The Great Speech in the Vatican.
By Leonard W. Bacon
TRANSLATED BY REV. LEONARD W. BACON, BALTIMORE. The boldest and most powerful, condensed argument extant against the pretensions of popery is a speech pronounced by a Roman Catholic bishop in the Roman Council. The copy in my possession is one published in the Italian language by the association which issues in Florence the journal entitled, “Papal Rome Unveiled to the People.” It ought to be printed for general distribution here, and would be, if we had an effective society for Protestant work. A sixteen-page tract would contain it all. The great speech is published without name, but my copy, which has just reached me from Rome, bears on its title-page, in the handwriting of one of the most eminent Catholics in that city, the note: “This speech is by Mgr. Strossmayer, Bishop of Bosnia in Croatia.” It is difficult to abridge what is already a marvel of condensed force; but I will do my best. After a few calm, weighty words of introduction, the Bishop says that under a grave sense of his responsibility to God, he has studiously applied himself to the examination of the Holy Scriptures on the question whether the holy pontiff who presides in the Council is really the successor of St. Peter, the vicar of Jesus Christ, and the infallible teacher of the church. The effect of this inquiry has been startling:— I open, then, these sacred pages. . . . But what! shall I dare to tell it? I find in them nothing to justify, however remotely, the ultramontane view. Nay more! to my utter astonishment, I find nothing said about a pope, successor of St. Peter, and vicar of Jesus Christ, any more than about a successor of Mohammed. Yes, Archbishop Manning, you will say that I blaspheme; and you, Bishop Pie, that I am out of my senses. No, no, my lord bishops! I am not blaspheming; I am not beside myself! But having just risen from the reading of the New Testament from beginning to end, I declare to you before God, lifting my hand toward yonder great crucifix, that I find in its pages no trace of the papacy as it now exists. Do not refuse to listen to me, venerable brethren! Do not by your murmurs and interruptions, justify those who declare, with Father Hyacinthe, that this Council is not free, but that our votes are imposed upon us in advance. If this were so, this august assembly, toward which the eyes of the whole world are turned, would fall into the most shameful contempt. If we would be great, we must be free. I thank his grace, Bishop Dupanloup, for that nod of approval! It gives me courage to go on. Reading, then, the Scriptures, with such attention as the Lord has made me capable of, I have not found in them a single chapter, a single verse, in which Jesus Christ commits to St. Peter lordship over the apostles, his fellow-laborers. If Simon, son of Jonas, had been appointed to be what we understand his holiness, Pius IX., to be in our time, it is astonishing that Christ did not say to the apostles: “When I am ascended up to my Father, ye all shall obey Simon Peter as ye have obeyed me. I appoint him my vicar upon earth.” Not only is Christ silent on this point, but he has so little thought of giving the church a chief, that when he is promising thrones to his apostles, to judge the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. 19:28), he promises twelve of them—one apiece—without saying that one is to be higher than the rest, and is to belong to Peter. Surely if he had wished this to be so, he would have said so. What must we infer from his silence? Logic tells us: Christ did not intend to make Peter chief of the apostolic college. When Christ sent forth the apostles to the conquest of the world, he gave to all alike the power of binding and loosing; to all, the promise of the Holy Ghost. Let me repeat it; if he had meant to make Peter his vicar, he would have appointed him commander-in-chief of his spiritual army. Christ, says the Scripture, forbade Peter and his colleagues to have rule and lordship and power over believers like the princes of the Gentiles. (Luke 22:25.) If Peter had been made pope, Jesus would not have spoken thus, for, according to our traditions, the papacy holds in its hands two swords, the symbol of spiritual and temporal power. One fact has profoundly impressed me. When I observed it, I said to myself: If Peter had been pope, would his colleagues have suffered themselves to send him with St. John to Samaria to preach the gospel of the Son of God? (Acts 8:14.) What would you think, venerable brethren, if, at this moment, we were to permit ourselves to depute his holiness, Pius IX., and his eminence, Monsignor Plantier, to betake themselves to the Patriarch of Constantinople, and adjure him to put an end to the Eastern schism? But here is another fact, of greater importance still. An œcumenical council was assembled at Jerusalem to decide on questions in which believers were divided. Who would have convoked this council, if St. Peter had been Pope? St. Peter. Who would have presided over it? St. Peter or his legates. Who would have formulated and promulgated the canons of it? St. Peter. Well, now, nothing of the kind took place. The apostle was present at the council, like all his colleagues. But it was not he who framed its conclusions, but St. James; and when the decrees of it were promulgated, this was done in the name of “the apostles, the elders and the brethren.” (Acts 15.) Is this the way we manage things in our church? The deeper I go, my venerable brethren, in my examination, the more I am convinced that in the Holy Scriptures there is no appearance of the primacy of the son of Jonas. While we teach that the church is built on St. Peter, St. Paul, whose authority cannot be questioned, tells us in his epistle to the Ephesians (2:20) that it is “built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone.” The same apostle is so far from believing in the supremacy of Peter, that he openly rebukes those who say: “I am of Paul and I of Apollos” (1 Cor. 1:12) in the same terms as those who would say: “I am of Peter.” If, then, the latter apostle was vicar of Jesus Christ, St. Paul would have taken good care not to censure so violently those who held to his colleague. The same apostle Paul, enumerating the offices of the church, mentions apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, pastors. Is it credible, venerable brethren, that St. Paul, the great teacher of the Gentiles, would have left out the greatest of all the offices—the papacy—if the papacy had been founded by divine institution? It seems to me that this omission would have been no more possible than a history of this Council that should make no mention whatever of his holiness, Pius IX. [Voices in the assembly: Silence, heretic! silence.] Keep calm, venerable brethren. I have not got through yet. By hindering me from going on, you will show the world that you are in the wrong, and that you have gagged the humblest member of this body. I proceed: The apostle Paul in not one of his letters addressed to the various churches, makes any mention of the primacy of Peter. If this primacy had existed, if in short the church had had a supreme head, infallible in teaching, would the great teacher of the Gentiles have omitted all mention of it? Nay! He would have written a long epistle on this important, this vital subject; when, therefore, he is rearing the edifice of Christian doctrine, is it possible that he leaves out the foundation and the key-stone? Now, unless the apostolic church is to be reckoned heretical, which we neither wish nor dare to say, we are constrained to acknowledge that the church has never been more fair, more pure, nor more holy, than in the days when it had no pope. [Voices: It is false! It is false!] Monsignor de Laval cannot contradict this; for if any of you, venerable brethren, should dare to think that the church which at this day has a pope for its head is stronger in the faith, or purer in morals, than the apostolic church, he must say it openly in the face of the world; for this room is the center from which our words fly from pole to pole. I proceed: not in the writings of St. Paul, nor in those of St. John or St. James, have I found any trace or germ of the papal power. St. Luke, the historian of the missionary labors of the apostles, is silent on this vital point. The silence of these holy men, whose writings are part of the canon of the inspired Scriptures, is as inexplicable, if Peter had been pope, as that of Thiers would have been, if he had omitted the title of emperor in the history of Napoleon Bonaparte. I see before me a member of this body who says, pointing at me with his finger, “He is a schismatic bishop who has got amongst us under false pretenses.” No, no! my venerable brethren, I did not come into this august assembly like a thief by the window. I came by the door just as regularly as yourselves. It is my right as a bishop as it is my duty as a Christian, to speak and declare what I know to be true. But the thing which astounds me beyond all expression is the silence of Peter himself. If he had been what we say—the vicar of Christ upon earth—he must have known it. If he knew it, how does it happen that he never once—not one solitary time—acted as pope? He might have done it on the day of Pentecost, when he pronounced his first discourse; but he did not. He might have done it at the council of Jerusalem; but he did not. He might have done it at Antioch; but he did not. He might have done it in his two epistles to the churches; but he did not. Imagine such a pope as this, O my venerable brethren! If, then, we would maintain that Peter was pope, it necessarily follows that we must maintain that he was not aware of it at the time. I put it to any man with a head to think and a mind to reflect, whether these two suppositions are credible. To sum up, then: During the lifetime of the apostles, the church never thought of the possibility of a pope. To maintain the contrary, it would be necessary to put the Holy Scriptures into the fire, or out of the mind. But I hear from all sides the questions, “Was not St. Peter at Rome? Was he not crucified here head downward? The chair from which he taught, the altar at which he said mass—are they not all in this Eternal City?” Venerable brethren, the sojourn of St. Peter at Rome has no other proof than tradition,203But even if he was bishop of Rome, what argument can be drawn from his episcopate here to prove his supremacy? A scholar of the highest rank, Scaliger, has not hesitated to say that the episcopate and sojourn of St. Peter at Rome must be classed among ridiculous legends. [Repeated cries: “Silence him! silence him! Down with him from the platform.”] Venerable brethren, I am ready to be silent; but is it not more becoming to such a body as this to prove all things, as the apostle enjoins, and believe that which is good? In the midst of such a storm of disapprobation, the bishop reached the close of his main scriptural argument. The interruptions he encountered, and the retorts he made upon the overwhelming majority that roared against him, are not the least interesting and instructive things about the speech. But nothing could check the torrent of voluble Latin, in the fluent use of which no man in all the Council could compare with Strossmayer. The historical argument which followed, was not less notable than the beginning.—Congregationalist.