The 18th of July 1870 is from any point of view one of the most critical days in the history of the Papacy. It is the transition from old Catholicism into new. It is the consummation of a theory of spiritual authority; the centralising and condensing of all power in one individual. It is not in the least the necessary or the logical conclusion of the principle of authority: for the expression of authority, either through the Collective Episcopate or through reception by the Universal Church, is just as consistent and just as logical; and has the additional advantage of corresponding with the primitive facts of Christian history.
The 18th of July was also a momentous date in the annals of the Roman temporal power. On the very next day began the Franco-Prussian War. From that date onwards the tragedy of conflict precluded any meeting of German and French Bishops in Council at Rome. The Council was necessarily interrupted, its resumption indefinitely postponed. The disaster to France meant the recalling of the French troops from Rome. Then followed the capture of the city by United Italy, and the establishment of the Italian Throne at the gates of the Vatican. The temporal power of the Papacy vanished like a dream, and Pius IX. considered himself a prisoner within the Vatican precincts. The canon of the Castle of St Angelo announced the entry of King Humbert, and various convents and palaces were seized and confiscated for secular departments and imperial uses.
A curious Italian comment on the opposition in the French Episcopate may be found in the diary of Cardinal Pitra, a learned member of the Benedictine Order, resident during the Council in Rome. Cardinal Pitra was librarian of the Vatican, and placed himself in that capacity at the disposal of the Bishops. If he kept aloof from the intrigues of every kind which, says his biographer, were then so numerous, he kept a careful diary of the events in which he displays himself as a decided Ultramontane. He even adopted the paradox that the passing of the new decree would diminish rather than increase the abyss between the Eastern Churches and Rome. But Pitra’s comments after the French retreat illustrates contemporary feeling. He thought that the Franco-German War, which immediately broke out, was providentially designed to prevent concerted action between the Bishops of these two countries. When the Italians entered Rome one of their first acts was to destroy the villa where Dupanloup during the Council had resided. This was, according to Pitra, because Providence desired to efface the reminders of opposition. Pitra traced the course of the war, and noted how the soldiers advanced through Metz, Rheims, Paris, and Orleans—all Gallican cities; whereas they did not reach Besançon, Dijon, and Marseilles—all Ultramontane Episcopates. “We are here,” murmurs the Cardinal, “witnesses to the preliminaries of the Judgment Day.”
Cecconi, Archbishop of Florence, who collected many documents concerned with the struggle, relates that Pius IX. used to distinguish three periods of the Council: the preparations; the assemblies; the conclusion. Of these, the first period was Satanic, the second Human, the third Divine.[384]
But before a minority Bishop could assent to the new Decree, there were questions to be faced and answered; questions which he must answer in his own behalf, and which also he was certain to find assailing him, whether from his Clergy or Laity, who like himself had hitherto deprecated the doctrine or disbelieved it. There was the question, perhaps, first of all, Is this Council ecumenical? Is it a true exponent of the Universal Church? There are Councils of many kinds, with varying degrees of authority, legitimately responded to with varying degrees of respect. Is this Council of the highest kind—that which possesses a real and absolute finality? This question was widely debated within the Roman body. It was said by high authorities in the Roman Communion that the Vatican Council did not fulfil the conditions of freedom essential to the creation of a dogma of the faith. Many writers of the period assert this; some in the most impassioned terms. Hefele emphatically declared it. Some affirmed that moral unanimity was essential to representation of the Universal Church. Such unanimity, it was notorious, the vote for Infallibility did not possess. Accordingly there was no rush of the defeated Bishops into immediate acquiescence. On the contrary, there was suspense, uncertainty, delay. Individual isolated Bishops took no decided steps. They waited to see what others would do, what time would produce, what thought and reflection might suggest.
Fessler, indeed, late Secretary of the Vatican Assembly, assured them that their course was clear. He drew a sketch of the conduct which he considered would be ideal for a perplexed Bishop under these trying circumstances.
“If even up to ... the last General Congregation before the Solemn Session a Bishop is not satisfied as to all his difficulties, or if he thinks it better that the decision should not yet be pronounced on such and such a doctrine, he may, in the interval between the last General Congregation and the Solemn Session, acquire a full conviction on the subject by discoursing with other theologians, by study of the subject and by prayer, and may thus overcome his last difficulties, and see that it is well that the definition should be made.”
This portion of Fessler’s advice was not much use since it appeared subsequently to the final Session. Whether the advice to “acquire a full conviction” in the interval between the last General Congregation and the Solemn Session would have been very valuable, may be judged from the fact that the interval for “discourse with other theologians,” “study and prayer,” was two days. The subsequent struggles will show what the minority Bishops thought of acquiring a full conviction in two days.
Should, however, the best use of the interval prove unavailing, Fessler’s advice was as follows:—
“Nay, even if he cannot attain this full conviction and insight into the matter by any exertion of his own, he will wait for the decision of the Council with a calm trust in God, without himself taking part in it, because up to this point he lacks the necessary certainty of conviction. When, however, the Council by its decision puts an end to the matter, then at length his Catholic conscience tells him plainly what he must now think, and what he must now do; for it is then that the Catholic Bishop, whom hitherto unsolved difficulties have kept from participation in the Public Session, and from the solemn voting, says: ‘Now it is undoubtedly certain that this doctrine is revealed by God, and is therefore a portion of the Catholic faith, and therefore I accept it on faith, and must now proclaim it to my clergy and people as a doctrine of the Catholic Church. The difficulties which hitherto made it hard for me to give my consent, and to the perfect solution of which I have not even yet attained, must be capable of a solution; and so I shall honestly busy myself with all the powers of my soul to find their solution for myself, and for those whose instruction God has confided to my care.’”
Fessler omits all recognition of the possibility that men if placed in a dilemma between Authority and History may choose the latter. The effect of the Decree on many Bishops was not in the least to compel the confession, ‘Now it is undoubtedly certain that this doctrine is revealed’: rather it was to awaken the criticism, now it is profoundly uncertain whether this Council is ecumenical.
Such is Fessler’s advice to Bishops who doubted the truth of the doctrine. To those who only considered its definition inopportune his counsel was:—
“Those Bishops who in the last General Congregation voted with the non placets, only because they really thought it was not a good thing, not necessary, not for the benefit of souls in countries well known to them, and who for this reason abstained from taking part in this decision, may after the solemn decision, if they think it advisable, represent to the faithful of their dioceses the position which they previously adopted towards the doctrine, in order that their conduct may not be misunderstood. But they must now themselves unhesitatingly accept the doctrine which has been decided, and make it known to their people in its true and proper bearings, without reserve, and in such a manner that the injurious effects which they themselves apprehended may be as much as possible obviated and removed; for it is not permitted to the Bishop, as the divinely-appointed teacher of the clergy and people, to be silent about or to withhold a doctrine of the Faith revealed by God, because he apprehends or thinks that some may take offence at it. Nay, rather it is his business so prudently to bring it about in the declaration of that doctrine, that its true sense and import may hereafter be clearly represented, all erroneous misrepresentations of it be excluded, the reasons for the decision of the doctrine brought out plainly, and all objections to it zealously met and answered.”[385]
No one gave greater weight to the obvious difficulties which the methods employed at Rome had created for the Decree, no one formulated them with more simplicity and frankness than Dr Newman. His letters showed how he laboured to suggest plausible grounds for assent to the new Decree, while leaving the ecumenical character of the Council for future solution. And, remembering that these letters were addressed to the believers and not to the outer world, nothing can show more strikingly than the arguments which Dr Newman employs, the profound perplexity into which many Romanists were thrown.
In a letter[386] written six days after the Decree was passed he says:—
“I saw the new Definition yesterday, and am pleased at its moderation—that is, if the doctrine is to be defined at all. The terms are vague and comprehensive; and personally I have no difficulty in admitting it. The question is, Does it come to me with the authority of an Ecumenical Council?
“Now the primâ facie argument is in favour of its having that authority. The Council was legitimately called; it was more largely attended than any Council before it....
“Were it not then for certain circumstances under which the Council made the definition, I should receive that definition at once.
“Even as it is, if I were called upon to profess it, I should be unable, considering it came from the Holy Father and the competent local authorities, at once to refuse to do so. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that there are reasons for a Catholic, till better informed, to suspend his judgment on its validity.
“We all know that ever since the opening of the Council there has been a strenuous opposition to the definition of the doctrine; and that, at the time when it was actually passed, more than eighty Fathers absented themselves from the Council, and would have nothing to do with its act. But if the fact be so, that the Fathers were not unanimous, is the definition valid? This depends upon the question whether unanimity at least moral is or is not necessary for its validity? As at present advised I think it is....
“Certainly Pius IV. lays great stress on the unanimity of the Fathers in the Council of Trent.... Far different has been the case now—though the Council is not yet finished. But if I must now at once decide what to think of it, I should consider that all turned on what the dissentient Bishops now do.
“If they separate and go home without acting as a body, if they act only individually or as individuals, and each in his own way, then I should not recognise in their opposition to the majority that force, firmness, and unity of view, which creates a real case of want of moral unanimity in the Council....”
But it is impossible not to feel that dogmas which men are recommended to accept on such extenuating pleas, dogmas whose irregularity is acknowledged so long as their validity is saved, dogmas which depend for their acceptance on the melting away of the episcopal minority, were evidently straining the faith of Catholics almost to breaking point, or they would never have been defended in such a manner. Here is nothing of the devout thankfulness for fuller enlightenment, or the triumph of truth; nothing of the glad recognition of a decision guided by the Holy Ghost. Newman could never have treated the Nicene Council as he did the Vatican. Behind these endeavours, to prevent secession or schism, lies Newman’s recorded conviction in his letter to Ullathorne.
Newman’s theory that the ecumenical character of the Council might be ascertained from its ultimate acceptance, that acquiescence on the part of the defeated minority would atone for any irregularities in the passing of the Decree, by no means carried conviction to many of the perplexed. The nature of the doctrine decreed seemed to exclude this kind of defence. For if the utterances of the Pope are infallible of themselves, and not from the consent of the Episcopate, it is difficult to base that Infallibility upon episcopal consent. Instead of waiting to see what the Episcopate might do it would appear more appropriate to consider what the Pope had done. And in another letter written within the same anxious month this is precisely the view which Newman takes.[387]
“I have been thinking over the subject which just now gives you and me, with thousands of others, who care for religion, so much concern.
“First, till better advised, nothing shall make me say that a mere majority in a Council, as opposed to a moral unanimity, in itself creates an obligation to receive its dogmatic Decrees. This is a point of history and precedent, and, of course, on further examination I may find myself wrong in the view which I take of history and precedent; but I do not, cannot see, that a majority in the present Council can of itself rule its own sufficiency without such external testimony.
“But there are other means by which I can be brought under the obligation of receiving a doctrine as a dogma.”
And he proceeds to enumerate uninterrupted tradition, Scripture inference, etc. And then he propounds the theory that “the fact of a legitimate Superior having defined it, may be an obligation in conscience to receive it with an internal assent.... In this case I do not receive it on the word of the Council, but on the Pope’s self-assertion.”
This he supports by an appeal to the historic authority which the Pope has actually exercised, and to
“the consideration that our merciful Lord would not care so little for His elect people, the multitude of the faithful, as to allow their visible Head and such a large number of Bishops to lead them into error; and an error so serious, if an error.”
No one can fail to be impressed with Newman’s painful consciousness of the Council’s indefensible irregularities; with his refusal to acknowledge a powerful majority as equivalent to moral unanimity; with his desire to see if the dogma cannot be accepted on other grounds than the Council’s authority, and in particular on the Pope’s self-assertion. All this would, of course, be absolutely unconvincing to any adherent of the ancient conception that the supreme authority is not to be found in the Pope’s self-assertion, but in the Collective Episcopate. But it manifests profound misgivings about the Vatican Council and its methods. The thought that the merciful Lord would not permit His people to be led into error on so serious a subject depends for its value on the solemn question, whether the gifts of God are in any way conditional. If the transmission of grace depends upon conformity to conditions so also does the transmission of truth. If human co-operation is necessary to the achievement of human enlightenment, then the neglect of compliance with these conditions, the refusal of that co-operation, will be attended with serious losses which the merciful Lord must not be expected to prevent. The graver the misgivings created by the coercive methods of the Vatican majority, the more urgent becomes the enquiry, whether their refusal to comply with the true conditions of conciliar freedom would not be punished by the nemesis of a misleading Decree. Newman’s misgivings on the Council’s integrity cancel his appeal to the thought of the mercifulness of our Lord. This, at any rate, is what many within the Roman Communion undoubtedly felt. They did not believe in the rightfulness of expecting Providence to nullify the perverseness and self-will of an overwhelming majority.
Subtle, attractive, bearing in every line of it the distinctive impress of his wonderful personality, Newman’s defence is remarkable rather as a tour de force than for argumentative solidity. Newman’s personal assent to the dogma was indisputably complete. He said, indeed, all that it was possible to say. But even his brilliant genius could scarcely efface the effect of his own letter written to Bishop Ullathorne before the dogma was passed.
“Moreover,” he wrote, “a letter of mine became public property. That letter ... was one of the most confidential I ever wrote in my life. I wrote it to my own Bishop under a deep sense of the responsibility I should incur were I not to speak out to him my whole mind. I put the matter from me when I had said my say, and kept no proper copy of the letter. To my dismay I saw it in the public prints: to this day I do not know, nor suspect, how it got there. I cannot withdraw it, for I never put it forward, so it will remain on the columns of newspapers whether I will or not; but I withdraw it as far as I can by declaring that it was never meant for the public eye.”
Certainly it needed no assurance from the writer to convince us that this letter was not designed for publicity. It is equally impossible not to feel that in that letter we have the writer’s mind in its full expression. The very fact that it was never meant for the public eye means that it was written without that caution and restraint imposed by watchful critics and extremist partisans always ready to pounce upon Newman and denounce him as a minimiser at Rome. Thus we have his frankest declaration here. And that declaration was much too frank to be convenient. It naturally hampered him now that the doctrine was decreed. A certain inconsistency was required of him, and is reflected in his letters. Before the Council decreed he wrote[388] of the disputed doctrine, “I have ever thought it likely to be true; never thought it certain.” After the decision he wrote:[389] “For myself, ever since I was a Catholic, I have held the Pope’s Infallibility as a matter of theological opinion; at least I see nothing in the definition which necessarily contradicts Scripture, Tradition, or History.” Before the decision he wrote: “If it is God’s will that the Pope’s Infallibility be defined, then it is God’s will to throw back the times and moments of the triumph which He has destined for His kingdom.” After the decision he wrote: “For myself I did not call it inopportune, for times and seasons are known to God alone ... nor in accepting as a dogma what I had ever held as a truth, could I be doing violence to any theological view or conclusion of my own.”[390] No one will scrutinise too closely, or make exacting demands of rigorous self-identity, in letters written in the strain of so vast a change as that which the new Decree had wrought. Yet the various statements are part of the evidence to the effect produced, by the doctrine, upon the gifted mind then straining all its efforts to reassure the unsettled and retain them in the fold.
The second great question to be answered was, Does the Infallibility Dogma accord with History? Upon this subject Roman writers were greatly divided. Some asserted boldly that Papal Infallibility had always been held in the Church. Manning stated this in its extremest form. The doctrine had always been of divine faith. Newman was quite unable to accept this view, and supported Gladstone in rejecting it.
“Newman,” says Ambrose De Lisle, in a letter to Gladstone, “considers your reply to Archbishop Manning’s contention that Papal Infallibility was always held as a dogma of divine faith complete, and that you are triumphant in your denial of it—but, he adds, that is nothing to me. I conclude,” says De Lisle,[391] “because he deduces it, and holds that the Church has deduced it in these latter days out of the three texts he quotes in his letter to the Duke of Norfolk.”
According to this view then of Newman, Papal Infallibility was not to be sought in history. It would not be found in the age, for instance, of the Fathers—an age which Newman knew profoundly. It has slowly dawned upon the self-consciousness of the Church, and come to be realised that it possessed this organ of infallible utterance. Thus the necessity for squaring the Vatican Decree with History was entirely dispensed with. The principle of development was utilised to facilitate its acceptance and explain the apparent anomalies.
The Pope said Newman is “heir by default” to the ecumenical hierarchy of the fourth century. What was then ascribed to all the Bishops is now ascribed exclusively to him. Precisely so. But by what right? Newman does not say. The possibility of development in excess, a perverse development, is not discussed.
Thus the new Decree was, according to Newman, if De Lisle rightly interprets him, a deduction from three texts, of which the chief undoubtedly was, “I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.” No perpetual unvarying tradition could be claimed for it. But the Church makes inferences from Scripture, and comes to realise, what once it did not realise, that the Roman Pontiff is infallible.
Newman’s theory of the relation of Papal Infallibility to History greatly perplexed some whom it was designed to help.
“I confess that would not satisfy me,” wrote De Lisle....[392] “I am far from going to all lengths with the Archbishop (Manning) yet ... I hold ... that Papal Infallibility restricted as it is by the Vatican Definition, was always a part of Divine Revelation.... I maintain that it was always believed by the orthodox....”
Newman once wrote: “Whether the minute facts of history will bear me out in this view I leave to others to determine.” This distressed a student of history such as Lord Acton. “Döllinger,” said Acton, “would have feared to adopt a view for its own sake, without knowing how it would be borne out by the minute facts of history.”[393]
There were able and learned members of the Roman Communion to whom it was impossible to take refuge in Newman’s theory, that this was a case of legitimate development. The Catholic consciousness of early ages presented a theory out of which Papal Infallibility could never legitimately grow. For the primitive conception was the negative, they held, of such a view. The primitive theory, as the Councils of the Church made plain, placed the final authority in the Collective Episcopate. The transference of this authority from the entire body to one individual was to them no true development at all, but a dislocation in the Church’s original constitution. It really meant requiring one organ to discharge the functions of another; depriving the original organ of what had hitherto constituted its essential function. And this alteration or reversal of functions was beyond the legitimate power of any authority to make. It was indeed admitted to be a claim of vital character. Pius IX. declared the doctrine to be the very essence and basis of Catholicity. Strange, men thought, that this essence and basis had remained unrealised for many centuries in the Church’s consciousness. And when it was said, in reply, that practically the Pope had exercised this Infallibility, and that its exercise had met with a practical recognition and acceptance, Roman writers answered at once, “No; this is not true.” Undoubtedly the papal discussions have been accepted and believed. But hitherto there has always been space for belief that their validity depended not on their own inherent weight, but on the consent of the Church.
Professor Schulte, for instance, declared that though a Catholic born and bred, he had never believed in Papal Infallibility; nor could he find any authority for the July Decree either in Scripture, or in the Fathers, or in any other source of historical information.
Fessler endeavoured to crush this resistance by labelling it private judgment. He says of Schulte that he “refuses to accept the definition de fide of an Ecumenical Council; he cares nothing for the authority of the living teaching Church; only for what he thinks he finds in Scripture, in the Fathers, and in other genuine ancient sources. This is the way to forsake the Catholic Church altogether. Every one is to follow his own guidance, his own private judgment.”[394]
Expressed in such a form it seems a reductio ad absurdum. Surely the individual may be mistaken? And in the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom. Professor This on one side, the Episcopate on the other: can we doubt which to follow? Why then should not the professor make a sacrifice of his intellect? Because if you destroy a man’s confidence in his historic judgment in one instance, you ruin its validity in all others. Now, since it is by such a judgment that Christianity itself is accepted, to bid a man disparage his own judgment of history, is to undermine the very basis of his religion.
Men found themselves, therefore, placed by the Decree in a very terrible dilemma. An ecumenical decision must be true. But history appears to refute it. To accept the decision is to contradict the fact of history. To accept history is to reject authority. That was the difficulty. But no man can without grievous loss abandon what appears to him the truth. Others endeavour to reconcile Catholics to the new Decree by extenuating the greatness of the change. Bishop Ullathorne informed his people that “the Pope always wielded this Infallibility, and all men knew this to be the fact. What practical change, then, has the definition made?”[395] Yet the same writer could urge[396] that the character of the age, and the opposition within the Church, “rendered it all the more important that the Pope should be armed with that full strength.” It was then a great practical change. And this is what many Romans felt. There was something naïve in the simplicity with which Ullathorne wrote:[397] “The Infallibility leaves all things as before, excepting that now it is a term of communion.” Leaves all things as before! except that formerly men could disbelieve it and openly deny it, while now it is a term of communion, and to disbelieve is to be cast out. Ullathorne clearly found it beyond his power to give any satisfaction to the intelligence of his people. It amounted to a demand of blind assent to the hitherto discredited.
It remains to trace the attitude of the minority toward the new Decree. As a whole they give the impression of having been crushed, almost stunned. The dreamlike rapidity of the movements during these last six months; the sudden forcible erection of a hitherto controvertible and controverted opinion into an essential element of the Eternal Faith; the consequent intellectual and moral reversions demanded of them, left them in a state of complete disorganisation and confusion. Their collective inability in Rome to resist in the final Public Session; their opinion that such resistance would be incompatible with the respect due to the papal office, form conclusive evidence beforehand of their inability to continue a permanent resistance when isolated in their different dioceses. The individual Bishop was a lesser power than the Bishops assembled. He was separated in his diocese from the support of like minded prelates. And, if released from the immediate pressure of papal influence, he was incapacitated for anything like concerted action. As Bishop, he lived and spoke alone. Communication was difficult owing to war. International Meetings were impossible. Meanwhile the solitary Bishop was beset by all the local influences which the Nuncios, and Jesuits and other religious orders, knew so thoroughly well how to wield. Rome, it has been said, disbelieved in the capacity of the opposition to stand firm; and Rome had calculated with profound insight and accuracy.
Several fugitive Bishops took the precaution before they left Rome of sending a letter of submission[398] to the coming Decree.
The Archbishop of Cologne explained to the Pope that having given a qualified vote on 13th July he cannot conscientiously vote Yes on 18th July. Accordingly, with great distress, and out of reverence for the Pope, he will avail himself of the permission to depart: adding that he submits himself to what the Council is about to decree.
The Archbishop of Maintz wrote a similar apology. To oppose, in the Public Session, was repugnant to his feelings: nothing, therefore, remained but to depart; except to add that he submitted himself to the Council’s Decree, just as if he had remained to vote approval.
Before submission to the new dogma, the question was discussed, What constitutes promulgation of a Decree? Such discussion was quite in keeping with precedent. The Decrees of Trent had been discussed before they were admitted into the Church of France. Was any collective acceptance necessary, before the dogma could become obligatory upon the consciences of the faithful? True that Infallibility had been passed at Rome; but the Vatican Council was not closed—it was only adjourned. Did the decisions of a Council become obligations until the Council itself had finished its work? Questions of this character were argued at considerable length in the hope of some loophole or relief. They were, however, promptly crushed by a letter from the watchful Antonelli[399] to the Brussel’s Nuncio to the effect that the Decree was ipso facto binding on the Catholic world, and needed no further publication. This cut away the hope to which some Bishops clung, that they would not be required to take open action in cases where they knew acceptance of the doctrine to be morally impossible.
1. The Archbishop of Paris voted,[400] consistently with his entire attitude, against the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, on the critical day, 13th July. In the interview on Saturday 16th, he prefaced his expostulations with a promise to submit; but he also resolved to absent himself from the Public Session, and wrote to the Pope to say that he should not be present. On Sunday the 17th he saw the Pope again, and said farewell. No allusion was made to the events of the morrow, or to the Council’s voting. Pius confined himself to benevolent generalities, on the devotion of the Archbishop and clergy of Paris to the interests of the Church and of the Holy See.[401] The Pope and the Archbishop corresponded subsequently; but they never met again. Darboy left Rome when the Session was held, and returned home to his diocese. There he found everything in confusion, for the war against Prussia was declared. But he assembled his clergy at once, and commended them for refusing to be swayed by rumours which were necessarily unreliable, since those who spoke about the Council were not its members, while those who were its members had not the right to speak.[402] If there had been diversities of opinion in the Council on certain questions, these diversities were concerned less with the intrinsic value of the questions than with the losses or gains which their discussion might involve. With these, and similar generalities, he dismissed them. Further discussion and conference was prevented by the Franco-Prussian War, but it is clear that Darboy took no steps whatever to coerce his priests into explicit confession of the new decree or to enquire into their individual convictions.
But it was evident that Rome was more than discontented with the Archbishop’s indifference. It was desired that he should renew his assurances of personal belief, and exhibit some interest in the conversion of the reluctant. In February 1871 Bishop Maret wrote to the Archbishop of Paris[403] to say that he had sent in his own submission in the previous November.
“I am glad to hear it,” replied the Archbishop. “As for myself, separated from the world for five months by the siege of Paris, I have been unable to ascertain what was happening, or to correspond with my colleagues or with Rome. I have therefore done nothing; although I have given no one the right to doubt my opinions. Indeed the Pope knows them. He has my letter of 18th July. It was not so much the basis of the Decree as the question of its opportuneness which made us hesitate. All the world knows this; and, for my own part, I said it in full Council. It seems, therefore, to me superfluous to affirm to-day that I accept the Decree. It would be even misleading; for it would give grounds to the suggestion that I withheld my adherence to the present time—which is false. Still, if the Holy Father wishes, for the sake of people in general, that such a declaration should be made, it is a formality to which I will unhesitatingly yield.”[404]
The Archbishop found it prudent to take this course. In March 1871, he sent to the Pope a statement of sincere assent to the Decree.[405] He said that the War had prevented correspondence hitherto, and that his declaration might seem superfluous. But, as he hears that the Pope desires it, he hastens to gratify the wish. It was chiefly the question of opportuneness—he does not say entirely—which had prompted his opposition.
Pius IX. replied—but none too effusively. The Archbishop had been for years mistrusted and disliked in Rome, for the independence of his actions, his determination to govern his diocese himself, and his rejection of ultramontane convictions. It was scarcely to be expected that cordiality could exist in the very moment of his defeat. And his submission even now, was to say the least, somewhat curt. It stated the fact: no less, but no more. It is not the letter a man could write who believed himself to be the privileged recipient of a precious revelation of God’s truth. It was the bare submission to a dictate which could not be avoided except by expulsion. The Pope replied that he was consoled by the Archbishop’s sincere assent to the dogmatic definition of the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. He trusts that the Archbishop will hasten to propound to his people what he professes himself to believe. With this, the Pope sends his apostolic benediction. Newman once accused Pusey of discharging an olive branch from a catapult; Pius IX. seems here to illustrate the art of conveying a rebuke through the instrumentality of a blessing. It is one of the ironies of this story that the letter was never received.[406] These were the days of the Commune. The brave Archbishop, after exhibiting the most striking fortitude, was shot in prison. He never had the opportunity to read, or act upon, the Pope’s advice. To his place, but not to his principles, succeeded Archbishop Guibert, who had so greatly assisted the aims of Pius IX. by recommending, in the Select Committee of Proposals, that the new doctrine should be introduced with the Council’s deliberations. So the old order changed.
2. Dupanloup,[407] Bishop of Orleans, voted against the doctrine on the 13th of July, and left for his diocese rather than be present at the Public Session when the dogma was decreed. He wrote a letter of submission on 18th February 1871. He says that he has been prevented from writing by the Franco-Prussian War. Hearing that His Holiness desires to know his attitude to the constitution of 18th July, he wishes to say that he has no difficulty in the matter.
“I only wrote and spoke,” he says, “against the opportuneness of the definition. As to the doctrine I always held it not only in my heart, but in public writings.... I have no difficulty in again declaring my adhesion; only too happy if I can thereby offer Your Holiness any comfort in the midst of his heavy trials.”
Since his return from Rome he has written to his diocese that the conflicts of the Church are not like those of the world.
These assertions of Dupanloup as to his unvarying faith may possibly explain why a distinguished fellow-countryman and head of the French Government[408] could describe him in such terms as these: “everything about him indicates the irresistible dominion of impressions. So convinced is he of being in the right that he fails to be accurate to his demonstrations. He is a most imperious advocate of liberty, and always under the influence of preconceptions.”
3. Gratry may be taken next: Gratry—whose famous four letters had focussed in brilliant light the difficulties, the contradictions, the adverse facts, the ignorant methods, the falsified documents. Men wondered what steps the former priest of the Oratory would now take; now that the thing that he feared had come to pass, and the incredible was decreed. Gratry had endured much mental agony. “His own peace would certainly have been better insured,” says his biographer,[409] “had he not been interrupted in that later contemplative study of Christian philosophy by which he hoped to do somewhat to make his fellowmen less unhappy, less unfit. But he was urged as a matter of conscience to enter the turmoil of polemical strife, a strife more cruel to one who retained his childlike simplicity, his love of truth, and his boundless charity, to the last hour of life.”
Gratry was very ill of the malady which killed him; and it was not until November 1871, that he wrote[410] (evidently questioned by Guibert, the new Archbishop of Paris):
“Had I not been very ill and unable to write a letter I should have long since sent you my congratulations. I desire at least to-day, my lord, to say simply what it appears to me there was no necessity to say, namely that, like all my brethren in the priesthood, I accept the decrees of the Vatican Council. I cancel everything contrary to the decrees which I may have written on this subject before the decision.”[411]
The Archbishop sent a kindly reply to the effect that he had never doubted Gratry’s docility.
“By such noble and generous examples we harmonise our conduct with our convictions, and prove to the world that we are sincere in maintaining that the light of faith is superior to that of our feeble and vacillating reason.”
But how about the facts of history? Gratry effaced his interpretation; but he could not cancel the facts. How abandon his former convictions? That is precisely what Gratry’s colleagues required him to explain. An explanation, therefore, he attempted to give. To those who reproved him for accepting without reservation the Council’s decrees, he explains that, before the Decision, he argued in accordance with his conscience and his right; since the Decision, he had not said a word.
“Since the Decision, and immediately after it, I had two interviews with my Archbishop, Mgr. Darboy.[412] We were agreed both in words and in faith. He granted me my position in the Church of Paris, and my office of Professor of Theology at the Sorbonne. I was therefore at unity with my Bishop. That was obvious. It continued for nearly a year. Therefore, strictly speaking, no one has any right to question me; not even Mgr. Darboy’s successor. To require of me a public declaration would seem like revising the acts of his glorious predecessor and martyr for the faith. It is for this last reason most of all that those among my friends who urged me most to publish some declaration surprised and saddened me. I have constantly answered them that I have nothing to say, and nothing to write upon this subject.”
But, on reflecting that there was no necessity to cling tenaciously to strict rights, if an assurance would remove his brethren’s anxiety, Gratry wrote to his new Archbishop a letter of submission. That, he says, was easy. What would not have been easy was to say:—
“I have been a member and a soldier of the Catholic Church for half a century, but now comes an Ecumenical Council which I do not acknowledge. I therefore separate from its Communion. To contradict, at a single stroke, all my life, and deny all my deepest convictions—do you blame me for not doing that?”
If they object that this was not an Ecumenical Council since it was not free, Gratry replies that he is unable to deny its validity, and therefore he must submit to its decisions. Then, Gratry asks himself, what the great historic luminaries of the Church of France, Fénelon and Bossuet, would have done under the circumstances. Had Montalembert survived, he would certainly have submitted, as his own words prove: resolved, come what may, and cost what it may, never to transgress the inviolable limits of unity. But what of Gratry’s letters? Strongly worded remonstrances had reached him on this. How could he cancel his letters and their unanswerable demonstrations? how contradict himself? how overthrow truths which he has firmly established, and re-establish the falsehoods which he has overthrown? To this difficult enquiry Gratry’s answer was:—
“I mean to overthrow none of the truths which I may have established in these letters. I mean to restore no falsehood therein denounced. But I admit that these letters may contain mistakes; and that it is those mistakes which I mean to efface.”
A distinguished Bishop, strongly opposed to the contents of the letters, had been advising him that he could maintain a considerable portion of his letters. All that was necessary was to cancel what contradicted the Decree.
Is it too much to say that this explanation is shorn of all the reasoning force and historic cogency of the famous letters? If words have any meaning, Gratry’s entire conception of Honorius, and the attitude of the Councils towards him, left no room for the Vatican Dogma. The explanation reveals nothing so plainly as profound intellectual perplexity.
Gratry also wrote an explanatory letter to M. Legouvé, a colleague in the French Academy.
“I opposed inspired Infallibility; the Council’s decree has rejected inspired Infallibility. I opposed personal Infallibility; the Decree affirms official Infallibility. Some writers of the School which I consider exaggerated did not wish for Infallibility ex cathedra, which seemed to them too narrow a restriction: the Decree affirms Infallibility ex cathedra. I almost feared a scientific Infallibility, a political and governmental Infallibility: but the Decree only affirms doctrinal Infallibility, in matters of faith and morals.
“All this does not mean that I made no mistakes in my opposition. Doubtless I have made mistakes, both on this subject and on others; but as soon as I recognise my error I cancel it, without feeling thereby humiliated.”
This letter was not printed until 1907. And it appears that Gratry wrote still further explanations which have not been published yet. A recently printed letter of Charles Perraud contains the following important postscript:—
“Father Gratry bids me say that he has just finished a little work in which he explains his reasons and above all the limits of his submission to the Council’s decree. He had already given a summary of these explanations in a letter to M. Legouvé (who unhappily will not agree to publish it, I cannot imagine why). I was not with Father Gratry when he sent his letter to the Archbishop of Paris. I regret exceedingly that he began with that, whereas he ought to have begun by publishing the writing which I have recently been reading. It contains definitions and distinctions of very great significance, especially in a matter where every shade of meaning has its distinctive worth. They are altogether mistaken who suppose that Father Gratry has treated with contempt the historic evidence. God give him time to say on this matter all that I know he desires to say.”
But this document, without which the complete story of Gratry’s submission cannot be told, has never been permitted to see the light. For whatever reason, Adolphe Perraud, Gratry’s literary executor and biographer, withheld it from history.
But Gratry did not long survive the passing of the new Decree. “And,” says his biographer, “most assuredly the trials of this period shortened his days.”[413]
Archbishop Kenrick of St Louis represented opposition in the American Church. During the Council he had warmly supported Dupanloup against American Ultramontanes.
“Many among us,” he wrote,[414] “believe that Ecclesiastical history, the history of the Popes, the history of the Councils, and the Tradition of the Church, are not in harmony with the new doctrine. Therefore we think it most inopportune to define as a dogma of faith an opinion which seems to us a novelty in the Church, destitute of solid foundation in Scripture and Tradition, and contradicted by indisputable evidence.”
In his speech which the closure of June prevented from being delivered, but which he printed[415] and circulated, he was more emphatic still.
“I dare to affirm that the opinion as expressed in the Schema is not a doctrine of the faith, and never can become such by any definition even of a Council.”
On the 13th of July Archbishop Kenrick voted in the negative, signed the protest of the 17th, and with the body of the opposition fled away. Having thus registered his informal and useless protest he accepted the new Decree. This surrender provoked a letter from Lord Acton asking the Archbishop for the grounds of his submission. History has preserved the pages of Kenrick’s reply.[416] He said that “sufficient time seems to have elapsed to allow the Catholic world to decide whether or not the decree of the Council was to be accepted.” The greater number of the Bishops, some to the Archbishop’s surprise, had already yielded assent. As for himself—
“I could not defend the Council or its action; but I always professed that the acceptance of either by the Church would supply its deficiency. I accordingly made up my mind to submit to what appeared inevitable, unless I were prepared to separate myself at least in the judgment of most Catholics from the Church.”
His act of submission “was one of pure obedience, and was not grounded on the removal of my motives of opposition to the decrees, as referred to in my speech, and set forth in my pamphlets.” He hears from Rome that the Pope requires him to retract his pamphlets. “This I shall not do, no matter what the consequences may be.”
For intellectual justification in this submission Kenrick appealed to Newman’s theory of Development. If it justified Newman in becoming a Catholic, “I thought that it might justify me in remaining one.” To this the Archbishop added the following memorable sentence:—
“Notwithstanding my submission, I shall never teach the doctrine of Papal Infallibility so as to argue from Scripture or Tradition in its support, and shall leave to others to explain its compatibility with the facts of Ecclesiastical history to which I referred in my reply. As long as I may be permitted to remain in my present station I shall confine myself to administrative functions, which I can do the more easily without attracting attention, as for some few years past I have seldom preached.”
His whole experience, he says, has taught him that there can be no liberty in any future sessions of the Council; and this is warning enough to Bishops that they must not handle roughly the delicate matters on which they have to decide.
The records of intellectual servitude present few more painful documents than this. Whether one regards the doctrine, the Archbishop, or the facts of history, such an attitude bristles with intellectual if not moral inconsistencies. He thinks acceptance by the Church will redeem the doctrine from conciliar defects: but the essence of the doctrine is Infallibility apart from the Church’s consent. As Bishop he is a witness to the Faith: yet he observes in silence, and registers one by one the submission of other Bishops. He accepts what he will not proclaim, and cannot defend. Meanwhile, the facts of history continue, as before, demonstrably irreconcilable with the New Decree. The sole virtue by which everything else is supposed to be redeemed is the virtue of submission. Theories such as this can only exist as a dark background to enhance the moral and spiritual superiority of sincere unbelief and genuine schism; or to warn for ever against the disastrous consequences which follow such exercises of authority as that which produced the Vatican Decree.
Cardinal Hohenlohe
The “Memoirs” of Prince Hohenlohe include numerous confidential letters from his brother, Cardinal Hohenlohe, who was resident in Rome during the Council of the Vatican. The Cardinal had no sympathy whatever with the attempt to elevate the theory into a dogma of the Faith.
His repugnance to the proceedings at the Vatican took also a practical shape. “I go as little as possible to the Meetings of the Council,” he wrote; adding a private wish that the Jesuits might stick fast in the morass of their operations. Their activities, however, increased. On the eve of the great Decision, Cardinal Hohenlohe wrote the following remarkable words:—
“To-day is to take place the sitting in which the Pope will proclaim the doctrine of Infallibility. The Bishops of the minority are leaving; some of them went yesterday evening, among others the Archbishop of Munich; others go away to-night. They will not be present at the sitting, and have sent in a protest. I am not very well, and I, too, am not going to the sitting. This morning I wrote a few lines to Cardinal Schwarzenberg, which I here transcribe, of course in the strictest confidence, because they make clear my sentiments.... ‘If on the question of Infallibility I declare myself entirely in agreement with Cardoni[417] I would yet have voted non placet, since the question is not opportune, and was not treated conciliariter, and I will have neither part nor lot in the guilt of this unhappy measure, which has caused so many souls to stumble in the faith. But further, the Council is no longer a Council. We may admit that it was convened legaliter, but from the moment when the methodus was imposed upon us, the conciliar composition of this unhappy assembly was at an end.’
“So much for my letter to Cardinal Schwarzenberg. It is sad enough that one has to speak so, but I am pierced in the innermost depths of my soul with such intense pain, that I could hardly bear it if I had not the consolation of the Holy Mass.”
Cardinal Hohenlohe says that he had been taught to believe that papal decisions ex cathedra were infallible. What is clear is that the Council contributed nothing to a belief which he held as a theological opinion, and not as a dogma of faith. A letter from the Pope’s private secretary expressed regret at his absence from the Decision on 18th July. Hohenlohe replied that he had always believed in Infallibility.
Quoting this reply, in a letter to his brother, the Cardinal added, confidentially:—
“There is nothing here about the Council and dogmatic constitution, nor did I even write that to the Pope, but only to Mgr. Cenni (the private secretary), without in the least instructing him to communicate it to his Holiness. So long as I am unconvinced of the validity of the Council, so long can I do no more, since I shall yet have to give an account before God, and I would not get into an unpleasant situation there.”
Prince Hohenlohe was not less discouraged than the Cardinal. What particularly grieved him was the lack of moral courage in the German Bishops. To others and to himself it seemed a
“disgraceful apostasy of the German Bishops, seeing that after they had pledged themselves, before their departure from Rome, to decide nothing about the Dogma of Infallibility without previously taking council together, they should nevertheless have submitted individually.
“When one views the moral ruin, the complete lack of honour among the Bishops, one shudders at the influence which the Jesuitical element in the Church can exert on human nature.”
It is natural to enquire what overt action the advocates of these views and its sympathisers in the Roman body would adopt. The excommunication of Döllinger roused still further feeling; and an important meeting of political opponents of things ultramontane was held in Berlin. There was among them a strong desire for action of some kind, and for emphatic opposition. But Prince Hohenlohe disapproved.
“I demonstrated,” he says, “that it was necessary above all things for us to remain in the Catholic Church. So long as we had no Bishops, no clergy, and no congregations, but only a number of cultured laymen, we could not talk of an old Catholic Church. It was a case of waiting till the Pope should die, and then there was hope of a better spirit in the Catholic Church. If we left the Church—and this might be the result of any serious step—the Catholic Church would lose so many reasonable men to no purpose.” It was therefore decided to remain quiet. “I do not think,” Prince Hohenlohe wrote, “that the agitation will produce any great results. Interest in the person and fate of Döllinger, for it is nothing more, does not make a reformation. Interest in dogmatic subtleties no longer exists.”
The Prince recorded his personal convictions in the following memorandum:—
“I am of opinion that the Concilium Vaticanum of 1869–1870 is in no way ecumenical, and that the time will come when the Infallibility of the Pope proclaimed therein will be pronounced heresy. But as the Bishops collectively and almost all the clergy have accepted the doctrine set forth, he who denies the doctrine must secede from the Catholic Church.... I have, therefore, refrained from expressing my opinion openly, especially as I believe that the Old Catholic Community cannot remain where it now stands, but will be driven further.... So far as I am concerned, I wish the Catholic Church to reform herself. That can and will be done only with the co-operation of her Bishops. This co-operation will not take place until the moment has come for the assembling of a really Ecumenical Council. Even if this is an empty hope, it in no case alters my present opinion. In this case the Catholic Church is doomed to fall, and then other forms of religion will be constituted, which we need not now discuss. In the meantime I have this hope, and therefore am waiting. Hence I remain a member of the Church, without going over to the Ultramontanes.”
1. Hefele, Bishop of Rottenburg, formerly Professor of Theology in the University of Tübingen, and learned, perhaps above any man then living, in the Councils of the Church, was held in high reputation for his history of the Councils, which is still the best modern authority on the subject. He was well known as the reverse of ultramontane. Twelve years before the Vatican Council assembled he stated the facts about Pope Honorius in such a manner as to show that history absolutely forbade the ascription to a Pope of the attribute of Infallibility.
Being consecrated Bishop at the end of 1869 he had a place in the Vatican Assembly, where he was most active in opposition. Just in the critical hour of the Infallibility debate he published (in April, 1870) at Naples, since Papal regulations prevented its publication in Rome, a forcible pamphlet on the case of Pope Honorius, and his treatment by the Sixth General Council. Hefele now declared that Honorius “set aside the distinctively orthodox technical term for the two wills, human and Divine, in Christ; sanctioned the distinctively technical term of the Monothelite heresy; and commended this double error to the acceptance of the faithful.” Further, he maintained that the sixth Ecumenical Council had claimed the right to pass judgment on this authoritative Papal decision, and to pass anathema upon the Pope as a teacher of heresy. Finally, he maintained that from the fifth to the eleventh century each Pope in his consecration oath had made a declaration which involved two things: first, that a Council can condemn a Pope for heresy, and secondly, that Honorius was rightly so condemned for having supported an error by his decree on faith.
This emphatic rejection of Infallibility was circulated among the members of the Council in Rome, with intention to prevent the doctrine from being decreed.
Hefele also wrote from Rome to Döllinger, complaining that the majority interfered with the minority’s freedom of speech; that the Pope’s personal interventions and criticisms on the minority made their independent action exceedingly difficult; that these experiences were diminishing the courage, if not the numbers, of the opposition; that it was difficult to know what movement to take when a halter was round your neck; that hardly anybody dared openly to say what their ultimate intentions were; that the majority meanwhile confidently assured them that the Pope would settle everything, and that then the alternative would be submission or excommunication.
On the 13th of July Hefele voted in the negative. On the 17th he signed the protest and then returned to his diocese without waiting for the Public Session. In a letter to Döllinger he attempted to justify this. He said that from the number of negative votes on the 13th of July he had hoped that many Bishops would remain for a final protest in the Public Session of the 18th. But in the general exodus this hope evaporated. He acknowledged that the written protest sent to the Pope was weak, because destitute of formal validity. It could not possibly avert the public definition of the Decree. As for himself he feels that his duty is clear. He has been in consultation with his Chapter and his Theological Faculty. He cannot accept the new dogma, as it stands, without the necessary limitations. He knows that Rome may suspend him, and excommunicate him. Meantime he has been urging upon another Bishop that disbelief in the Council’s validity is not heretical. His own line consists in quiescence, so long as Rome does not actively intervene. What else to do he does not know in the least. At any rate to hold as Divinely revealed what is not true is for him simply impossible (September 1870). He can no more conceal from himself in Rottenburg, than he could in Rome, that the new dogma is destitute of any true rational, Scriptural, or traditional foundations. It is injurious to the Church in incalculable ways. The Church has suffered no severer and deadlier wound of modern times than that inflicted on the 18th of July. Yet he can see no way of escape. He writes repeatedly to Döllinger; complains that Dupanloup persists in asking questions, but will not say what he intends to do. Meanwhile, Hefele is being worried and baited on every side. Appeals pour in from France and America, urging submission. He is certain that a schism would have no chance. The world is too indifferent, and the opposition too dispersed. There is nothing for it but submission, or exclusion. On the other hand, it is to him indisputably clear that the final session of the Vatican Council had no ecumenical character. Romanism and Jesuitism have altered the nature of the Catholic Church. Hefele’s letters become still more piteous. His troubles are increasing. His own diocese is turning against him. He had not believed it possible that the dogma could so pervade his diocese. Even his oldest friends are turning against him. Rome also is improving the occasion. He is refused the usual faculties, so that people in all parts of the diocese cannot get married, and the local clergy are utilising this to set the people against him. What on earth is he to do? He gives way to lamentations. The position of a deprived and excommunicated Bishop is to him abhorrent—one he could hardly tolerate. At an earlier stage it was open to him to resign, and gladly would he lay down an office which has made him such an oppressed and unhappy man. He must resign or yield.
Which of the two it will ultimately be it is not by this time difficult to predict. Hefele can see no glimmer of hope in any distant development. It is not to be expected that the Constitution Pastor Eternus will be revoked by a future Pope, or the fourth session of the Vatican Council pronounced invalid. The utmost that can be looked for is a further explanation. By this time he is the only German Bishop who has not published the Constitution. He cannot adequately express his grief that Döllinger should see no escape from suspension or excommunication. Is there no compromise with the Archbishop possible? He utters wild and useless laments over the Synod of German Bishops at Fulda. Oh, what might not have been done in Germany if only the Bishops at Fulda had stood firm! Yet he took no steps against them. Then he ends with deploring Döllinger’s own impending fate. To think that Döllinger, so long the champion of the Catholic Church and its interests, the first of the German theologians, should be suspended or excommunicated; and that by an Archbishop who has not done a thousandth part of the service that Döllinger had done! That is terrible! The conclusion was now quite plain. Döllinger’s replies were useless, and Hefele proceeded to publish the Vatican Decree.
It remained, and this was more difficult, to revise the case of Honorius in the light of the new dogma. In the second edition of his “History of the Councils,” Hefele observes:
“We always were of the opinion that Honorius was quite orthodox in thought, but, especially in his first letter, he has unhappily expressed himself in a Monothelite fashion.” This opinion he still retained, “even if ... as a result of repeated new investigation of this subject, and having regard to what others have more recently written in defence of Pope Honorius, I now modify or abandon many details of my earlier statements, or in particular, form a milder judgment of the first letter of Honorius.”
Still, even now, his historic sense constrains him to speak of the “the unhappy sentence, ‘accordingly we acknowledge one will of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ which taken literally is quite Monothelite.” Still he is constrained to say, “Honorius ought to have answered.” And as for the Monothelites themselves, “the fact that the Pope gave utterance to this their primary proposition must have given essential assistance to their cause.”
2. Melchers, Archbishop of Cologne, professed himself in the Council ready to accept the dogma as a personal belief; but he accumulated many arguments to show the extreme unwisdom of enforcing it upon the Church, especially in the existing state of sharply-divided opinion. On the critical 13th of July he gave a conditional vote. His own subsequent compliance was, therefore, comparatively easy. It was entirely another matter to restore unity to his diocese.[418] Back in his diocese he called the German Bishops together at Fulda. Only nine arrived, but they agreed to take measures to impose the doctrine upon the recalcitrant. It became the Archbishop’s function to reduce to submission the Theological Faculty of Bonn, among others the distinguished professors, Langen and Reusch.
3. The interview between the Archbishop of Cologne and Professor Reusch has been recorded.
The Archbishop told the Professor that the highest authority had spoken, and submission was his duty. The Professor replied that his convictions would not allow it. The Archbishop retorted that he laid too much stress on his convictions. Reusch replied that he dared not go against them. The Archbishop restated the duty of submission to authority; the Professor said that he could only leave his convictions to the judgment of God.
But, persisted the Archbishop, the Council was free and ecumenical, and the definition unquestionably valid. He acknowledged that he had himself implored the Pope not to allow the discussion to begin; but the majority thought otherwise. And, added the Archbishop, with a happy inspiration, you know that the doctrine has been recently taught in the Catechism of this diocese. Until now, replied Reusch, the opposite doctrine has been taught in all the schools, in a book bearing the episcopal imprimatur. The Archbishop could only reply that the book would be altered now, and that its author had already conformed. But, objected the Professor, if the opposite has been taught up to the 18th of last July, it cannot be a heresy.
The Archbishop could only enquire whether the Professor would make any concession of any kind. He said he would avoid contradiction, and study further. The Archbishop pointed out that Rome would never be satisfied with that. Do you wish, he asked, to die without the Sacraments? The interview was adjourned, and then resumed, but fruitlessly. The Archbishop recommended him to go into retreat. The Professor doubted whether this could alter facts of history. His reward was excommunication.