The Great Speech in the Vatican.
In a full-length portrait of Strossmayer, Bishop of Bosnia, the strongest points of expression are a very resolute though pleasant face, and a pair of top-boots, very large in the feet, very thick in the soles, and very square in the toes. The vision rises before me, as I turn from the opening scriptural argument of his great speech, to the second part, in which he proceeds to present to the unwilling ears of his “venerable brethren,” “the results of his historical researches”:— Finding no trace of the papacy in the apostle’s days, I said to myself, “I shall find what I am looking for in the annals of the church.” Well, then, I tell you frankly that I have been looking for a pope in the first four centuries, and have not found any! In confirmation of this proposition, the orator quotes those African councils (of one of which St. Augustine himself was secretary), which forbade, under penalty of excommunication, the practice of appealing to the see of Rome; the laws and canons which recognize the bishop of Rome simply as having precedence among his peers; the words of popes St. Gregory and Pelagius II., in which they denounce the assumption of the title universal bishop as impious and profane:— Do not these authorities (and I have a hundred more just as strong) prove as clear as the sun at noonday, that it was not until a very late date that the bishops of Rome came to be regarded as universal bishops and heads of the church? . . . Who is there but knows that councils were convoked by the emperors, without consultation with the bishop of Rome, and sometimes in opposition to his wishes? That Hosius, bishop of Cordova, presided in the first council of Nice, and drew up its canons? The same Hosius presided in the council of Sardis, to the exclusion of the legates of Julius, bishop of Rome. I will not press this further, venerable brethren, but pass on to the great argument which is alleged in proof of the primacy of the bishop of Rome. By the rock on which the holy church was built, you understand Peter. If this were true, it would be an end to the dispute. But the early fathers, who must surely have known something about it, did not think as we do on this point. The bishop proceeds to cite the fathers—Cyril, Hilary, Jerome, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Basil of Seleucia—as agreeing in the view that the rock was Peter’s faith, or the great truth to which he testified, and concludes with several emphatic and decisive expressions from Augustine: So far was this great bishop from believing that the church was built on St. Peter, that he said to his people in his thirteenth sermon: “Thou art Peter, and on this rock which thou hast confessed—this rock which thou hast acknowledged in declaring, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God’—I will build my church—on myself; in that I am the Son of the living God, will I build it—on me, AND NOT ON THEE.” St. Augustine’s opinion on this famous text was the opinion of all Christendom in his day. To sum up, then, I have proved: 1. That Jesus gave to all the apostles the same power as to Peter. 2. That the apostles never recognized Peter as the vicar of Jesus Christ, and the infallible teacher of the church. 3. That Peter never thought of being pope, and never acted as pope. 4. That the councils of the first four centuries, while acknowledging the high dignity of the bishop of Rome, conceded to him only a pre-eminence of honor—never of power or jurisdiction. 5. That the holy fathers, in the famous passage, “Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I build my church,” never understood that the church was built upon Peter (super Petrum), but upon the rock (super petram) that is the apostle’s confession of faith. I conclude triumphantly with history, with reason, with logic, with common sense, and with Christian conscience, that Jesus Christ conferred no supremacy whatever on St. Peter; and that if the bishops of Rome have come to be sovereigns of the church, it has only been by the process of confiscating, one by one, all the rights of the bishops. (Voices: Silence the impudent Protestant! Silence him!) I, an impudent Protestant? No! a thousand times, no! History is neither Catholic nor Anglican, nor Calvinist, nor Lutheran, nor Armenian, nor Schismatic-Greek, nor Ultramontane. It is what it is; that is, it is something mightier than all the decrees of the œcumenical councils. You may write falsely against it if you dare; but you can no more destroy it than you can throw down the Coliseum by pulling out a brickbat. If I have said anything which history disproves, confront me with history, and without a moment’s hesitation I will make the amende honorable. But be patient awhile, and you will find that I have not yet said the whole of what I have undertaken to say and must say. If the stake were waiting for me out on the great square of St. Peter’s, I could not be silent. I should be bound to go on. Bishop Dupanloup, in his famous observations on this Vatican Council, has said, and justly, that if we declare Pius IX. infallible, we are bound, as a natural and necessary inference, to hold all his predecessors as infallible. Well, now, my venerable brethren, hear how history lifts up her commanding voice to assure you that some popes have erred. You will have a good time protesting and denying, I promise you, in the face of such facts as these. We cannot transcribe the long catalogue, extending from Pope Victor in 192 to Pope Pius IX. in 1870, of popes who have contradicted themselves, or contradicted each other. And yet as the speaker claims, it is only a partial list. I should never get through, venerable brethren, if I were to lay before your eyes all the contradictions of the popes in their teachings. If, then, you proclaim the infallibility of the present pope, you will be forced either to prove what is impossible, that the popes have not contradicted themselves, or to declare that it is revealed to you by the Holy Ghost, that papal infallibility dates only from the year 1870. Will you have the courage to do it? The public may perhaps pass by, with indifference, theological questions, the importance of which they do not apprehend. But however indifferent they may be to principles, they are not at all indifferent to facts. Don’t be deluded! If you decree the dogma of papal infallibility, our antagonists, the Protestants, will leap into the breach with all the more boldness for the fact that they will have history on their side and against us, while we shall have, to oppose them, nothing but our negations. What can we say to them when they begin to march out before the public the line of the bishops of Rome from Lucas down to his holiness Pius IX.—? Oh! if they all had but been such as Pius IX., we could beat them all along the line. But alas, alas! it is very different from this. (Cries of, Silence, silence! Enough, enough!) Don’t cry out so, my right-reverend brethren! To show such alarm at the facts of history, is tantamount to giving up all for lost. For if you were to pour over it all the waters of the Tiber, you could not wash out a single page. Suffer me to speak, and I will be as brief as the importance of the subject will permit. The bishop then proceeds with the subject of papal immoralities—as he had with the subject of papal heresies and contradictions—in chronological order. Passing over the horrible indictment which he draws against the pope and court of Rome, we come to his inferences:— To sum up, then: if you declare the infallibility of the present bishop of Rome, you will be held bound to prove the infallibility of all his predecessors, without a single exception. But can you do this, with history lying open and showing as clear as sunshine that the popes have erred in their teachings? Can you do it, and maintain that popes who were guilty of avarice, of incest, of murder, of simony, were nevertheless vicars of Jesus Christ? O venerable brethren, to maintain this monstrous thing would be to betray Christ worse than Judas did. It would be flinging mud in his face! (Outcries of, “Down with him from the rostrum! Hush! hush! Silence the heretic!”) Venerable brethren, you are making this outcry. But would it not be a more dignified course to weigh my reasons and my proofs in the balance of the sanctuary? Believe me, you cannot make history over again. There it stands, and there it will stand forever, to protest mightily against the dogma of papal infallibility. You may proclaim it unanimously, but you will have to do without one vote, and that is mine. The eyes of true believers are upon us; they look to us for the remedy of the numberless evils by which the church is dishonored. Shall we disappoint their hopes? What account could we give to God, if we should let slip this solemn opportunity which he has given us for preserving the integrity of the true faith? Let us hold it fast, my brethren; let us arm ourselves with a holy courage; let us put forth one mighty and generous effort; let us turn to the teachings of the apostles, for aside from these we have nothing but error, darkness, and false tradition. Let us make use of our reason and understanding by taking the apostles and the prophets as our sole infallible teachers on that greatest of all questions, “What shall I do to be saved?” This being decided, we shall have got the foundation laid for our dogmatic system. Setting our feet firmly on the solid and changeless rock of the holy Scriptures inspired of God, we will go boldly forth against the world, and like the apostle Paul, in the presence of the free-thinkers, we will know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. We will conquer by the preaching of the foolishness of the cross, as Paul conquered the orators of Greece and Rome, and the church of Rome will have its own glorious ’89! (Clamorous outcries: “Down with him! Put him out! the Protestant! the Calvinist! the traitor to the church!”) These outcries of yours, right reverend sirs, do not frighten me at all. If my words are warm, my head is cool. I am neither of Luther nor of Calvin, neither of Paul nor of Apollos, but of Christ. (Renewed outcries: “Anathema! Anathema! upon the apostate!”) Anathema! gentlemen! Anathema! You know perfectly well that you are not protesting against me, but against the holy apostles, under whose protection I would that this council might place the church. Ah! if, bound about with their grave clothes, they were to come forth from their sepulchres, would they speak to you in any different strain from mine? What answer will you make them, when out of their writings I tell you that the papacy has departed from that gospel of the Son of God which they preached with such courage, and sealed with their generous blood? Will you have the hardihood to say to them: “We prefer to your instructions those of our popes, our Bellarmines, our Ignatius Loyolas”? No, no! a thousand times no! unless you have closed your ears that you may not hear, and blinded your eyes that you may not see, and made gross your hearts that you may not understand. Ah! if He who sitteth in the Heavens is disposed to make heavy his hand on us, as once on Pharaoh, he has no need to suffer the troops of Garibaldi to sack the Eternal City; he need only let us go on to make Pius IX. a god, as we have made the blessed virgin a goddess. Pause, oh, pause, my venerable brethren, on that hateful and absurd declivity on which you find yourselves. Save the church from the shipwreck that threatens her, by seeking in the Holy Scriptures alone the rule of faith which we must believe and profess. I have spoken. God be my helper!—The Congregationalist.