  Title: The Pope, the Kings and the People A History of the Movement to Make the Pope Governor of the World by a Universal Reconstruction of Society from the Issue of the Syllabus to the Close of the Vatican Council Author: William Arthur Editor: W. Blair Neatby Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8
THE POPE THE KINGS AND THE PEOPLE
THE POPE THE KINGS AND THE PEOPLE A History of the Movement to make the Pope Governor of the World by a Universal Reconstruction of Society from the Issue of the Syllabus to the Close of the Vatican Council BY THE LATE WILLIAM ARTHUR A.M Author of "The Tongue of Fire" etc. EDITED BY W. BLAIR NEATBY M.A Author of "The Programme of the Jesuits" etc. LONDON HODDER AND STOUGHTON 27 PATERNOSTER ROW 1903 Butler & Tanner The Selwood Printing Works Frome and London Though I am named as the Editor of the present edition of the late Rev. Wm. Arthur's The Pope, the Kings, and the People, it is right to say that, by a restriction of my own choosing—for the publishers were good enough to leave me a considerable discretion,—my editorial care has been limited to the work of abridgment.[1] It was clear from the first that in the short time at my disposal no attempt could be made to verify the multitude of Mr. Arthur's references and quotations, drawn as they were with a lavish hand from the contemporary literature of half Europe. Happily, all his readers must recognise how intelligent, laborious and scrupulous he has been. On the other hand, I had hoped to add a certain number of footnotes explanatory of allusions to events and circumstances that are much less fresh in the public memory to-day than they were twenty-six years ago. I should also greatly have liked to point out the extent, sometimes remarkable, to which Mr. Arthur's forecasts have been already verified. But I soon found that if I were to introduce fresh matter it must be at the expense of portions of the original edition that were not to be lightly discarded. I have therefore directed my efforts to adapting the book as far as possible to the requirements of the present time by the process of simple retrenchment. This process I have carried out most scrupulously. Every word in the abridgment is Mr. Arthur's own, and in Mr. Arthur's order. I have not even allowed myself to supply insignificant connecting words, however convenient they might have been, or however plainly they might be implied in the original work. This rule has entailed extra labour, but the gain seems to me immense. Every reader of this abridgment may know that he is reading Mr. Arthur's ipsissima verba, and that he may safely quote them as such. Not one word is mine. And here I may perhaps be allowed to express my opinion that Mr. Arthur's words deserve to be very widely read and quoted. It would be hard to find a book that would shed more light on many of the most urgent questions of to-day. As an annus mirabilis of history, 1870 may yet take its place with 1453 or 1789. It was the year in which the Jesuits signalized the triumphant consummation of a struggle, waged during more than three centuries, for the capture of the Papacy. It was the year in which the new Vaticanism was formally constituted, and in which it gave the world notice, plainly and ostentatiously, of the policy to which it held itself committed. It was also the year of the Franco-Prussian war, a mighty convulsion which was after all but an incident in the great drama of Vaticanism, as Mr. Arthur, amongst others, has clearly shown. I have said elsewhere that "the Jesuits, who brought France to the verge of ruin in 1870, seemed on the very point of completing their work of destruction a year or two since; and [that] he would be a very bold man who would dare to say that the peril had passed even yet."[2] The writer who makes such a statement assumes a grave responsibility; but if any one wishes to know how abundantly the statement can be justified he has only to turn to Mr. Arthur's pages. Mr. Arthur demands from us no confiding trustfulness. Even at some expense to the flow of his narrative, he wisely made his work a repertory of contemporary documents, either transcribed entire or quoted with great fulness. Without resort to ex parte representations of adversaries, we may thus learn from the Vatican's own organs that clerical education, which has so signally proved itself the bane of modern France, is the very groundwork of Vaticanism. And from the impressive picture of the remorse that embittered Montalembert's last hours as he looked back on the share he had taken long before in shaping the educational policy of his country, we may perhaps learn the great lesson of distinguishing between a false liberalism and the true. Never more than in this instance is the history of the past the key to the present; and no man, unless his acquaintance with Vaticanism is of quite exceptional extent, can rise from the perusal of this book without feeling that he has obtained a momentous and far-reaching addition to his stock of religious and, perhaps even more, of political knowledge. W. BLAIR NEATBY. November, 1903. The sources of the information contained in this work are, 1. Official documents; 2. Histories having the sanction of the Pope or of bishops; 3. Scholastic works of the present pontificate, and of recognized authority; 4. Periodicals and journals, avowed organs of the Vatican or of its policy, with books and pamphlets by bishops and other Ultramontane writers; 5. The writings of Liberal Catholics. Of the official documents the greater part have been officially published. The list of authorities, and the references in each particular case, will sufficiently indicate where these are to be found. Besides these, the Documenta ad Illustrandum of Professor Friedrich are a store of documents of special value, both in themselves and as throwing light upon those officially published. They came into his hands as an official theologian at the Vatican Council, and he published them on his own responsibility. The Sammlung of Friedberg is a vast store, combining the documents of the Vatican with those of Courts, public bodies, and important individuals. The official history of Cecconi, now Archbishop of Florence, though professedly that of the Vatican Council, is really occupied with the secret history of the five years preceding the Council. That very curious narrative throws a light back on the foregoing years, and a light forward upon the Council, by aid of which many things otherwise indistinct become well defined. I have waited in hope that a second volume would appear, but in vain. The eight superb folios of Victor Frond come out with an assurance, under the Pope's own hand, of being preserved by due oversight from error, and with a guarantee of divine patronage. They contain a life of the Pope, biographical notices of the Cardinals and prelates, a full account of ceremonies, authentic portraits of men and vestments, with pictures of "functions," and so contribute to enable one to set events in their frames, and to invest them with their colours. Except military annals, perhaps, no history ever had more colour than this portion of Papal history, and perhaps in no history whatever has the action been more deeply affected by the scenery. The CiviltÁ Cattolica fulfils the invaluable office of a serial history, in the pages of which official documents and the chronicle of events illustrate one another, and at the same time discussions often prepare the way both for documents and for events, and always follow and elucidate any that are of consequence. The same office is in a less degree also fulfilled by the Stimmen aus Maria Laach. To appreciate the height of authority on which the CiviltÁ stands, the reader should bear in mind the fact that in 1866,[3] after it had already for sixteen years been recognized as the organ, at one and the same time, of the Pope himself and of the Company of Jesus to which its editors belonged, his Holiness in a brief and by a declared exercise of apostolic authority, formally erected in perpetuity the Jesuit Fathers who composed the editorial staff into a College of Writers, which college should be under the General of the Society of Jesus, but, it is added, so "as to Us and to Our successors shall seem most expedient." In this brief the Pontiff recorded, as to the past, the "exceeding gladness of soul" he had felt in witnessing the labour, erudition, zeal, and talent with which the CiviltÁ had "manfully protected and defended the supreme dignity, authority, power and rights" of the Apostolic See, and had "set forth and propagated the true doctrine." He also recorded the fact that all this had day by day more and more merited the "goodwill, esteem and praise," not only of the hierarchy, but of men of the greatest eminence, and of all the good. This, coming at a time when the expositions of the Encyclical and Syllabus given by the CiviltÁ had awakened among Liberal Catholics serious opposition and even alarm, was decisive as to what was, at Rome, held to be the true doctrine, and as to who were held to be its real teachers. As to the future, the Pontiff, adopting the well known motto of the Company of Jesus, decreed that, for the greater glory of God, the writers should, as we have said, constitute in perpetuity a college possessing peculiar rights and privileges. As if formally to claim some share of this glory, the Jesuit editors of the Stimmen aus Maria Laach, when in 1869 commencing a new series, notified on their title-page the fact that they availed themselves of the labours of the CiviltÁ—a liberty which no Jesuit durst have taken without the highest sanction. All the numbers of the CiviltÁ and of the Stimmen being under my hand, they have yielded a steady light by which to examine opinions relating to the movement of "reconstruction," whether those opinions were hostile or sympathetic. The Italian journal, the UnitÁ Cattolica, and the French one, the Univers, written with a consciousness of the highest favour on the one hand and of an overwhelming influence among the clergy on the other, comment upon the operative clauses of official documents—generally intelligible only to the initiated—in forms more popular than those of the two great magazines. But it is only by the still clearer comment of daily narratives and polemics that the elucidation becomes complete. The Roman work of the Marchese Francesco Vitelleschi (Pomponio Leto) has now appeared in English—Eight Months at Rome (Murray). This is welcome, as enabling one to refer the English reader to his pages, of which even Ultramontanes in Rome do not impugn the accuracy. Quirinus is also happily in English. Professor Friedrich's Tagebuch ought to be, but is not. Those and smaller works by Liberal Catholics, compared with the sparkling volumes of M. Louis Veuillot and the Ultramontane serials and pamphlets, and with the Old Catholic writers in the Rheinischer Merkur, the Literaturblatt of Bonn, the Stimmen aus der Katholischen Kirche, and so forth, slowly bring home to our English understanding the strange principles and wonderful projects which at first we either fail to apprehend, or else imagine that they cannot be seriously entertained. On those principles and projects four distinct controversies have shed a steadily increasing light—the controversy on, 1. The Syllabus; 2. The Vatican Council; 3. The Old Catholic Movement; 4. The Falk Laws. The last two do not come within the scope of this work, but very much of the light by which we gradually come to understand the preceding stages of the movement, is due to the keen discussions to which these two controversies have given rise. Having subscribed for the CiviltÁ Cattolica for years before the Syllabus appeared, I was not wholly unprepared for the controversy which followed. The CiviltÁ also enabled me to see how Liberal Catholics connected the Vatican Council with a movement in the past, dating from the Pope's restoration, and with a plan of vast changes for the future. While the hopes of the Ultramontanes seemed visionary, and the fears of the Liberal Catholics seemed exaggerated, it did nevertheless appear possible that great events might come out of a deliberate attempt, made by a large and organized force, to reconstruct the world. Soon after the close of the Franco-German war, a visit to Paris, Munich, Vienna, Berlin, Brussels, and other centres, supplied me with much material, casting light on the enterprise in which the Vatican Council was the legislative episode, and from which the Old Catholic movement was the recoil. It was while engaged in studying such material that I threw off the translation of the discussion held in Rome on the question whether St. Peter had ever visited that city. Soon after broke out the controversy on the Falk Laws. Six weeks spent in a German country town, reading journals and pamphlets, and also in collecting, added to my light, and to the means of getting further light. In the course of the time employed upon the study of growing material was thrown off the review of the Pope's Speeches, under the title of The Modern Jove. Though conscious that I had not yet the groundwork for a well connected account of the whole movement, I began to write, not with any intention of publishing for a long time, should I live, but under the feeling that, should I be called away, it would be right to leave behind me information which had not been gained without cost and labour. After a while appeared the official history of Cecconi. His authentic if incomplete disclosure of the secret proceedings of five years was a stem for many hitherto perplexing branches. A plan now began to shape itself, and I commenced to recast all I had done. Shortly afterwards came out the great work of Theiner, the Acta Genuina of the Council of Trent. This settled many points keenly debated between Catholic and Liberal Catholic, affecting the rights of kings, of bishops, of the divinity schools, of the lower clergy, of the laity, and affecting the relations of all these to the Pontiff. While I was working with these additional helps appeared Mr. Gladstone's Expostulation. The great amount of knowledge it betrayed contrasted with one's previous idea of the state of information on the subject among our public men. The controversy which followed might have brought some temptation to haste, had it not also brought proof that it was even more necessary than I had supposed to beware of assuming that phrases, modes of conception, and projects, well understood in Italy or Germany, were at all understood here. Some of those who reviewed Mr. Gladstone took for strange what in all countries in the south or centre of Europe would have been taken as familiar, and for doubtful what in Rome or Munich was as clear as day. Accredited terms and phrases were treated as inventions; by some as inventions of genius, by others of animosity. It was often more than hinted that principles and designs habitually proclaimed at the Vatican were ascribed to priests only by opponents. Not unfrequently a gentleman would seem to think it more generous to attribute his Protestant ideas to Ultramontanes, than to take it for granted that they preferred their own. It was incredible how political questions pregnant with future controversies, perhaps with future wars, were evaded as theology! The replies to Mr. Gladstone placed the ignorance of the English public on the subject in a different but a very impressive light. It is often said abroad, by those who know us, that no nation in Europe is so liable as we are to treat gravely statements from priests or their advocates which any reasonable amount of information would render entertaining. The reviews of these replies showed a growing sense of the interests involved, but intensified one's feeling that the elements of clear understanding were wanting. Men did not know the terms, the facts, the publications, or the political doctrines of the movements under discussion. Had what has been written in our best journals during the last twenty years from Italy, or even during the last five from Rome and Berlin, been well read, it would have led to study, and in that case Dr. Newman and others would not have had so cheap a laugh at our ignorance of what is meant because of our false interpretation of what is said. While this controversy proceeded, a stay of nearly three months in Rome, employed in seeking material and information, added considerably to my stores, which were further increased by two subsequent visits to Munich and one to Bonn. I have often been reminded of an incident which occurred in Rome. One of our celebrated scholars, hearing what I was engaged in, exclaimed "Oh, Theology!" Of course, he was fresh from home. Not many minutes before, a resident diplomatist, in whose house this took place, having heard me say "I began the study of this subject as a religious question, but—" smiled and said, "Yes, but—you find it is all politics, and the further you get into it the more purely political will you find it." The controversy which had sprung up at home showed that a book written as this one had been begun would be frequently misunderstood. In that controversy it was often taken for granted that when an Ultramontane disclaims Temporal Power, he disclaims power over temporal things; and that when he writes Spiritual Power, he means only power over spiritual things; that when he writes Religious Liberty, he means freedom for every one to worship God according to his conscience; that when he writes the Divine Law, he means only the Ten Commandments and the precepts of the Gospel; that when he writes the Kingdom of God, he means righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost; and that when he writes the Word of God, he simply means the Bible. One reasoning with false interpretations like these in his mind must reason in such a fog as Dr. Newman, in his letter to the Duke of Norfolk, cleverly depicts. Ambiguity similar to that now indicated prevails over the whole field of phraseology—theological, political, and educational. English Ultramontanes are doubtless in part responsible for these misapprehensions, but only in part. If their writings are studied, they will be seen to use such terms differently from their fellow-countrymen. But certainly the Papal Press of Rome, and even that of France, is not in any degree responsible for our illusions, but has, on the contrary, left us without excuse. The consequence of all this is that in this book, where a mere allusion would have been made, a fact is now often related; where the sense of some particular utterance would have been condensed, that utterance is verbally recited; and where one sentence would have been culled out, more are given. Very often, where a statement of the principles of the Papal movement would have been accompanied only by a reference to a contemporary authority, that authority is made to speak for himself, and occasionally at some length. Terms and phrases, which might have been left to the chance of being understood, are either coupled with narratives or discussions, to bring out their sense, or else they are explained. When I do give explanations, let me not be trusted, but watched. Much will be found of the language both of Catholics and of Liberal Catholics, and with it the reader can confront my strange-looking explanations. In the end he will be able to do what, thank God, every Englishman is inclined to do—form an opinion for himself as to the real sense in which the speakers employed their own words. It need not be said that this change of method rendered necessary a larger book than was at first planned. It was also unfavourable to the flow and unity of the narrative. Perhaps it compensated for that disadvantage by more fully showing the grounds on which statements are made, and by bringing the reader frequently, almost continuously, into communication with Italian, Frenchman or German, each expressing his own views, whether those of statesman or priest, of journalist or magistrate, of Catholic or of Liberal Catholic. My thanks are due to many who have forwarded my researches. The kindness of Count Cadorna, then Italian Minister at our Court, procured for me valuable facilities in Rome. My true gratitude was deserved by the distinguished Minister of Education, Signor Bonghi, especially for his personal introduction of me to the great library of the Collegio Romano, not then open to the public. Our own Ambassador, Sir Augustus Paget, and the German Ambassador, Baron Keudell, both rendered me real service, with all possible courtesy. The Marchese Francesco Nobili-Vitelleschi, himself author of a history on which I must often draw, took pains to procure for me valuable material. Among many benefits received from our own countrymen, I must specify that derived from the vast information on all Italian matters possessed by Mr. Montgomery Stuart, and also that arising from the constant kindness of the Rev. H.J. Piggott. Those two gentlemen have kindly read on the spot certain sheets containing local observations. Two German scholars were constant and practical friends, Dr. Benrath and Dr. Richter. In Munich the National Library, with its clear catalogue and good collection, contrasted with the great libraries of Rome. The kindness of Dr. DÖllinger was great and eminently practical. He had kept all pamphlets, bearing on the subject, which had come into his hands. He not only gave me free access to this collection, but, where he had duplicates, presented me with them. Dr. Reusch, Professor of the University of Bonn, with a collection at least equal, though without duplicates, gave me similar facilities. The lists thus procured, and the energy of the German booksellers, enabled me to get almost everything contained in either collection, including Italian and Latin publications which I had in vain sought in Italy, and even French ones which I could not find in Paris. The weakness of my own eyesight has increased the obligation which, in any case, I should have felt to my two valued friends. Dr. Moulton and Dr. H.W. Williams, who have kindly read the proofs. Dr. Moulton also compared the translation of the speech of Darboy with the original, and suggested improvements. Dr. Karl Benrath, of Bonn, whose long residence in Rome and whose study of the subject lent to his judgment a special value, has laid me under great obligation by examining every sheet as it passed through the press. The very frequent translations rendered necessary by the plan of letting men speak for themselves are as close as I knew how to make them. Even where marks of quotation are not used, and yet I profess to give the sense of some utterance, those who can go to the originals will find that the language, though condensed, is preserved, and, in any important matter, closely rendered. Reversing the ordinary practice as to quotations, where the italics were in the original, I generally mention that it was so. It would have been tedious to say that they were my own in every case where they seemed necessary to direct attention to a phrase or a term having a meaning different from ours, or to one the full significance of which might easily escape notice. Nothing but a conviction that the movement here traced is of an importance for which ordinary terms are not an adequate expression would have justified me, in my own view, in giving to the study of it years of a life now far advanced. If the authors of the movement are not deceived, the generations that will come up after I am no more will witness a struggle on the widest scale, and of very long duration, during which will disappear all that to us is known as modern liberties, all that to Rome is known as the Modern State, and at the close of which the ecclesiastical power will stand alone, presiding over the destinies of a reconstituted world. Not at all believing in the possibility of this issue, I do not disbelieve in the possibility of the struggle. To avert any such repetition of past horrors, to turn the war into a war of thought, a war with the sword of the writer and of the orator, instead of that of the zouave and the dragoon, is an object in attempting to serve which, however humbly, a good man might be content to die. Had I at any time during my preparations seen the same work undertaken by some one whose position or whose name would have commanded a degree of attention to which I have no claim, gladly should I have buried the fruit of my labour. Such as that fruit is, I now submit it to the public, in humble hope that the very absence of titles to consideration by which a work on the subject should have been recommended, will turn to a plea for more indulgence in weighing the only claims I have to put forth, those of hard work and honest intention. May He who has given to our nation the blessings of free prayer, free preaching, free writing, free speech, and free assembly, with their wholesome fruit of equal laws, tempered power, and moderated liberty, grant that this humble labour may in some measure contribute to make those inestimable boons dearer than ever to the hearts of our people, and that it may contribute also to place them in a position more readily to foil every endeavour to snatch those boons or to steal them away from us and from mankind! Clapham Common, 1877. FOOTNOTES: [1] Considerably more than a fifth of the original matter has been omitted. Whenever a quotation has been abridged, the usual marks have been employed to indicate the hiatus. [2] The Programme of the Jesuits, Preface, p. v. [3] See CiviltÁ, Serie VI. vol vi. pp. 5-15. June 6, 1877 ON CARDINAL MANNING'S "TRUE STORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL" Had not the time occupied in bringing out this work far exceeded my expectations, it would have appeared as early as the first portion of Cardinal Manning's "True Story of the Vatican Council," in the pages of the Nineteenth Century. As it is, I have been able to read the fourth paper, in which the Cardinal concludes his narrative of the Council itself, though he intimates an intention of hereafter adding comments on extraneous matters. I cannot but feel that, in more respects than one, the appearance of the True Story immediately before that of this book is an advantage. The general reader is thus supplied with means of checking many of my statements, and of estimating the value of my authorities. Although this advantage is limited to such ground as is common to the True Story and to my history, that ground is a portion of sufficient importance to afford some criterion for judging of the whole. One of my fears, arising from the way in which, both in recent controversies and in former ones, authorities have been dealt with before the English public, was that we might find it soberly intimated that Cecconi was not a writer of high credit, that the CiviltÁ Cattolica was a private magazine, that the Acta Genuina of Theiner was a publication brought out in an obscure place, and so on through the list. Now, however, the reliance placed by Cardinal Manning on authorities which supply essential features of my narrative, and the importance unwillingly assigned by him to others frequently cited by me, will act as a restraint on those who might have made light of them. Another considerable advantage is this. It almost seemed as if it would prejudice Englishmen against a writer to state what from time to time it was needful to intimate—how histories issued from official or semi-official sources systematically withheld information on the points of chief importance. Such points, so far as the Council was concerned, were the actual differences of opinion between prelate and prelate, the tenor of the debates, the arguments employed on one side or the other, the written memoranda of bishops on the questions disputed, their printed pamphlets, their speeches, their truly important petitions, recording complaints against the Rules of Procedure imposed upon them, and against the disabilities under which the Pope had placed them. Those petitions recorded, further, their personal disbelief in the new dogma, with the fact that they had always taught in opposition to it, and that they anticipated from its adoption grave perils of collision between Church and State. Other matters kept out of view comprised interesting facts credibly alleged and circumstantially detailed relating to personal acts of the Pope, to proceedings of the Curia and of the Presidents of the Council. Still more interesting, and of graver import, were the reasons assigned by Ministers of State and others, for regarding with more than ordinary jealousy the projected changes in the Papal system. It seemed even more invidious to note the practice of adopting, in order to cover all these suppressions of facts, and of alleged facts, an air of giving information by entering into details of ceremonies, enlarging on unimportant matters, telling, as if it was of great moment, how many meetings of this sort were held, how many of that, how many spoke, at what time this Decree was proposed, and how many votes were taken on another, without in all this allowing a word to transpire of what was said or thought. I am now relieved of all fear about those features of my narrative. Any one who has a relish for the curiosities of literature may match, and perhaps overmatch, what I have told of French priests and Italian Jesuits, by what an Englishman has done. I had never, however, to accuse the Italian Jesuits of keeping out of sight the political, or, as they generally say, the social aspects of the movement, and of covering them up in theological disquisitions. They did, indeed, use wondrous theological phrases with political meanings, but any one who studied their writings soon penetrated that veil. They also invariably used theology as the motive power of all their politics. But from 1850, when the movement which has characterized the present pontificate began, to 1870, when it reached its legislative climax, they set forth prominently as their object the reconstruction of society, on the model of what, in their own dialect, they call the Christian civilization. They loudly proclaimed, as the elements of that Christian civilization, the revocation of constitutions, the abolition of modern liberties, especially those of the Press and of worship, with the subjection to canon law of civil law, and, above all, the subjection to the jurisdiction of the Pope of all nations and their rulers, whatever the title of those rulers might be. They justly conceived the ills they had to repair, as, having begun with the bad teaching of John Wyclif, in which his doctrine of "dominion" was the head and front of all his offending, and of that of every succeeding age. As he had striven for the emancipation of kings from the Pope, of legislatures from the ecclesiastical powers, and of the individual from the priest, so did they set themselves to bring back again the dominion of the priest over the individual, the dominion of the ecclesiastical authorities over lawgivers, and above all, the dominion of the Pope over kings. Of this the reader will meet with evidence from their own lips, at almost every stage of our narrative. Those Italian Jesuits did not expound the Syllabus, according to the new and naive notion of Cardinal Manning, as a code containing very little to which "any sincere believer in Christian revelation would, if he understood the Syllabus, object." The Italian Jesuits, ay, and even the German ones, on the contrary, made a boast of its diametrical opposition to every form of Liberalism, and in particular to Liberal Catholicism, of its efficacy as an instrument for overturning the Modern State, and of its solidity as the foundation-stone on which was to be reared the fabric of reconstructed society. In all their writings society was taken as meaning, not families, nor Churches, but nations, and each one of the nations was to form a province within a Church ruling over it and over all other nations in every one of their laws and public institutions. In speaking of the idea that all believers in revelation would accept nearly all of the Syllabus, I have assumed that Cardinal Manning, writing for an English audience, uses the term "Christian revelation" in the English and not in the Papal sense. To a sincere believer in Christian revelation in the Papal sense, the Syllabus, if not in form, yet in substance, is an infallible and "irreformable" portion of that revelation. And so it would very simply come to pass that a sincere believer in Christian revelation would admit, not merely most of it, but all of it so far as it contains any teaching. And to such a believer the kingdoms of the world will never become the kingdom of God, and of His Christ, but by ceasing to be kingdoms at all in any independent and proper sense, and by merging into provinces under the Priest and King, or, as in phrases still more mystic they style him, the Shepherd-King of the Vatican. Now a True Story of the Vatican Council, in which, to the apprehension of an ordinary reader, all these topics are kept out of view, though to an adept they are not wholly kept out, seems to me like a True Story of the civil war in the United States which should largely dwell upon State rights, forgetting all about slavery, or speaking of it only in an esoteric dialect. The True Story affords us some foretaste of what history is to be after dogma has completed the conquest over it which has been promised. Had my narrative been written after its appearance, the topics totally ignored, and those virtually ignored, in the True Story, might easily have been thrown into stronger relief. As it is, however, the succession of events necessarily brings them again and again into view, and perhaps the effect of the outline may be rendered more distinct to the English reader through the contrast with the True Story. Of the prelates on this side of the Alps, Cardinal Manning was not the one from whom we should have expected that in an account of the five years preceding the Vatican Council, with a brief retrospect of the whole of the present pontificate, and a history of the Council itself, scarcely one clear utterance should be made as to the bearing of the movement on those governments, liberties and institutions which to the Vatican are very evil and to us are very dear. It was not so in 1867 and 1869. In both of those years the Cardinal indicated the political relations of the movement in words of warning which, if only echoes of those of the Jesuits in Rome, were perhaps more intelligible and vehement than those of any other prelate on this side of the Alps. Statements of mine will frequently be found to conflict with statements made in the True Story. In most of those cases—I hope in all—the materials from known sources furnished to the general reader will suffice for a not unsatisfactory comparison, while the authorities indicated will enable the scholar to form a judgment. In very many of these cases statements of Cardinal Manning, made in previous works and virtually amounting to the same as the most material of those made in the True Story, will be found side by side with the statements of other authorities, with official documents, or with facts no longer disputable. Of these statements, one to which the Cardinal seems to attach much importance is his assertion that none of the prelates, or at most a number under five, disbelieved or denied the dogma of Papal infallibility, and that all their objections turned on questions of prudence. This is not a slip, nor a hasty assertion, and it is very far from being peculiar to Cardinal Manning. It is now the harmonious refrain of all that hierarchy of strange witnesses of which he has made himself a part. The point is one on which illustrations will occur again and again, in events, in words, and in those documents which, in spite of all precautions, have been gained to publicity. Notwithstanding the method adopted in the True Story, the fact crops out at every turn that the modern strife of the Papacy is not to make men and women, as such, godly and peaceable, but to bring kings as kings, and legislatures as legislatures, and nations as nations, into subjection to the Pope. It crops out sufficiently, at least, to be obvious to all who know the difference, in the Cardinal's phraseology, between the two sets of terms employed to indicate those two distinct objects. For instance, what an excellent description of that Catholic Civilization which, in the great contest of the Vatican, is ever signalized as the goal, does the Cardinal give when, picturing the "public life and laws and living organization of Christendom" in the times when all these, according to his ideas, were "Christian," he says, "Princes and legislatures and society professed the Catholic faith, and were subject to the head of the Catholic Church." Cardinal Manning does not here use the word "society" in the domestic but in the political sense. He means, not families or social parties, but nations—as the Jesuit writers almost always do. Any one may, therefore, possess himself of a key to the true meaning of many pious phrases which occur in the following pages, if he will first of all clearly realize in his own thoughts just what it would involve for England; and for us were the conditions stated by the Cardinal fulfilled by our princes, our legislature, and our "society." One seeking to do this must realize the fact that the prince and the legislature not as individuals, and the "society" not in its separate members, but the prince as a prince, the legislature as a legislature, and the nation as a society, shall profess the Catholic faith. Ordinary Englishmen do not realize all that is meant by that formula. But beyond that, the prince as a prince, the legislature as a legislature, the nation as a society, are not only to believe in the Pope, but to be subject to him. What fulness of meaning that formula possesses will gradually open up to the reader as the narrative unfolds. He will often hear ecclesiastical politicians of the school to which Cardinal Manning belongs, talking in their native dialect, not modulating their voice to win the are of Protestants. This national profession of the faith, and this subjection of kings, lawgivers, and nations to the Pope, constitute in one word the CiviltÁ Cattolica (the Catholic civilization); or, in plain English, the Catholic civil system; or, in other terms, the true Catholic constitution, the reign of Christ over the world, to establish which in all nations the Vatican is to move heaven and earth. In his first paper Cardinal Manning seeks to impress us with the belief that the raising of Papal infallibility to the rank of a dogma was not a chief object of the Pontiff, much less his only one, in convoking the Vatican Council. On that point the narrative will often incidentally present the expressions of prelates, official writers, and others, so that the reader will be able to form an opinion of his own. In his second paper the Cardinal shows that throughout the whole of the present pontificate the dogma has been kept in view as an essential object. Of that position illustrations will frequently occur. In the second paper, also, the Cardinal repeats his old allegation that it was Janus who invented "the fable of an acclamation." The course of the tale will tell whether it was or was not Janus who originated the talk of a design to get up an acclamation, and whether that talk was or was not a fable. The Cardinal, while attempting to justify, though for the most part keeping out of sight, the disabilities imposed upon the bishops by the Pope, disabilities of which they loudly complained, glances at one out of many of the real ones. He says that the Commission which was empowered to say whether any proposal emanating from a bishop was worthy to be recommended to the Pope for consideration, without which recommendation it could not come before the Council, was "a representative commission." The fact is that it was a selection of prelates made by the Pope, who excluded from it all who had avowed themselves opponents of his infallibility, and included in it creatures of his own, who had nothing of the bishop but the orders and the pay which the favour of the Court had given to them. The Cardinal, after ample time for correction, repeats his old declaration that in the Vatican Council "the liberty of speech was as perfectly secured as in our Parliament." That assertion has the merit of being free from all ambiguity, and moreover is one on which plain men can judge. As I have told the story, the readers will over and over again meet with facts, equally free from ambiguity and equally patent to plain men, which will show whether the assertion is true or not. On the great question of secrecy the Cardinal risks a statement which exceeds what Italian Jesuits, if writing for a periodical of the rank of the Nineteenth Century, would be likely to hazard. He says: "At the beginning of the Council of Trent this precaution (of secrecy) was omitted; wherefore, on February 17, 1562, the legates were compelled to impose the secret upon the bishops." The Cardinal would seem to imagine that there was at least a substantial agreement, if not an actual identity, between the acts by which silence was enjoined, and also between the extent of the silence demanded in Trent and at the Vatican; and that indeed from February 17, 1562, forwards, the Council of Trent was laid under a bond something like that by which the Vatican Council was from the beginning fettered. Was it so? Was there a substantial agreement in the two acts by which silence was enjoined? Was there a substantial agreement in the extent of silence imposed? Was there at Trent a formal decree? Was there an oath imposed on the officers? Was there an exclusion of the theologians from debates, and of the public from the debates of the theologians? Was there any vow required, any threat held out? And does even Cardinal Manning fancy that there was at Trent a new mortal sin made on purpose for the benefit of the bishops? Of all this there was nothing. The act of the legates was simply what it is described as having been by Massarellus, the Secretary of the Council, who says: "The Fathers were admonished not to divulge things proposed for examination, and in particular Decrees, before they were published in open session."[4] The Cardinal is apparently also under an impression that the extent of silence imposed in the two cases was at least substantially the same. Was that so? Did the legates censure the admission of laymen to hear the theologians argue? Did they censure the permission given to theologians who were not bishops even by the fiction of a see in partibus, to dispute in presence of the Council? Did they censure any remarks made out of doors on speeches, opinions or projects? Did they censure anything but the one indiscretion of circulating proposed Decrees, or other things proposed, while yet the formulae were, "so to speak, unshaped," but were in their inchoate condition made public as if they had been passed? Did the legates suggest that the duty of secrecy extended further than that of not publishing such tentative formulae, of not sending them out of the city, and of forbidding persons attached to the households of bishops to commit those indiscretions? At Trent there were faults and causes of complaint in no small number. But what Cardinal Manning calls "the secret" which would shut up every mouth as to all subjects proposed, as to all opinions expressed, as to all speeches made, as to all designs mooted—"the secret" which forbade men to print their own speeches, to read the official reports taken of them, to read those of their brother bishops, and other extravagances besides, of which the True Story has not one syllable to tell—that "secret," or any such, is not hinted at in the a monition of the legates at Trent. The extent of silence imposed at the Vatican would seem to have been as original as the mortal sin there invented. Still further, the Cardinal would appear to be under an impression that the reason why at Trent certain inconvenient publications occurred was because that, at the outset, the strict precautions had been there omitted which at the Vatican were not only taken in time, but, with manifold forethought, were, before the time, as our story will tell, tied and bound by edict and by oath. As to disclosures, however, that occurred at the Vatican, which most Romans would tell any Englishman, except a priest or a convert, would be certain to occur, namely, that the "pontifical secret" would be dealt in as a thing to be sold. Did the precautions omitted at Trent, but adopted at the Vatican, prevent so much from transpiring as compelled[Pg xxviii] the Pope to loose from the bond four selected prelates, including the eminent author of the True Story, in order that they might disabuse the outside world? Did it prevent the famous canons which opened the eyes of Austrian and French statesmen from making a quick passage to Augsburg and to Printing House Square?—of which canons, by the way, as of most essential matters, the True Story tells not a word. It would be very tempting to select for remark other assertions of the Cardinal, but this may suffice to do all that I here wish to do; that is, to set the reader upon intelligently watching and sifting statements of my own; for what is to be desired on this subject is that the public shall cease to be easily contented with what is said on one side or the other. My statements, like those of others, are sure to contain a fair proportion of mistakes, but when all these are winnowed away, there will remain a considerable peck of corn. Not content with formally vouching, in his title, for his own truthfulness, the Cardinal formally impeaches that of others. Both of these proceedings would be perfectly natural in a priest in Rome, and especially in one attached to the Jesuit school. Had I foreseen the cautious beginning of such habits that was so soon to be made by high authority, certainly I should not have so far yielded to the repugnance one feels to put specimens of priestly imputations into our language—a language which had for ages, up to the date of the Tracts for the Times, been steadily acquiring an antipathy to all the arts of untruthfulness, and consequently to all the forms in which other languages habitually insinuate or openly allege it. But I cannot regret that my story purposely excludes full specimens, and only by force of frequent necessity admits morsels, of the style in which in Rome every shade of untruthfulness, from suppression and equivocation to the worst kinds of perjury and forgery, is on the one hand charged upon heretics, on Liberal Catholics, on statesmen, and is on the other hand in return, and with extreme good will, charged upon bishops, cardinals and popes. The veracity of Pomponio Leto—that is, as all Italy knows, of the Marchese Francesco Vitelleschi, brother of the late Cardinal Vitelleschi—is openly impugned by Cardinal Manning. We already know, on more points than one, the opinion of Vitelleschi as to the eminent author of the True Story; and retaliation would have been natural had it only been fair. If Vitelleschi wrote English, and if he cared to compare his truthfulness with that of such a competitor, it would be interesting to hear him fairly fight out the question, Which of us two has, to the best of his power, tried just to tell what he knew, inventing nothing and concealing nothing? It does not seem at all certain that the Englishman would bear away from the Italian the palm of straightforwardness. The Cardinal is evidently not aware that certain alleged particulars of the famous Strossmayer scene, which he ascribes to Pomponio Leto, are not in his description of it either in the Italian or in the English version. From where the Cardinal gets them I do not know. But his picture of Schwarzenberg "carried fainting from the ambo to his seat," his idea that Pomponio professes on that day to have been outside the Council door and to have seen "the servants rushing," and his other idea that at the fourth session Pomponio professes to have been inside and consequently forgot that many of those who were outside could see through the great door which was wide open, are all alike. He certainly did not get any of them from Vitelleschi. As it is after stating these errors, that his Eminence cries, "Such melodramatic and mendacious stuff!" we must imagine how Vitelleschi will smile at this new display of certain qualities which did not escape his keen eye. Professor Friedrich is slightingly spoken of by the Cardinal. Here again retaliation, if fair, would have been natural; for Cardinal Manning has already felt the steel of Friedrich. Judging from my own impression that under the slashes of Friedrich what the Cardinal had employed as if he took it for argument appeared perfectly helpless, I should expect that it the learned professor should think it worth while to try his strength on the sort of history, theology, and logic which the Cardinal thinks may pass in England, they would in his hands, at almost every debatable point, fly to pieces. As to veracity, however, Friedrich has already, on that score, as our story will show, crossed swords with more bishops than one; and whether on that or other matters, certainly he is not the man to turn his back on Cardinal Manning, whose measure he has long ago taken, as, even under the eyes of the Papal police, he did not fear to show. Cardinal Manning occupies pages with imputations, and with quotations which he apparently thinks warrant the imputations. Does he, or do the witnesses he calls, disprove any of the specific facts alleged? Yes, he does disprove one. Vitelleschi, in describing the great session of the Council, said that Cardinal Corsi and other discontented Cardinals pulled down their red hats over their eyes. Now, Cardinal Manning properly says that on that occasion they had no hats of any colour, meaning that they wore the mitre. Therefore a real blot is hit. And it is curious how exactly this is the same kind of blot as the Jesuits of the CiviltÁ were able to hit in the early part of Vitelleschi's book, when, like the True Story, it first appeared in a periodical. They clearly convicted the author, then unknown even to them, of saying that in certain solemnities the robes were red, whereas in fact they were white. We must, however, do the Roman Jesuits the justice to say that from this tremendous error they did not attempt to prove that the writer was given to "mendacious stuff," though they did argue that he was wanting in reflection. But it is a well-known fact that grave matters—very grave matters—were with sufficient particularity alleged against the Pope, against the Presidents, against the Rules of Procedure, against the authorized Press, against the favourites of the Court among the bishops, against the secret way in which "the Council was made beforehand," and above all against the political designs which were entertained; and, one must ask, with what single fact of all these is any manly attempt made to grapple by the Cardinal, or by the bishops whom he cites in his support? Besides these facts, of which some were amusing, some absurd, some discreditable, there were others which for all good men except Papists, in the proper sense, were seriously alarming, and these were alleged by Catholic and Liberal Catholic, by men in opposition and by men in all places of authority up to the highest—by Vitelleschi, by Friedrich, by Veuillot, by GuÉrin, by Frond and his contributors, by Ce Qui se Passe au Concile, by Hefele, by Kenrick, by Darboy, by Rauscher, by Place, by Dupanloup, by the hundred and thirty bishops who signed the protest against even discussing infallibility, by the groups of bishops who signed that against the Rules of Procedure, by those who signed the solemn one against the new Rules, by those who petitioned for the A B C of deliberative freedom, by the scores who signed the historical petition of April 10, 1870, by those who protested against the unfair and arbitrary attempt of July 5, and by those fifty-five who, the day before the final session, placed in the hands of the Pope their protest, saying that if they voted in the public session they could only repeat, and that with stronger reasons, their previous vote—that is, of Non placet; a protest of which Cardinal Manning has taken a strangely inaccurate and misleading view. Such facts were alleged by La LibertÉ du Concile, by La DerniÈre Heure du Concile, by Mamiani, by Bonghi, by Beust, by Daru, by Arnim, by Acton, by Montalembert, by DÖllinger; and still more by the CiviltÁ Cattolica, the Stimmen aus Maria Laach, the Univers, the Monde, and the UnitÁ Cattolica; and most of all were they embodied in the words and official manifestoes of Pope Pius IX. What one of these alarming or discreditable or equivocal facts is disposed of by the passages which Cardinal Manning in his need has cited? He cites Hefele to prove that people who were outside of the Council told falsehoods as to what passed inside. But with the wonted sequence of his logic, what he proves out of the mouth of Hefele is that people who were inside of the Council sold the secret, though in doing so they incurred the pains of mortal sin. The proof is quite as apposite as many of those relied upon by Cardinal Manning, and it is no wonder that such a habit of reasoning should have landed him where he is. He cites of all men Ketteler. Now supposing that Ketteler was the person to invalidate serious testimony, what particular fact is disproved by the passage cited? The only one it affects to touch is the question as to whether, in substance, the anti-infallibilist doctrine of DÖllinger was not also that of the majority of the German bishops. That question is not faced in front. Ketteler only raises a side issue. He denies that on some certain occasion, certain bishops had in a certain way made a statement to that effect. Cardinal Manning has not lived so long in Rome, and learned so much there, without knowing something of the value of such contradictions. But if he means—as, however reluctantly, one must take him to mean—to use Ketteler to prove to Englishmen that the majority of the German bishops were not, before July 1870, opposed to that as a doctrine which is now a dogma of their creed, then let Ketteler by all means stand on one side, but pamphlets, memoranda, speeches, petitions, votes, protests stand on the other. Ketteler is cited against DÖllinger, and agreeably to the all but infallible felicity of the Cardinal's logic, about the most definite thing Ketteler says against the Provost is that Janus, for falsification of history, can hardly be compared to anything but the Provincial Letters of Pascal. Had the Cardinal cited the whole body of the German bishops, he might, indeed, with English Catholics have gained some show of authority; but how would it have been with the fellow-countrymen of those prelates? or with any who, like their fellow-countrymen, had, in the two Fulda manifestoes of 1869 and 1870, and in other words and deeds of those mitred diplomatists—words and deeds which cannot be erased—learned at what rate to prize statements signed by their episcopal crosses? There are in Europe few bodies of functionaries who stood in sorer need than did these German bishops of something to rehabilitate the credit of their Yea and Nay; not that even yet it seems to have fallen quite so low as that of their superiors of the Curia; at least, not quite so low in matters of purely personal reputation, when no official obligation exists to make a public impression which is contrary to the facts, and when dissimulation, if practised, arises from a habit[Pg xxxiii] partly professional, partly personal, and one sometimes indulged in as an exercise of cleverness. Cardinals hardly do prudently to raise on English soil questions about truthfulness; for the English public will not much longer be content to take information at haphazard or at second-hand, but will go to the fountains, and learn about things in Rome as things in Rome in reality have been. |
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