Johann Döllinger - Letters From Rome on the Council

I hear that, among the Irish Bishops, Moriarty is averse to breaking with the ancient tradition of his Church. Bishop Brown of Newport, an open and decided opponent of Infallibilism, is kept away by ill health; Ullathorne of Birmingham and Archbishop MacHale of Tuam wish also to keep clear of it, but without signing the address. Bishop Clifford of Clifton, on the contrary, as I hear, has signed it. So Manning's following among his countrymen is a very divided one.

Rome, Feb. 4. – There is a good deal of interesting matter to report of the Sessions of the last few weeks. And, first, as to the Council Hall: notwithstanding the great curtain, it remains a wretched apology for a Council-chamber, and I must repeat emphatically that such a discussion as, e. g. , was possible in St. Paul's Church, at Frankfort, in 1848, would be hardly practicable here. Bishops whose voices are feeble and not penetrating enough, must give up the idea of speaking, and even strong men among them feel thoroughly exhausted after they have spoken. A French Bishop, whose speech had produced a great effect, said afterwards of the hall, “Elle est sourde, muette, et aveugle.” But the Pope persists, on account of the neighbourhood of the so-called “Confession of St. Peter,” from which he thinks a force issues to bind the Bishops closer to him, and fill them with contempt of the world. This influence, however, has been very little manifested as yet – rather the reverse. There have been many Opposition speeches, and the bell of the presiding Legate not unfrequently interrupts them with its shrill dissonance; in the latter Sessions a new method has been practised of reducing unpleasant speakers to silence – by scraping with the feet. It is a striking fact that talent, eloquence, and force of thought are observed to be almost entirely on the side of the Opposition; very few men of mark or able speakers can be mentioned on the Infallibilist side. Manning and Mermillod would be good and versatile speakers, only they are not sufficiently masters of Latin. Deschamps alone on that side has won great applause as an eloquent speaker, though with sufficient poverty of thought.

Among the Cardinals, de Angelis, de Luca, Bilio, and Capalti are considered the four Papal pillars of the Council. Bilio, a Barnabite, and still a young man, passes in Rome for an eminent theologian, and while the other Cardinals and Monsignori would hold it a sin to understand German, he knows two German words, which he constantly repeats, but always with a shudder, “deutsche Wissenschaft.” He thinks German science something like the witches' caldron in Macbeth – full of horrible ingredients.

The first dogmatic Schema has gone back to the Commission on Faith after a long, many-sided, and severe criticism, and is to be revised and again laid before the Council as little altered as possible. The revision is intrusted to three of the most zealous Infallibilists, Martin, Deschamps, and Pie, with the indispensable Jesuits, Schrader and Franzelin. The Bishops are then simply to accept it without discussion. It is not to be discussed, first, because there can be no discussion in the Hall; secondly, because this wretched patchwork does not bear discussion; thirdly, because there would be no coming to an end this way; fourthly, and chiefly, because an excellent precedent will be created, which may be made a rule for the forthcoming Schemata , and will open the prospect of carrying through matters far more important and more valuable for the Curia .

If once the first Schema were voted without discussion, by the help of the devoted majority of 400, though against the opposition of many Bishops, the same method might be pursued with subsequent Schemata , and thus the most important of all, on the Church and the Pope, could be carried, which contains the most exorbitant assertions of Papal omnipotence, and implies Papal Infallibility, which is introduced by a side-wind. By this means the maxim observed at former Councils, and even at Trent, that decisions can only be settled by a unanimous vote, would be happily got rid of, and the resistance of the Opposition broken or rendered useless. Such a victory of the curialistic party would exceed all other successes in importance and practical value. The Council is accordingly come to a momentous crisis. Father Theiner, the Prefect of the Papal Archives, has had a part of the first volume of his Acts of the Council of Trent printed. We find there a modus procedendi , which secures to the Fathers of the Council much more freedom and action than the present regulations, of which Italian Prelates say themselves that they leave no freedom, and only allow a sham Council. Theiner has been altogether forbidden, by the management of the Jesuits, to publish his work, and has received the most strict commands not to show the part already printed to any Bishop.

The introduction of the second Schema , on Discipline, gave occasion to many earnest and important speeches. The Germans at first had to blush for one of their number, Martin of Paderborn, who made a speech overflowing with the most unqualified devotion to the will of the supreme master, the authorship of which was attributed to his Jesuit domestic chaplain, Father Roh. But the speech of Archbishop Melchers of Cologne made all the more favourable impression. He spoke, with quiet dignity and freedom, of the perversity and shamefulness of the meddling Roman domination, the system of dispensations, and the unmeasured centralization. Great was the astonishment of the assembly; Cardinal Capalti went on urging, with impatient look and sign, on de Luca, the President for the day, to stop the German Archbishop. At last, when he had nearly finished, de Luca interrupted him, and said he must hand in his proposals to the Commission. Melchers did not let himself be put down; he replied that he had done that long ago, and had received no answer, and observed that he spoke in the name of more than a million German Catholics. And then he quietly went on with his speech. The words of Archbishop Haynald cut deeper still; he is the best speaker in the Council after Strossmayer, and is also subtle and circumspect, so that the Legate, who was visibly anxious to interrupt him, could not discover the right moment for putting his bell in motion.

As little did they dare to interrupt Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, when he ascended the tribune and began as follows: – “We are told we are not to make long speeches, but I have a great deal to say. We are told again not to repeat what has been said by others, but at the same time we are kept shut up in this Hall, where for the most part we cannot understand one another; we are not allowed to examine the stenographic reports of our speeches, and the only answer made to our representations is always the same – ‘The Pope wills it.’ I don't know therefore what has been said by the speakers who have preceded me.” He then went on to speak of the rights of the Bishops, their degradation by the Roman centralizing system, “the caves, wherein the Roman doctors have buried themselves from the light of day,” etc. He spoke in admirable style, and was listened to with rapt attention, though at every word his auditors expected an interruption from the Legate; but it never came. Darboy himself said afterwards that he had done like Condé, and flung his marshal's staff into the ranks of the enemy.

On January 22, Dupanloup made a speech in the same sense, which has already been reported to you, and took occasion to mention those courtiers who have learnt never to tell the truth to the Pope. Courtiers of this sort from various nations sat and stood in crowds around him. He might have added what was said to the Pope – vainly, of course – 300 years ago, in a work composed by his order, and is just as true now as then: that the dream of omnipotence and infallibility, so studiously produced and cherished in his soul by flatterers, is the main cause, next to the avarice of the Curia , of the decline and corruptions of the Church. Meanwhile it is truly wonderful that so much could be said at all; it was felt to be a moral discomfiture or capitulation of the Curia in its state of siege. Cardinal Schwarzenberg, and after him the Primate of Hungary, had certainly struck the note which still rang on, but the Legates had not dared to silence them with the bell, and so missed the opportunity of principiis obsta . Schwarzenberg had already created a great sensation by recommending the periodical recurrence of Councils, afterwards taken up by Strossmayer, and then falling back on the decree of Constance (for decennial Councils), which is an abomination at Rome. No doubt they would have no objection in Rome to Councils every ten or twenty years, suitably modernized, manipulated, and obedient to every wink, like the present majority; but the fatal Opposition embitters this enjoyment, and when once the great work is accomplished, and Infallibility proclaimed, it will be found at Rome that all this machinery is not worth its pay, “que le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle;” for it costs too much money to entertain 300 Placet -saying Bishops, to make it worth while often to reproduce the drama, or rather the pantomine.