The True Story of the Vatican Council

Front matter

THE TRUE STORY

OF THE

BY

Chapter I

The True Story of the Vatican Council.

THE ORIGIN AND MOTIVE OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL.

Few centuries since the Christian era have seen events of greater magnitude or more far-reaching in consequence, than the age in which we live. It has seen the extinction in 1806 of the Holy Roman Empire, the heir and representative of the Cæsars; The rise and fall of two Empires in France; the setting up of two French republics; the overthrow of more dynasties, and the abdication of more kings, than any former age. It is, characteristically, the century of revolution. It has seen great wars which shook the whole of Europe from Madrid to Moscow; and lately two great empires overthrown in a few weeks or in fewer months. It sees now a German Emperor and a king of Italy. Once it has seen the head of the Christian Church carried away prisoner into France, once driven by bloodshed out of Rome, and now we see him stripped of all the world can clutch; twice it has seen Rome seized and held. These are not common events. Finally, after a lapse of three hundred years, it has seen an Œcumenical Council, and it has occupied itself profusely and perpetually about its acts, its liberty, and its decrees. Few events of the nineteenth century stand out in bolder relief, and many will be forgotten when the Vatican Council will be remembered. It will mark this age as the Council of Nicæa and the Council of Trent now mark in history the fourth and the sixteenth centuries. Therefore it will not perhaps be without use, nor, it may be, without interest, if we review its history.

The title prefixed to these pages implies that many stories of the Vatican Council have been published which are not true. It is not my intention to enumerate them. As far as I am able I shall avoid reference to them. My purpose is to narrate the history of the Council, simply and without controversy, from authentic sources. In the present chapter I shall narrate only the origin of the intention to convoke the Council. Hereafter I hope to show what were the antecedents of the Council and their effect upon it; then I will endeavour to explain its acts, and lastly to trace out the effects which have followed from it.

I. In the year 1873 Pius the Ninth gave com- mission to Eugenio Cecconi, then canon of the Metropolitan Church of Florence, and now archbishop of the same see, to write the history of the Vatican Council. All authentic documents relating to it were put into his hands. The first volume, entitled Storia del Concilio Ecumenico Vaticano scritta sui Documenti Originali, has been published. It extends over the period from the first conception of convoking an Œcumenical Synod to the close of the preparations for its work. I propose to give a condensed account of this first period, following closely the text of the Archbishop of Florence, and of the documents printed in the appendix to his work. I cannot omit to commend this volume to all who appreciate the purity of the lingua Toscana, of which it is a rare example. Its simplicity and transparent purity belong to the classical period of the Italian language.

It was on the 6th of December 1864, that Pius the Ninth for the first time manifested his thoughts on the convoking of an Œcumenical Council. He was presiding in the Vatican Palace over a session of the Congregation of Rites, consisting of cardinals and officials. After the usual prayer by which all such sessions are opened, the officials were bid to go out. For some time the Pope and the cardinals remained alone. The officials were then re-admitted, and the business of the congregation was despatched. This unusual event caused both surprise and curiosity.

Pius the Ninth, in that short interval, had made known to the cardinals that for a long time the thought of convoking an Œcumenical Council as an extraordinary remedy to the extraordinary needs of the Christian world had been before his mind. He bade the cardinals to weigh the matter each one by himself, and to communicate to him in writing, and separately, what before God they judged to be right. But he imposed rigorous silence upon them all.

This was the first conception of the Vatican Council.

The duty of weighing and delivering a written and separate opinion on the subject of convoking an Œcumenical Council was thus imposed on all cardinals then in Rome.

In the course of two months fifteen written opinions were delivered in. Others soon followed, until the number reached twenty-one.

The Archbishop of Florence, after a careful study of all these documents, has analysed and distributed the matter of them into the following heads. They treat of—

1. The present state of the world.

2. The question whether the state of the world requires the supreme remedy of an Œcumenical Council.

3. The difficulties of holding an Œcumenical Council, and how to overcome them.

4. The subjects which ought to be treated by such a Council.

(1.) In describing the present state of the world no reference was made by the Cardinals to its material progress in science, arts, or wealth, but to subjects strictly in relation to the eternal end of our existence. Under this aspect it is affirmed in these answers that the special character of this age is the tendency of a dominant party of men to destroy all the ancient Christian institutions, the life of which consists in a supernatural principle, and to erect upon their ruins and with their remains a new order, founded on natural reason alone. This tendency springs from two errors—the one that society, as such, has no duties towards God, religion being an affair of the individual conscience only; the other that the human reason is sufficient to itself, and that a supernatural order, by which man is elevated to a higher knowledge and destiny, either does not exist, or is at least beyond the cognisance and care of civil society. From these principles follows, by direct consequence, the exclusion of the Church and of revelation from the sphere of civil society and of science; and, further, out of this withdrawal of civil society and of science from the authority of revelation spring the Naturalism, Rationalism, Pantheism, Socialism, Communism of these times. From these speculative errors flows in practice the modern revolutionary Liberalism, which consists in the assertion of the supremacy of the State over the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church, over education, marriage, consecrated property, and the temporal power of the head of the Church. This Liberalism, again, results in the indifferentism which equalises all religions, and gives equal rights to truth and error. The Consultors also treat of freemasonry, which substitutes for the Church of God a Universal Church of Humanity.

They then go on to speak of the infiltration of rationalistic principles into the philosophy of certain Catholic schools, and of their attitude of opposition to the divine authority of the Church. From this they pass to the internal state of the Church; to its discipline, which, since the Council of Trent, has become in many things inapplicable to the changed conditions of the world. Finally, they treat of the education of the clergy, the discipline of the monastic orders, and the disregard of the ecclesiastical laws by the laity in many countries.

(2.) For these and the like reasons almost all the cardinals were of opinion that the remedy of an Œcumenical Council was necessary—that is, to use the language of the schools, by a relative, not an absolute necessity. They say that though Luther was condemned by the pontiffs, the Council of Trent was thought to be necessary to give greater weight and solemnity to the condemnation. So also, though Pius the Ninth had condemned a long series of errors, it was expedient that the condemnation should be reported and published with the united voice of the whole episcopate joined to its head. They expressed the hope that if the whole Catholic episcopate in Council assembled should point out to the peoples and sovereigns of the Christian world the true relations of the natural and supernatural orders, the rights and the duties of the governors and the governed, it might serve to guide them in the confusion and obscurity which reign over the political order in this age of revolutions.

Only two cardinals out of twenty-one thought an Œcumenical Council not to be required—the one being of opinion that Councils are to be called only when some grave peril to the faith exists; the other that the subjects to be treated were of too delicate a nature, and that the external helps needed for the celebration of a Council did not now exist.

One also declined to give an opinion, referring himself to the judgment of the Supreme Pontiff.

Four, who thought a Council to be the remedy required by the evils of these times, nevertheless doubted if the moment were opportune, but still they admitted that, at least, all necessary preparations should be made for its convocation.

(3.) The Consultors then enumerated the obstacles in the way of holding a Council:—the confusions and disorders of the times; the animosity of the unbelieving and the profane, who would neither respect the authority of the Council nor fail to make pretexts out of its acts for attacking it more bitterly; the attitude of all civil governments, which are either hostile or indifferent; the probability of European wars which would disperse or endanger the Council. Then again they suggest the difficulties internal to the Church; the absence of bishops from their dioceses; the danger that dissensions and parties might arise in the Council itself, and thereby divide the unity of the Catholic episcopate—a danger common to all times, but especially to these in which the subjects of possible divergence are so delicate and so wide-spread in their consequences. These reasons made some hesitate, and some pronounce against the holding of the Council. And even the majority who advised its convocation were fully aware of these opposing reasons, and did not deny their great weight.

Nevertheless they were of opinion that the need that a Council should be held was greater than the dangers of holding it. They believed that, grave as are the political and religious confusions, higher and nobler aspirations are not extinct; that a tendency to return towards the order of divine and supernatural truth is to be seen not only in individuals, but in the masses; that among the Catholic peoples a new life has sprung up, a great return of fervour, and an outspoken resistance to erroneous doctrines. They thought, therefore, that a Council would encourage and consolidate the faithful and fervent members of the Church, and, by its witness for truth, weaken the pretensions of those who oppose it; that the world could not do more against the Church after the Council than before it; that the Council of Nicæa was held in the face of the Arian contentions, and the Council of Trent when the north of Europe was on the verge of schism; that difficulties and dangers and the opposition of civil powers since the fourth century have threatened all Councils, but that Councils have always done their work which remains to this day. They said, too, that the great and lasting good gained by the Council for the whole Church would more than outweigh any harm from the temporary absence of bishops from their dioceses; and, finally, that if there should be dissensions and parties, so there were at Trent, but that when the Council had made its final decrees all returned to submission and concord. So it would be in the future Council.

One of the cardinals wrote as follows:

In these great affairs of the Church, they who have to treat them ought to rise high above those who are busied in politics. Men of the world trust in subtleties, astuteness, duplicities, and in means and views purely human. They who rule the Church trust in the prudence of the Gospel, in the truth, in the discharge of their own duties, and in the special assistance promised to the Church by its Divine Founder. Therefore it is that oftentimes what appears to be imprudent in the eye of those who go by human prudence alone is an act of evangelical prudence, and is both good and a duty, as well as an act of Divine Providence.

Another writes:

I see that whensoever the Church has deliberated about holding an Œcumenical Council, there were difficulties to surmount not less than those of to-day, and that if Divine Providence not only overcame them, but made them to turn to the greater good of the Church, so assuredly this assistance of the Holy Spirit, who sweetly and mightily orders all things, will not be wanting in a time when so many reasons concur to show the opportuneness of the same remedy, which, in all times whensoever it has been applied, has always produced the happiest and most imposing effects.

A third said:

God, who has suggested to your Holiness the thought of an Œcumenical Council to raise a strong defence against the vast evils of our time, will make the. way plain, overcome all the difficulties, and give to your Holiness and to the bishops a moment of truce; peace, and time enough to fulfil so great a work.

(4.) The last point of consultation was of the matters to be treated. The Consultors first suggest the condemnation of modern errors, the exposition of Catholic doctrine, the observance of discipline, its adaptation to the needs of the present time, and the raising of the state of the clergy and of the religious orders. Some of the cardinals touched upon special points, such as the licence of the press, the secret societies, civil marriage, the impediments to marriage, mixed marriages, ecclesiastical possessions, the observance of the feasts, abstinence, fasting, and the like. Two only spoke of the infallibility of the Pontiff: one of these spoke in general of Gallicanism. A third spoke also of Gallicanism, and of the present necessity of the temporal power of the Roman Pontiff in order to a free exercise of his ecclesiastical office. But this Consultor was one who opposed the holding of the Council. A fourth mentioned the temporal power. One only spoke of the syllabus, and he also was opposed to the holding of the Council. The Archbishop of Florence then goes on as follows:

Certainly we must say that if the course of history does not prove that a pretended Jesuitical conspiracy controlled the programme of the Council, the cause of those who tell us, usque ad nauseam, that "Rome, by hidden schemes of that celebrated society, conceived the design of concentrating all power, ecclesiastical and civil, in the hands of the Supreme Pontiff, and setting up in the Church a new and exorbitant authority by the servility of the bishops," will be irreparably lost.

Other points were touched upon by the cardinals. Many expressed their ardent desire that our brethren separated from the Catholic Church might through the work of the Council find a way of return to the true mother of all the children of God.

II. After such full and careful deliberation, many might expect that Pius the Ninth would have proceeded to decide upon the convocation of the Council of the Vatican. Indeed, many have said that he was so strongly bent upon it, for the special purpose of his own "apotheosis," that he waited for no consultation, and endured no advice. History tells another tale. All that had hitherto been done was no more than a preliminary deliberation; and that only as to whether the subject of holding an Œcumenical Council should be so much as proposed for further deliberation.

In the first days of March 1865, Pius the Ninth directed certain of the cardinals to meet and confer together, by way of a preliminary discussion, on the very question whether an Œcumenical Council should be convoked or not. He ordered, likewise, that the written voti, or judgments of the Consultors, of which account has been already given, should be reduced to a compendium for the use of the new commission. This was done by the Procurator-General of the Dominican Order, in a brief form, under the title "Sketch of the Opinions expressed by the Cardinals invited by Pius the Ninth to advise on the Convocation of an Œcumenical Council." The compendium begins as follows: "The cardinals, to the number of thirteen, advised affirmatively for the convoking of a Council; one answered negatively, submitting his judgment to that of the Holy Father; one other concluded that a Council ought not to be convoked." The new commission then was composed of the Cardinals Patrizi, Reisach, Panebianco, Bizzarri, and Caterini.

The secretary of the commission was the Archbishop of Sardis, now Cardinal Giannelli, then Secretary of the Congregation of the Council, that is, for the interpretation of the Council of Trent and of all similar questions.

The first session was held on the 9th of March 1865, and the Consultors proceeded to re-examine the four heads, of which a hasty sketch has been already given.

The compendium was then subjected to a new and rigorous examination; and under the first head came the question of the necessity of Councils. It has been already said that the holding of Councils is not of absolute but only of relative necessity for the government of the Church. The meaning of this judgment is as follows. There is no divine commandment, no divine obligation, requiring that the bishops of the Universal Church should meet in one place. The government of the Church is adequately provided for in the divine institution of the Primacy and of the Episcopate. Nevertheless, for a multitude of reasons, both of natural and supernatural prudence, the Church, following the example of the Apostles, has always held not only diocesan and provincial synods, but also Œcumenical Councils.

For the first three hundred years no General Council was convened; for the last three hundred years no General Council has been summoned. For eighteen centuries, before 1869, only eighteen Councils had been held. General Councils, therefore, though useful and sometimes necessary, relatively to particular errors or particular times, are not absolutely necessary to the office of the Church. The Church is not infallible by reason of General Councils, but General Councils are infallible by reason of the Church. The Church does not depend on General Councils for the knowledge of the truth. Councils meet to give to truth, already known by divine tradition, a more precise expression for common and universal use. The whole Church, both the Ecclesia docens and the Ecclesia discens—that is, pastors in teaching, and the flock in believing—diffused throughout the world, is guided and kept in the way of truth at all times. The Church discharges its office as witness, judge and teacher, always and in all places. The Primacy in Rome and the Episcopate throughout the world, by the assistance of the Spirit of Truth abiding with it for ever, can never err in guarding and declaring the divine tradition. of revelation. In the three hundred years before the Council of Nicæa, the living voice of the Church sufficed for the promulgation and diffusion of the faith; in the intervals between Council and Council the voice of the Church was sufficient in its declarations of truth and its condemnation of error. In the three hundred years since the Council of Trent, the Church has taught with the same divine and unerring authority. If it be asked, then, what need there can be for an Œcumenical Council, the answer is, that in applying remedies to the evils of the whole world, a knowledge of these wide-spread evils is necessary. More is seen by a multitude of eyes, and heard by a multitude of ears. The collective intelligence, culture, experience, instincts, and discernment, natural and supernatural, of the Episcopate, is the highest light of council upon earth. Such is the meaning of the words that the holding of Councils is not absolutely but relatively necessary.

As to the obstacles in the way of holding the Council, the first was a doubt as to the disposition of the civil powers to permit the bishops of their respective jurisdictions to attend. Fear was especially entertained on this point in respect to the govern- ments of France, Italy, and Portugal. It was remembered that in 1862 the government of Italy hindered the Italian bishops from coming to Rome for the canonisation of the martyrs of Japan. But if the governments of Germany, Spain, Belgium, Holland, England, and America should put no hindrance, it was certain that a sufficient number of bishops would obey the call of the Supreme Pontiff.

As to the course to be pursued towards the sovereigns and civil powers, it was known that in all times, in convening Œcumenical Councils, the Church has endeavoured to act in accordance with Catholic sovereigns. This procedure was always held to be both fitting and useful, though not of necessity. Paul the Third, in convoking the Council of Trent, sought to obtain not only the assent of sovereigns, but their presence. In the bull of convocation he says:—"We asked the opinion of the princes, as it seemed to us that their assent to such an undertaking was above all expedient and opportune." And afterwards he adds:—"We urgently invited the Catholic sovereigns to come to the Council, and to bring with them the prelates of their respective countries." But he found the sovereigns undecided; and therefore, after many ineffectual attempts, he resolved to convoke the Council.

We desired (he said) to effect this object in accordance with and by the good-will of the princes of Christendom. But while we were waiting on their will, and looking for the time appointed by Thy will, O God, we felt ourselves at last impelled to declare that all times are surely acceptable to God, in which deliberation is taken in respect to things that are sacred and pertaining to Christian piety. Wherefore seeing, to our immeasurable sorrow, the Christian world daily growing worse, Hungary trodden down by the Turks, the Germans in peril, all other peoples afflicted with fear and grief, we had decided to wait no longer for the assent of any prince, nor to look to anything but to the will of Almighty God, and to the welfare of the Christian commonwealth.

It was therefore thought fit that the Catholic sovereigns should be invited to appear by their legates at the Council of the Vatican, "according to the usage of the Church and the precedent of the Council of Trent."

Next it was proposed to call certain ecclesiastical persons from all parts of the world for previous consultation, inasmuch as "the benefit of the Council consists for the most part in knowing the state of the various regions and the remedies which there exist."

Finally, the Consultors recommended that all matters to be treated should be fully prepared and set in order before the assembling of the bishops, not only to avoid loss of time, but above all to preclude wandering discussions, and uncertainties of procedure, and the multiplication of innumerable questions.

When the commission came to deliberate upon the likelihood of the Council being interrupted, dispersed, or suspended by reason of the state of Europe, they carefully reviewed the history of the Council of Trent, which was convoked in 1536 to meet at Mantua in May of the following year. It was then, by reason of opposition, prorogued till November 1537. Then it was deferred till May 1538, to meet at Vicenza. So few bishops came, by reason of war and of the disturbed state of Europe and of Italy, that the Pope, weary of proroguing, suspended the Council indefinitely. The Turks were still victorious, and Germany was every day losing its faith. Paul the Third, therefore, without asking the assent of princes, convoked the Council to meet in November 1542 in the city of Trent. Three legates went to Trent, and waited many months for the bishops, who were still unable to assemble by reason of war and the dangers of travel. The Council was again suspended till a more favourable time. After three years it was again fixed for March 1545. After this came another delay; and the Council opened in April following. After fifteen months it was transferred to Bologna, where the bishops were so few that no decree was made; and after five months it was again indefinitely prorogued.

It then remained suspended for four years. Under Julius the Third it began once more in Trent in May 1551. It sat for a year; then in April 1552 it was suspended for two years, but the tumults of the world were such that it remained suspended for ten. In January 1562 it was opened again. In December 1563 the First Legate dismissed the bishops to their homes; and in January 1564 Pius the Fourth, by the bull Benedictus Deus, confirmed the work of the Council of Trent.

Such were the fortunes of the Council of Trent, without doubt the most momentous and fruitful Council of the Church in modern history. For three hundred years it has governed the Church throughout the world. And yet it could not meet till ten years after its convocation; twice it was suspended for two and for ten years in eighteen years it was at work only five, in the midst of universal conflict. Its enemies might well deride its delays, prorogations, suspensions, and wanderings from city to city. But it did its work. All these facts were weighed in the first deliberation whether, in the uncertainties of our times, an Œcumenical Council could be held.

The commission then took, in order, the following questions:—

1. Whether the convoking of an Œcumenical Council was relatively necessary and opportune.

2. Whether a previous communication should be made to the Catholic princes.

3. Whether, before publishing the bull for convoking the Council, the Sacred College ought to be consulted, and how it should be done.

4. Whether it was opportune to form an extraordinary congregation, which should occupy itself with the direction of matters concerning the Council.

5. Whether the aforenamed congregation, which should take the name of Congregation of Direction, ought, after the publication of the bull, at once to consult certain bishops of various nations, that they might point out in a summary way the matters, whether of doctrine or of discipline, which they might think it opportune for the Council to treat, regard being had to the needs of their respective countries.

To these questions the five cardinals answered in the following way:—

To the first, the fourth, and the fifth affirmatively.

To the second negatively. But they added that it was nevertheless good and convenient that, at the time of publishing the bull, such steps as were opportune should be taken by the Holy See in respect to the Catholic princes.

To the third they answered affirmatively, but they added that it belonged to the Pope to decide in what way the Sacred College should be consulted.

As to the reference to the Catholic sovereigns, it is to be remembered that if certain sovereigns at this day continue to be Catholic, it is as individuals, not as sovereigns. The governments are not Catholic. The concordats which bound them to the Holy See have been abolished, not by the Holy See, but by their own revolutions, or by their legislatures, or by their liberal parties. Catholic sovereigns, therefore, no longer represent Catholic kingdoms; they have declared their states as such to have no religion, and have withdrawn their public laws from the unity of the Church and faith, and from obedience to the Holy See. To invite them to sit in an Œcumenical Council would be like inviting the public authorities of the United States to sit in the British Parliament.

The Consultors then requested one of their number to draw up an outline of the organisation whereby the matters to be treated would be subdivided and prepared with the greatest precision. These resolutions of the commission were reported by the secretary to Pius the Ninth, who approved them with one modification in the fifth question. He ordered that the reference to the bishops should be made before the publication of the bull of indiction.

The Commission of Direction was then formally instituted, comprising the five cardinals already named and certain others. Afterwards were added theologians and canonists selected in Rome and from other nations.

The following distribution was made of the subjects to be prepared:—1. Doctrine; 2. Politico-Ecclesiastical or Mixed Questions; 3. Missions and the Oriental Churches; 4. Discipline.

The affairs of the Holy See are committed to various "Congregations," or, as we should say, Departments of government, namely: The Holy Office, which deals with matters of faith; the Congregation of Propaganda, which directs the Church in all countries of which the sovereigns or governments are not Catholic; the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, which deals with all mixed questions in the relations of the spiritual and civil powers; the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, which treats all questions of external jurisdiction; the Congregation of the Council, instituted by Pius the Fourth at the instance of St Charles Borromeo for the interpretation of the decrees of the Council of Trent.

Now it was wisely determined, in accordance with the judgment of the commission, that the sections of the Congregation of Direction should each be, as it were, engrafted on the departments with which they had affinity.

The Congregation of Direction was therefore divided into four Sections. The section of Doctrine had for its centre the Holy Office; that of the Mixed Questions, political and ecclesiastical, the Congregation of Ecclesiastical Affairs; that of Missions, the Congregation of Propaganda; and that of Discipline was attached to the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, with the Congregation of the Council described before.