Part 21 (2/2)
It denounces that ”most pernicious and insane opinion, that liberty of conscience and of wors.h.i.+p is the right of every man, and that this right ought, in every well-governed state, to be proclaimed and a.s.serted by law; and that the will of the people, manifested by public opinion (as it is called), or by other means, const.i.tutes a supreme law, independent of all divine and human rights.” It denies the right of parents to educate their children outside the Catholic Church. It denounces ”the impudence” of those who presume to subordinate the authority of the Church and of the Apostolic See, ”conferred upon it by Christ our Lord, to the judgment of the civil authority.” His Holiness commends, to the venerable brothers to whom the Encyclical is addressed, incessant prayer, and, ”in order that G.o.d may accede the more easily to our and your prayers, let us employ in all confidence, as our mediatrix with him, the Virgin Mary, mother of G.o.d, who sits as a queen upon the right hand of her only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in a golden vestment, clothed around with various adornments. There is nothing she cannot obtain from him.”
CONVOCATION OF THE COUNCIL. Plainly, the principle now avowed by the papacy must bring it into collision even with governments which had heretofore maintained amicable relations with it. Great dissatisfaction was manifested by Russia, and the incidents that ensued drew forth from his Holiness an allocution (November, 1866) condemnatory of the course of that government. To this, Russia replied, by declaring the Concordat of 1867 abrogated.
Undeterred by the result of the battle of Sadowa (July, 1866), though it was plain that the political condition of Europe was now profoundly affected, and especially the relations of the papacy, the pope delivered an allocution (June 27, 1867), confirming the Encyclical and Syllabus.
He announced his intention of convoking an Oec.u.menical Council.
Accordingly, as we have already mentioned, in the following year (June 29, 1868), a bull was issued convoking that Council. Misunderstandings, however, had now sprung up with Austria. The Austrian Reichsrath had adopted laws introducing equality of civil rights for all the inhabitants of the empire, and restricting the influence of the Church.
This produced on the part of the papal government an expostulation.
Acting as Russia had done, the Austrian Government found it necessary to abrogate the Concordat of 1855.
In France, as above stated, the publication of the entire Syllabus was not permitted; but Prussia, desirous of keeping on good terms with the papacy, did not disallow it. The exacting disposition of the papacy increased. It was openly declared that the faithful must now sacrifice to the Church, property, life, and even their intellectual convictions.
The Protestants and the Greeks were invited to tender their submission.
THE VATICAN COUNCIL. On the appointed day, the Council opened. Its objects were, to translate the Syllabus into practice, to establish the dogma of papal infallibility, and define the relations of religion to science. Every preparation had been made that the points determined on should be carried. The bishops were informed that they were coming to Rome not to deliberate, but to sanction decrees previously made by an infallible pope. No idea was entertained of any such thing as free discussion. The minutes of the meetings were not permitted to be inspected; the prelates of the opposition were hardly allowed to speak.
On January 22, 1870, a pet.i.tion, requesting that the infallibility of the pope should be defined, was presented; an opposition pet.i.tion of the minority was offered. Hereupon, the deliberations of the minority were forbidden, and their publications prohibited. And, though the Curia had provided a compact majority, it was found expedient to issue an order that to carry any proposition it was not necessary that the vote should be near unanimity, a simple majority sufficed. The remonstrances of the minority were altogether unheeded.
As the Council pressed forward to its object, foreign authorities became alarmed at its reckless determination. A pet.i.tion drawn up by the Archbishop of Vienna, and signed by several cardinals and archbishops, entreated his Holiness not to submit the dogma of infallibility for consideration, ”because the Church has to sustain at present a struggle unknown in former times, against men who oppose religion itself as an inst.i.tution baneful to human nature, and that it is inopportune to impose upon Catholic nations, led into temptation by so many machinations, more dogmas than the Council of Trent proclaimed.” It added that ”the definition demanded would furnish fresh arms to the enemies of religion, to excite against the Catholic Church the resentment of men avowedly the best.” The Austrian prime-minister addressed a protest to the papal government, warning it against any steps that might lead to encroachments on the rights of Austria. The French Government also addressed a note, suggesting that a French bishop should explain to the Council the condition and the rights of France. To this the papal government replied that a bishop could not reconcile the double duties of an amba.s.sador and a Father of the Council. Hereupon, the French Government, in a very respectful note, remarked that, to prevent ultra opinions from becoming dogmas, it reckoned on the moderation of the bishops, and the prudence of the Holy Father; and, to defend its civil and political laws against the encroachments of the theocracy, it had counted on public reason and the patriotism of French Catholics. In these remonstrances the North-German Confederation joined, seriously pressing them on the consideration of the papal government.
On April 23d, Von Arnim, the Prussian emba.s.sador, united with Daru, the French minister, in suggesting to the Curia the inexpediency of reviving mediaeval ideas. The minority bishops, thus encouraged, demanded now that the relations of the spiritual to the secular power should be determined before the pope's infallibility was discussed, and that it should be settled whether Christ had conferred on St. Peter and his successors a power over kings and emperors.
INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. No regard was paid to this, not even delay was consented to. The Jesuits, who were at the bottom of the movement, carried their measures through the packed a.s.sembly with a high hand. The Council omitted no device to screen itself from popular criticism. Its proceedings were conducted with the utmost secrecy; all who took part in them were bound by a solemn oath to observe silence.
On July 13th, the votes were taken. Of 601 votes, 451 were affirmative.
Under the majority rule, the measure was p.r.o.nounced carried, and, five days subsequently, the pope proclaimed the dogma of his infallibility.
It has often been remarked that this was the day on which the French declared war against Prussia. Eight days afterward the French troops were withdrawn from Rome. Perhaps both the statesman and the philosopher will admit that an infallible pope would be a great harmonizing element, if only common-sense could acknowledge him.
Hereupon, the King of Italy addressed an autograph letter to the pope, setting forth in very respectful terms the necessity that his troops should advance and occupy positions ”indispensable to the security of his Holiness, and the maintenance of order;” that, while satisfying the national aspirations, the chief of Catholicity, surrounded by the devotion of the Italian populations, ”might preserve on the banks of the Tiber a glorious seat, independent of all human sovereignty.”
To this his Holiness replied in a brief and caustic letter: ”I give thanks to G.o.d, who has permitted your majesty to fill the last days of my life with bitterness. For the rest, I cannot grant certain requests, nor conform with certain principles contained in your letter. Again, I call upon G.o.d, and into his hands commit my cause, which is his cause.
I pray G.o.d to grant your majesty many graces, to free you from dangers, and to dispense to you his mercy which you so much need.”
THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT. The Italian troops met with but little resistance. They occupied Rome on September 20, 1870. A manifesto was issued, setting forth the details of a plebiscitum, the vote to be by ballot, the question, ”the unification of Italy.” Its result showed how completely the popular mind in Italy is emanc.i.p.ated from theology. In the Roman provinces the number of votes on the lists was 167,548; the number who voted, 135,291; the number who voted for annexation, 133,681; the number who voted against it, 1,507; votes annulled, 103. The Parliament of Italy ratified the vote of the Roman people for annexation by a vote of 239 to 20. A royal decree now announced the annexation of the Papal States to the kingdom of Italy, and a manifesto was issued indicating the details of the arrangement. It declared that ”by these concessions the Italian Government seeks to prove to Europe that Italy respects the sovereignty of the pope in conformity with the principle of a free Church in a free state.”
AFFAIRS IN PRUSSIA. In the Prusso-Austrian War it had been the hope of the papacy, to restore the German Empire under Austria, and make Germany a Catholic nation. In the Franco-German War the French expected ultramontane sympathies in Germany. No means were spared to excite Catholic sentiment against the Protestants. No vilification was spared.
They were spoken of as atheists; they were declared incapable of being honest men; their sects were pointed out as indicating that their secession was in a state of dissolution. ”The followers of Luther are the most abandoned men in all Europe.” Even the pope himself, presuming that the whole world had forgotten all history, did not hesitate to say, ”Let the German people understand that no other Church but that of Rome is the Church of freedom and progress.”
Meantime, among the clergy of Germany a party was organized to remonstrate against, and even resist, the papal usurpation. It protested against ”a man being placed on the throne of G.o.d,” against a vice-G.o.d of any kind, nor would it yield its scientific convictions to ecclesiastical authority. Some did not hesitate to accuse the pope himself of being a heretic. Against these insubordinates excommunications began to be fulminated, and at length it was demanded that certain professors and teachers should be removed from their offices, and infallibilists subst.i.tuted. With this demand the Prussian Government declined to comply.
The Prussian Government had earnestly desired to remain on amicable terms with the papacy; it had no wish to enter on a theological quarrel; but gradually the conviction was forced upon it that the question was not a religious but a political one--whether the power of the state should be used against the state. A teacher in a gymnasium had been excommunicated; the government, on being required to dismiss him, refused. The Church authorities denounced this as an attack upon faith.
The emperor sustained his minister. The organ of the infallible party threatened the emperor with the opposition of all good Catholics, and told him that, in a contention with the pope, systems of government can and must change. It was now plain to every one that the question had become, ”Who is to be master in the state, the government or the Roman Church? It is plainly impossible for men to live under two governments, one of which declares to be wrong what the other commands. If the government will not submit to the Roman Church, the two are enemies.” A conflict was thus forced upon Prussia by Rome--a conflict in which the latter, impelled by her antagonism to modern civilization, is clearly the aggressor.
ACTION OF THE PRUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. The government, now recognizing its antagonist, defended itself by abolis.h.i.+ng the Catholic department in the ministry of Public Wors.h.i.+p. This was about midsummer, 1871. In the following November the Imperial Parliament pa.s.sed a law that ecclesiastics abusing their office, to the disturbance of the public peace, should be criminally punished. And, guided by the principle that the future belongs to him to whom the school belongs, a movement arose for the purpose of separating the schools from the Church.
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