CHAPTER V.

ROME.-Council-Declaration of Infallibility-End of Pope's Temporal Government. ITALY.-Republican Disturbances-Finances-Invasion of Roman Territory---Plebiscite-Arrival of King Victor Emmanuel at Rome.

SPAIN. Candidature for the Crown-Duel between Duke de Montpensier and Prince Enrique-Marshal Prim's choice of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern Sigmaringen-War between France and Prussia in consequence-Prim's final choice of Duke d'Aosta-Assassination of Prim-Arrival of the new King. PORTUGAL.-Duke de Saldanha and Iberianism.

ROME.

The Ecumenical Church Council convened by Pope Pius IX. had assembled at Rome on the 8th of December, 1869. Nine hundred and twenty-one prelates had received summonses to the meeting. The actual number present amounted to 767. Early in the time a movement was made for regulating the value of the separate votes, not as units, but according to the relative population of the different dioceses. The German bishops complained of it as unfair that whereas they, sixty-seven in number, represented a population of forty-six million Catholics, the Italian Bishops, who were 276 in number, and represented only twenty-seven millions, should have individually great weight in the Council. But the suggestion was overruled. "It is an unheard-of thing," said the Civiltà Cattolica, the Jesuit journal in Rome, "to introduce this modern theory of numbers into the Church. Bishops are qualified through the holy mystery of consecration to give their votes; and since this consecration is the same every where, the votes of all must be equal: the Bishop of Frosinone, with his diocese of 70,000 souls, has as much weight as the Archbishop of Cologne, with nearly two millions."

The council-hall was a temporary apartment fitted up in a wing of the north transept of St. Peter's. Preliminary meetings were held for the first fortnight. The first public discussion took place on the 28th of December. The Bull Multiplices Inter, was issued for the purpose of regulating the order to be observed in the proceedings. It caused no small dismay among the Bishops whose opinions did not go the length of the Ultramontane programme, and who wished to have the subjects which each Bishop or party desired to bring before the Council, fully and freely debated. The remonstrance, however, which they drew up against it, was disregarded. We quote the following account of the Bull in question from an article in the North British Review, evidently written by a partisan of the minority:

"The Pope assumed to himself the sole initiative in proposing topics, and the exclusive nomination of the officers of the Council. He invited the Bishops to bring forward their own proposals, but required that they should submit them first of all to a Commission which was appointed by himself, and consisted half of Italians. If

any proposal was allowed to pass by this Commission, it had still to obtain the sanction of the Pope, who could therefore exclude at will any topic, even if the whole Council wished to discuss it. Four elective Commissions were to mediate between the Council and the Pope. When a decree had been discussed and opposed, it was to be referred, together with the amendments, to one of these Commissions, where it was to be reconsidered, with the aid of divines. When it came back from the Commission with corrections and remarks, it was to be put to the vote without further debate. What the Council discussed was to be the work of unknown divines. What it voted was to be the work of a majority in a Commission of twenty-four. It was in the election of these Commissions that the episcopate obtained the chance of influencing the formation of its decrees. But the Papal theologians retained their predominance, for they might be summoned to defend or alter their work in the Commission, from which the Bishops who had spoken or proposed amendments were excluded. Practically, the right of initiative was the deciding point. Even if the first regulation had remained in force, the bishops could never have recovered the surprises, and the difficulty of preparing for unforeseen debates. The regulation ultimately broke down under the mistake of allowing the decree to be debated only once, and that in its crude state, as it came from the hands of the divines. The authors of the measure had not contemplated any real discussion. It was so unlike the way in which business was conducted at Trent, where the right of the Episcopate was formally asserted, where the envoys were consulted, and the bishops discussed the questions in several groups before the general congregations, that the printed text of the Tridentine Regulation was rigidly suppressed. It was further provided that the reports of the speeches should not be communicated to the bishops; and the strictest secrecy was enjoined on all concerning the business of the Council. The bishops, being under no obligation to observe this rule, were afterwards informed that it bound them under grievous sin."

In the first public session of the Council, December 28, the subject debated was a long dogmatic decree, just issued, in which the special opinions, theological, biblical, and philosophical, of the party now dominant at Rome were proposed for ratification. The opposition to this decree, as it stood, was vigorous and unexpectedly effective; two speakers in particular distinguishing themselves, the Bishop of Grenoble, and Strossmayer, Bishop of the Croatian diocese of Diakovar. The next public session of the Council was fixed for the 6th of January.

At the end of December Cardinal Reisach, Archbishop of Munich, who had been first selected as President, died, and in his place was appointed Cardinal de Angelis. He was not very well suited to the exigencies of his post, and the real management fell into the hands of Cardinal Capalti and Cardinal Bilio, neither of them reputed to belong to the extreme party, but not backward, as it proved, to be

pushed in the direction of that party, when the majority took the initiative out of their hands.

Our history for the year 1870 begins, then, on the Feast of the Epiphany, when the Council was collected in the hall of St. Peter's for its second public session. At this time the chief leaders of the Liberal opposition were known to be Cardinal Schwarzenberg, Archbishop of Prague, Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, Maret, Bishop of Sura, and Darboy, Archbishop of Paris. There had been a preliminary trial of strength in December, on occasion of the election of the Commission on Dogma. Owing to some mismanagement of their tactics on the part of the French Liberals, the Court party, seemed pretty well to have routed their antagonists. However, the Archbishop of Paris afterwards rallied a force around him, which, acting side by side with the Austro-German clique under Cardinal Schwarzenberg, helped to show a formidable opposition front. Unfortunately, in this opposition their forces were somewhat scattered, owing to their distinct nationalities. The Germans and French had little real intercourse, and neither of them served as a nucleus for their individual sympathizers among other communions. An international centre was attempted by some of the leading men, over which Cardinal Rauscher, Archbishop of Vienna, presided; but though strong in talent, this meeting was too varied in its traditions and shades of opinion to be strong in will.

With elements of possible discord such as these, the Pope and his advisers wished to deal cautiously; and when it became evident that the party which had all along objected to the definition of Infallibility were now haunted by a fear that the dogma was intended to be carried over their heads, on the first favourable opportunity, by sudden "acclamation" in the Council, they did all that was possible to allay the apprehension. It was insinuated from the highest quarters that, after all, no special dogmatic definition was intended that the Pope desired nothing more than the authoritative confirmation of postulates to which the faithful had already, by silent submission, given their consent; as, for instance, of that 23rd article of the Syllabus of 1864 which pronounced condemnation on the opinion that Roman Pontiffs had ever exceeded the just bounds of their authority, in faith, in politics, or in morals.

At the public session of the 6th of January, the first proceeding was the formal presentation by the Pope and each of the assembled Bishops, of a written profession of the Catholic Faith. Then several decrees were discussed, of which the principal were a decree on the duties of the Episcopate and one on the Catechism. The decree on Dogma, which had provoked the discussion of the 28th December, was withdrawn, and referred to the Commission on Doctrine. At this juncture it was that the majority in the Council resolved to push on the declaration of Infallibility, which in their eyes was the main business to be carried out by this important Assembly of the Church Catholic, and which seemed in danger of being sacrificed to the scruples of the French and German opposition prelates. Accord

S

ingly, a petition was prepared, really, as it would seem, without the Pope's connivance, and not emanating from the party in personal relations with him, from an independent section of Ultramontanist Bishops, as zealous in their advocacy of dogmatic extremes as were the Schwarzenberg and Dupanloup party in deprecating those extremes. This petition, or, in ecclesiastical language, postulatum, for the Definition, began thus:

"The undersigned Fathers humbly and earnestly beg the holy Ecumenical Council of the Vatican to define clearly and in words that cannot be mistaken, that the authority of the Roman Pontiff is supreme, and, therefore, exempt from error, when in matters of faith and morals he declares and defines what is to be believed and held, and what to be rejected and condemned, by all the faithful.” Then followed the "Reasons for which this definition is thought opportune and necessary." The Councils of Lyons and Florence were cited, the first of which laid down that "When controversies in matters of faith arise, they must be settled by the decision of the Roman Pontiff;" and the second that "The Roman Pontiff is Christ's true Vicar, the Head of the whole Church, and Father and Teacher of all Christians; and that to him, in blessed Peter, was given by Jesus Christ the plenitude of power to rule and govern the Universal Church." The petition then proceeded to represent that whereas some professing the name of Catholic were even now bold enough to teach that it was enough to receive the Pontiff's decree in obsequious silence, with a doubtful or only provisional assent, until the approval or disapproval of the Church should be made known, in view of the dangers and practical unbelief to which such opinions were tending, "the public good of Christianity seems to require that the Holy Council of the Vatican, professing, and again and again explaining more fully the Florentine decree, should define clearly, and in words that can admit of no doubt, that the authority of the Roman Pontiff is supreme, and therefore exempt from error, when in matters of faith and morals he decrees and ordains what is to believed and held by all the faithful of Christ, and what to be rejected and condemned by them." The petition concluded by refuting the argument of some that schismatics and heretics would be yet further repelled from the Church by such a measure; while if any now in the Church were induced thereby to leave it, "these will be few in number, and such as have already suffered shipwreck in the faith," &c.

This petition was not presented till the end of January, when it was laid before the Pope, bearing nearly 500 signatures. As soon as the opposition party were aware of its preparation, they got up a counter-petition, to which were appended the signatures of most of the French and almost all the German and Hungarian episcopatein all 137 names. A third petition was signed by a small party of compromise, consisting mostly of Spanish and English Bishops, and recommending the adoption of some ambiguous formula in lieu of the positive definition demanded by the extreme Ultramontanists.

The

The great counter-petition, which was written by Cardinal Rauscher, showed an increased aggregate amount in the opposition forces; but it likewise showed how that force was weakened by difference of opinion in detail. To many of the signatures, variations in the expressions of dissent were appended. The address avoided the question of the doctrine itself, and spoke only of the difficulty and danger attendant on its proposed definition. bulk of the party were evidently desirous to leave things as they were, to provoke no discussion, to accept even practical substitutes for an outspoken Dogma of Infallibility; any thing rather than face the full bearings of their own dissent, and have to resist openly the wishes and the claims of Rome. There were really but a few who accepted the self-suggested mission of actively reforming the Catholic Church from within. Of these, Strossmayer, the eminent Croatian Bishop already mentioned, was one. Ginoulhiac, Bishop of Lyons, is reported to have said to him, "You terrify me by your pitiless logic." Until his speech in the Council of the 30th of December, against the bull Multiplices, Strossmayer's name was unknown beyond the limits of his own country. At Vienna, however, he had acquired some notoriety, and in a manner by no means acceptable to Government. For he was a zealous Panslavist and anti-centralist, striving, with no small amount of statesmanlike ability, to maintain the autonomy of the small province where his diocese was seated. He wished to see Croatia independent both of Austria and of Hungary. Out of favour with the ruling powers, he looked to the love of his Croatians as his mainstay, and to their improvement as his main object when among them. He displayed immense activity in getting up national schools and promoting national culture in his province. At this very time he projected a Croatian national museum, for which he was purchasing pictures of the ancient Italian masters at great cost. On the 24th of January this energetic prelate delivered a speech in Council, in which he openly demanded the reformation of the Court of Rome, decentralization in the government of the Church, and decennial Councils. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, another of the decided and systematic opponents of the Infallibility Dogma, is too well known to need description here. From having been a champion of the Syllabus in 1864, he had turned to be a zealous upholder of "Gallican" liberties against Infallibility, and after the publication of his famous letter against the Jesuits, and just before the opening of the Council, was both dreaded and hated by the extreme Ultramontanists. He is said to have acknowledged at once, with a noble absence of envy, the superiority of Strossmayer to himself as Opposition orator.

There had been some idea on the part of the French Government of sending a special envoy to watch over the proceedings of the Council, and to protest against any declaration of Papal Infallibility. The idea was abandoned; but in February Count Daru, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, had expressed to Cardinal Antonelli, through the Marquis de Bonneville, the resident French Ambassador, the