VATICAN
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VATICAN
Only two of the twenty-one opinions sent in by the
Roman cardinals mentioned it. It is true that a large
number of the episcopal memorials recommended the
definition, but these were not taken into consideration
in the preparations for the council. It was not until
the contest over papal infallibility outside of the coun-
cil grew constantly more violent that various groups
of members of the council began to urge conciliar dis-
cussion of the question of infallibility. The first mo-
tion for the definition was made on Christmas, 1869,
by Archbishop Dechanips of Mechlin. He was sup-
ported by all the other Belgian bishops, who presented
a formal opinion of the University of Louvain, which
culminated in a petition for the definition. The actual
petition for the definition was first circulated among
the fathers of the council tm New Year's Day, 1870.
Several petitions from smaller groups also appeared,
and the petitions soon received altogether five hun-
dred signatures, although quite a number of the
friends of the definition were not among the number
of subscribers. Five opposing memorials circulated
by the minority finally obtained 1.36 names. Upon
this, early in Feb., the congregation for petitions
unanimously, with e.xception of Cardinal Rauscher,
requested the pope to consider the petition for defini-
tion. Pius IX was also in favour of the definition.
Therefore, on 6 March, the draft of the Decree on the
Church of Christ, which had been distributed among
the fathers on 21 Jan., was given a new twelfth chaj)-
ter entitled "Romanum Pontificem in rebus fidei et
morum definiendis errare non posse" (The Roman
Pontiff cannot err in defining matters of faith and
morals). With this the matter dropped again in the
council.
(2). The Agitation Outside the Council.— The pe- titions concerning infallibility called forth once more outside the council a large number of pamphlets and innumerable articles in the daily papers and periodi- cals. About this time the French Oratorian Gratry and Archbishop Dechanips of Mechlin opposed each other in controversial pamphlets. A letter published by Count Montalembert on 27 Feb., 1870, in which he spoke of an idol which hud been erected in the Vati- can, attracted much attention. In England, New- man gave anxious expression of his fears as to the bad results of the declaration of infallibility in a letter writ- ten in March, 1870, to his bishop, Ullathorne of Bir- mingham. The most extreme opponent was Pro- fessor DoUinger of Bavaria. In his "Romische Briefe vom Konzil", published in the "AUgemeine Zeitung" and issued in book form (Munich, 1870), under the pseudonym of "Quirinus", he used information sent him from Rome by his pupils, Johann Friedrich and Lord Acton. In these letters he did everything he could by distorting and casting doubts upon facts, by Bcorn and ridicule, to turn the public against the council. This was especially so in an article of 19 Jan., 1S70, in which he attacked so severely the address on infallibility, which had just become kno^s-n, that even Bishop Ketteler of Mainz, an old pupil of DoUinger's and a member of the minority, protested publicly against it. The Governments of the different coun- tries also took measures on the subject of infallibility. As soon as (he original draft of the decree "De ecclesia" with its canons was published in the ".AU- gemeine Zeitung", Count von Reust, Chancellor of Austria, sent a protest against it to Rome on 10 Feb., 1S70, which said that the .Austrian Government would forbid and punish the publication of .all decrees that were contrary to the laws of the State. The French minister of foreign affairs, Daru, also sent a threaten- ing memorandum on 20 Feb. He demanded the ad- mission of an envoy to the council, and notified the other Governments of his steps in Rome. .Austria, Bavaria, England, Spain, and Portugal declared their agreement with the memorandum. The president of the Prussian ministry, Bismarck, would not change
his attitude of reserve, notwithstanding the urgency
of von Arnim, the ambassador at Rome. On 18
April, the leader of the agitation. Count Daru, retired
from his post in the ministrj'. The president of the
French ministry, OUivier, assumed charge of foreign
affairs; he was determined to leave the coimcil free.
(3) . The Debates in the Council. — In the meantime the bishops of the minority in the council had con- stantly sought to block the matter, and especialh' to exert influence to this end on Cardinal Bilio, the presi- dent of the deputation on faith. If the members of the majority had not urged the fulfilment with the same perseverance, papal infallibility would never have reached debate. Finalh-, on 29 April, during the forty-seventh general congregation, the president in- terrupted the second debate on the smaller Catechism by the announcement that as .soon as possible the fathers should receive for examination the draft of a Constitution, "De Romano Pontifice", which would contain the dogma of the primacy and of the infalli- bility of the pope. For this purpose the deputation on faith had altered the eleventh and twelfth chapters of the old draft of the Constitution "De ecclesia". On 9 May it was distributed among the fathers in printed form as the "Constitutio prima de ecclesia", consist- ing of 4 chapters and 3 canons. For a full month (13 May-13 June) the general debate over the draft as a whole was carried on in fourteen general congre- gations, and sixty-four, mostly very long, speeches were delivered. The following special debates over the separate chapters and canons lasted more than a month. Not less than a hundred speakers took part in the discussions, which were carried on from 6 Jmie to 13 July, in 22 congregations. Most of the speeches were on the fourth chapter, which treated papal in- fallibility. The most prominent speakers of the minority were: French; Darboy, GinouUiiac. Maret; German ;Hefele, Ketteler, Dinkel; Austrian; Rancher, Schwarzenberg, Strossmayer; United States of America and Canada; Verot and Connolly. Arch- bishop Kenrick of St. Louis, who lost his opportunity to speak by the closing of the general debate, pub- lished in pamjihlet form his "Concio in concilio ha- benda, at non habita". On the other hand the con- ciliar speech published under the name of Bishop Strossmayer is a forgery perpetrated by an apostate Augustinian monk from Mexico, Jose Agostino de Escudero, who was then in Italy (cf. Granderath- Kirch, III, 189). The majority were chiefly repre- sented by the French members of the council; Pie and Freppel; the Belgian member, Dechanips; the English member, Manning; the Irish, Cullen; the Italian members, Gastaldi and Valerga; the Spanish member, Paya y Rico; the Austrian, Gasser; the German mem- bers, Martin and Senestrey; the American member, Spalding. Several members of the minority as Ken- rick, Bauscher, Hefele, Schwarzenberg, and Ketteler, discussed the question of infallibility in pamphlets that they individually issued, to which naturally the majority were not slow to reply. The most impor- tant of these answers was the ".Animadversiones" of the conciliar theologian, W. Wilmers, S.J., in which the writings of the last four of the antagonists just mentioned were, in succession, thoroughly confuted. Scarcely in any pailiament have important matters ever been subjected to as much discussion as was the question of papal infallibility in the Vatican Council. In the course of two months all the rea.sons pro and con had been again and again discussed, and only what had been already often said could now be re- pealed. Consequently in the eight>'-second general congregation held on 4 July, most of those who still had the right to sjieak, not only of the majority, but also of the minority, renounced the privilege, and the cardinal president was able, amid general applause, to close the debates.
(4) Final Voting and Definition. — The time of the
