Petri Privilegium/II/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
TWO EFFECTS OF THE COUNCIL CERTAIN.
Whether the first Council of the Vatican will define that the Vicar of Jesus Christ, speaking ex cathedrâ, in matter of faith and morals, is infallible or no, is, and, till the event, must remain a secret with God; but whatsoever the decision of the Council may be, we shall assuredly know that its decision is infallibly right, and we shall embrace it not only with obedience, but with the interior assent of mind and will.
There are, however, two things which the Council will certainly accomplish. First, it will bring out more visibly than ever the only alternative proposed to the human intellect,—namely, rationalism or faith; and next, it will show to the civil powers of the Christian world the inevitable future they are now preparing for themselves.
As to the former, it will be more than ever manifest that the basis upon which God has willed that His revelation should rest in the world is, in the natural order, the testimony of the Catholic Church, which, if considered only as a human and historical witness, affords the highest and most certain evidence for the fact and for the contents of the Christian revelation. They who deny the sufficiency of this human and historical evidence ruin the basis of Christianity; they who, under the pretensions of historical criticism, deny the witness of the Catholic Church to be the maximum of evidence, even in a historical sense, likewise ruin the foundation of moral certainty in respect to Christianity altogether. If the historical evidence of the Catholic Church for the stability of the faith in the See and the Successor of Peter be not sufficient to prove, as a fact of history, that the Christian Church has so held and taught, history is altogether a poor and slender foundation for the events and actions of the past. The pretentious historical criticism of these days has prevailed, and will prevail, to undermine the peace and the confidence, and even the faith of some. But the 'City seated on a hill' is still there, high and out of reach. It cannot be hid, and is its own evidence, anterior to its history and independent of it. Its history is to be learned of itself.
The Catholic Church is not only a human and historical witness of its own origin, constitution, and authority; it is also a supernatural and divine witness, which can neither fail nor err. In the natural order of human evidence, it is a sufficient motive to convince a prudent man that Christianity is a divine revelation. This motive of credibility is sufficient for the act of faith in the Church as a divine witness. In the supernatural order, the Church is thereby known to be divine in its foundation, constitution, and endowments. The same evidence which proves Christianity to be a divine revelation proves the Catholic Church to be a part of the faith of Christianity, and to be likewise the incorporation and channel of truth and grace to the world. The same evidence which proves the Catholic Church to be divinely founded, proves it also to be infallible; and the same evidence which proves the Church to be infallible proves the infallibility of the See and Successor of Peter. I have already said that the evidence for the infallibility of the See and Successor of Peter exceeds in explicitness and extent the evidence for the infallibility of the Church, without reference to its Head and centre. But this cumulus of evidence proves that the Church and its Head are the visible and audible witness, sustained and guided by a divine assistance in declaring the revelation of Jesus Christ to the world. It is not, therefore, by criticism on past history, but by acts of faith in the living voice of the Church at this hour, that we can know the faith. It is not by the fallible criticism of the human mind on the dubious, or, if so be, even the authentic writings of uninspired men, but by faith in the divine order of the Christian world, that God wills us to learn the doctrines of revelation. Unless historical criticism lead us into the presence of a Divine Witness, and deliver us over to His teaching, our highest certainties are but human. No historical certainty can be called Science, except only by courtesy. Even Theology, which may be resolved into principles of absolute certainty by way of faith, is not properly a science.[1] It is time that the pretensions of 'historical science,' and 'scientific historians,' be reduced to their proper sphere and limits. And this the Council will do, not by contention or anathema, but by the words, 'it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.'
The other certain result of the Council will be, to make more than ever manifest to the civil powers of the Christian world the inevitable future they are now preparing for themselves.
A member of the Corps Législatif in France, two years ago, announced that, in the Bull of Indiction of the Council, the Holy Father, by omitting to invite the civil governments to take part in it, had proclaimed the separation of Church and State.
A moment's thought will be enough to explain why no civil government was invited to attend. What government, at this day, professes to be Catholic? How should any government which does not even claim to be Catholic be invited? What country in Europe, at this day, recognises the unity and authority of the Catholic Church as a part of its public laws? What country has not, by royal edicts, or legislative enactments, or revolutionary changes, abolished the legal status of the Catholic Church within its territory? On what plea, then, could they be invited? As governments or nations, they have, by their own act, withdrawn themselves from the unity of the Church. As moral or legal persons, they are Catholic no longer. The faithful, indeed, among their subjects will be represented in the Council by their pastors; and their pastors are not only invited, but obliged to be present. If any separation has taken place, it is because the civil powers have separated themselves from the Church. They have created the fact, the Holy See has only recognised it. The gravity of the fact is not to be denied. It is strange that, with the immutability of the Church, and the 'progress,' as it is vaunted, of society before their eyes, men should charge upon the Church the responsibility of breaking its relations with society. The Church at one and the same time is accused of immobility and of change. It is not the Church which has departed from unity, science, liberty; but society which has departed from Christianity and from faith. It is said: 'If Christian unity be destroyed, if science have separated from faith, if liberty choose to reign without religion, a terrible share of the responsibility for these evils rests upon the men who have represented in the Christian world unity, faith, and religion.' Does this mean, upon the Episcopate, Councils, and Pontiffs? Who, if not these, 'have represented in the Christian world unity, faith, and religion'? Have they, then, misrepresented these things to the world? If so, who shall represent them? and where, then, is the Divine office of the Church? The Pontiffs have been for generations lifting up their voice in vain to warn the governments of Christendom of the peril of breaking the bonds which unite civil society to the faith and to the Church. They have maintained inflexibly, and at great suffering and danger, their own temporal dominion, not only for the spiritual independence of the Church, but for the consecration of civil society. But the governments of the Christian world would not listen; and now a General Council meets, and the place where, as at the Lateran, at Florence, and at Trent, they would have sat, is empty. The tendency of civil society everywhere is to depart further and further from the Church. Progress in these days means to advance along the line of departure from the old Christian order of the world. The civil society of Christendom is the offspring of the Christian family, and the foundation of the Christian family is the sacrament of matrimony. From this spring domestic and public morals. Most governments of Europe have ceased to recognise in marriage anything beyond the civil contract, and, by legalising divorce, have broken up the perpetuity of even that natural contract. With this will surely perish the morality of society and of homes. A settlement in the foundations may be slow in sinking, but it brings all down at last. The civil and political society of Europe is steadily returning to the mere natural order. The next step in de-Christianising the political life of nations is to establish national education without Christianity. This is systematically aimed at wheresoever the Revolution has its way. This may, before long, be attempted among ourselves. It is already in operation elsewhere. The Church must then form its own schools; and the civil power will first refuse its aid, and soon its permission, that parents should educate their offspring except in State universities and State schools. The period and policy of Julian is returning. All this bodes ill for the Church; but worse for the State. The depression of the moral order of right and truth is the elevation of the material order of coercion and of force. The civil powers of the world do not choose this course; they only advance in it. There is behind them a power invisible, which urges them onward in their estrangements from the Church; and that unseen power is at work everywhere. It is one, universal, invisible, but not holy; the true natural and implacable enemy of the One, Visible, Universal Church. The anti-Christian societies are one in aim and operation, even if they be not one in conscious alliance. And the governments of the world, some consciously, others unconsciously, disbelieving the existence of such societies, and therefore all the more surely under their influence, are being impelled towards a precipice over which monarchies and law and the civil order of the Christian society of men will go together. It is the policy of the secret societies to engage governments in quarrels with Rome. The breach is made, and the Revolution enters. The Catholic society of Europe has been weakened, and wounded, it may be, unto death. The Catholic Church now stands alone, as in the beginning, in its divine isolation and power. 'Et nunc, reges, intelligite; erudimini, qui judicatis terram.' There is an abyss before you, into which thrones and laws and rights and liberties may sink together. You have to choose between the Revolution and the Church of God. As you choose, so will your lot be. The General Council gives to the world one more witness for the truths, laws, and sanctities which include all that is pure, noble, just, venerable upon earth. It will be an evil day for any State in Europe if it engage in conflict with the Church of God. No weapon formed against it ever yet has prospered. The governments of Europe have been for the last year agitated and uncertain; the attitude of France is wise and deliberate, worthy of a great people with the traditions of Catholic history at its back. The attitude of other great powers is also hitherto dignified and serious, proportionate to great responsibilities. Lesser potentates and their counsellors may circulate notes and resolve questions, and furnish matter for newspapers; but they are not the men to move mountains.
Whilst I was writing these lines a document has appeared purporting to be the answers of the Theological Faculty of Munich to the questions of the Bavarian Government.[2]
The questions and the answers are so evidently concerted, if not written by the same hand, and the animus of the document so evidently hostile to the Holy See, and so visibly intended to create embarrassments for the supreme authority of the Church, both in respect to its past acts and also in respect to the future action of the Œcumenical Council, that I cannot pass it over. But in speaking of it I am compelled, for the first time, to break silence on a danger which has for some years been growing in its proportions, and, I fear I must add, in its attitude of menace. The answers of the University of Munich are visibly intended to excite fear and alarm in the civil powers of Europe, and thereby to obstruct the action of the Œcumenical Council if it should judge it to be opportune to define the Infallibility of the Pope. The answers are also intended to create an impression that the theological proofs of the doctrine are inadequate, and its definition beset with uncertainty and obscurity. In a word, the whole correspondence is a transparent effort to obstruct the freedom of the Œcumenical Council on the subject of the infallibility of the Pontiff; or, if that doctrine be defined, to instigate the civil governments to assume a hostile attitude towards the Holy See. And this comes in the name of liberty, and from those who tell us that the Council will not be free!
I shall take the liberty, without further words, of dismissing the Bavarian Government from our thoughts. But I must declare, with much regret, that this Munich document appears to me to be seditious.
Facts like these give a certain warrant to the assertions and prophecies of politicians and Protestants. They prove that in the Catholic Church there is a school at variance with the doctrinal teaching of the Holy See in matters which are not of faith. But they do not reveal how small that school is. Its centre would seem to be at Munich; it has, both in France and in England, a small number of adherents. They are active, they correspond, and, for the most part, write anonymously. It would be difficult to describe its tenets, for none of its followers seem to be agreed in all points. Some hold the infallibility of the Pope, and some defend the Temporal Power. Nothing appears to be common to all, except an animus of opposition to the acts of the Holy See in matters outside the faith.
In this country, about a year ago, an attempt was made to render impossible, as it was confidently but vainly thought, the definition of the infallibility of the Pontiff by reviving the monotonous controversy about Pope Honorius. Later we were told of I know not what combination of exalted personages in France for the same end. It is certain that these symptoms are not sporadic and disconnected, but in mutual understanding and with a common purpose. The anti-Catholic press has eagerly encouraged this school of thought. If a Catholic can be found out of tune with authority by half a note, he is at once extolled for unequalled learning and irrefragable logic. The anti-Catholic journals are at his service, and he vents his opposition to the common opinions of the Church by writing against them anonymously. Sad as this is, it is not formidable. It has effect almost alone upon those who are not Catholic. Upon Catholics its effect is hardly appreciable; on the Theological Schools of the Church it will have little influence; upon the Œcumenical Council it can have none.
I can hardly persuade myself to believe that the University of Munich does not know that the relations between the Pope, even supposed to be infallible, and the civil powers have been long since precisely defined in the same acts which defined the relations between the Church, known to be infallible, and the civil authority. Twelve Synods or Councils, two of them Œcumenical, have long ago laid down these relations of the spiritual and civil powers.[3] If the Pope were declared to be infallible to-morrow, it would in no way affect those relations.
We may be sure, reverend and dear brethren, that this intellectual disaffection, of which, in these last days, we have had in France a new and mournful example, will have no influence upon either the Œcumenical Council, or the policy of the Great Powers of Europe. They will not meddle with speculations of theological or historical critics. They know too well that they cannot do in the nineteenth century what was done in the sixteenth and the seventeenth.
The attempt to put a pressure upon the General Council, if it have any effect upon those who are subject to certain Governments, would have no effect but to rouse a just indignation in the Episcopate of the Church throughout the world. They hold their jurisdiction from a higher fountain; and they recognise no superior in their office of Judges of Doctrine save only the Vicar of Jesus Christ. This preliminary meddling has already awakened a sense of profound responsibility and an inflexible resolution to allow no pressure, or influence, or menace, or intrigue to cast so much as a shadow across their fidelity to the Divine Head of the Church and to His Vicar upon earth.
Moreover, we live in days when the 'Regium Placitum' and 'Exequaturs' and 'Arrêts' of Parliament in spiritual things are simply dead. It may have been possible to hinder the promulgation of the Council of Trent: it is impossible to hinder the promulgation of the Council of the Vatican. The very liberty of which men are proud will publish it. Ten thousand presses in all lands will promulgate every act of the Church and of the Pontiff, in the face of all civil powers. Once published, these acts enter the domain of faith and conscience, and no human legislation, no civil authority, can efface them. The two hundred millions of Catholics will know the decrees of the Vatican Council; and to know them is to obey. The Council will ask no civil enforcement, and it will need no civil aid. The Great Powers of Europe have long declared that the conscience of men is free from civil constraint. They will not stultify their own declarations by attempting to restrain the acts of the Vatican Council. The guardians and defenders of the principles of 1789 ought to rise as one man against all who should so violate the base of the political society in France. What attitude lesser Governments may take is of lesser moment.
May He in whose hands are the destinies of kingdoms and of nations guide the rulers of Christendom by a spirit of wisdom and justice at this crisis of their trial. This Council will assuredly be 'in ruinam et in resurrectionem multorum.' If Christian nations be desolated, then will come the alternatives of anti-Christian socialism, or the Catholic order of the world, purified in the fire and reunited to the centre of stability and justice, from which it is now departing. Those who desire such a future are busy in scattering fears, mistrusts, and falsehoods as to the acts of the Council, and even of the intentions of the Sovereign Pontiff. These ignoble tactics have been rebuked with a calm and dignified severity by the bishops of Germany, whose words I had rather use than my own: 'Never will the Œcumenical Council declare a new doctrine which is not contained in the Scriptures, or the Apostolic traditions. When the Church makes a decree in matter of faith, it does not proclaim a new dogma; it only sets in a clearer light an ancient and primordial truth, and defends it against new errors.' 'In a word, the Œcumenical Council will declare no new principle, nor any other than that which is already graven on your hearts by your faith and conscience; or than those which have been held sacred for ages by Christian peoples, on which repose, and have ever reposed, the welfare of States, the authority of magistrates, the liberty of nations, and which are at the same time the foundations of true science and true civilisation.'[4]
There is one thing against which it is our duty to be on our guard; I mean a fearful and timid anxiety as to the results of the Council and as to the future of the Church. It is the illusion of some minds to imagine that the Church was strong once, but is weak now; that the days of its supremacy are over, and that now it is in decline. The reverse is the fact. There was never a time since the Apostles descended from the guest-chamber to traverse the world, when the universality of the Church was so manifest, and its divine jurisdiction so widespread. There was never a moment when the unity of the Church both within and without, that is the unity of the faithful with their pastors, and of the pastors with their Head, the unanimity of pastors and flocks in faith and in charity, was so solid and invincible. From the mystery of the Holy Trinity to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, there is not a doctrine of faith on which Catholics in all the world differ by a shade. Peter's faith has not failed, and the Church rests on Peter's faith. We may be upon the eve of a great conflict, but the conflict is the forerunner of a greater manifestation of the Kingdom of God on earth. The eyes of men are looking one way, as they that look for the morning. They are hungering after rest, certainty, and truth. They have sought it up and down, and have not found it. The broken cisterns will hold no water; and the dim tradition of a fountain far off and yet at hand, closed to the world but ever open to all who will, is rising again upon their memory. The nations of the Christian world have been deceived, and turned against the Mother that bare them. But the unrest, and the unsatisfied craving of the heart and of the reason, is drawing them once more toward the only Church. All countries, above all our own, are conscious, in their political, religious, and intellectual life, of desires they cannot satisfy, and needs they cannot meet. 'As he that is hungry dreameth and eateth, but when he is awake his soul is empty: and as he that is thirsty dreameth and drinketh, and after he is awake is yet faint with thirst and his soul is empty; so shall be the multitude of all the nations that have fought against Mount Sion.'[5] It is the conflict with the Church of God that has wasted and withered the spiritual and intellectual life of Europe. England, with all its faults, is very dear to us. It has still a zeal for God; and the face of our land is yet beautiful with the memories of our Saints and Martyrs. The Council has moved it with strange and kindly aspirations. England hopes for some clearing in the dark sky which for the last three hundred years has lowered upon it; for some light upon the horizon; some change which will open to it once more the unity of Christendom and the rest of immutable faith. You will labour and pray that this visitation of the Spirit of God, now sensibly breathing over England, and over all the Christian world, may open the hearts of men, and prepare them for His voice, which, through this Council, is calling them home to the Mother of us all, the only fountain of grace and truth.
I remain, reverend and dear Brethren,
Rosary Sunday, 1869.