RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Vatican Council {
of six bishops of the minority (Simon, Ginoulhiac, Darboy, Scherr, Ketteler, and Rivet) was received by Pius IX. What they requested fell far short of the desires hitherto expressed by the minority, for they now restricted their petition to the two points that the passage on ‘‘ plenitude of power,” in chap. 3, be stricken out, and that in chap. 4 the statement about papal infallibility be supplemented, so as to read that the pope shall support his position upon the witness of the Church. Ketteler prostrated himself before the pope, and besought him, “O that the father of the Catholic world might grant peace to the Church and the episcopate by some small concessions, and so restore that unity now lost.” While Pius made no definite admissions, his demeanor produced new hopes. That these were fallacious appeared by the very next day. For the result was to intensify the sharp edge of the decree in its final shape by rendering the definitions absolute of themselves, and not contingent upon the consensus of the Church, which amended form was adopted by the eighty-sixth congregation general, on July 16, without parliamentary deliberation.
With the appointment of the fourth public session for July 18, when the final vote should occur, the contest over infallibility entered upon its last stage.
The minority was really in a desperate 5. Vote on quandary. Firm party organization erpraen it neither commanded nor could proae fe cure. Indeed, a compact front was now the less possible, seeing that after proclamation of the dogma the base of reckoning had assumed the shape of an immediate, imminent, and instant fact. For in the present contingency, the exercise of that ordinary right of stoutly adhering to the form of voting was opposed by considerations of pious loyalty toward the person of the pope, who had_left no doubt on the point that he attached the utmost weight to the adoption of the pending dogma. In circumstances of this kind, there was no other becoming exit for the minority than that of absenting themselves from the session, and this policy was commended and facilitated by the Curia itself. For while up to this point the synodical delegates had been forbidden to quit Rome, on July 16 the members of the council were granted a general leave of absence. Whereupon, on July 17, fiftyfive bishops of the minority forwarded a note to the pope, in which they reaffirmed their vote of July 18, and stated that in deference to him they intended to stay away from the session. The danger that any considerable number of bishops would not submit to the forthcoming dogma was accordingly set aside before taking shape at all. At the public session on July 18, 535 ecclesiastics were present, and all voted placet save Bishop Riccio of Cajazzo and Bishop Fitzgerald of Little Rock. The pope then announced the definition, and proclaimed the confirmation of the decrees. At the same session, the two opposing bishops tendered their submission.
4, Prorogation of the Council: Three further congregations general assembled after the fourth session; but no important matters engaged the attention of the council, attendance on which dwindled from about 1,050 to 104. Active interest in behalf
Vatican Council
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
of the ecclesiastical concourse was now sealed in the past. On July 26 the synodical delegates received copies of the Schema super apostolicis missionibus, on which no action was taken. The revised Schema de sede episcopali vacante was the subject of a brief debate on Aug. 23, and was adopted Sept. 1. Then followed the repeal of the States of the Church, and this furnished an adequate occasion for dissolving the merely vegetating convention, to say nothing of dealing a blow against the Italian government. In the bull Postquam Dei munere, dated Oct. 20, Pius IX. declared that in consequence of the ‘“ sacrilegious invasion” of the city of Rome conditions had set in which implied the lack of the necessary freedom, security, and quiet for the council’s deliberations. For this reason, as also with due regard to the fact that the state of affairs produced by the great convulsions abroad in Hurope required the presence of the bishops in their dioceses, he ordered the prorogation of the council. On the other hand, the Italian government took issue with the assertion that the new régime in Rome prejudiced the council’s freedom.
III. Decrees of the Council.—1. Drafts and Motions: The committees charged with preparing the measures to be laid before the council elaborated a great number of preliminary drafts of decrees on doctrine and discipline. A first set of these outlined the dogmatic schedules, a second group dealt with discipline, a third with the monastic orders, a fourth with oriental rites and with missions. Nota few bishops availed themselves of their right to propose motions with reference to the subjects to be treated by the council. Yet none of these motions came up for action, although, for that matter, the same was true of most of the drafted measures emanating from the Curia. Still again, of the few propositions which underwent complete advisory action before the assembled convention, only two took the shape of decrees.
2. Substance and Import of the Council’s Resolutions: The two most momentous decisions of July 18 read as follows (chap. 3, at the close): ‘‘ Now therefore, if any one say that the Roman pontiff has only the function and office of inspection or direction, but not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the Church universal; not merely in things pertaining to faith and morals, but also in those which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church as diffused throughout the world; or that he has only the chiefer parts, the more potent attributes thereof, yet not, indeed, the entire plenitude of this supreme power; or that such his authority is not ordinary and immediate, whether alike over all and sundry churches, or over all and sundry the pastors and faithful; let him be anathema.” Chap. 4 concludes: “ The sacred council thus approving, we teach, and so define as a dogma divinely revealed: that the Roman pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra; that is, when in the discharge of his office as pastor and teacher of all Christians, and in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine on faith or morals, to be observed by the entire ecumenical Church; thereby using the divine assistance to him vouchsafed by promise to blessed Peter;
1. The Decrees.
he then brings to bear that potential infallibility wherewith the divine redeemer desired and willed that his Church be instructed in such definition of doctrine on faith or morals; and therefore the like definitions by the Roman pontiff are absolute, or unalterable in themselves, as by intrinsic force, and not by consension of the Church. Now, therefore, if any were to presume (which may God avert) to contradict our definition; let him be anathema ”’ (Latin text in Mirbt, Quellen, 3d ed., pp. 367-368).
The former of these definitions deals with the relation of the episcopal authority to the papal. Even during the Middle Ages the bishops had been obliged to surrender many rights to the papacy, although the Council of Trent (Sessio XXIII., chap. 4; m Schaff, Creeds, ii. 189; Mirbt, Quellen, 3d ed., pp. 246- 247) still attributed to them the rule of God’s Church. Indeed, the Vatican itself now denies that the proclamation of the Roman bishop’s ordinary and immediate power of jurisdiction over the entire Church infringes the episcopal power. Be this as it may, from the proceedings of the council it altogether clearly transpires that all attempts to formulate some direct expression of the independency of the episcopate were quashed and thwarted. Inasmuch as the pope is here accredited with an episcopate the scope of which is universal, thus allowing him to act in every diocese at all times (wherein he assumes the right of the bishop in ordinary), the status of the diocesan bishop is reduced in power; and this the more because in the pope he has not only a collateral bishop, but also one who by his very position as occupant of the primacy, represents the source of all those vested rights which accrue to a bishop in virtue of episcopal function.
The second definition postulates the inerrancy of the pope’s doctrinal decisions, and accordingly claims for them a binding force and lasting validity with reference to every Roman Catholic Christian. The context of the passage defining infallibility implies that Peter’s successors have no new commission in the way of disclosing a new doctrine, but rather are charged, under the assistance of the Holy Ghost, sacredly to preserve and faithfully to expound the revelation, or deposit of faith, as transmitted through the apostles. There is this further proviso involved, that the decision at issue must have proceeded ex cathedra, that is, in exercise of the pope’s function as pastor and teacher of all Christians; it must contain some doctrine on faith or morals; and is defined as a doctrine to be observed by the entire ecumenical Church. But it is to be noted that marks are not given by which it can be certainly discerned, in a concrete instance, whether the inerring decision is present. The postulations in discussion are in only a very limited measure restrictions upon papal authority; for whether a decision belongs to the deposit of faith, falls to the province of faith or of morals, is ex cathedra, and what range of operation it shall en- Joy all depend exclusively upon the pope’s own construction. Nevertheless, the pope is bound to this extent, that, by the proclamation of his infallibility, all papal doctrinal decisions of past cen-
2. The Pope as Bishop.
3. Logic of Infallibility.