THE Council of the Vatican, in 1870, as an assemblage of the clerical dignitaries and deputies of a single sect, might have passed away with as little claim to general notice as a Presbyterian Synod or an English Convocation, and the civilized world might have heard with a smile that it had created an infallible oracle of morals and faith, and endowed with divine attributes a pope of unspotted renown. A new Buddh, or another Mikado or Grand Lama, would have made little difference to the exterior denominations. But, unhappily, the Vatican Council had an important political aim. It was the gathering of a band of politicians as well as clerical leaders. It was to decide the conduct of the great host of papal voters in all future elections in Europe and America. It was to determine what degree of allegiance they were to pay to their native sovereigns or rulers. It was to form them into one vast political party, organized with unexampled rigor united in a single aim in every land, and ruled by an infallible Pope at Rome.
Certainly there is no political faction, nor ever was, so powerful or so remarkable as that guided by Pius IX. We must admit the foresight of the fierce leaders of the ultramontanes in seizing upon the control of so vast an organization, and aiming at the government of the world by universal suffrage. They had only to proclaim the Pope infallible, and the mandates of the Vatican might be executed in the elections of Germany and New York. The prelates are converted into the servile agents of a political despotism, who cheerfully do the work of their masters, and instruct their people how to vote in London, Cleveland, or Lorraine. The infinite throng of Roman priests in Europe and America are the most successful of politicians. The humble Catholic laity have nothing left them but to obey the voice from Rome. If they murmur they are at once virtually excommunicated, like Lord Acton or his small band of allies. Armed with the horrors of Inferno and the bliss of Heaven, the priests and prelates drive their voters to the polls, and should they shrink from the indignation of their fellow-citizens, and the rage of those they have robbed and betrayed, they may hear the voice of Rome crying to them like Mohammed to his soldiers, "Hell is hotter!" and press forward. Fanaticism has been transferred everywhere to the political canvass and the ballot-box, and it is a question whether the world is to be ruled by the visions of Mary Alacoque and the Lady of Sallett, by Mannings and Antonellis, or by the voice of wisdom and of knowledge.
To the Vatican Council this singular political crisis is due. Millions of zealots in Europe and America now obey the decrees of an infallible Pope, who before 1870 might have exercised some of the privileges of private judgment. A fierce and almost desperate faction are urging the church of Rome to a contest for the political control of the world. In Germany, in Italy, in France, the papal party votes with a solid and dangerous unity. In England Dr. Manning has already formed his Celtic followers into a distinct organization; they rule already in Ireland; and in our own elections the enemies of knowledge, impelled by a voice from Rome, vote with rare unanimity for the peculators, the public robbers, the ruffians, or the traitors who have sold themselves to a foreign rule. We propose, therefore, to describe briefly this last assemblage of papal bishops, and trace from Dr. Schaff's work and other sources the nature of the political principles which it everywhere enforces.
The Vatican Council was summoned to meet at Rome in 1869, chiefly to determine the doctrine of papal infallibility. The Protestants and the Greek Church were invited to share in its deliberations. But the Patriarch of Constantinople and the other Oriental bishops rejected with some show of contempt the invitation of the Roman prelate, who, they held, had no right to summon a general council without their assent, and whom their predecessors had long ago deposed and excommunicated; and the Protestants were even less ready to admit the authority of one who claimed to be the head of the Christian Church, and whose garments were stained with the blood of their martyrs. The Council was therefore composed wholly of the adherents of the papacy. But the attendance of these was sufficiently large. Of 1037 persons entitled to be present, 764 appeared. Asia, America, and Europe were represented. But of the members of the Council, Italy furnished 276, and of these 143 belonged to the former Papal States, and were all under direct control of the Pope: France, with a larger Roman Catholic population than Italy, sent only 84, Germany 19, Great Britain 35, Spain 41, the United States 48; and more than one-half of the members were entertained at the Pope's expense during their stay in Rome. Yet a more imposing assemblage of prelates and dignitaries was never seen. Its numbers were greater than in any of its eighteen predecessors. The Eternal City was thronged with cardinals, patriarchs, primates, and a crowd of spectators and attendants filled Rome with animation, and poured a stream of gold into the hands of its not unwilling people. They might scoff in secret at the famous dogma, but were ever ready to admit that it was not unprofitable as a speculation. But the Rome of 1870 was a center of ecclesiastical tyranny, and, maintained by the arms of France, the Pope was enabled to enforce his temporal authority by a rigid severity. The press was silenced; the people and even foreign visitors were held in awe; informers and spies visited every company; no free discussion was permitted; and shut up as if within a prison and a fortress, amidst the clash of innumerable bells and the dull roar of the canon of St. Angelo, the Council began its sessions in the Basileca of the Vatican on the 8th of December, 1869—the festival of the Immaculate Conception.
Its sittings continued late in October of the next year. An oath of secrecy was imposed upon each member, and the deliberations were held in private. The subjects of debate were proposed by the Pope, and the Jesuits guided the decisions of the Council. Nor did they probably forget that three hundred years before, at the Council of Trent, Lainez, Salmeron, and LeJay had fiercely and boldly pressed the acceptance of the doctrine of infallibility, and had only yielded to the influence of the temporal powers in a partial defeat. What the sixteenth century had feared to promulgate, the disciples of Loyola now flung in the front of the civilization of the nineteenth, and demanded from every Roman Catholic a confession that the Pope of Mary Alacoque, of the Lady of Lourdes, was infallible and divine.
Yet among the opponents of the doctrine were arrayed many—perhaps nearly all—of the best and most powerful intellects of the Roman Church. The German, French, and American bishops wrote and spoke boldly against the assailants of their order, and argued against infallibility with the freedom of a Dollinger. The learned Hefele, familiar with every council, Dupanloup and Darboy of France, the active Strossmayer, Kenrick of St. Louis, and Connolly of Halifax, led on a united and powerful party, who assailed the theory of the Jesuits at every stage. The long and tedious sittings were often made scenes of wild disorder by the furious bigotry of the supporters of infallibility. Their opponents were, heretics, their own arguments invectives and almost blows. Once several bishops sprang from their seats, rushed to the tribune, and shook their fists in the face of Strossmayer, who was speaking. He was driven to his seat in the uproar. An American prelate compared the disorder to that of his native Congress with unpatriotic candor. The arguments of the infallibilists were sometimes at least amusing. One French bishop argued that the Pope was infallible because Peter was crucified with his head downward, and was loudly applauded. Another stated that the Sicilians had sent a special deputation to the Virgin Mary to ask if Peter was infallible, and that she had told them that she remembered having been present when Christ had conferred upon him that privilege. To these arguments there could be no reply, as they are beyond the range of reason.
The doctrine of infallibility was carried in the Council by an immense majority, the minority were terrified into complete submission, and the learned Hefele and the eloquent Strossmayer, the American, French, and German prelates, yielded up their consciences and their convictions to the fear of the fanatical and the ignorant. The penalty of excommunication and deposition was alone boldly defied by the honest Dollinger and his learned disciples. Meanwhile great changes were passing over the face of Europe, and the clash of arms might soon penetrate within the closed doors of St. Peter's. The Pope and the Jesuits felt that it was time to fling down their apple of discord into the heart of the nations while the French armies were making ready to cross the Rhine; and on the 18th of July, amidst ominous clouds and a blinding storm of rain; amidst constant flashes of lightning that shot into the unnatural gloom of the great church, and gleamed over the golden tomb of St. Peter; and amidst claps of thunder that made Rome tremble to its foundations, in a darkness so deep that the Pope was obliged to use a candle to enable him to read the decree, the doctrine of infallibility was proclaimed amidst the shouts and clappings of the whole assembly, and Pius IX. became the Buddh or the Grand Lama of the Roman Church.
But it was for no idle ostentation that the violent faction had enforced the dogma upon their people and upon unwilling Europe, and with the declaration of infallibility the Papal Church found itself in conflict with all civil governments and all modern civilization. The Pope claims an independent control of the spiritual, and finally the temporal affairs of every nation. He is as despotic in America as in England, in Vienna as in New York. From his decision there is no appeal. He holds in his hands the keys of Heaven and Hell. His excommunication is spiritual death; his blessing opens the gates of Paradise. And he has expressly commanded all his adherents to labor and to vote in every country against popular education, against a press that is not controlled by a papal censorship, to overthrow every government that does not admit his supremacy, to re-establish everywhere the Roman Catholic faith, and make it the ruling power in every land.
No Roman Catholic can any longer be a trustworthy citizen of any government that does not obey his master. Excommunication and the most horrible pains of his church await him if he does not accept the doctrine of infallibility in its widest extent, and follow implicitly the political direction of his oracle at Rome. The Pope commands him to believe that the Roman pontiffs have never exceeded the proper limits of their powers (Syllabus iv. 21), that the commonwealth is not the origin and source of all rights (vi. 39), that in the case of a conflict the civil power should not control the spiritual (vi. 42), that schools may not be governed by the civil power (vi. 45, 47), that no Catholic can support secular schools (vi. 48), that the church ought not to be separated from the State (vi. 55), that the Catholic religion should be held by the State to the exclusion of all others (x. 78), that Catholic countries cannot provide by law that persons coming to reside there may enjoy their own religion unmolested (x. 78), and that the Papal Church may punish those who dissent from its rule. Such is only a part of the political faith of every adherent of the papacy. It is difficult to see how any Roman Catholic can avoid holding in future the wildest visions of Mary Alacoque, or escape that fierce fanaticism that once armed the assassin's dagger against French and English kings, or pointed the zeal of Kullmann against Prince Bismarck. Cardinal Antonelli and Dr. Manning have already excommunicated every one who entertaines a doubt of the teachings of the Vatican Council, and who would escape from the tyranny of the Jesuits.
In the meantime, the Vatican Council has produced among the nations of the earth all the discord and despair it was evidently intended to originate. The declaration of infallibility was almost coincident with the declaration of war by France against Germany. The two ominous proclamations resounded over Europe together. German Roman Catholics did not have leisure to hear, or perhaps closed their eyes to, the reasonable promptings of the papacy, and France was beaten almost before Rome could interfere. But it began at once a political intrigue against German, unity and freedom, and the German Empire is already convulsed by the mad, effort of the priesthood to disseminate the disloyal doctrines of the Vatican Council among its people. France is swayed to and fro by the plots of the ultramontanes; the Vatican has bequeathed to the unhappy land a legacy of pauperism, ignorance, and brutal crime. England is alarmed at the secret progress and designs of the successors of Garnet and Parsons. Brazil imprisons its bishops; Switzerland and Italy look with natural suspicion on their papal subjects. New York has once more submitted to the papal rule, after a partial respit of two years; its public officials already countenance murder and riot; the papal priests already prepare for a new reign of robbery and license; and the Democratic party has rushed into an alliance with the papal party, and the election of a throng of free communities from the Atlantic to the Pacific are decided by the voice from Rome. Thus freedom, which had fled from the Old World to escape her ancient foes, has been followed by them to her distant retreat, and is once more struggling in their toils. But we think she will yet strangle the serpent by her cradle.—EUGENE LAWRENCE, in Harper's Weekly, Jan. 2, 1875.