose not from any aggression on the The True Story of the Vatican Council. 31 part of the Church, but from the departure of modern civilization from the basis of Christian society. The last error condemned in the syllabus is that "the Roman Pontiff can and ought to recon- cile himself and come to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization." The Christian civilization represented by the Roman Pontiff con- sists in the unity of faith, the unity of worship, of Christian marriage and Christian education. No reasonable man can wonder, therefore, if Pius the Ninth declines to reconcile himself with indiffer- entism in faith and worship, divorce courts, and secular schools. We may now sum up this part of our subject which carries us down to the first public announce- ment of the intention to convoke the Council of the Vatican. It will be seen that the initiative was altogether by the act of Pius the Ninth. He was the first to conceive and to lay open this thought to his legitimate counsellors. Moreover, we have the declared motive of his thought. It was " to find an extraordinary remedy for the extraordinary evils of the Christian worid." > We have seen also that in the deliberate answers of the cardinals and of the bishops the same is the governing thought. The evils of the modern world, its theological, philo- sophical, religious, social, domestic, and moral 32 The True Story of the Vatican Council. confusions, these so filled the mind of the Pontiff and his counsellors that what the world has been taught to believe was the chief if not the only- motive for holding the Council hardly appears ; and when it appears is either enumerated in a series of doctrines of which each demands the other, or it is suggested by one of the cardinals who opposed the holding of a Council altogether. The true motive of the Vatican Council is trans- parent to all calm and just minds. For three hundred years no General Council had been held, for three hundred years the greatest change that has ever come upon the world since its conversion to Christianity had steadily passed upon it. The first period of the Church gradually brought about the union of the spiritual and civil powers of the world in amity and co-operation. The last three hundred years have parted and opposed them to each other. The mission of the Apostles in the beginning united men of all nations, and therefore, in prelude, all nations, in one spiritual society. The events of these last times have withdrawn the nations as political bodies from the unity of the faith. In the second peritid, or the middle age of the Christian world, how frequent and great soever the conflicts between the spiritual and civil powers might be, nevertheless the public life, and laws, and living organisation of Christendom were Christian. The True Story of the Vatican Council. 33 Princes and legislatures and society professed the Catholic faith, and were subject to the head of the Catholic Church. Christendom was one in faith, one in worship, under one supreme pastor ; its marriage laws and education were alike Christian. A writer of much authority in English literature has said that the first French Revolution was the last act of the Lutheran Reformation. What his own interpretation of these words may be it is not for others to say. Perhaps it may be that the individuality of private judgment in religion passed in 1789 into the domain of politics, and that the critical spirit which has dissolved positive faith has disintegrated also the authority of governments. Political writers have been telling us that the govern- ments of the west of Europe are visibly weak — indeed, that they seem to have lost the skill or the power of government — and that they have become simply the index of the changes of the popular will, which veers and travels throughout the whole cycle of the compass with the rapidity of wind. Another obvious interpretation of this dictum is that the first national separation from the unity of Christen- dom was effected by Luther. The conflicts of nations during what was failed the Great Western Schism, the separate and antagonistic obediences which for a time divided the nations, all based and 4 34 The^ True Story of the Vatican Council. defended themselves on the principle of unity which they claimed each one for their own section. But all these separations were once more reunited in the Council of Constance. The separations of the sixteenth century were not of this sort. They were the formal going out of nations from the world-wide family of Christendom, based and defended upon the principle that the participation in the unity of the Catholic Church was not necessary, and that every nation contained within itself the fountain of faith and jurisdiction, and being inde- pendent of all authority external to itself, was therefore self-sufficing. From this followed legiti- mately the attempt to transfer to the crown the jurisdiction of the spiritual head of the Christian Church. It has been truly said that the royal supremacy has been pregnant with negation. It denies and excludes the action of the Catholic Church throughout the world from' any nation in which the sovereign is over all causes, ecclesiastical and civil, supreme. In Germany, Sweden, Denmark, England, the Lutheran supremacy of the crown was fully established, with what results the state of those countries at this day attests. But it was not on them that Pius the Ninth primarily and chiefly fixed his eyes. His chief care was for the Catholic kingdoms of Europe, in which the Lutheran Re- formation has never established itself Neverthe- The True Story of the Vatican Council. 35 less, in them regalism, which is a royal supremacy- pushed to the very verge of schism, has universally prevailed. In France from Louis the Fourteenth to the other day, in Austria from Joseph the Second, in Tuscany from Leopold the First, in Spain from Charles the Third, in Naples from the beginning of the^Sicilian monarchy, the royal power has oppressed and enslaved the Church with its fatal fostering protection. Constantine called him- self only eV/o-ffOTro? twv e^cc. But the Catholic sovereigns of the last three centuries have meddled internally in everything, from the nomination of bishops to the number of candles to be lighted upon the altar. Frederick of Prussia used to call Joseph of Austria " mon fr^re le sacristan." The conse- quences of this disastrous patronage were manifold, and ramified throughout the whole organisation of the Church. It will be enough to name three : first, the lowering and secularising of the episcopate and priesthood by contact with courts and their ambitions ; secondly, the suspension of the spiritual liberty of the Church in its discipline, synods, and tribunals ; and, thirdly, the protection given by kings to unsound teachers, as Van Espen, de Hontheim in canon law, and in theology to the authors of the Four Articles, by Louis the Four- teenth. In this sense it is most true that the Lutheran movement has steadily penetrated into 36 The True Story of the Vatican Council. Catholic countries. This excessive regalism pro- duced its inevitable reaction, and the revolutions of this century have paralysed all royal supremacies by establishing the doctrine that the State, as such, has no religion. It may therefore be said that the second period of the Christian world has closed. Of thirty-six crowned heads ten are still Catholic, two are of the Greek separation, twenty-four are nominally Pro- testant. The people of many and great nations are faithful and fervent children of the Catholic Church, but the Revolution either openly or secretly, in its substance or in its spirit, is behind every throne and in almost every government and legislature of the Christian world^ The public laws even of the nations in which the people are Catholics are Catholic no longer. The unity of the nations in faith and worship, as the Apostles founded it, seems now to be dissolved. The unity of the Church is more compact and solid than ever, but the Christendom of Christian kingdoms is of the past. We have entered into a third period. The Church began not with kings, but with the peoples of the world, and to the peoples, it may be, the Church will once more return. The princes and goverments and legislatures of the world were everywhere against it at its outset : they are so again. But the hostility of the nineteenth century The True Story of the Vatican Council. 37 is keener than the hostility of the first. Then the world had never believed in Christianity ; now it is falling from it. But the Church is the same, and can renew its relations with whatsoever forms of civil life the world is pleased to fashion for itself If, as political foresight has predicted, all nations are on their way to democracy, the Church will know how to meet this new and strange aspect of the world. The high policy of wisdom by which the Pontiffs held together the dynasties of the Middle Age will know how to hold together the peoples who still believe. Such was the world on which Pius the Ninth was looking out when he conceived the thought of an CEcumenical Council. He saw the world which was once all Catholic tossed and harassed by the revolt of its intellect against the revelation of God, and of its will against His law ; by the revolt of civil society against the sovereignty of God ; and by the anti- christian spirit which is driving on princes and governments towards anti-christian revolutions. He to whom, in the words of St. John Chrysostom, the whole world was committed, saw in the Council of the Vatican the only adequate remedy for the world-wide evils of the nineteenth century. It will be remembered that the Consultors, in giving their opinion that the holding of a Council was expedient, gave no opinion as to the time when 38 The True Story of the Vatican Council. it could safely be convoked. The threatening aspect of the times was enough to make them hesitate. On the 17th of November 1865, letters were written to the nuncios at Paris, Vienna, Madrid, Munich, and Brussels, announcing the intention of Pius the Ninth to hold an QEcumenical Council, and desiring them to give their opinion whether the circumstances of the times were such as to make its convocation prudent. They were also directed to send the names of two theologians or canonists of special reputation in the respective countries to which they were accredited. Their answers came at the close of the year 1865. The Commission of Direction held its third ses- sion on the 24th of May 1866, but from that date till the middle of 1867 it did not meet again. This suspension in its preparations was caused by events which it may be well to enumerate. All Europe was anxiously awaiting the conflict between Prussia and Austria, which soon broke out and soon ended on the field of Sadowa. On the 17th of June, the King of Prussia declared war against the Emperor; and three days after Baron Ricasoli announced to the Chambers and the Senate that King Victor Emmanuel had also declared war against Austria. Lombardy and Venice were ceded to Italy ; and on the 4th of November Victor Emmanuel, at Turin, announced that " Italy was made but not completed." The True Story of the Vatican Council. 39 On the 15th of September 1864, the Emperor of the French and the King of Italy had entered into a convention by which Italy bound itself gradually to withdraw its troops within two years from Rome and the States of the Church. On the nth of December 1866, the French flag was lowered on the castle of SIk Angelo. Three days before, the French general in command had taken his leave of Pius the Ninth. In reply to his words of farewell, the Pope answered, " We must not deceive our- selves ; the revolution will come here. It has proclaimed its intention, and you have heard it." On the following Christmas Day, in reply to the congratulations of the Sacred College, the Pope said : " Difficult and sorrowful are the days in which we live, but we ought, therefore, all the more to strengthen ourselves in the hope of greater help from the Almighty ; and, whatsoever happens, we ought not to be afraid." * The condition of Europe at that time was thus described, on the 12th of November 1 866, by an English hand : — The immediate consequence of the last war (between Prussia and Austria), and of the peace which followed it, was to break the old alliances, and to trouble every European State. The invasion of Denmark gave the first shock to public morality, and the subsequent quarrel between Prussia and Austria annihilated the barriers of international law. From henceforth there no longer * Cecconi, lib. i., u. iv., note. 40 The True Story of the Vatican Council. exists a principle of general policy in Europe, and am- bition has no limit to the extension of its own power. Every man's hand is against his brother, and only the necessity of defence hinders the desire of attack. All nations are on the watch, and order is maintained because everybody is afraid of his neighbour. The Continental press shows us one-half of Europe in array against the other. . . . The whole of Europe is arming. France does not disarm, but, on the contrary, increases its armies ; Russia i» raising three hundred thousand re- cruits ; Prussia is reorganising four new army corps ; Austria is remodelling and reforming its army ; every- where the armaments are in training, and new systems of warfare are being elaborated. The art of slaying threatens to become the sole industry of Europe.* It is, therefore, no wonder that Pius the Ninth and his counsellors hesitated to fix the day for the opening of the Council. The Pope had at one time thought of fixing the 29th of June in 1867, on which the eighteenth .centenary of St. Peter's mar- tyrdom would fall ; but the aspect of Europe, and the clouds which were visibly rolling towards the walls of Rome, caused him to pause. Therefore, on the 8th of December 1866, a circular letter was written to all the bishops of the Catholic Church, inviting them to Rome in the following year for the solemnities of the centenary alone, the im- portance of which no one at that time foresaw. But this must be narrated hereafter. Times, Nov. 12, 1866. CHAPTER II. THE CENTENARY OF ST. PETER : AND PREPAR- ATIONS FOR THE COUNCIL. • No one who has watched with any attention the pontificate of Pius the Ninth will believe that the definition of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff was the work of any parties or intrigues. Faith may move mountains, but cliques and cabals are agencies too human and too narrow to move CEcumenical Councils. Not just men only, but thoughtful men, will seek for wider and more adequate causes of such effects. And such causes lie on the surface of the history of this pontificate. I. I. Before the Council of the Vatican assembled, Pius the Ninth had three times called the bishops of the Universal Church to Rome. In the year 1854, 206 cardinals and bishops assembled for the definition of the Immaculate Conception ; in 1862, 265 bishops came for the canonisation of the martyrs of Japan ; and now a third time 500 bishops assembled from all parts of the world to celebrate the eighteenth Centenary of St. Peter's martyrdom. No pontiff from the beginning, in all the previous successions of 256 42 The True Story of the Vatican Council. popes, has ever so united the bishops with himself. Each of these three assembhes had a special significance. In 1854 the Bishops assisted at the promulgation of a doctrine of faith by the sole authority of their head ; in 1862 the bishops with an unanimous voice declared their belief that the temporal power or princedom of the Roman Pontiff is a dispensation of the providence of God, in order that the head of the Church may with independence and freedom exercise his spiritual primacy. In 1867, 500 bishops unanimously pro- claimed their adhesion to the pontifical acts of Pius the Ninth, both in the teaching of truth and in the condemnation of errors — that is to say, to the syllabus then recently published, which is a compendium of the acts of Pius the Ninth in the many and important encyclicals and other letters of his pontificate promulgated before that date. In these three assemblies at the Tomb of the Apostle and around the throne of his successor there was an explicit act of submission to his primacy, and a more than implicit confession of his infallibility. 2. It may be truly said that since the year 1854 the subject of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff had been more than ever before the mind of the episcopate. If Pius the Ninth did not bear an infallible office, what was the act of 1854? The The True Story of the Vatican Council. 43 bishops who assembled at the definition of the Immaculate Conception were not an (Ecumenical Council, nor any council at all. They were not convened as a council. Pius the Ninth alone defined the Immaculate Conception. His act was, therefore, infallible or nothing. The world outside the Catholic Church no doubt accounted it to be nothing ; but the whole episcopate and the whole Catholic unity accounted it to be infallible. It is certain, then, that the events of 1854 powerfully awakened in the minds of both clergy and laity the thought of infallibility. In like manner the canonisation of 1862 elicited from the mind of the Church an express recognition of the prerogatives of the successor of Peter. For many years, by allocutions and apostolic letters, Pius the Ninth had been condemning the doctrines of philosophers and revolutionists. His supreme office as teacher of the Universal Church had been denied by those who endeavoured to restrict it to the dogmas of faith. In the midst of this con- tinuous warfare, the bishops assembled in 1862, and addressed Pius the Ninth in these words : Long may you live. Holy Father, to rule the Catholic Church. Go onward, as now, in defending it with your power, guiding it with your prudence, adorning it with your virtues. Go before us, as the good Shepherd, by your example ; feed the sheep and the lambs with heavenly food ; refresh them with the streams of 44 The True Story of the Vatican Council. heavenly wisdom. For you are to us the teacher of sound doctrine, the centre of unity, the unfailing light to the nations kindled by divine wisdom. You are the Rock, the foundation of the Church against which the gates of Hell shall not prevail. When you speak we hear Peter's voice, when you decide we obey the authority of Christ.* There can be little discernment in any man who cannot perceive how these two events brought out the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff — that of 1854 in the defining of a dogma of faith, that of 1862 in matters which, though not dogmas of faith, are nevertheless in contact with his supreme office as "teacher of all Christians." 3. But, powerfully as these two events tended to bring before the minds of men the subject of the authority of the Pontiff as the successor of Peter, they bear no proportion in their power and efficacy to the Centenary of St. Peter's martyrdom in 1 867. In the month of June in that year bishops.from all parts of the world began to arrive in Rome. There were bishops who travelled from regions which lay far beyond any practical road. Some came from the furthest East, others from the extreme West, some came from Africa, some from South America, some from Australia. Thirty nations were represented by their patriarchs, arch- *DecIaration of the Bishops, June 8, 1862, in the "Acts of the Canfinisation of the Martyrs of Japan." p. 543. Rome, 1864. The True Story of the Vatican Council. 45 bishops, primates and bishops. Ail languages were to be heard, and all costumes were to be seen in the streets. It was said that the population of Rome was nearly doubled by the concourse of Catholics from all parts of the world. Now what was the motive of this assemblage ? It was simply the faith that Pyis the Ninth is successor of Peter and heir of all his primacy with all its prerogatives and gifts. Since the Council of Chalcedon and the second of Lyons — for the number at the Lateran Council is doubtful — 500 bishops had never assembled together : at Chalcedon, when they exclaimed " Peter has spoken by Leo',' Leo was not there. But in Rome at this time Peter's successor was at their head. It was not only the festival of the martyrdom of Peter, but of his primacy over all the world. The bishops when they met around his tomb in the great Basilica of Constantine, knew that they were making a profession of faith in the primacy of his successor. 4. It does not belong to the story of the Vatican Council to describe the external ceremonial of the Centenary ; but it does emphatically belong to the right appreciation of the acts of the Vatican Council that the bearing of the Centenary upon it should be fully understood. It is not too much to say that of the proximate causes of the definition of the infalli- bility, the Centenary of St. Peter's martyrdom was 46 The True Story of the Vatican Council. the most powerful. And this, I hope, will be made clear by a simple narrative of facts. The solemnities of the Centenary consisted in the following acts : — First, in the Consistory of the 26th of June, at which five hundred bishops were present. The num- ber being so great, it was held in the tribune over the atrium of St. Peter, where the coena on Maunday Thursday used to be laid. It was in this consistory that Pius the Ninth for the first time publicly an- nounced his intention of holding an CEcumenical Council. Secondly, came the festival of the Centenary. The Pope sang the first vespers of the Feast with great solemnity in St. Peter's on the evening of the 28th ; he sang also the pontifical mass on the following day at the high altar in the presence of half the bishops of the world. Lastly, on the ist of July the Holy Father gave audience to the bishops to receive from them their address or response to his allocution on the 26th.. Before we enter upon these events it will be well to narrate one fact that throws much light upon the intention of Pius the Ninth in convoking the Council. The 17th of June was the anniversary of his creation. After mass in the Sistine Chapel, he went into the Pauline Chapel to unvest The Car- dinal Vicar, in the name of the Sacred College, made The True Story of the Vatican Council. 47 the usual address of congratulation, ending with the words that they wished to the Holy Father " health and many years to see the peace and triumph of the Church." The Pope answered in substance as follows : — I accept your good wishes from my heart, but I remit their verification to the hands of God. We are in a moment of great crisis. If we looli only to the aspect of human events, there is no hope ; but we have a higher confidence. Men are intoxicated with dreams of unity and progress, but neither is possible without justice. Unity and progress based on pride and egotism are illusions. God has laid on me the duty to declare the truths on which Christian society is based, and to condemn the errors which undermine its foundation. And I have not been silent. In the encyclical of 1 864, and in that which 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 set 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. I am aged and alone, praying on the mountain ; and you, the bishops of the Church, are come to hold up my arms. The Church must suffer, but it will conquer. " Preach the word ; be instant in season, out of season ; reprove, entreat, rebuke, with all patience and doctrine." "For there shall be a time" — and that time is come — " when they will not en- dure sound doctrine." The world will contradict you, and turn from you; but be firm and faithful. " For I am even now ready to be sacrificed, and the time of my dis- solution is at hand." " I have," I trust, "fought a good fight," and "have kept the faith," and there is laid up for you, and I hope for me also, " a crown of justice which the Lord, the just Judge will render to me at that day."* * " Centenary of St. Peter and the General Council," pp. 6, 7. Longmans. 48 The True Story of the Vatican Council. 5. If we look upon the Centenary only as a demonstration of moral power and of the superiority of the moral over the material order of the world, it has a deep significance. Pius the Ninth was at that moment in the crisis to which the Italian revolution of so many years had been advancing. All protection of the Catholic powers of the world, of whom France had been till then the mandatory, had been withdrawn. He knew that the revolution would come to Rome again with more formidable power than in 1848. "Verra fin qui," as he said in his farewell to the general of the French army. In the face of all menace, and with the certainty of the coming revolution, Pius the Ninth had the year before convened the Catholic episcopate to meet in Rome in 1867. No event, excepting the Council of the Vatican, has, in our age, manifested so visibly to the intellect and so palpably even to- the sense of men the unity, universality, unanimity, and authority of the only Church which alone can endure St. Augustine's two tests, cathedrd Petri and diffusa per orbem — union with the See of Peter, and expansion throughout the world. The Centenary was a Confession of faith, without an accent of controversy. Even those who were not of the unity of the Church recognised it as such. Whosoever believed in Christianity, and desired the spread of our Lord's kingdom upon earth. The True Story of the Vatican Council. 49 could not fail to see in that great gathering the wide foundations laid by the apostolic mission. Even they who reject certain Catholic doctrines hold the Creed of the Apostles, which has been guarded by the Catholic Church. Even they who rest their faith on Scriptures alone, still more they who rest it upon, fathers and councils, know that the custody of all these is in the Church which assembled on that day round the centre of its unity^ The world-wide Church is the great witness upon whose broad testimony all Christians must ulti- mately rest. Take the Catholic and Roman Church out of the world, and where is Christendom ? These reasons moved even those who were not in the unity of the Church to a respectful silence. But if such was the undeniable action of the Centenary upon just and considerate men outside its unity,- what was it upon those who were within ? This we shall best show by quoting the words of Pius the Ninth in the allocution of the 26th of June, and the answer of the bishops in the audience of the ist of July. 6. Pius the Ninth addressed the 500 bishops who had gathered round him from all parts of the world in these words : If the general good of the faithful be considered, what, venerable brethren, can be more timely and wholesome for Catholic nations, in order to increase their obedience 5 50 The True Story of the Vatican Council. towards us and the Apostolic See, than that they should see how highly the sanctity and the rights of Catholic unity are prized by their pastors, and should behold them, for that cause, traversing great distances by sea and land, deterred by no difficulties from hastening to the Roman See, that they may pay reverence in the person of our humility to the successor of Peter and the vicar of Christ on earth ? For by this authority of example, far better than by subtle doctrine, they will per- ceive what reverence, obedience, and submission they ought to bear towards us, to whom, in the person of Peter, Christ our Lord said, " Feed my lambs — feed my sheep," and in those words entrusted and committed to us the supreme care and power over the Universal Church. For what else did Christ our Lord intend us to under- stand when He set Peter as head to defend the stability of his brethren, saying, " I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not ? " He intended, as St. Leo impKes, that " the Lord took a special care of Peter, and prayed expressly for Peter's faith, as if the state of the others would be more certain if the mind of their chief were unconquered. In Peter, therefore, the fortitude of all was guarded and the help of Divine grace was so ordained that the stability which was given by Christ to Peter, by Peter should be bestowed on all the rest of the apostles. Nay, venerable brethren, we have never doubted but that out of the very tomb where the ashes of blessed Peter rest for the perpetual veneration of the world, a secret power and healing virtue goes forth to inspire the pastors of the Lord's flock," &c. To this the Bishops unanimously answered : We take part more fervently in the present celebration, as contemplating, in the 'solemnity which this day brings round again, the unshaken firmness of the Rock whereon our Lord and Saviour built his Church, solid and per- petual. For we perceive it to be an effect of the power of God, that the chair of Peter, the organ of truth, the centre of unity, the foundation and bulwark of the The True Stony of the Vatican Council. 5 1 Church's freedom, should have stood firm and unmoved for now eighteen hundred years complete, amid so many adverse circumstances and such constant efforts of its enemies ; that while kingdoms and empires rose and fell in turn, it should have stood, as a secure beacon to direct men's course through the tempestuous sea of life, and show, by its light, the safe anchorage and harbour of salvation. Five years ago \^ rendered our due testimony to the sublime office you bear, and gave public expression to cur prayers for you, for the civil princedom, and the cause of right and of religion. We then professed, both in words and in writing, that nothing was more true or dearer to us than to believe and teach those things which you believe and teach, than to reject those errors which you reject. All those things which we then declared we now renew and confirm. Never has your voice been silent. ■ You have accounted it to belong to your supreme office to proclaim eternal verities, to smite the errors of the time which threaten to overthrow the natural and super- natural order of things and the very foundations of eccle- siastical and civil power. So that at length all may know what it is that every Catholic should hold, retain, and profess. Believing that Peter has spoken by the mouth of Pius, therefore wb atsnever you have spoken, mnfirmed^ and pronou nced for the safe custody of the deposit, we lik e- wise speaTt7contirm, and pronounce ; and with one voice and "ione mind ~we reject everything which, as being opposed to divine faith, the salvation of souls, and the good of human society, you have judged fit to reprove and reject. For that is firmly and deeply establii; |i,sd '"'i " * Mgr. Hefele and Mgr. von Ketteler have found it necessary to publish a statement vifith reference to documents which have appeared in the Augsburg Gazette. "We can neither speak," says the Bishop of Rottenburg, "of what the schemata contain, nor of anything which is said by the orators in the general congregations. But it is evident that there are people, not bishops, but having relations with the Council, who are not restrained by duty or con- science. . . . The memorial of a certain number of German and Austrian bishops against the definition of infallibility ought not to have been published before it was presented to the Holy Father. I myself, who signed it, could not obtain a copy of it. Yet what' has happened ? Before the address was sent to the Vatican it was printed in the newspapers — I need not say to our great displeasure — and to this day we do not know how it was done It is 154 T^^^ True Story of the Vatican Council. much it is necessary to say in order to protect a number of Catholic bishops from the claim laid upon them by the world as its servants, and to probable that the auri sacra fames has something to do with it. The Bishop of Mayence also protests against "the systematic dishonesty of the correspondent of the Augsburg Gazette." " It is a pure invention," he observes, "that the bishops named in that journal declared that Dbllinger represented, as to the substance of the question, the opinion of a majority of the German bishops. And this," the German prelate adds, " is not an isolated error, but part of a system, which consists in the daily attempt to publish false news, with the object of deceiving the German public, according to a plan concerted beforehand It will be necessary one day to expose in all their nakedness and abject mendacity the articles of \!aRAugshirg Gazette." They will present a formidable and lasting testimony to the extent of the injustice of which party men, who affect the semblance of superior education, have been guilty against the Church. — From the Vatica7i of March 4, 1870. ' ' There was a time when I was a grateful disciple of the Provost Dbllinger, and when I respected him sincerely. During several years I attended all his lectures at Munich. I was then of one mind with him on almost all the great questions of ecclesiasttcal history. At a later period, in 1848, we were associated together as deputies in the German Parliament of Frankfort. Even at that date, when all the great questions of our time were so frequently agitated, I think that I coincided with him in his political views. I recognise with grief that there is now a complete opposition between the opinions of the Provost Dbllinger and my own as to the substance of the question which actually occupies our attention. The Provost Dbllinger has been publicly pointed out as having co-operated with the author of that libel which appeared under the name of ' Janus ' and which is directed against the Church ; and we have no evidence that he has hitherto thought fit to declare, as an obedient son of the Catholic Church, that he does not share the opinions which animate that work. The book of ' Janus ' is not only directed against the infallibility of the Pope, but even against his primacy, against that great and divine institution in the Church to which we owe so manifestly, .by means of her unity, the victories The True Story of the Vatican Council. 155 protest once for all that the motives, conduct, and intentions of the bishops who opposed the defin- ition of the infallibility, are to be judged not by the representations of newspapers, of non-Catholics or of false brethren, but by their own words and actions. As for the motives of those who opposed the act of defining, we have already seen that the argu- ments for and against the opportuneness of defining the infallibility were many and grave. No man would be a safe or competent judge of the argu- of the Church over all her adversaries in all ages. 'Janus' is moreover a tissue of numberless falsifications of the facts of history to which perhaps nothing but the ' Provincial Letters ' of Pascal can be compared for violation of truth. And not only has the Provost Dbllinger failed up to the present time to disavow his co-operation with the author of ' Janus,' but he is himself notoriously the anonymous author of the writing entitled ' Considerations pre- sented to the Bishops of the Council on the Question of the Infalli- bility of the Pope ' — a writing which is indeed much more moderate than ' Janus,' but which is nevertheless so perfectly similar to it in general tone of thought, and betrays aims so exactly identical, that the world has justly inferred a most intimate connection between the authors of 'Janus' and of the 'Considerations.' . . . As to what concerns myself, and the notion that I may be one of those who agree with Dr. DoUinger as to the substance of the questions most earnestly debated at this moment, I formally declare that nothing can be less true. I am in agreement only with the DoUinger whose lessons formerly filled his disciples with love and enthusiasm for the Church and the Apostolic See ; I have nothing in common with the DoUinger whom the enemies of the Church and of the Apostolic See now load with praises. — t William Emmanuel, Baron von Ketteler, Bishop of Mayence. Rome : February 8, 1870. — From the Vatican of February 25, 1870. 156 The True Story of the Vatican Council. ments in favour of defining who could not also fully weigh the gravity of the arguments against it. These reasons have been amply given already in the last chapter, and they need not be repeated here. As for the motives which governed the fifty-five bishops who absented themselves from the fourth Public Session, we are bound to believe their word. Who should know their motives if they themselves did not? It is mere trifling, or worse, for others to pretend to know better. They tell us that they thought it unseasonable, inex- pedient, and inopportune to make a definition. Posterity will believe them rather than their de- tractors, who are already forgotten or rejected as false witnesses. So much for their motives, which no man may judge, but God only; and when we remember who they were, and what some of them have done and suffered for conscience' sake, history will jealously protect them from the breath of the world, whether in slander or in praise. But next as to their conduct. When Pius the Ninth first announced his thought of holding an (Ecumenical Council, he not only invited but laid upon his counsellors, whether in Rome or from other nations, the obligation to declare to him as before God whether it was opportune to hold a Council, and what it would be opportune for the Council to treat. Everybody was then either The True Story of the Vatican Council. 157 opportunist or non-opportunist, for the main ques- tion was "what is opportune?" The Council was not called together to register edicts ; it was con- vened for the purpose of discussion. Discussion, among mortals, means divergence of minds, and two sides at least. When the schemata were laid before the Council, Pius the Ninth expressly told the bishops that they were not his work, and did not bear the stamp of his authority. They were put into the hands of the Council to examine, discuss, amend, reject, and even " bury," as one said, if found to need interment. The Council had a liberty of speech so great that a bishop of one of the freest countries of the world said : " Our Con- gress has not greater liberty of discussion than the Vatican Council." Why then should it be turned to the reproach of any bishop if he used the right which the whole Council possessed ? The bishops opposed freely whatsoever they thought to deserve it. The first Constitution on Faith was opppsed, totally recast in form, but in doctrine was immu- tably the same ; and it was finally passed by an unanimous vote of 66"], including, therefore, the vote of every bishop who before had offered oppo- sition. The schema of the Little Catechism was opposed. The " order " of the Council was opposed. It was amended and opposed again. The intro- duction of the infallibillity into the Council was 158 The True Story of the Vatican Council. opposed. The schema was opposed at every stage in what may be called its second reading and in committee, and clause by clause. It was sent back, recast, and opposed again. In every stage of its progress those who dissented used their right and privilege, which may be called innate in a council or constitutional in a commonwealth, to oppose whatsoever they thought to be inexpedient or inopportune. In this certainly they were acting within the rights possessed by all members of the Council, and the exercise of this right was in itself legitimate. But it may be said that they used their right too freely and with pertinacity when they saw, or might have seen, that an immense majority of the Council was opposed to them. It is not the duty of an his- torian to extenuate any fault, but he ought to be still more careful not to impute faults too readily. It is not to be denied that the Council — for by that term may rightly be described its great and united majority — ^judged that the privilege of opposition was used too freely in matters of an indifferent or unimportant kind, and that it was persevered in too long when it was evident that no legitimate result could be obtained. The Council saw, or believed itself to see, that after a certain date the inordinate prolongation of discussion could have no effect but to render the definition impossible, not by argument The True Story of the Vatican Council. 1 59 or reason, conviction or persuasion, but by the chapter of accidents or by talking against time. But this would be entering once more into the realm of intentions, which is under a higher juris- diction than that of history. Looking back upon the Council after six years of strange and afflicting events, which have calmed and united the minds of those who were then opposed to each other, we are better able to weigh and appreciate the conduct of men as they acted either singly or together. More- over, the memory of many among the foremost in those events gives a great solemnity to our judgment. The Archbishop of Paris was a man of great cul- ture and 'intellectual gifts. The playfulness of manner with which he bore himself towards those who were most opposed to him took off all sharp- ness "from the conflict in which they were mutually engaged. We then little thought of the vision of horror in which he was soon to be enveloped, and of the death which should so soon be inflicted on him in odium Christi. His heroic refusal for the sake of others to save his life has raised him to the fellowship of those who have won a martyr's crown. All this makes the task of history lighter. To this memory, again, must be added the noble fortitude of the German episcopate with the Archbishop of Cologne at its head. The bishops of Germany have won for themselves the dignity of confessors l6o The True Story of the Vatican Council. for the supreme and infallible authority of the See of Peter. They were the first to vindicate the Council of the Vatican by their coui'age. We might go further, and enumerate the great public services rendered by eloquence and energy to the Church in France by some who left the Council before the 1 8th of July. All these things weighed together will incline future historians to sum up the contest for the definition of the infallibility in some such way as this : — " Since the last QEcumenical Council a theological question of the gravest kind, relating to the doctrinal authority of the head of the Church, and therefore pervading his whole jurisdic- tion, had divided the minds of some in France and partially also in Germany and in England. An CEcumenical Council was summoned to meet, in 1 869, in Rome. Five hundred bishops in 1 867 had affirmed in the amplest terms the doctrinal author- ity of the head of the Church. Of these the majority desired that in the coming Council all questions on this doctrine should be closed, and all future controversies ended. By word and by writing they declared their desire for such a defini- tion. On the other hand, some who had joined in the acts of 1 867, and had shared in the composition of the address, were of opinion that, as a matter of prudence, the subject ought not to be brought be- fore the Council, or, if brought before it, should, as a' The True Story of the Vatican Council. i6i matter of prudence, be set aside. For months before the Council assembled efforts were made on both sides, openly and without reserve, in public documents, in pastoral letters, in theological works, to promote or to prevent the definition. There was no concealment or intrigue on either side ; it was needed by neithgr, it would have been worse than useless if it had been attempted. All was as open as a general election in England. . On either side every act was known, and the desires and intentions of each side were manifest. Under such circum- stances the Council met in December 1869. At once on both parts those who held for and those who held against this definition drew together. It was natural and legitimate that they should confer and unite, and form themselves into some kind of permanent combination. On which part this was done first no history can certainly tell, but the interval at most could only be that of a few days sooner or later. Those who were opposed to the definition were believed by the number of names attached to one of their petitions to amount to about 120. The first test of the number of those who desired the definition was by the month of Febru- ary known certainly to be more than 450, for many declined to sign the petition which declared that if the definition were proposed they would give it a steadfast support. The two sides may hencefor- 12 1 62 The True Story of the Vatican Council. ward be called the majority and the minority. Now, without doubt, on both sides there was often a feeling that some things ought not to have been said or done. Bishops are men, and men are liable to infirmities ; nevertheless, the whole was con- ducted with perfect openness and in the light of day. It was a fair trial of reason, argument, and legitimate strength. The majority steadily grew greater, the minority steadily grew less. In the final and solemn vote, 533 — that is, 33 more than the unaminous 500 of the Centenary — voted for the definition, 2 voted against it, and 55 stayed away, making in all 57 adverse votes. This was all that remained of the 1 20 supposed, but never known, to be in opposition. The majority was therefore all but ten to one." With these facts before their eyes men have no need to fetch about for intrigues and cabals to account for the action and result of the Vatican Council. It was a fair, open contest. About a tenth part of the Council endeavoured by argument, reason, influence, and Ihe powers given to them by the order or procedure of the Council, to prevail upon the vast majority of their brethren, which was morally, indeed, the episcopate of the Church, to follow their guidance. The-majority were unable to swerve from their conviction of what was not only most opportune, but of absolute necessity for the welfare of the Church, for the authority of The True Story of the Vatican Council. 163 its head, and for the certainty of its doctrine The majority prevailed over the minority. The universal law of civilised life and of human society governed the Council of the Vatican. The minority were not wronged because the majority would not swerve. What injury was done to them if the Council declined to yielc^to the judgment or will of those who were only a tenth of its number ? The only complaint that could be made would be that a majority would not yield to a minority ; but would that complaint be just or reasonable ? Some adversaries of the Vatican Council have catered for the world with stories of violence, and outcries, and tumults. Among others an anony- mous narrator, Pomponio Leto, who declares him- self to be an outsider, and could therefore only speak by hearsay, is quoted as an eye-witness. He graphically describes the confusion of the cardinals, " who pulled their red hats over their eyes."* The * Controversialists and adversaries of the Catholic Church have asserted and reasserted with such tenacity, after reiterated contradic- tion, that the work entitled Eight Months in Home during the Vatican Council by Pomponio Leto, was the work of the late Car- dinal Vitelleschi, that it may be well to give an outline of the case. On its publication in Italy some years ago it fell dead from the press ; but when translated into English it fell upon a soil prepared hy Janus and Quirinus. It was at once said that it was reported to be the work of Cardinal Vitelleschi ; next, that it was probably so ; then, that it was certainly so ; finally, it was quoted without question or doubt as the work of the cardinal. None of this hap- pened during his life ; it began immediately after his death. Pope 164 The True Story of the Vatican Council. cardinals had no hats, red or otherwise, and the eye-witness is convicted of fabrication. But it is not Pomponio Leto who says he saw this scene ; it is the addition of those who have endeavoured to Honorius was declared to be a heretic forty years after his death — Cardinal Vitelleschi was declared to be Pomponio Leto as soon as he could not expose the imputation. The hope of setting one cardinal against another was a motive too strong to be resisted. The Times first began cautiously ; the Daily Telegraph pushed on more boldly. The brothers of Cardinal Vitelleschi, hearing of this stain cast on the memory of their brother, wrote to expose its falsehood. Their words were published, but commented on as evasive ; and the calumny was repeated. Next, on the 5th of July, 1876, the Guardian reasserted and filled out the charge with cir- cumstances. Then came the Saturday Kevietv. Then the Contem- porary, which over and over again says, " Cardinal Vitelleschi writes," " Cardinal Vitelleschi affirms," " Cardinal Vitelleschi tells us," &c. As if the two Marchesi Vitelleschi, brothers of the car- dinal, had not pledged their honour in a public contradiction. Then the Quarterly Review, which, with a candour that stands alone, inserted in its first number of this year a correction of this injurious error. But after all this, on the 24th of February, 1S77, the Saturday Review, as if nothing had happened, speaks of Car- dinal Vitelleschi as regarding the decrees of 1 870 with alarm and disgust. Cardinal Vitelleschi voted for those decrees on the i8th of July, 1870. After all this it is not wonderful that one of the brothers, Marchese Vitelleschi, should write the following letter with a just indignation : — " Rome, January 8, 1877. " I am grieved beyond measure that there should be in England anyone who still persists in the will to believe that the author of the book entitled ' Pomponio Leto ' was my lamented brother. Cardinal Vitelleschi. At the end of June last year, 1876, a protest was inserted in one English journal, signed by us, his brothers, in refutation of this odious calumny. I pray, however, that if thought fit, this renewed protest be inserted in some newspaper, by which I repel, on the part also of my brothers, this most false assertion. And I declare, with full certainty of my conscience, that Cardinal The True Story of the Vatican Council. 165 serve their hostility by destroying the honour of Cardinal Vitelleschi. In spite of repeated cate- gorical denials from his brothers, Pomponio Leto is, for controversial purposes, still declared to be Cardinal Vitelleschi. Now the cardinal certainly would not have talked about red hats. Never- theless Pomponic^ Leto, who was inside when the cardinals pulled their hats over their eyes, was out- side when the great tumult arose in which Cardinal Schwarzenberg was carried fainting from the Ambo to his seat. He saw, he tfells us, the servants out- side rushing to the doors of the Council, fearing for the lives of their masters. It is with such melo- dramatic and mendacious stuff that those who wish to think evil of the Vatican Council are fed and duped. But history has other witnesses to depend upon. Members of the Council who were never absent from its public congregations except about five or six times in all the eighty-five sessions have declared that no such scenes as Pomponio Leto, Salvatore Vitelleschi was not in any way the author of the said book ; so that whosoever shall say the contrary falsifies shamelessly, and can only say it to outrage the Church of which my deceased brother was a member without reproach. " (Signed) Angelo Nobili Vitelleschi." As to the true authorship of Pomponio Leto various things are affirmed. It belongs to the anonymous school oi Janus and Quiri- nus, and seems to be the work of more hands than one, and to betray both a German and an English contributor. 1 66 The True Story of the Vatican Council. following the Italian papers, has described, ever took place. On two occasions the ordinary calm and silence of the Council was broken. In its sessions no applause was ever permitted, no expres- sions of assent or dissent were allowed. The dead silence in which the members had to speak con- trasted strangely with all other public assemblies. It was like nothing but preaching in a church. But on two occasions the speaker tried the self-control of his audience beyond its strength. Strong and loud expressions of dissent were made, and a very visible resentment, at matter not undeserving of it, was ejfpressed. And yet nothing in the Council of the Vatican went beyond or even equalled events of the same kind in the Council of Trent. It is indeed true that one excess does not justify another ; but the events prove that when men deliberate on matters of eternal import, they are more liable to be stirred by deep emotions than when they are occupied with the things of this world. When the prelates at Trent heard a speaker say that the Arch- bishop of Salzburg claimed to confirm the elections of bishops, we read that they stirred up a mighty noise, crying " Out with him ! out with him !" Others repeated "Go out ! go out !" and others " Let him be anathema !" Another turned to them, and answered, " Be you anathema."* There may * Theiner, Acta ^ennina S. CEc. Cone. Tridentini, torn, ii., p. 606 The True Story of the Vatican Council. 167 have been noise in the Council of the Vatican, but it did not reach this cHmax. Reference might be made to a certain debate on the 23rd of March in the year, 1 877, when the majesty of the Commons of England lost itself in clamour, chiefly because a majority declined to let a minority have its way. The axiom, " Where there is smoke there is fire," IS sure enough. And these tales and tragedies could hardly have been invented if somebody by his imprudence had not made a momentary distur- bance, and if the disturbers had not made more noise than they ought in their sudden heat. But in truth the Italian papers and the Augsburg Gazette are the chief sources of these mendacious exaggera- tions. An Italian paper gave in full the speech of Bishop Strossmayer, who was the subject of one of these Homeric commotions. In that speech he was made to apostrophise by name, as present before him and as a chief offender, a bishop who was not there at all to be apostrophised. When the speech had gone .the round of Europe in'a polyglot version. Bishop Strossmayer in a Roman paper denounced it as a forgery, and his letter has been reprinted again and again in England. Nevertheless the speech is reprinted continually to this day at Glas- gow and Belfast, and sown broadcast by post over these kingdoms, and probably wherever the English tongue is spoken. 1 68 The True Story of the Vatican Council. These details are given not to show that the Vatican Council was never disturbed, or that the Council of Trent was outrageous, but to show that, as it ought to be, a spot upon the rochet of a bishop is more visible than upon the broadcloth of a lay- man ; and so, if a bishop or a council of bishops are for a moment stirred beyond their self-com- mand, if for once or for twice in eight months there is a clamour such as happens almost every week in our Legislature, the world will dilate the fault into an outrage, and will deceive itself by its own exaggerations. It can be said with the simplest truth that not an animosity, nor on alienation, nor a quarrel broke the charity of the fathers of the Council. They were opposed on a high sense of duty, and they withstood each other as men that are in earnest ; if for a moment the contention was sharp among them, so it was with Paul and Bar- nabas ; and if they parted asunder on the i8th of July, it was only for a moment, and they are now once more of one mind and of one heart in the world-wide unity of the infallible faith. And here we may leave the story of the Council. What remains is to examine the cause of all this tumult round about the Council, and in the govern- ments and newspapers and non-Catholic commu- nities of the world; for within the Council and within the Church the movement of men's minds The True Story of the Vatican Council. 169 was deep but still, and soon subsided into tran- quillity, like the agitation of pure waters which return to their former calm and leave no sediment. CHAPTER V. THE DEFINITION OF INFALLIBILITY. Having thus far completed our brief Story of the Vatican Council, we have only to examine the Definition of the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. I. We will, therefore, first take the text of the fourth chapter of the first Constitution on the Church of Christ, in which is contained the infalli- bility of the head of the Church ; and next we will examine its meaning. Concerning the Infallible Teaching of the Roman Pontiff. Moreover, that the supreme power of teaching is also included in the Apostolic Primacy, which the Roman Pontiff, as the successor of Peter, Prince of the Apostles, possesses over the whole Church, this Holy See has always held, the perpetual practice of the Church con- firms, and CEcumenical Councils also have declared, especially those in which the East with the West met in the union of faith and charity. For the* Fathers of the Fourth Council of Constantinople, following in the foot- steps of their predecessors, gave forth this solemn pro- fession : The first condition of salvation is to keep the rule of the true faith. And because the sentence of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be passed by. Who said : Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church,* * S. Matthew xvi. i8. The True Story of the Vatican Council. 171 these things which have been said are proved by events, because in the Apostolic See the Catholic Religion has always been kept undefiled and her holy doctrine pro- claimed. ■ Desiring, therefore, not to be in the least degree separated from the faith and doctrine of that See, we hope that we may deserve to be in the one com- munion, which the Apostolic See preaches, in which is the entire and true solidity of the Christian religion.! And, with the approval of the second Council of Lyons, the Greeks prof^sed that the Holy Roman Church enjoys supreme and full Primacy and pre-eminence over the whole Catholic Church, which it truly and humbly acknowledges that it has received with the plenitude of power from our Lord Himself in the Person of blessed Peter, Prince or Head of the Apostles, whose successor the Roman Pontiff is ; and as the Apostolic See is bound before all others to defend the truth of faith, so also if any questions regarding faith shall arise, they must be defined by its judgment. J Finally, the Council of Florence defined : § That the Roman Pontiff is the true Vicar of Christ, and the Head of the whole Church, and the Father and Teacher of all Christians; and that to him in blessed Peter was delivered by our Lord Jesus Christ the full power of feeding, ruling, and governing the whole Church. || To satisfy this pastoral duty our predecessors ever made unwearied efforts that the salutary doctrine of Christ might be propagated among all the nations of the earth, and with equal care watched that it might be t From the Formula of S. Hormisdas, subscribed by the Fathers of the Eighth General Council (Fourth of Constantinople), a.d. 869- Labbe's ' Councils,' vol. v. pp. 583, 622. X From the Acts of the Fourteenth General Council (Second of Lyons), a.d. 1274. Labbe, vol. xiv. p. 512. § From the Acts of the Seventeenth General Council of Florence, A.D. 1438. Labbe, vol. xviii. p. 526. II John xxi. 15-17. 1/2 The True Story of the Vatican Council. preserved genuine and pure where it had been received. Therefore the Bishops of the whole world, now singly, now assembled in Synod, following the long-established custom of Churches,* and the form of the ancfent rule,t sent word to this Apostolic See of those dangers es- pecially which sprang up in matters of faith, that there the losses of faith might be most effectually repaired where the faith cannot fail. \ And the Roman Pontiffs, according to the exigencies of times and circumstances, sometimes assembling QJcumenical Councils, or asking for the mind of the Church scattered throughout the world, sometimes by particular Synods, sometimes using other helps which Divine Providence supplied, defined as to be held those things which with the help of God they had recognised as conformable with the Sacred Scrip- tures and Apostolic Traditions. For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might make known new doctrine, but that by His assistance they might inviolably keep and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith delivered through the Apostles. / And indeed all the venerable Fathers have embraced and the holy orthodox Doctors have venerated and followed their Apostolic doctrine; knowing most fully that this See of holy Peter remains ever free from all blemish of error according to the Divine promise of the Lord our Saviour made to the Prince of His disciples : I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, and, when thou art converted, confirm thy brethren. § This gift, then, of truth and never-failing faith was * From a letter of S. Cyril of Alexandria to Pope S. Celestine I., A.D. 422, vol. vi. part ii. p. 36, Paris edition of 1638. t From a Rescript of S. Innocent I. to the Council of Milevis, A.D. 402. Labb^-yol. iii. p. 47. % From a letter of S. Bernard to Pope Innocent II., a.d. 1 1 30. Epist. 191, vol. iv. p. 433, Paris edition of 1742. § S. Luke xxii. 32. See also the Acts of the Sixth General Council, A.D. 680. Labbe, vol. vii. p. 659. The True Story of the Vatican Council. 173 conferred by heaven upon Peter and his successors in this Chair that they might perform their high office for the salvation of all; that the whole flock of Christ, kept away by them from the poisonous food of error, might be nourished with the pasture of heavenly doctrine; that the occasion of schism being removed the whole Church might be kept one, and, resting on its founda- tion, might stand firm against the gates of hell. But since in this very age, in which the salutary efficacy of the Apostolic office is most of all required, not a few are found who take away from its authority, we judge it altogether necessary solemnly to assert the prerogative which the only-begotten Son of God vouchsafed to join with the supreme pastoral office. 2. Such is the text of the decree about which before it came, and around which after it had been introduced into the Council, so vivid a conflict was waged. Let us quietly examine its meaning. We have seen that its title was changed from De Romani Pontificis Infallibilitate (on the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff) to De Romani Pontificis Infallibili Magisterio (On the Infallible Teaching Office of the Roman Pontiff). The reason of this change was not only for greater accuracy, but because even the title of the decree excludes at once the figment of a personal infallibility. This, as it is imputed to the supporters of the definition, is a fable. The meaning of the title is explained in the first words of the decree. The magisterium, or teaching office, or doctrinal authority, is contained in the primacy. The supreme ruler is also supreme 174 ^■^^ True Story of the Vatican Council. teacher. The primacy contains two things, the fulness of jurisdiction, and a special assistance in the exercise of it. Now, under jurisdiction is contained the office of teaching. To deliver the law is to teach. The assistance of infallible guidance is attached to the magisterium or teaching office, and the magisterium is contained in the primacy. The infallibility is therefore attached to the primacy. It is not a quality inherent in the person, but an assistance inseparable from the office. It is there -j fore not personal, but official. It is personal only so far as the primacy is borne by a person. The primacy is not held in commission, as the office of Lord Treasurer or of Lord High Admiral. It is personal, therefore, only in the sense that the suc- cessor of S. Peter is a man and not a body of men — he is one and not many. The Introduction then affirms that this doctrine , has always been held by the Holy See, confirmed by the perpetual usage of the Church and of the CEcumenical Councils, especially in those by which the reunion of the East and West was for a moment effected. In the fourth Council of Constantinople, which is the eighth of the Church, Pope Hadrian required the Eastern bishops to subscribe the creed of Pope Hormisdas, in which it is declared that the promise of indefectibility made to Peter is fulfilled in the The True Story of the Vatican Council. 175 fact that the Catholic religion has ever been pre- served spotless in the Apostolic See. In the second Council of Lyons the Greeks con- fessed that the Holy Roman Church had supreme and full primacy and principality over the Whole Catholic Church, received from our Lord Himself in Peter, prince and head of the Apostles, whose suc- cessor the Roman Pontiff is. The Profession of Faith then adds that the Roman Church " is bound above all Churches to defend the truth ; and if any questions arise about the faith, they ought to be defined (or finally determined) by its judgment." The Council of Florence is still more explicit, as we have already seen ; but the words may be repeated in full because they are an implicit asser- tion of the doctrine of infallibility. The Vatican Council only defined explicitly what the Council of Florence had implicitly affirmed. From the acts of the Council of Trent it is evident that the infallibi- lity of the Roman Pontiff would have been defined but for the state of the Council and the dangers of the times. The Florentine Council in 1439 says that " the Roman Pontiff is the true vicar of Christ and head of the whole Church, and is the father and teacher of all Christians ; and to him in blessed Peter the full power was given by our Lord of feeding, ruling, and governing the Universal Church." 176 The True Story of the Vatican Council The word " to feed " obviously means to feed with the Word of God, which is the food of the soul. But how shall he feed the Universal Church with this pasture of life if he cannot discern between what is food and what is poison — if instead of bread he be liable to give not only a stone, but the virus of false- hood ? The Council of Florence, in using these terms, is reciting the words of our Lord to Peter, " Feed my sheep ;" and in declaring the successor of Peter, as Vicar of our Lord, to be the teacher of all Christians, the Council did not so much as conceive the thought that he could mislead them from truth to falsehood, from life to death. 3. And here, in quoting the text of the Council of Florence, it may be well to anticipate the cavils of adversaries against the Vatican Council. It has been the practice of controversialists to charge Catholic theologians with truncating the decree, because in quoting it they commonly omit its last words, which run as follows : " Quemadmodum etiam in actis Conciliorum et sacris canonibus con- tinetur " [as is also contained in the Acts of Councils and in the sacred Canons). Anti-Catholic writers contend that the true reading of the decree is " quemadmodum et," in that manner in which it is contained it the Acts of Councils and in the Sacred Canons — intending thereby to prove, first, that the authority of the Roman Pontiff was created by The True Story of the Vatican Council. 177 Canons and Councils, and secondly, that it is limited by them. To this it may be well to answer in two words. First, supposing the true reading to be " in that manner in which it is contained," &c., this would not prove what they desire. The decree had already declared that the full power of feeding and governing was given to Peter, and in Peter to his successors, by our Lord Himself How then was it given by Canons or Councils? It was given before a Canon was made or a Council held. It is here declared to be of divine not of ecclesiastical institution, and it was given in full by our Lord in person. How can it be limited by Canons and Councils ? It is itself the limit of Councils and of Canons, being limited only by its own Divine Author and by His continual assistance. But next it is put beyond all doubt that the " quemadmodum et " is a corruption of " quemad- modum etiam," and that the meaning of the words is " as also is contained in the Sacred QEcumenical Councils and Canons ;" that is to say, the statutes at large of the Catholic Church prove by record and testimony that the Roman Pontiff is vicar, and head, and pastor, and doctor of all Christians in the pleni- tude of power given to him in Peter by our Lord Himself It is a further corroboration of the doctrine declared in the decree. The whole history of the 13 178 The True Story of the Vatican Council. Councils and a series of Canons prove the fact. Now that this is the true reading is manifest from the following evidence. In the Vatican library there are three manuscripts of the Council of Florence. Every one reads not " et," but " etiam." One of them has a contraction of " etiam " which might easily be mistaken for " et ;" but the others are written in full, and are clear beyond possibility of mistake. Again, in the Archives of the Vatican there is one of the originals of the Decree of Union. It has in parallel columns both the Latin and Greek text. It is signed by Eugenius IV. and by the Emperor Palseologus, and has the bulls or seals attached to it. In this " etiam " stands in full. Finally, at Florence is preserved the first of the four originals with the signatures of Eugenius and of the Emperor, with the bulls of lead and of gold, and with the signatures of all the fathers of the Council of Florence. In this also the " etiam " stands in full, and the Greek text is identical in meaning. If then the clause is often omitted by Catholic writers, it is omitted as needless. After saying, " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,'' why should we add, " According as is contained in the history of the world ?" 4. The decree then recites the action of the Pontiffs in all ages for the propagation of the faith among all nations, and for the preservation of its The True Story of the Vatican Council. 179 purity. It recounts the various ways in which this supreme oversight of the teacher of all Christians has been exercised. It declares that sometimes the bishops in Synod, or singly one by one, follow- ing the immemorial custom of the Churches of the Catholic unity — for, as Tertullian says, " what is found in all places is not error, but tradition" — have faithfully guarded the form of primitive order, especially when any new peril threatened the dogma of faith, by bringing their causes or controversies to the Apostolic See. This they did " that the breaches of the faith might be repaired," as St. Bernard said, "by the authority in which faith cannot fail." These are the words of St. Bernard , but they ought not to be new to Englishmen, for they are almost the words of two Archbishops of Canterbury. St. Thomas, in a letter to the Bishop of Hereford, asks : — Who doubts that the Church of Rome is the head of all the Churches and the fountain of Catholic truth ? Who is ignorant that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were entrusted to Peter? Does not the structure of the whole Church rise from the faith and the doctrine of Peter ? St. Anselm almost anticipates the decree of the Council of Florence. He writes as follows : — Forasmuch as the Providence of God has chosen your Holiness to commit to your custody the [guidance of the] Ufe and faith of Christians and the government of i8o The True Story of the Vatican Council. the Church, to no other can reference be more rightly made, if so be anything contrary to the Catholic faith arise in the Church, in order that it may be corrected by his authority. Sometimes the Pontiffs have proceeded by con- sultation with the bishops dispersed throughout the world of which we have a recent example in the definition of the Immaculate Conception and in the preparation for the Council of the Vatican. In the former case, which related to a question of faith, every bishop throughout the world was required to send his judgment in writing on two points — first, whether the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was definable, and, secondly, whether it ought to be defined. In the latter case, which was a question of opportuneness or of prudence, a certain number only were at first consulted. Sometimes again, the decree says, the Pontiffs have called all the pastors of the world to meet and to consult, as in CEcu- menical Councils. Sometimes, it adds, the Pontiffs have proceeded to declare the faith by the Councils of particular Churches or provinces, as when S. Innocent the First, in the fifth century, confirmed the decrees of the Council of Milevis and of Carthage on Original Sin. No other definition of this doctrine was made until the sixteenth century by the decrees of the Council of Trent. Again, S. Gelasius, in the year 494, by his supreme authority declared the number of the Canonical The True Story of the Vatican Council. i8i Books. The Canon of Holy Scripture rested on that pontifical act without any decree of an CEcumenical Council until the definition of the Council of Trent in the year 1 546. S- The Introduction further goes on to preclude by anticipation many misconceptions of the doc- trine of infallibility. It is hard to believe that some who have written on this subject really meant what they said. Some have called it the "apo- theosis "* of the Pope. Possibly they did not know Greek. Some have said that he was deified — that is, made to be God. Probably they did not know what they said. Some have said that the decree made the Pontiff to be a Vice-God. If they meant Dei or Christi Vicarius, many generations of Chris- tians have said so before them, and we feel it no reproach ; if they mean a substitute for God, or an * The use of the word deification in this controversy may be said to have come from a source which is not Christian. It first appeared in the correspondence from Berlin in one of our chief journals. The name of the correspondent was no secret ; and he must have enjoyed the irony of using a Christian newspaper in England to assail the vicar of the Nazarene. From this beginning it was soon spread. One of the most recent and most flagrant instances is the following : — " The Vatican Council was so far the culminating yet utterly incomplete act, in a drama elaborately arranged, step by step, to finish with the deification of the occupant of the See of Rome." ( 7V;««, February 17, 1877.) It is to be feared that this writer did know Latin ; and it would be well if editors knew the ridicule cast upon them on the Continent for these malevolent absurdities. 1 82 The True Story of the Vatican Council. idol, we may charitably doubt their sanity, or not unjustly suspect their truthfulness. Others again have said that to declare the Pontiff to be infallible is to invest him with divine attributes. The Jews said truly, " Who can forgive sins but God only ? " And yet Our Lord breathed upon His Apostles and said, " Whosoever sins you forgive they shall be forgiven unto them." Did He invest them with divine attributes? If they say yes, then the infallibility, though it be a divine attribute, may be communicated. If they say no, they may be left to the care of friends, Anglican and Greek ; or if indeed they believe with neither, why should they busy themselves about the Catholic faith ? A man must be a Christian at least to^ be heard on the subject of the Catholic religion, or, to be just, he ought to believe at least in the infallibility of the Church before he contends about the infallibility of its head. Such controversy is like a Deist objecting to the inspiration of the Bible. But leaving all these extravagances, which belong properly to the region of newspaper correspondents, we will come to the difficulties of candid and Christian minds. Some have thought that by the privilege of infalli- bility was intended a quality inherent in the person whereby, as an inspired man, he could at any time and on any subject declare the truth. Infalli- bility is not a quality inherentin.any person, but an The True Story of the Vatican Council. 183 assistance attached to an office, and its operation is not to give out answers as may be required by an interrogator, nor to know or to make known new truths, or to communicate new revelations. It is an assistance of the Holy Ghost whereby Peter's faith was kept from failing either in the act of believing or in the object of his belief, and through Peter the same assistance attaches to the office he bore, so that his successor in like manner shall be kept from departing from the traditions of faith committed to his custody. Its operation is therefore not the dis- covery of new truths, but the guardianship of old. It is simply an assistance of the Spirit of Truth, by Whom Christianity was revealed, whereby the head of the Church is enabled to guard the original deposit of revelation, and faithfully declare it in all ages. All Christians profess to believe in the advent and presence of the Spirit of Truth, and in the promise that He shall abide with us for ever Infallibility is the result of that presence. He preserves for ever His own revelation, not as a dis- embodied theory of disconnected doctrines, but as a whole in the visible witness and audible voice of the Church and of its head. The Council of Trent has declared that the faith is the doctrine which our Lord delivered by word of mouth, and the Holy Ghost revealed to the Apostles. Whatsoever, therefore, is not con- 184 The True Story of the Vatican Council tained in this revelation cannot be matter of divine faith. It further declares that this revelation has been preserved by the continual succession of the Catholic Church* The office of the Church, there- fore, is to declare what was contained in that original revelation, and infallibility is the result of a divine assistance whereby what was divinely revealed in the beginning is divinely preserved to the end. Of two things one at least : either Chris- tianity is divinely preserved, or it is not. If it be' divinely preserved, we have a divine certainty of faith. If it be not divinely preserved, its custody and its certainty now are alike human, and we have no divine certainty that what we believe was divinely revealed. This is the issue to which men must come at last. The definition of the infalli- bility of the head of the Christian Church means this, and no more than this : that God, Who re- vealed His truth, has founded His Church for the custody and perpetuity of His truth, and that He has made provision that His Church shall never in its custody, nor by error in its declaration cause the perpetuity of faith to fail. The visible Church is the highest witness among men for the original revelation of Christianity, both by its historical testimony and by its divine office. Reject this, and where is there divine certainty left on earth ? * Sess. iv. The True Story of the Vatican Council. 185 But for the present we are engaged with the literal meaning of the decree. 6. The Introduction proceeds to describe infalli- bility to be " a charisma of indefectible faith and truth!' By this again the notion of a " personal '' infallibility is excluded. The word charisma is used to expres^ not a gratia gratum faciens, as theologians say — that is, a grace which makes the person acceptable in God's sight — but a gratia gratis data, or a grace the benefit of which is for others, such as prophecy or healing, and the like. Now these gifts, as may be seen in Balaam, Caiphas, and Judas, were not graces of sanctification, nor gifts that sanctified the possessor. They were exercised by men whose sin is recorded for our warning. By this also is excluded another mis- conception, if indeed any sincere mind ever enter- tained it — namely, that if Popes are infallible they are therefore impeccable ; tha;t if they cannot err in faith, they cannot sin in morals ; that if their intelligence be guided by divine light, their will i must be necessarily conformed to divine grace. But it is to be doubted whether any man in good faith was ever so confused in mind. To be impec- cable is to be confirmed in the sanctifying grace which makes men acceptable before God. To be illuminated or guarded from error may co-exist with the sin of Caiphas, who was a prophet, and 1 86 The True Story of the Vatican Council. crucified the Redeemer of the world. The decree says that this charisma was given by God to Peter and his successors that in the discharge of their office they might not err. It does not even say that it is an abiding assistance present always, but only never absent in the discharge of their supreme office. And it further declares the ends for which this assistance is given — the one that the whole flock of Christ on earth may never be misled, the other that the unity of the Church may always be preserved. Unity of faith generates unity of mind, unity of heart, unity of will. Truth goes before unity. Where truth is divided unity cannot be. Unity before truth is deception. Unity without truth is indifference or unbelief Truth before unity is the law, and principle, and safeguard of unity. Unity of communion is the effect of unity of faith. The decree then assigns the reason of the definition. It says : " In these days, when the effectual authority of the apostolic office is es- pecially needed, there are not a few who diminish it and speak against it. Therefore, because it is a divine truth, and because it has been contradicted and denied, we judge it to be altogether necessary to declare with all solemnity the prerogative which the Divine Founder of the Church has seen fit to unite with the supreme pastoral office!' It seems hardly credible that men with these words before The True Story of the Vatican Council. 1 87 their eyes should impute to the Vatican Council the doctrine of personal infallibility, that is, of infallibility inhering in the person. 7. Thus far we have spoken of the introduction of the decree. We now come to the definition itself, which runs in these words : — Therefore, faithfully adhering to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, for the glory of God our Saviour, the exaltation of the Catholic religion, and the salvation of Christian people, the sacred Council approving, we teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed : that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedrA — that is, when in the discharge of the office of pastor and Teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regard- ing faith or morals to be held by the Universal Church — is, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals ; and that therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church. The definition declares that the doctrine of the infallibility of the successor of Peter is a tradition from the beginning of the Christian faith ; it then declares that doctrine to be contained in the divine revelation. Let it be noted that the definition rests itself not upon any inspiration, or consciousness, or conviction of any person, even of the head of the Church. It affirms a given doctrine to be a tradition from the beginning, and therefore to be revealed. 1 88 The True Story of the Vatican Council. But an objector may say, " How can that be known ? who can tell what tradition is from the beginning ?" Certainly no individual, nor any aggregate of indi- viduals, can tell us this ; they cannot exhaust the evidence of the Christian Church. But the Church itself can, and does, know its own evidence and its own tradition. It knows its own present and its own past with a living consciousness like that by which we know our own personal identity. No one outside us knows us as we know ourselves within. S. Paul asks, " What man knoweth the things of man but the spirit of man that is in him ?" This is a simple fact of nature and of common sense. The attempt to dispute us out of a belief of our personal identity would consign our adversary to the Com- missioners of Lunacy. How is it, then, that men can dispute with the Catholic Church as to its lineal traditions, which are recorded in its living conscious- ness? And yet it is not on this merely natural reason that the definition is founded ; it rests upon the faith that the Divine Founder of the Church has promised to its head that he shall never err in declaring what is divine tradition, and therein what is divine revelation. And so S. Paul continues after the words already quoted, " What man knoweth the things of man save the spirit of man that is in him ? Even so the things of the Spirit of God no man knoweth but the Spirit of God." It is by a divine The True Story of the Vatican Council. 189 promise and by a divine assistance that the Church never departs from the truth of revelation ; and that promise was made to Peter not for his own sake alone, but for the sake of his brethren ; and the promise made to Peter was made in him to all his successors in the headship of the Church, for the sake of the successors of the Apostles and of the whole Church of which he is the chief pastor and teacher. Is is to be now further observed that the Council of the Vatican expressly quotes the decree of the Council of Florence, and as we have seen that the early Councils unfolded in succession that which was in germ before, making implicit truth explicit, so does this definition. It explains and defines what the Council of Florence meant by saying that the Roman Pontiff is " the pastor and teacher of all Christians." The definition says that he is so when he speaks ex cathedrd, and he speaks ex cathedra when he defines anything of faith and morals to be held by the Universal Church. The phrase ex cathedrd, though long used in theological schools, was for the first time here inserted in a decree of an QEcumenical Council. Its meaning is plain. "The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat," in cathedrd Moysis; they spoke in his place and with his autho- rity. The cathedrd Petri is the place and the authority of Peter, but the place and the authority igo The True Story of the Vatican Council. mean the office. All other acts of the head of the Church outside of his office are personal, and to them the promise is not attached. All acts, there- fore, of the Pontiff as a private person, or as a private theologian, or as a local bishop, or as sove- reign of a State, and the like, are excluded. They are not acts of the primacy.* The primacy is in exercise when the teaching of the Universal Church is the motive and the end, and then only when the matter of the teaching is of faith and morals. In such acts the promise made to Peter is fulfilled, and a divine assistance guides and guards the head of the Church from error. The definition declares that he then is possessed of the infallibility with which our Saviour willed to endow His Church. 8. Now it is to be here remembered that all Catholics believe the Church to be infallible in faith and morals — that is, that the Church is so divinely guarded that it never departs from the divine tradi- tion of revealed truth. This all Catholics believe ; no one who denies it is a Catholic. Whosoever doubts it ceases to be a Catholic. But this doctrine has never been defined. It needs no definition. No definition could make it more certain or more universal in its reception. Why then was the infallibility of the_ head of the Church defined ? Simply because it * The Centenary of S. Peter and the (Ecumenical Council, p. 59. (Longmans.) Petri Privilegium, p. iii. 103. The True Story of the Vatican Council. 191 had been denied by some ; and, lest it should be denied by more, through the apparent impunity granted to the denial, the definition has put it be- yond doubt. No one who denies it now is a Catholic ; they who doubted it before were in an error which was at least proximate to heresy. They who doubt it now cannot be cleared of formal resistance to the divine authority of the Church. Such is the meaning of the words, " If any contradict this our definition, which God forbid, let him be anathema." 9. In this definition it is explicitly defined that the head of the Church is infallible, and it is assumed as certain that the Church also is infallible. It is declared that this infallibility extends to all matters of faith and morals, but it is not defined where the limits of faith and morals are to be fixed. It is defined that the acts of the head ex cathedrd are infallible, but cases may perhaps arise in which doubts may be made as to whether this or that act be ex cathedrd or no. In these cases of doubt no one can decide but the head of the Church. Cujus est condere, ejus est interpretari. The legislator alone is interpreter of the law. It was for this reason that Pius the Fourth, by a bull after the Council of Trent, first, reserved to himself the interpretation of the decrees of the Council : secondly, prohibited all private persons to undertake to fix the meaning of them ; and thirdly, excommunicated all persons 192 The True Story of the Vatican Council. who should appeal from the Council of Trent to a future General Council. If, therefore, any doubt be ever mooted as to whether an act be or be not an act ex cathedrA, no one need be scared by those who, either to ventilate their learning or to alarm the simple, pretend that there are thirty theories as to what is or is not an act ex cathedrd. The answer is simple. Ask no one but the author of the act. Half the controversies and nearly all the pretentious censures of the Vatican Council, if men would take this course, would die of inanition. lo. There are only two other points to be touched upon in this narrative. But they are too important to be passed over in silence. The one is that in the end of the definition it is affirmed that the doctrinal declarations of the Pontiff are infallible in and of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church. That is to say, they are infallible by divine assistance, and not by the assent or acceptance of the Church to which they are addressed. Or, more simply, the teacher is not infallible because the taught believe his teaching. They believe his teaching to be true because they believe their teacher to be infallible. The motive for these words is obvious. They were the critical difference between what must be called once more by names which now have lost both meaning and reality, the Ultramontane and the The True Story of the Vatican Council. 193 Gallican doctrines. They are taken textually from the Four Articles of 1682. A moment's reflection will justify the definition. If the certainty of the teaching depends upon the assent of the taught, what becomes of the teacher ? If the consent of the Universal Church is to be obtained before a doctrine is certain, how is it to be^ done ? Is it to be the consent of the bishops only, or of the priests also, or of theologians, or of the faithful, or of all together ? And from what age ? If the ecclesia discens is to confirm the ecclesia docens, no member of it ought to be disfranchised. Man- hood suffrage is too narrow. Woman suffrage is not enough. All above the age of reason might fairly claim a vote. But as reading and writing have been proposed as qualifications for electoral suffrage, perhaps the Catechism might be required as a qualification. If the consent of the Church is to be obtained, it must be waited for. And how long ? Who shall fix the days, weeks, months, or years, and what if there be no unanimity, mathe- matical or moral, after all ? And how long is it to be waited for, and in the meanwhile in what state are the doctrines defined ? Are they of faith or not of faith? is anybody bound to believe them, or nobody ? are they the means of salvation or not ? Can any surer way be taken to render all doctrine 14 194 The True Story of the Vatican Council. doubtful at least, if not odious to reasonable men ? Open questions are bad enough, but suspended questions are worse. The other point to be noted is the fact that this schema on the Roman Pontiff was originally the tenth and eleventh chapters of the schema on the Church of Christ. It was, as we have seen, taken out of the general schema on the Church, and, with the addition of the chapter on the infallibility, it was made into a schema by itself. But further it was decided that the schema on the Roman Pontiff should be brought on before the other. It may be asked, why was this change of order made ? In answer we may call to mind that in like manner the first schema on Catholic faith had been set aside, and out of eighteen chapters four only had been cast into a new scheina by itself. It was found that the prolixity and vastness of the original schema gave no hope of its being discussed, unless everything else should be made to give way. Therefore such points as had never been hitherto defined, and such truths as at this time are both especially contradicted and vitally necessary to the very foundations of the faith, were selected for immediate treatment. We have already seen this in the last chapter. These topics, therefore, could not, without grave danger, be postponed. The rest might well be deferred. For instance, the The True Story of the Vatican Council. 195 fall of man, original sin, grace, the Incarnation, the Holy Trinity, have all been defined, but the religion of nature, revelation, faith, the relation of faith to reason, have never been defined ; and they are the truths on which the Gnosticism, illuminism, and intellectual aberrations of the nineteenth century have especially fastened. It was therefore most wisely decided to do first what was most wanted, and to do it speedily and surely. 1 1. The same is precisely true of the first schema on the Church of Christ. It was prolix and multi- farious. It contained fifteen chapters. Much of its contents had been already implicftly or even expli- citly defined. Its chief points, as, for instance, the infallibility of the Church, have never been denied or even doubted by any Catholic. But as to the, Roman Pontiff, the discussions on the third and fourth chapters, the number of the speakers, the multitude of amendments will show what was the mental anxiety even among the pastors of the Church. Certainly, then, it was wisely determined to define first the truths which had been denied, to declare that which had been contradicted, to settle that which had been in controversy, before treating of those things in which all men were agreed. Besides to treat of the whole schema of fifteen 196 The True Story of the Vatican Council. or (as it became) sixteen chapters, in the time still remaining to the Council, was impossible. It was foreseen that the summer heats would cut short the work of the Council before August. We have already said that many were ill ; many more were only able by an effort to bear the strain of the Council. The rumours of impending war were continually becoming louder and nearer. It was therefore decided, at the petition of a large number of the bishops, which number might without trouble have been doubled, to bring into immediate discus- sion the subject by which for centuries the Church had been disquieted. We have seen how the minds of the bishops since the Centenary of S. Peter had been fixed upon it. From the outset of the Council it had been the motive of an open, legiti- mate, and honourable contention of two opposing sides. It was evident^ that the subject of the infallibility was always on the horizon. Every discussion was troubled by its shadow ; time was wasted ; discussions were prolonged beyond need or reason. A general secret uneasiness, such as is sometimes seen to prevail in legislatureswhere every- body is thinking of the same subject, which some hope for and others fear, and nobody dares to utter first, but of which everybody betrays a conscious- ness, kept the two sides in the Council in a state of mutual suspicion and needless antagonism. For the The True Story of the Vatican Council, igy sake of truth and peace and charity, it was therefore deternnined to bring the subject into the Hght of day, and to sift and bolt it to the bran. If those who thought the definition of the infalHbility to be inopportune could justify their judgment, then let it be adopted. If the contrary counsel should pre- vail then it wjs to be hoped that it would be accepted. At all events, the only way to weigh, sift, and decide was to discuss openly and deliber- ately the contending reasons of this great debate. But there was yet another motive of singular force urging the speedy commencement of this discussion. Seven hundred bishops of the Catholic Church assembled when the Council met ; 667 had voted in the second Public Session ; the number had been som-ewhat lessened by death and by de- partures : but more than half of the Catholic episcopate was still in Rome. If the subject of the primacy and of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff was ever to be discussed, it ought to be discussed in the fullest assembly of the episcopate. In no Council before had so many bishops met together ; in no future Council, it might be, would such a multitude ever meet again. Let the discussion then be taken not by suprise, not after the Council had been diminished in numbers, but when it was at its fullest strength. If the subject had been post- poned till the numbers were reduced, adverse 198 The True Story of the Vatican Council. historians might have said that the bishops did not venture to bring on the debate while the Council was full ; that they waited till it had dwindled to a manageable number who could be manipulated or overawed into a servile submission, and that then they defined the infallibility of the Pope. The higher and more manly course was chosen. It was resolved to bring on the trial of debate at once, and, as the event proved, the discussion was not begun a day too soon. It was only by a pressure which fell heavily upon every member of the Council, and with double weight upon the members of the Commission on Faith, who were compelled to meet after every congregation of the Council which multiplied its fresh amendments, that the constitution on the Roman Pontiff was completed. It was confirmed and promulgated twenty-four hours before the breaking out of the Franco-German war. 12. Having now come to the end of this brief story of the Vatican Council, it may not be out of place to add a few words on the consequences which have either followed or have been supposed to follow from it. Six years are now past since the 1 8th of July, 1870, and certain effects of the Council are already manifest, and many are imputed to it. We will take first certain supposed consequences The True Story of the Vatican Council. 199 which the Post hoc propter hoc school affirm to be effects of the Vatican Council, For example, we have been told by a cloud of newspaper articles, and lately by a laborious German writer, that the Franco-German war was caused by the Vatican Council. If we were not aware that the Goodwin Sands were caused by Tenterden Steeple, that assertion would be at least improbable, if not incredible. But no one who had watched the attitude of France and Prussia for many years had any need of the Vatican Council to explain the causes of that lamentable conflict. It is only a wonder that it did not happen before. To ascribe -to Ultramontanes or Jesuits the origin of that rivalry must be seen to be absurd by any one who reflects that the first effect of such a war must be the withdrawal of the French troops from the Roman State, and that the withdrawal of those troops was the instant cause of the seizure of Rome by the Italian armies. Jesuits and Ultramontanes are usually thought to be far-sighted in matters of this world ; but if with their eyes open they did not forsee these consequences they would be unjustly credited with common sense. France and Germany went to war because the animosities of generations, the memories of wrongs endured and inflicted, the jealousy of rivals, and the covetous desire of territorial annexation common to both 200 The True Story of the Vatican Council. had stimulated the war spirit to an uncontrollable intensity. No Vatican Council was needed to drive them together, because no power on earth could have averted their murderous collision. But sometimes these events are paraded as the Nemesis on Papal pride.* The history of the Pontiffs, then, has been one long Nemesis, for none have ever suffered so often or so much ; but their history runs up into a divine event in which the suffering for truth and justice became the law of the Church and of its head for ever. 13. It is not, however, to be denied that since the Vatican Council there has been an almost universal rising against the Catholic Church. It began with the Liberal party in Germany, and with the Liberals of Berne and Geneva, and with the Liberal party in Belgium, in Spain, in France, in Italy, in Brazil, and with some who call themselves Liberals in England. Catholics were told that they were denationalised, that they could only be loyal at the expense of their religion, that their allegiance * " The same year which saw the overthrow of Ceesarism imme- diately after the plebiscite witnessed also the Nemesis which over- took the spiritual pride of the Pontiff, now exalted to its highest pinnacle, and showed to him who arrogated to himself a divine ncUure,\h3.l God is a jealous God, Who will allow to none other the honour due to flimself." — Geffken, Church and State, vol. ii. p. 334. Does this learned author know what a " divine nature " is? or does he believe that the Vatican Council declared Pius the Ninth to be uncreated? The True Story of the Vatican Council. 201 was divided, and that they depended on a foreign head. All this was said by Liberals, and to the modern Liberal party are due the Falck laws and the fining, imprisoning, deposing, exiling of bishops in Germany and in Switzerland and in South America. To the Liberal Government of Italy is now due the Clerical Abuses Bill or the Italian translation of the Falck Laws. Herr Lasker is reported to have said that in Berlin he was the only Liberal left. The Vatican Council seems to have laid a Circean spell upon the Liberal party. They have put off their former nature, and have changed places with persecutors. The Chiesa libera nello Stato libero needs, as Liberals say, a supplement in the Codici Penali. Modern Liberal- ism is the Caesarism of the State. Liberalism seems to believe that " all power in heaven and on earth" was given to it — that the State has power to define the limits of its own jurisdiction and also those of the Church. All sin and blasphemy against God is forgiven to men. There is only one unpardonable sin. Any one who speaks against the omnipotence of the State is disloyal, and shall never be forgiven. We were told in the Italian Chamber that the law against the abuses of the clergy was provoked by the Vatican Council. In the same breath the author of the bill and the members of the commission tell us that the same 202 The True Story of the Vatican Council. laws existed in the penal code of Sardinia before the Vatican Council was convened. Quo teneam vultus, mutantem Protea node ? M. Gambetta, the other day, made a funeral ora- tion over the Gallican liberties. He told the Assembly that the National Church of France existed no longer — that the Vatican Council had denationalised it. These gentlemen, who receive the name of the Redeemer of the world with roars of laughter, are of such delicate theological percep- tion as to be offended by the Vatican Council. If things are to be called by their Christian names, this is hypocrisy. There can indeed be little doubt that the Vatican Council has so drawn together the array of the Catholic Church, as to make the anti-christian revolutions of the Continent, feel the pressure of the great moral power which sustains the order of the world. Hence come not tears, but ravings. 14. Another supposed consequence of the Vati- can Council was the " Old Catholic Schism." And here in justice it must be said that the opposition of governments and political parties was not spontaneous or without instigation. We have seen with what perseverance the fears of statesmen and cabinets were worked upon, and we know how ubiquitous and how subtle has been the activity of the international Revolution. But The Tnie Story of the Vatican Council. 203 another cause was open and palpable. The " Old Catholic " schism in Germany appealed to the civil power, and the civil power promptly recognized and copiously paid its ministers. It seemed to bring the promise of a German National Church, representing the mind of the nation and without dependence, ^ Dr. Friedberg has it, on "the man outside of Germany." But the " Old Catholic " schism was not the consequence of the Vatican Council any more than was Arianism the conse- quence of the Council of Nicaea. The definitions of the Council were indeed the occasion of the separation of a small number of professors and others from the unity of the Church, whose antece- dents had for years visibly prepared for this final separation. The strange medley which met at Augsburg and Bonn and Cologne, of Rationalists and Protestants, and Orientals and Jansenists and Anglicans, was not the consequence of the Vatican Council. Every sect there represented had been for generations or for centuries in separation and in antagonism to the Catholic Church. The Vati- can Council may have awakened a sharper cons- ciousness of the cause of their separation, and a handful of such Catholics as composed Janus and Quirinus invoked their help to give the appearance of numbers. Even Pomponio Leto had too much wit to be there. 204 The True Story of the Vatican Council. Before and during and after the Council formid- able prophecies of separations to come, sometimes in tones of compassion, sometimes in tones of menace, were heard. And those who were most firm in urging onward the definition of the infalli- , bility were not unconscious of the danger. They remembered that after the Council of Nicsea eighty bishops separated from the unity of the faith, and carried multitudes with them. Nevertheless the fathers of the Nicene Council did not forsake or compromise the truth or think it inopportune to declare it. S. Athanasius was reproached for dividing the Christian world for an iota. But that iota has, under God, saved the faith of the ever-blessed Trinity. The faith of the Chris- tian world rests at this day upon the definition of Nicsea. So again, after the Council of Ephesus, thirty bishops followed the Nestorian heresy. The fathers of that Council foresaw the danger, but they knew that no danger was to be compared with the danger of betraying the truth. They defined the doctrine of faith as to the unity of the One Person in two natures, and on that definition the doctrine of the Incarnation has rested immut- ably to this day. After the Council of Chalcedon the Monophy- sites separated themselves from Catholic unity. The True Story of the Vatican Council. 205 Will any reasonable man say that the Arian, Nestorian, and Monophysite heresies were the consequence of the Councils of Nicaea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon ? But lastly, at the Council of Trent, the motives of human prudence and the pleadings of natural charity must have been very powerful on the side of endeavouring to win and to conciliate. Whole nations were on the brink of separation. But an CEcumenical Council is not like a human legis- lature. It cannot suppress, or soften, or vary, or withhold the truth on calculations of expediency, or with a view to consequences. Necessity is laid upon it. As it has received so it must declare. Deviation from the truth would be apostacy ; silence when truth is denied is betrayal. This is what, it seems, Honorius did, and what some would have had Pius the Ninth do. Truth is not ours, it is of God. We have no jurisdiction against it or over it. Our sole office to truth is to guard it and to declare it. " That which ye have heard in the ear, preach ye on the house tops." For this cause the Council of Trent deiined every doctrine which had been unhappily denied or distorted in contro- versy from the year 1517. It ranged its decrees along the whole line of the Lutheran aberration. Was the Lutheran separation the consequence of the Council of Trent ? 2o6 The True Story of the Vatican Council. 15. After the close of the Council of Trent, the separations which were foreseen became complete. Whole kingdoms fell from the unity of the faith. But from that hour the Council of Trent has renewed and governed the Catholic Church. It may be said with truth that as the Council of Nicaea has guarded the faith of the Holy Trinity to this hour, so the Council of Trent has guarded both the doctrines assailed in the sixteenth century, and the discipline of the Church in its manifold contacts with the world. The Church has been reproached as Tridentine. No greater honour could be paid to the Council of Trent. The Church is Tridentine in the sense in which it is Nicene, and in which it will henceforward bear the stamp of the Vatican Council. Every CEcumenical Council leaves its impress upon it, and all these im- pressions are clear and harmonious. The Church is not like a codex rescriptus in which the later writings obliterate or confuse the former, but like the exquisite operations of art in which the manifold lines and colours and tints are laid on in succession, each filling up what the other begins, and combining all into one perfect whole. But it is certain that after the Councils of Nicaea and of Trent the Arian and the Lutheran sep- arations made many to fear lest evil had been done, and to doubt the prudence of the Council. The True Story of the Vatican Council. 207 They who had been brought up before the new definitions probably died in the belief that they could have gone on safely without them. And they who measured all things by their own needs thought them to be unnecessary, and gave at most a cold submission to what had been decreed ; so it might be now. But we must not measure all events by ourselves* nor must we make our own times so much the centre of all things as to think what is needless to us cannot be needed by others now and hereafter. (Ecumenical Councils look not at indi- viduals only, but at the whole Church, and not at what may be needed by any one so much as what the truth demands. Men who speak in this way forget, or do not believe, that the Church is a witness and teacher. They look, too, only at the moment. But when the generation of to-day is past, and they who may have opposed or reluc- tantly acquiesced in what was not familiar to their youth are passed away, when the definitions of the Vatican shall have pervaded the living world-wide faith of the Church like the definitions of Nicsea and of Trent, then it will be seen what was needed in the nineteenth century, and what the Vatican Council has accomplished. Then in due time it will be perceived that never was any council so numerous, nor were ever the dissentient voices rela- tively so few ; that never was any council so truly 2o8 The True Story of the Vatican Council. oecumenical both in its representation and in its acceptance ; that never were the separations after it fewer, feebler, or more transient ; and that never did the Church come out from a great conflict more confirmed in its solidity, or more tranquil in its internal peace. Those who love to declaim that the Council of the Vatican has divided the Church will no doubt go to the grave with the same illusions on their brain and the same asser- tions in their mouth. But they will have no suc- cession. Facts win at last. The prophecies of separations which were to follow have come to nought, and the prophets are silent in the presence of visible unity. The Church is "unresting, un- hasting.'' It , hears calmly the counsels of its adversaries and the compassion of those who wish it no good ; but it holds its peace. Time works for it. If science can say, " Hominum commenta delet dies, naturae judicia confirmat," the Church can say, " Caelum et terra transibunt, verba autem mea non prseteribunt* When the passions of men are laid by the silent lapse of time which stills all conflicts, noble and ignoble, history will reject as a fable, and censure as an indignity, the suspicion that the Council of the Vatican was convoked by Pius the Ninth chiefly if not altogether to define the infallibility of the * St. Matt. xxiv. 35. The True Story of the Vatican Council. 209 Pope, and that they who promoted that definition were impelled by any motive but fidelity to truth. But whatsoever may be their lot, they will count it to be one of the greatest benedictions of their life that they were called to help in the least measure to vindicate the divine authority of the head of the Church from,- the petulant controversies which had in these last centuries clouded with the doubts of men the steadfast light of divine faith. The defi- nition of the infallibility of the head of the Church has put beyond controversy that the Church speaks for ever by a divine voice, not intermittently by General Councils, but always by the voice of its head. It has met the unbelief of the nineteenth century by the declaration that the prophecy of Isaias and the promise of God to the Divine Head of the Church are for ever fulfilled in his vicar upon earth. " My Spirit which is upon Thee, and my word which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed or of thy seed's seed from henceforth and for ever." * * Isaias lix. 21. The Westminster Press, St. Vincent's, Harrow Road, London, W. 15 WORKS BY His Eminence Cardinal Manning. BLESSED SACRAMENT, THE CENTRE OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH. Second edition. Cloth, is. CONFIDENCE IN GOD. Third edition, is. ENGLAND AND CHRISTENDOM, los. 6d. FOURFOLD SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. Second edition. 2s. 6d. cloth, y. td. FOUR GREAT EVILS OF THE DAY. Fourth edition. Paper, 2s. 6d. ; cloth, y. td. GLORIES OF THE SACRED HEART. Fourth edition, ds. GROUNDS OF FAITH. Seventh edition. Cloth, is. 6d. HOLY GOSPEL OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN. With a Preface by His Eminence, is. INDEPENDENCE OF THE HOLY SEE. S^. INTERNAL MISSION OF THE HOLY GHOST. Fourth edition. ?,s. 6d. LOVE OF JESUS TO PENITENTS. Seventh edition, is. 6d. MISCELLANIES. 2 vols. 15^. PETRI PRIVILEGIUM. los. 6d. PRAISE, A SERMON ON ; writh an Indulgenced Devotion, is. SERMONS ON ECCLESIASTICAL SUBJECTS. Vols. I., II., and III., each 6s. SIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. Sixth edition. 6s. TEMPORAL MISSION OF THE HOLY GHOST. Third edition. 8j-. 6d. TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. Third edition. 5j. TRUE STORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. Second edition. 5^. THE ETERNAL PRIESTHOOD. Sixth edition. Cloth, 2s. 6d. THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST UNDER THE GOSPEL. IS.