Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/293

 VATICAN (COUNCIL OF THE) 273 VATICAN, Council of the, the 20th oecumenical council according to the Roman Catholic church, convened Dec. 8, 1869. The design of calling a general council was first intimated in a consistorial address of Pius IX., delivered June 26, 1867, to the prelates assembled in Eome to celebrate the 18th centenary of the martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul. The prelates, in a joint answer presented to the pope on July 1, expressed the wish that he would soon execute his design. On June 6 a circular had been prepared by Cardinal Ca- terini, prefect of "the congregation of the council (of Trent)," containing a schedule of 17 important points of church discipline and morality on which, as well as on others sug- gested to the bishops from personal observa- tion, an examination was requested with an answer within four months. The points sub- mitted regarded principally the sacredness of Christian matrimony ; the tone required in preaching, and the care to base all pulpit in- struction on revealed truth ; the importance of securing Christian influences in schools ; the necessity of a more elevated preparatory train- ing in ecclesiastical seminaries, and the means of encouraging higher culture in sacred and profane knowledge among the priesthood ; the policy of encouraging the multiplication of religious associations bound only by simple vows ; how to provide worthy incumbents for vacant episcopal and parochial offices, and how to regulate the exercise of episcopal authority over the inferior clergy. Most bishops com- municated this document to their priests ; and thus the whole Catholic world was already preparing for the approaching council when the bull of indiction, jfEterni Patris, was is- sued, June 29, 1868, appointing the council to open in the Vatican basilica, Dec. 8, 1869. For the first time in the history of general councils, no invitation was extended to any of the European governments ; only the bull of convocation expressed the hope that the va- rious governments would leave the bishops free to attend. The Eussian bishops alone were not allowed this freedom. On Sept. 8, 1868, the pope addressed a letter of invitation to the bishops of all the oriental churches not in communion with Rome; and on Sept. 13 he issued the letters apostolic, Jam vos omnes noveritis, to "all Protestants and non-Catho- lics," exhorting them "to consider whether they were walking in the way commanded by Christ and leading to eternal salvation." The Greek Orthodox church returned no answer, though a few of its bishops manifested a de- sire to accept the pope's invitation. The Ar- menian patriarch, Boghos, accepted, and in- duced several of his associates to do so ; but he was forced to resign his office in conse- quence.. In the Protestant world, the grounds on which the pope based his, appeal were de- nounced as an unwarranted assumption of right. In Germany Reinhold Baumstark of Constance and Wolfgang Menzel of Stuttgart, editor of the LiteraturHatt, were among the few who spoke favorably of the invitation to Protes- tants. In England Dr. Gumming, in the name of the church of Scotland, inquired whether Protestants would be permitted to present to the council arguments in support of their posi- tion toward the church of Rome, and the pope replied, on Sept. 4 and Oct. 30, that while no discussion could be permitted of doctrinal questions already defined, he was sincerely desirous of meeting all who believe that their separation is based on solid reasons, by refer- ring them for consultation to the most eminent and prudent theologians selected by himself. No special appeal having been made to the Jewish people, two converts of that race, the brothers Joseph and Auguste Lemann of Lyons, published La question duMessie et le concile du Vatican, which the pope praised in a brief; a further petition, presented by the authors to the council itself, requesting that the Jews should be specially invited, produced no response. A congregation of cardinals, as- sisted by theologians representing the princi- pal Catholic countries, was appointed imme- diately after the publication of the bull of indic- tion, to take in hand the general work of prep- aration. To this were adjoined six commis- sions, on ceremonies, on ecclesiastical policy, on oriental churches and missions, on religious orders, on dogmatic theology, and on church discipline, respectively, each presided over by one of the seven cardinals. Up to*the open- ing of the council no place was given to the doctrine of pontifical infallibility on the sche- mata or programmes submitted to the congre- gations and commissions ; but from the first indiction of the council, the religious as well as the political press began to discuss the op- portuneness as well as the danger of making this doctrine an article of faith. In France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany (where many of the bishops and inferior clergy had been taught the Gallican views of papal preroga- tives, and where the majority of statesmen and lawyers upheld extreme Gallican princi- ples concerning the superiority of a general council to the pope, the absolute independence of the state of all spiritual authority, and the right of national churches to regulate their own temporal affairs) all the controversies of the middle of the 17th century were revived. The Jansenists, who were numerous in Hol- land, and influential though few in France and Germany, were foremost in their attacks on the ultramontanes. Napoleon III. was person- ally in favor of holding the council, and not op- posed to a definition of the received doctrine on infallibility; but the leading members of the French government were known to be hos- tile to both projects. The Austrian govern- ment thought the revival of this controversy untimely and perilous; while at Munich the prime minister, Prince Hohenlohe, and his as- sociates followed the impulse given them by Dollinger; and a circular, now known to be