COUNCILS
426
COUNCILS
controverted points. The Council of Basle is only
oecumenical till the end of the twenty-fifth session,
and of its decrees Eugene IV approved only such as
dealt with the extirpation of heresy, the peace of
Christendom, and the reform of the Church, and
which at the same time did not derogate from the
rights of the Holy See.
(18) The Eighteenth CEcumenical, or Fifth Council of the Lateran, sat from 1.512 to 1517 under Popes Julius II and Leo X, the emperor being Maximilian I. Fifteen cardinals and about eighty archbishops and bishops took part in it. Its decrees are chiefly disci- plinary. A new crusade against the Turks was also planned, but came to naught, owing to the religious upheaval in Germany caused by Luther.
(19) The Council of Trent, the Nineteenth (Ecu- menical, lasted eighteen years (1.545-1563) under five popes: Paul III, Julius III, Marcellus II, Paul IV, and Pius IV, and under the Emperors Charles V and Ferdinand. There were present 5 cardinal legates of the Holy See, 3 patriarchs, 33 archbishops, 235 bish- ops, 7 abbots, 7 generals of monastic orders, ICiO doc- tors of divinity. It was convoked to examine and condemn the errors promulgated by Luther and other Reformers, and to reform the discipUne of the Church. Of all coimcils it lasted longest, issued the largest number of dogmatic and reformatory decrees, and produced the most beneficial results.
(20) The Twentieth (Ecumenical Council was sum- moned to the Vatican bv Pius IX. It met 8 Decem- ber, 1869, and lasted till 18 July, 1870, when it was adjourned; it is still (1908) imfinished. There were present 6 archbishop-princes, 49 cardinals, 11 patri- archs, 680 archbishops and bishops, 28 abbots, 29 generals of orders, in all 803. Besides important canons relating to the Faith and the constitution of the Church, the council decreed the infallibility of the pope when speaking ex cathedra, i. e. when, as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church.
IV. The Pope and Gener.vl Councils. — The re- lations between the pope and general councils must be exactly defined to arrive at a just conception of the functions of councils in the Church, of their rights and duties, and of their authority. The traditional phrase, "the council represents the Church", asso- ciated with the modern notion of representative assemblies, is apt to lead to a serious misconception of the bishops' fimction in general synods. The na- tion's deputies receive their power from their electors and are bound to protect and promote their electors' interests; in the modern democratic State they are directly created by, and out of, the people's own power. The bishops in council, on the contrary, hold no power, no commission, or delegation, from the people. All their powers, orders, jurisdiction, and membership in the council, come to them from above — directly from the pope, ultimately from God. What the episcopate in council does represent is the Divinely instituted magisterium, the teaching and gov- erning pow'er of the Church; the interests it defends are those of the depositum fidei, of the revealed rules of faith and morals, i. e. the interests of God.
The council is, then, the assessor of the supreme teacher and judge sitting on the Chair of Peter by Divine appointment; its operation is essentially co- operation — the common action of the members with their head — and therefore necessarily rises or falls in value, according to the measure of its connexion with the pope. A council in op])osition to the pope is not representative of the whole Church, for it neither represents the pope who oppo.ses it, nor the alisent bishops, who cannot act beyond the limits of their dioceses except through the pope. A comicil not only acting independently of the Vicar of Chri.st, but sitting in judgment over him, is unthinkable in the constitu-
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tion of the Church ; in fact, such assemblies have onl
taken place in times of great constitutional disturl
ances, when either there was no pope or the rightfi
pope was indistinguishable from antipopes. In sue
abnormal times the safety of the Church becomes th
supreme law, and the first duty of the abandone
flock is to find a new shepherd, imder whose directic
the existing evils may be remedied
In normal times, when according to the Divii constitution of the Church, the pope rules in tl fullness of his power, the function of councils to support and strengthen his rule on occasioi of extraordinary difficulties arising from heresie schisms, relaxed discipline, or external foes. GeiJ eral councils have no part in the ordinary norma. , government of the Church. This principle is cod "' firmed by the fact that during nineteen centurid "?*' of Church life only twenty cecumenical councils tool ^^ place. It is further illustrated by the complete failur of the decree issued in the thirty-ninth session of th Council of Constance (then without a rightful head' to the effect that general covmcils should meet in quently and at regular intervals; the very first syno simimoned at Pavia for the year 1423 could not bj , held for want of responses to the sunmions. It is thv'**^' evident that general councils are not qualified to issui independently of the pope, dogmatic or disciplinai canons binding on the whole Church. As a matter fact, the older councils, especially those of Ephest (431) and Chalcedon (451), were not convened to d ^'"" cide on questions of faith still open, but to give add j , tional weight to, and secure the execution of, pap Ij decisions previously issued and regarded as ftu' authoritative. The other consequence of the san principle is that the bishops in coiuicil assembled a not commissioned, as are our modern parliaments, control and limit the power of the sovereign, or hei of the State, although circumstances may arise which it would be their right and duty firmly to e postulate with the pope on certain of his acts or me: ures. The severe strictures of the Si.xth Geneip™ Council on Pope Honorius I may be cited as a case- point.
V. Composition of Gener.\l CorxciLS. — (a) Rii of participation. — The right to be present and to ll at general councils belongs in the first place and lo ** cally to the bishops actually exercising the episcoj '"™i office. In the earlier coimcils there appear also 1 f*™" chorepiscopi (country-bishops), who, according to 1 ff"' better opinion, were neither true bishops nor an on '™ interposed between bishops and priests, but prie "**'i invested with a jurisdiction smaller than the episco ^fj^' but larger than the sacerdotal. They were ordaii '""* by the bishop and charged with the administratior ' '*'■ a certain district in his diocese. They had the po'f ^"'i of conferring minor orders, and even the subiliaconi Titular bi.shops. i. e. bishops not ruling a diocese, 1 "^'"^ equal rights with other bishops at the Vatican Co cil ( 1869-70), where 117 of them were present. Tl claim lies in the fact that their order, the episcc consecration, entitles them, jure tlivino, to take f in the administration of the Church, and that a f eral council seems to afford a proper sphere for exercise of a right which the want of a proper dioi keeps in abeyance. Dignitaries who hold episct
iitliro:
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or quasi-episcopal jurisdiction without being bisb '*Moil,
th
-.such as carilinal-priests, cardinal-deacons, abl
nulliu.i, mitred abbots of whole orders or con
gat ions of monasteries, generals of clerks regi
mendicant and monastic orders — were allowed to
at the \'atican Council. Their title is ba.sed on f
tive canon law: ;it the early councils .such votes
not admitted, but from the .seventh centurv do
the en.l of th.> .Middle .\gcs the contrary jiral-tice _
|)revailed, and has since become an aequ
right. Priests ami deacons frequently cast deci
votes in the name of absent bishops whoii} they W ^"yiosf
aiion, 1
■tobrii
ten an-
