Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
The next crisis between papal and episcopal theories of authority is reached in the Council of Trent. The primary purpose of that Assembly was to reply to those without, rather than to determine opinions within the Roman Communion. But the effort to formulate their own convictions disclosed sharply contested theories within. The conflict of opposing schools became particularly conspicuous when the Sacrament of Orders came up for consideration in November 1562. The century and a half between Constance and Trent had somewhat diminished the impression of the Schism. Teaching on the supremacy of the Council over the Pope was naturally less emphatic now than in those disastrous days. Yet the school which considered the Pope supreme, and that which considered the Collective Episcopate to hold that high position, coexisted within the Roman Body; just as the entire previous development would lead us to expect. In the Council Chamber of Trent, from the lips of Bishops, both theories are sharply stated.
On the papal side it was claimed that consecration to the Episcopate confers orders but not jurisdiction. Jurisdiction is the authority to govern the Christian flock. And it was argued that a Bishop does not necessarily possess jurisdiction. He possesses jurisdiction when the flock has been assigned to him. But, said the papal advocates, it is the Pope who gives to the Bishop his flock. Consequently, it is the Pope who confers the jurisdiction.
The real basis of this theory is the opinion that all jurisdiction was originally conferred by Christ upon St Peter; that it belongs exclusively to him and his successors; that the plenary jurisdiction of St Peter was transmitted, but not that of the other Apostles. The papal advocates in the Council of Trent frankly stated their anxiety to protect the papal power. If the Pope in conveying jurisdiction was only instrumental, then the plenitude of power was not really his. But whatever the Bishops are, the Pope must be the source of all authority. It was even asserted that Bishops are superior to priests not by divine right, but by papal permission. The Pope, it was declared, had power to deprive, transfer, or depose the Bishops at will, as might seem to him expedient for the Universal or the local Church. So, at least, a Bishop said. We shall see this theory bearing fruits in France in the days of Napoleon. Another Bishop even proclaimed that our Lord baptized St Peter only among the Apostles, while Peter baptized the rest, and created them Bishops of the Church.
On the other side, the theory of supreme episcopal right, commission, and authority was firmly and widely maintained. Consecration, it was affirmed, conferred jurisdiction as well as orders. Indeed jurisdiction is essential to the episcopal function; and consecration cannot confer an inadequate mutilated power. In jurisdiction we should distinguish the capacity and its exercise. The capacity is bestowed direct by Christ in consecration; the particular sphere of its exercise is accidental and subordinate. Appeal was made to the Council of Constance in support of this. Accordingly, Bishops are Vicars of Christ. They are also successors of the Apostles. All the Apostles received jurisdiction direct from Christ. The Bishops are their true successors, therefore their right is divine. The divine right of the Pope can be rested on no other ground than on his succession to St Peter. By an equal reason the Bishops are successors of the Apostles. Christ did not only institute Peter and his successors, but also the Apostles and theirs. In the primitive Church, so Bishops argued at Trent, the papal theory did not exist. For Titus and Timothy were appointed by St Paul, and others by the other Apostles, without any authority from or reference to the Supreme Pontiff. Indeed the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven were given to St Peter, but not to him alone.
Between these conflicting schools others endeavoured to mediate. A member of the Council thought it almost sacrilege to go on discussing the Pope's authority when they had no mandate so to do. Another pleaded that no discussion should be held on episcopal jurisdiction. The condemnation of either opinion would be the repudiation of many accredited teachers. Another deprecated controverted points. What, he exclaimed, will the heretics say when they hear that we, after fifteen hundred years, are enquiring by what right Bishops exist? These questions should be avoided as encouraging heretics and scandalising Catholics. The proper theme for the Council's consideration was rather, How is the episcopal office to be rightly discharged? This is what the world expects the Council to decide. Thus he recalled them to practical reform. Vainly did the presiding Legate remind them that the Council was called to condemn heretics, not to discuss matters controverted among Catholics.
But party feeling was very strong. A Spanish Bishop ventured to observe that the Canon of Nicaea (4) on Episcopal consecration made no reference whatever to the Pope. This created an uproar. The Italian Bishops shouted, "Anathema, burn him, he is a heretic."
The meeting closed in indescribable confusion. When the subject was resumed, on the following day, the Legates expressed themselves firmly resolved to maintain the dignity of the Council, even if necessary by dissolving the Assembly. The Cardinal de Lorraine, head of the Bishops from France, supported the Legates. He is said to have observed that if such an insult had been offered to a French Bishop, he would have left the Council with all the French contingent and returned to France. Cardinal de Lorraine made no secret of his adherence to the principles of the French Church.
"I am a Gallican," he said in a letter to Rome, "brought up in the University of Paris, in which the authority of a General Council is esteemed superior to that of a Pope, and they who hold the contrary are condemned as heretics. In France the Council of Constance is throughout considered Ecumenical."[1]
It is said that if the question had been pressed by the presiding Legates to a division, they could have obtained a majority. But they could not have obtained, on the disputed points, anything approaching unanimity. Accordingly, the controversy on the source of episcopal jurisdiction was left finally undetermined. So far as the Decisions of Trent are concerned there was nothing on this matter to prohibit retention of the ancient view.
There was an anxiety in Rome not to push things to antagonism and division. An historian of the Council says that the Pope advised the Legates that nothing should be defined without the Bishops' unanimous consent:[2] a maxim to which constant appeal was made from the Age of Trent to that of the Vatican.[3] The appeal was natural, for this maxim harmonised with the principle that the ultimate decision in faith rested with the Collective Episcopate.
Since Spanish and French opposition in the Council of Trent frustrated any endorsement of Italian theories of jurisdiction, it is clear what would have been the result of any attempt to make decrees on papal authority. No further addition was made in this direction. Belief in the supreme authority of the Council in matters of faith was left, so far as Trent was concerned, exactly where it was before. It remained the conviction of the Church in France.
The correspondence between Rome and the Legates at Trent has never been published yet. Members of the Council of the Vatican asked permission to see it, but Theiner, librarian of the Vatican, was not allowed to show the documents. Lord Acton[4] says that Theiner deemed the concealment prudent.
Whether that opinion is correct or not, and it has been disputed, what is certain is that if a comparison be made between the relation of Pope and Council at Trent and at the Vatican, a vast development of papal authority will be found in the later period, and a corresponding diminution of the independent action of the Collective Episcopate. It will be sufficient here to note that at Trent the claims of minorities were respected; that nothing was passed without moral unanimity; that the Bishops framed the regulations by which they were to be controlled; that no methods of procedure were imposed upon them from without; that the Roman Pontiff of that day made no attempt to force new dogmas on large and reluctant minorities. These comparisons were made within the Roman Church, when the later Assembly had shown its character.