RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Vatican Council
cessity of defining the given doctrine; while the strength of the minority was their theological erudition and intelligence. That was no accident which arrayed the Spanish bishops, without exception, on the side of the majority, and three-fourths of the German episcopate on the minority side; this relative attitude was conditioned by the level of the theological training of the clergy in both countries.
It was a serious obstacle to the minority, that the pope took aggressive and open stand against that
; minority’s formulated position. How-
6. OnE beit, the decision of the contest de-
pty spite ended upon the question whether or culties; Con- re A
troversies 20t the minority possessed the inher-
Aroused, &nt strength and sufficient confidence
inits cause to assert and carry its will. It was precisely this internal compactness which the minority lacked. All that held their imposing array together was the sheer denial of the question of defining the infallibility of the pope on grounds of expediency, not the disavowal of the doctrine itself, though many of the minority had espoused this extraneous position. Accordingly, the minority’s' platform was one of negation simply. But the sphere of its action was thereby seriously restricted, and it lacked the momentum that produces positive results. It could collectively utilize merely a sectional extract of all that cogent material which scientific scholarship was elaborating in support of the conflict against the doctrine itself. The opposition must needs collapse forthwith when situations occurred wherein considerations of expediency and questions of tact and fitness lost their value, or even contradicted its very existence. Lastly, the minority was handicapped by the lack of a commanding leader.
The drafting and circulation of the memorials with reference to the matter of infallibility was accompanied by extensive discussions in a periodical way, proceeding from members of both parties at the council. Much attention was aroused in France by the controversy on the Honorius question (see Honorivus I.) between Auguste Joseph Alphonse Gratry, French acamedician and sometime oratorian, and Archbishop Dechamps, and by the pamphlet Ce qui se passe au concile, against which the council deemed it necessary to protest, the more because the article showed expert knowledge of the situation. Still stronger was the agitation in Germany, where the scientific training of the clergy was too advanced for a surrender to the new dogma without resistance. On Jan. 19 Déllinger published his signed article on infallibility in the Augsburger allgemeine Zeitung, and this evoked wide comment.
On Jan. 21 there had been distributed among the synodical members the schedule entitled Schema constitutionis dogmatice de ecclesia Christi. This
stated, that the Church is the mystical
7. Church jody of Christ (chap. 1); that in this iain ? alone can the Christian religion be duly ¥* practised (chap. 2); that the Church
is the one perfect society (chap. 3); that corporate bodies detached from the Church can not be designated as part or parcel of the Church (chap, 5);
that only through the Church, and consequently in the Church, can salvation be obtained (chaps. 6, 7); that the Church is imperishable and indefectible (chaps. 9, 10); that the Church possesses a peculiar power and authority (potestas, chap. 10); that in this body Christ has instituted the primacy of the bishop of Rome (chap. 11), which involves the possession of temporal sovereignty (chap. 12); in case of disharmony between Church and State, the State is to blame (chap. 13). The civil rulers, too, are bound to the law of God, and the decision as to how this is to be administered appertains to the supreme teaching function of the Church (chap. 14). The closing chapter claims for the Church the province of instructing the young, freedom in the sphere of training the clergy, and exemption of the clergy from military service, unrestricted franchise for the religious orders, etc. Under the head of canons may be read (No. XX.): “ If any one says that the supreme rule of conscience in respect to public and social affairs is vested in the law of the body politic, or in the public opinion of men, or that the judgments of the Church do not reach over the said affairs (by which judgments the Church pronounces concerning what is lawful, or illicit and unlawful), or that something is lawful to be done by force of the civil justice which is unlawful by the divine justice or law of the Church, let him be anathema.” When, in spite of the injunction to secrecy, this proviso came to be known by the press of all Europe, the civil governments were admonished to be vigilant, and were urged to defend the civil organism, now menaced by the doctrines of a vanished era. On Feb. 10, the Austrian Count Beust notified the Austrian ambassador to advise the cardinal secretary that the publication of any such ruling, prejudicial to due respect for the law of the land, was forbidden in Austria and would be visited with legal penalties. In a dispatch of Feb. 20, communicated to the other powers, Count Daru, French minister of foreign affairs, repelled the schedule’s express encroachments upon the civil jurisdiction, and demanded that before the council proceeded to draft resolutions upon questions relating to civil statecraft, the holy see should give the French goyernment opportunity to convey to the council the French conception herein. Antonelli, however, answered coldly, and nothing was ultimately achieved by these protests, since more active measures were not initiated. The change in the French ministry on Apr. 18, by which Ollivier became minister of foreign affairs, obviated all danger of direct cocrcion upon the council from a French quarter. And the same political considerations which decided Napoleon III. in favor of great reserve, were of controlling weight with Bismarck, while England also maintained her policy of reserve and self-restraint. In the council’s proceedings, the grand stroke fell on Mar. 6, when a supplementary article to chap. 11 of the schedule De ecclesia was addressed to the members of the council. This appendix bore the heading, Romanum pontificem in rebus fidei et morum definiendis errare non posse, ‘“‘ The Roman pontiff can not err in defining matters of faith and morals.” The time of the Curia’s evasive policy was past, and the council faced a clear situation.
Vatican Council
2. Third Session, Sunday Apr. 24, 1870: Before the congregations general had resumed their sessions, attempts were made by the majority to accelerate the opening of the proceedings. The minority demanded that this difficult matter be not presented under the order of the day until it was carefully examined by the members of the council. The pope himself was approached, first in an audience, next in a memorial dated Apr. 22, with the outcome that the desired proceedings were not further postponed.
The congregations general from Mar. 18 to Apr. 19 were occupied with deliberations over the revised schedule De doctrina catholica. Within the main committee on this business, a subcommittee of three members had been appointed, who, in turn, delegated the substance of their labor to Bishop Martin of Paderborn, and he utilized the aid and support of Professor Kleutgen. The entire deputation’s transactions eventually reached the result that only the first part of the schedule, that under the head De fide catholica, was referred to the congregation general; whereas the second part of the schedule did not come up for action at all. In the general debate beginning on Mar. 18, and inaugurated by the report of Archbishop Simon of Gran, the projected revision met both approval and censure. Among the speeches delivered in course of the special debate, the one by Bishop Strossmayer, on Mar. 22, created atempest. The designation of Protestantism as a ‘‘ pest,” in the discussion then forward, is believed to have provoked a very vigorous retort by way of Berlin. That strong influences were brought to bear, indeed, against such definition and sentence of Protestantism is evident from the circumstance that the offending passage was altered by the deputation on faith, so as to modify the sense advocated by Strossmayer. So the revised text no longer derived naturalism from Protestantism, etc.; while the term pestis was replaced by impietas. After these alterations, the preliminary part of the schedule gained formal adoption. At the fortyfifth congregation general, on Apr. 12, the entire schedule came up for action, and was adopted by a vote of 575, while eighty-three voted placet juzta modum; not until Apr. 23 did the minority decide, and this chiefly owing to the efforts of Cardinals Rauscher and Schwarzenberg, in favor of voting placet. At the public third session, which occurred on Apr. 24, with an attendance of 667 ecclesiastics, the Constitutio de fide catholica was unanimously adopted; the ratification of the same was at once ** confirmed ”’ by the pope.
8. Fourth Session, Monday July 18, 1870: Worthy of note here are the attempts of some bishops of the minority to enlighten, along literary lines, their fellow synodical delegates in regard to the momentous difficulties opposing their definition. But owing to censorship of the press, these writers were obliged to produce their articles away from Rome. Cardinal Rauscher thus wrote Observationes quedam de infallibilitatis ecclesie subjecto; from Bishop Hefele there appeared Causa Honorii papa; Cardinal Schwarzenberg prompted the tract composed by his counselor (Prof. 8. Mayer, of Prague): De summi pontificis infallibilitate; while Bishop