CHAPTER XX

 

INVITATIONS TO THE COUNCIL

On 28th June 1868, the long expected Bull appeared, which summoned the Council to meet on 8th December 1869; it was a counterpart of the invitation of Paul III to the Council of Trent, only somewhat more diffuse. While referring to the unhappy circumstances of the time, Pius IX declares: “At this General Council there will be a careful examination and determination of everything that concerns the glory of God, the purity of the faith, the dignity of Divine service, the everlasting salvation of men, discipline, a profitable and thorough education of the priesthood, obedience to the laws of the Church, the promotion of morality, the Christian teaching of the young, peace, and above everything unity”. Letters were afterwards issued, which invited the Orthodox Greek bishops together with the Protestants and other Non-Catholics; a similar invitation to the Protestants had been put forth at the time of the Council of Trent. The Abate Testa on 5th (17th) October had an interview with the Patriarch of Constantinople, but the Patriarch, who knew already from the newspapers of the invitation of the Bishop of “Old Rome”, declared that he would not be present nor cause fresh pain by opening old wounds. The other Eastern patriarchs sent similar refusals, nor did the Protestants feel inclined to act on the Pope’s invitation “to return quickly to Christ’s only fold”. The consistory of Berlin answered by publishing a circular appealing for collections on behalf of the Gustavus Adolphus Society, which supports Evangelical churches in Roman Catholic lands. The theologians of Groeningen, the Evangelical Alliance, and the Reformed ministers of Geneva published answers, in which they declared that they would be unable to take part in the Council; and certain Protestant clergymen advised the Roman Church to do away with the celibacy of the clergy, and to introduce communion in both kinds. A Scotch Presbyterian, Dr Gumming, applied to Manning to learn the conditions on which Protestants might take part. Manning forwarded the enquiry to Rome, and from thence the answer came that Protestants must return to the father’s house as prodigal sons. Afterwards, Pius IX informed Manning that there would be some theologians at Rome ready to debate with the Protestants with a view to converting them, but at the Council itself their cause could not be dealt with; it was decided long ago, and their sentence pronounced.  Some Christian Jews, who wished that Israel also should be invited, received the intimation that the real vintage of Israel was not yet at hand; but the Pope was hoping to gather single grapes.

 In some places there was surprise that Pius IX had not followed the example of Paul III in inviting the Roman Catholic sovereigns to send ambassadors (Oratores) to the Council. It had been contemplated but had been given up, because several of the Roman Catholic sovereigns had broken the Concordats made with Rome, so that according to Ultramontane ideas they no longer represented Catholic kingdoms, but states that had no religion. The omission to incite the sovereigns, however, attracted painful attention, especially in France. Immediately before the issue of the Bull of invitation Antonelli had said to the French ambassador at Rome that the princes would not be kept away, but that on account of the excommunicated Victor Emmanuel the Vatican, in the Bull itself, had been content to make a general appeal to them. Montalembert, De Broglie, Auguste Cochin, De Falloux, the English Catholic Lord Emly (Mr Monsell), and a Liberal Spanish bishop were assembled at Orleans with Dupanloup, and they agreed to write an article on the subject in the Correspondant. Dupanloup meanwhile laid before his friends a whole series of letters from eminent prelates in France and elsewhere, which further opened their eyes to the difficulties of the situation. Emile Ollivier had declared in the Chamber of Deputies that the exclusion of the sovereigns from the Council was tantamount to the Pope’s introducing with his own hand a separation between State and Church; and the Univers on behalf of Ultramontanism had asserted that the exclusion of the princes proved that they were now “outside the Church”. The State, in the opinion of the Ultramontane paper, had become “a chaos and a sink”, and all Catholics in fact stood outside it. The question was no longer therefore one of alliances, but of conquests, to prepare the way for a confederation of the nations under guidance of the Pope; the democracy which was in process of formation was to do what monarchy had not been able or willing to do.

DUPANLOUP AND THEOLOGIANS

Such language greatly displeased Dupanloup, who was closely connected with the Tuileries. In order to get to know what was felt outside France, he undertook a journey to Malines, where he met the new Archbishop, Mgr. Dechamps, and Ketteler, Bishop of Mainz; he also went to Aix-la-Chapelle, and to Cologne. After his return, he wrote a pastoral letter on the subject of the Council, in which he expressed his hope that all misunderstandings between the Church and Christian nations would cease, and that the Church would succeed in keeping evangelical principles free from all frauds and corruptions. This pastoral letter caused fresh irritation in the ultramontane camp; it was described as an attempt to bring about a reconciliation between the truth and error. But from England, Germany, Poland, Spain, and America came expressions of thanks to the Bishop of Orleans.

During these conflicts, large and small, between the Ultramontane and the Liberal sections of the episcopate, Rome was busy preparing for the forthcoming Council. Famous native and foreign theologians were summoned to put their learning and acumen at the service of the Church; but in the choice, and in the use of those chosen, more regard was generally paid to the attitude of the persons in question towards the doctrine of Infallibility and towards Ultramontanism than to their scientific ability. It seems as if it had been intended to invite Newman among others, but by certain clever manoeuvres Manning and the Jesuits succeeded in evading this unpleasant selection. A couple of insignificant Englishmen were chosen in his place, and the most eminent of English Roman Catholics was not present. Afterwards, when Dupanloup wished to take him with him as his theologian, Newman refused the invitation. He would not go to the Council in the retinue of a French bishop.

The councillors who were summoned were divided into a managing congregation and six commissions. The president of the managing congregation was Cardinal Patrizi; the members of it included the Cardinals Reisach, Barnabo, Panebianco, Bizzarri, Bilio, Caterini, Capalti, and De Luca, the Jesuit Sanguinetti, professor of Church History at the Collegium Romanum, and Cardinal Manning’s mouthpiece at the Vatican, Mgr. Talbot, younger son of Lord Talbot de Malahide. Afterwards, Cardinal Schwarzenberg succeeded in procuring that the historian of the Councils, Professor Hefele of Tubingen, who on 19th June 1869 had been appointed Bishop of Rottenburg in Württemberg, should also be summoned to Rome, and a place on the managing committee was assigned to him. Into the important dogmatic commission Pius IX admitted, first and foremost, Perrone, the Jesuit teacher of dogmatic theology, who was then very aged, but still in full vigor both of body and mind; to the same commission Loyola’s order supplied also two other eminent teachers of dogmatics, Franzelin and Schrader. Those friends of the Jesuits, the apologist Hettinger of Würtzburg and Gay of Poitiers, were also members of it; likewise the Dominicans Spada, Tosa, and Giacinto de’ Ferrari, the Minorite Adragna, the Augustinian Martinelli, Leo XIII’s brother Giuseppe Pecci, then professor of philosophy at the University of Rome; the church historian Alzog of Freiburg, and for a short while Monaco La Valletta, afterwards Cardinal. The favorite of Pius IX and of the Jesuits, the Barnabite Luigi Bilio, who shortly before had received a cardinal’s hat, presided over this commission.

 

PREPARATORY WORK