Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
THE OPENING OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL
The Council of the Vatican was opened on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (8th December I869).[1] There was significance in the selection of the day. That very day, fifteen years before, Pius IX. had proclaimed a new dogma on the Virgin; and, as a fervid prelate assured him, he who had declared the Virgin immaculate was now to be proclaimed by her infallible. The Council was held in the South Transept of St Peter's, and at the opening service seven hundred and two members were present.[2] So large an Assembly had never been held before. The proportions of the two opinions were roughly between four and five hundred Infallibilists and between one and two hundred opponents of the doctrine.
Meetings of the Council were of two kinds: the ordinary Congregations, at which none but members and officials were permitted to be present, while the proceedings were secret; the Public Sessions, at which the public were admitted, and the Decrees proclaimed. Of the former kind there were in all eighty-nine, of the latter four. Only two, however, of the Public Sessions declared matters decreed: for the first was entirely occupied with ceremonial, and at the second (6th January) no Decrees were ready; it was accordingly devoted to recitals of the Creed of the Council of Trent. The Pope was never present except at the four Public Sessions. He exerted his influence without compromising his dignity.
The secrecy of the proceedings was thoroughly in accordance with the Italian disposition. Every official and member of the Council was sworn to observe it. But the regulation proved ineffective, partly because the Pope himself released certain members of the majority from the necessity of its observance, and partly because the incessant discussions in unofficial assemblies of the Bishops could not easily escape publicity. Much information leaked out in various directions and appeared in print.
The influence of Pius IX. upon the Council was exercised partly through official documents. Three important papers[3] were issued by him to the Council during its early period: The Constitution on Procedure (18th December 1869); on Election to the Papacy in case of a Vacancy (1st January 1870); on Absolving from Ecclesiastical Censures (15th January 1870). The significance of the last may be measured by the following description. Its effect was "to cancel episcopal encroachments on the Papal authority."[4] The second was intended to prevent any assertion of power by the Council in case the Pope might die.
But far the most important of these three Constitutions was that which regulated the Council's procedure (multiplices inter). This remarkable document asserted that the right of proposing subjects for discussion belonged to the Papal See, but that the Pope nevertheless desired and exhorted the Bishops to give in their proposals to a Congregation appointed for that purpose. The value of the concession was qualified by the fact that the Congregation in question was selected entirely by the Pope, and was composed of Ultramontanes.
All the officers of the Council, including the five Presidents, were appointed by the Pope on his own authority; and their names were given in this Decree. The details of procedure were also therein defined. No Bishop was to leave without the Pope's permission.
This certainly was a striking document. The French statesman, Ollivier, says that "its novelty, its boldness, its audacity is only realised when compared with the proceedings at Trent."[5] At Trent the Regulations were determined by the Bishops themselves.
When the Vatican Council began its work, several Bishops, including the Archbishop of Paris, attempted to protest against the restrictions imposed upon them; but the presiding Cardinal suppressed all objections with a declaration that the Pope had so ordained, and that his decisions could not be called in question. To this declaration the minority submitted. Thereby in effect they acknowledged the Pope's power to determine the Regulations. This has been called "the first of the feeblenesses, or to speak more indulgently, the resignations of the minority."[6]
The actual product of the Vatican Council consists of two Dogmatic Constitutions known respectively by their opening words as the Constitution Dei Filius and the Constitution Pastor Æternus. Of these the former was proclaimed in the third Public Session, the latter in the fourth Public Session. The contents of the former are the doctrine of God, of Revelation, of Faith, and of the relation between Faith and Reason. The latter contains the Ultramontane theory of the Papacy, and especially the dogma of the Pope's Infallibility. It is with this last subject exclusively that we are concerned.
This subject of Papal Infallibility was not mentioned among the causes for which the Council was assembled, nor was it introduced into the discussion for the first three months. During that period the Bishops' attention was devoted to discussions on faith; the discipline of the clergy; the project of the compilation of a new Catechism, for universal use, in place of all local Catechisms in the Roman body. Matters such as these occupied the first twenty-eight Congregations. But progress was excessively slow: partly owing to the reluctance of the minority to proceed, under fear of what the future would produce, and under dislike of various extreme measures proposed to them. It seems clear that the Roman authorities had not anticipated so much persistent opposition. At the end of three months, minority-Bishops said with relief, "We have done nothing, and that is a great deal." The Dogmatic Constitution on faith was expected to be ready for the second Public Session on 6th January. But when the date arrived the doctrine was not ready. Consequently the entire Session was occupied by formal recitation of the Tridentine Creed.
In January 1870 the crisis became acute when Manning and other members of the Vatican Council presented the Pope with an Address, urging him to declare his own Infallibility.
Upon this Döllinger wrote his "Few Words " to the Augsburg Gazette. He pointed out with all possible emphasis the magnitude of the suggested revolution. He declared that Papal Infallibility had never been believed hitherto—believed, that is, with the faith due to a divine revelation. Between the faith due to a truth divinely revealed through the Church, and the acceptance of a theological theory, the difference is immense. Hitherto there had been conjectures, opinions, probabilities, even human certainty in individual minds as to Papal Infallibility; but never that divine faith which is the response of the Catholic to the doctrine of the Church. Döllinger added that while the Infallibilists' Address spoke of the Pope being infallible when instructing the entire Church, it was historically clear that all papal utterances on doctrine during the first twelve hundred years were directed to individuals or local communities.
The effect of this urgent appeal to historic certainties was very considerable. Archbishop Scherr, Döllinger's diocesan, had a very uneasy time in consequence at the hands of the Jesuits and the majority in Rome. Although his personal conviction and sympathy were with the learned historian, he could not help a certain human self-pity, and he is said to have sighed, "What a comfort it would be if only Döllinger would expire!" But the vigorous old Professor seemed in no way likely to comply with the archiepiscopal wishes.
A further stage in Vatican procedure was reached when Pius IX. imposed upon the Council, on 22nd February 1870, a new series of Regulations which were designed to accelerate progress, and to drive things forward to their intended conclusion.
These New Regulations as to procedure were introduced into the Council without its consultation or consent. They were simply imposed upon the Council, from without; by the same authority which directed everything without personally appearing. The main features of the New Regulations are two. The first rule authorised the Presidents to control any individual speaker who in their opinion wandered from the point. Another rule gave the Presidents power, at the request of ten Fathers and with the approval of the majority, to closure the discussion. This second Regulation involved tremendous possibilities. It placed the minority entirely at the mercy of the majority. It thereby determined a principle more momentous still—namely, that Decrees of Faith could be imposed on the Church by mere majority of votes. Hitherto the minority had taken refuge in the principle that no opinion could be elevated into a dogma of faith without the Council's moral unanimity. The existence of an opposition so extensive as between one hundred and two hundred Bishops rendered the Church secure on that theory from the imposition of the Ultramontane conception of papal prerogatives. But the New Regulations swept that plea of moral unanimity entirely away. Whatever was the intention of its propounders, its effect is clear; and that effect was disastrous to the men who clung to what they regarded as the ancient truth. Naturally the depression of the minority was profound.
Döllinger wrote a very powerful criticism upon these New Regulations.[7] He characterised the existing Roman Synod as the first in history in which instructions as to procedure had been imposed upon the Bishops without their co-operation or approval. The New Regulations concentrated all real power in the hands of the presiding Cardinals and the Commission of Suggestions, so that the Council itself, as opposed to these, had neither power nor will. Equally momentous was the fact that doctrine was to be determined by majorities. This was an intrusion of parliamentary forms into synodical procedure—with this tremendous difference: that whereas laws passed by majorities are subject to subsequent revision and recall, dogmatic resolutions are, if the Council be really ecumenical, irrevocable and valid for all future time. The Infallibilist majority would naturally accept the dogmatic proposals introduced by the Commission of Suggestions; for that Commission, which alone possessed the privilege of introducing doctrine into the Council, and of determining what amendments should be admitted, and the form which those amendments should take, consisted of the most pronounced advocates of Infallibility. And this decision by majorities was utterly alien to the traditional methods of Christendom. "For eighteen hundred years," said Döllinger, "it has been held as a principle of the Church that decrees concerning faith and doctrine should be adopted by at least moral unanimity." And this because Bishops at a Council are primarily witnesses to the faith which they and their Churches have received; secondly, judges to examine whether the conditions of universality, perpetuity, and consent are fulfilled by a given doctrine; whether it is really a universal doctrine of the whole Church, and a constituent portion of the original Deposit divinely intrusted to the Church's keeping, and therefore a doctrine which every Christian must affirm. Consequently the judicial function of the episcopate cannot exclude the past. It extends across all history.
"A Council only makes dogmatic decrees on things already universally believed in the Church, as being testified by the Scriptures and by Tradition, or which are contained, as evident and clear deductions, in the principles which have been already believed and taught. Should, for example, the Infallibility of a single individual be put in the place of the freedom from error of the whole Church, as formerly believed and taught, this would be no development nor explanation of what was hitherto implicitly believed, nor is it a deduction that follows with logical necessity, but simply the very opposite of the earlier doctrine, which thereby would be subverted."
Döllinger contended further that all theologians agree that the ecumenical character of a Council depends, among other essential conditions, upon the possession of real freedom. Real freedom does not consist in mere immunity from physical force. Fear, ambition, avarice, as effectually destroy true freedom as bodily constraint. Moreover, urged Döllinger, even if a Council be ecumenical in its vocation, it does not follow that it is also ecumenical in its procedures or in its conclusions. "It is still necessary that the authority which stands ever above every Council—the testimony of the whole Church—should come forward and decide."
This was Bellinger's final protest before the decision.[8] A Bishop of the majority replied by prohibiting theological students in his diocese from attending Döllinger's lectures. Pius congratulated the Bishop on this action, and wished that others would follow his example; which however they declined to do. A war of pamphlets followed. Döllinger was attacked in a party newspaper as having by his recent writings placed himself outside the Catholic Church. Hötzl,[9] a Franciscan lecturer on theology, afterwards Bishop of Augsberg, published a pamphlet entitled, "Is Döllinger a Heretic?" This was too much for the King of Bavaria. He expressed in a birthday letter the earnest hope that Döllinger might long be spared in undiminished mental and bodily powers to the service of religion and of learning. Hötzl's imprudent act awakened so many demonstrations of sympathy and approval towards Döllinger that it was thought wise to transfer Hötzl to Rome.
It was impossible, of course, that these New Regulations, involving for the minority such tremendous possibilities, should be tamely acquiesced in without a protest. The protest came, partly in the form of written appeals to the Pope, and partly in speeches in the Congregation. One of the ablest orators in the Council, the brilliant Strossmayer, being called to order by the President, uttered against the Rules the following impassioned criticism:—
"I am persuaded that the perpetual and unmistakable rule of faith and tradition always was and always must remain that nothing could be passed without morally unanimous consent. A Council which ignored this rule, and attempted to define dogmas of faith and morals by a numerical majority, binding thereby the conscience of the Catholic world under penalties of eternal life and death, would, according to my most profound conviction, have transgressed its lawful bounds."[10]
As Strossmayer uttered the closing words the Council Chamber was filled with the wildest tumult, says Lord Acton, and the Session was broken up.[11]
Written protests were sent to the Pope against the New Regulations by the minority, but no relief was given. What were they now to do? They had complained, on ground of conscience, that the freedom of the Council was impaired. This complaint affected the Council's validity. Could they reasonably continue their work within it? On the other hand, no actual Decree was threatened as yet. Was it wise to withdraw before the repulsive doctrine was introduced? The instincts of caution prevailed over bolder and more resolute lines. The minority protested, but submitted.[12]