Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/128

Rh 112 VATICAN COUNCIL containing a clause professing obedience to the pope (this clause being omitted by the pope himself), and then to renew the episcopal oath of feudal submission to the Papacy, powerful pressure was brought to bear upon the weaker of the opposition, who were thus reminded how far they had pledged themselves already, and how un reasonable it therefore was to haggle about taking but one step in advance on the self-same road. The time between the second and third sessions was mainly occupied in preparing the drafts (schemata] of constitutions on the faith and on the church, and also with discussions of sundry disciplinary measures (notably as regards clerical immorality) and the preparation of a new catechism ; but none of these last were proceeded with. By the pope s direct command the cardinal -presidents of the congrega tions issued, on 20th February 1870, rules to check long debates, which drew yet tighter than before the cords that deprived the council of all freedom. Speakers were confined to touching upon such clauses only of any amendment as they had given previous notice of meaning to discuss, and were not allowed to take part otherwise in a debate, while the closure could be applied by the presidents at the demand of any ten members. This latter drastic measure drew out a protest from more than one hundred bishops, who urged that it was destructive of conciliar liberty (already much hampered by the noisy attempts of the infallibilists to stifle free discussion), and that the steps being taken disregarded the note of moral unanimity which should mark the decisions of a general council, thereby exposing the council itself to hostile criticism and even rejection. They pointed out several other serious faults in the new rules, but could obtain no modification of them. The constitution on the faith (usually cited now as Dei Filius), however, a long and far from clearly worded document, directed chiefly against modern rationalism, and enforced by 18 canons of anathema, was completed ; it passed the congregation without difficulty, was signed by all the 667 members present, and was published in the third session, 24th April 1870, with papal confirmation, or rather in the unprecedented form of a proclamation by the pope singly, &quot;the sacred council approving,&quot; an innovation which was intended to mark it as solely his act, and to settle in this summary manner the long-standing controversy as to the relative superiority of popes and councils. There were few, however, even of the opposition, who cared to contest such a point, and there was nothing of a contentious nature, as regards the two parties in the council, in the constitution itself, so that no debate was raised upon it. The real struggle was yet to come, namely, over the constitution on the church, into which the new dogma was to be introduced. This constitution (now usually cited as Pastor jEternus) asserted the following propositions : (1) that a proper primacy of jurisdiction over the whole church was conferred upon St Peter directly and singly, and not mediately through any delegation to him, as chief minister in the church, of a primacy held by the church corporately ; (2) that this Petrine primacy vests by divine institution and right in the line of Roman pontiffs ; (3) that the pope s jurisdiction is immediate in all churches i.e., he is the universal ordinary, the actual bishop of every see (all other bishops being merely his curates and deputies), and is not a remote or merely appellate authority so that in questions not of faith and morals alone, but of discipline and govern ment also, all the faithful, of whatever rite or dignity, both pastors and laity, are bound, individually and collect ively, to submit themselves thereto ; (4) that it is unlaw ful to appeal from the judgments of the Roman pontiffs to an oecumenical council, as though to a higher authority ; and (5) that the Roman pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, and defines a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the universal church, is infallible, and such definitions are accordingly irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the church. This document was voted upon in the congregation of 13th July 1870, consisting of 671 members. Of these 451 voted in the affirmative; 88 voted against it ; 62 voted placet jujcta modum, meaning that they would accept it if it were seriously modified ; and 70 did not vote at all. By the canonical theory of councils such a division of opinion as this voided the decision of the majority, and made it null. For, while a bare majority in a council suffices to pass a mere disciplinary canon, being a variable matter, contrariwise, to enact a dogmatic decree requires practical unanimity, since nothing can be imposed as of faith for which the two attesting notes of universal prevalence and historical continuity cannot be adduced. And, as the dissent of any appreciable number of members denotes that they do not know it as the local tradition of their several dioceses, it thereby destroys the claim to these notes. Not only so ; but in view of the character in which bishops appear at councils, as represent ing their laity, it is clear that the size and population of their several dioceses have to be taken into account when estimating the weight attaching to their individual testi mony as to the reception of any dogma within their juris dictions. Tried by this standard, the opposition was very much more important than its muster-roll seems to indicate, for it included the bishops from many of the most populous Roman Catholic dioceses, such as the archbishops of Paris, with 2,000,000 Catholics, Breslau with 1,700,000, Cologne with 1,400,000, Vienna with about the same number, and Cambrai with 1,300,000; whereas 62 bishops of the Papal States, for example, represented no more than 700,000 altogether, apart from the hundred and more titulars, who had no flocks at all. This matter may be summed up thus : every vote cast for the new dogma stood for 142,570 lay folks ; but every vote cast against it stood for 492,520. Nor is this all : a council claiming to be oecumenical must speak with the consent of both East and West. But, even if the very large concession be made that the Uniat churches in communion with Rome are in truth the lawful representatives of the ancient Oriental Church, the fact remains that the number and rank of the Orientals in the minority was such as to make the vote at best only a Latin one. The Melchite and Syrian patriarchs of Antioch, the Chaldee patriarch of Babylon, the Melchite archbishop of Tyre, the Maronite archbishops of Tyre and Siclon, of Bey- rout, and of Aleppo, with several others, were in one or other of the three groups of dissentients, and thus nullified the Eastern suffrages in the majority. Immediately after this preliminary voting nearly all the bishops of the minority abruptly quitted Rome, after previously lodging a protest against the proceedings. Their flight was prompted by fears for their personal safety. They were given to under stand that each of them would have two papers tendered to him for his signature in the ensuing session, one being a profession of adhesion to the infallibility dogma, the other a resignation of his diocese in case he refused such adhesion. And they had good reason to think that the pope, who had declared that he meant to lie proclaimed infallible &quot; without limitation &quot; (senza condizione), and had shown open enmity to more than one of their number, would employ direct coercion in the event of continued resistance, bringing his temporal power as sovereign of Rome to bear on the rebels within his territory. Accord ingly, when the public session was held on 18th July 1870, while 535 bishops voted for the constitution Pastor ^ Etermis, only two, those of Ajaccio and of Little Rock, remained to utter their &quot;non-placet.&quot; The pope thereupon confirmed the decree, and the proceedings virtually ended. By one of the most singular of historical coincidences,