individuals the liberty to force the Council to listen as long as they are pleased either to waste its time or to obstruct its judgment. In political assemblies, the house puts an end to debates by a peremptory and inexorable cry of 'question' or 'divide.' The assemblies of the Church are of another temper. But they are not deprived of the same essential rights; and by a free vote they may decide either to listen, or not to listen, as the judgment of the Council shall see fit. To deny this is to deny the liberty of the Council; and under the pretext of liberty to claim a tyranny for the few over the will of the many.[1]
Obvious as is this liberty and right of the Council to close its discussions when it shall see fit, there exists only one example on record in which it did so. With exemplary patience it listened to what the House of Commons would have pronounced to be interminable discussions and interminable speeches. On the general discussion of the Schema De Romano Pontifice some eighty
- ↑ I cannot help here marking a historical parallel. Those who had been invoking the anti-Catholic public opinion, and even the civil governments of all countries, to control the Holy See and the Council, complained of oppression and the violation of their liberty.
When Napoleon held Pius VII. prisoner at Fontainebleau, and by every form of threat and influence had deprived him of liberty, the following warning was given by Colonel Lagorse to Cardinal Pacca, then in attendance on the Pope: 'That the Emperor was displeased with the Cardinals, for having, ever since their arrival at Fontainebleau, continually restricted the Pope from a condition of free agency; that provided they were desirous of remaining at Fontainebleau, they must abstain from all manner of interference in matters of business. … Failing in the above conditions, they would expose themselves to the hazard of losing their liberty.'—Memoirs of Cardinal Pacca, vol. ii. p. 192.
