Appendix to Chapter III

Decisions of Provincial Synods recently held, showing the common opinion of blshops Concerning the Supreme and Infallible Authority of the Roman Pontiff in matters of Faith and Morals.

i. The Provincial Council held at Cologne in i860, to which, in addition to his Eminence Cardinal Geissel, Archbishop of Cologne, five bishops subscribed, expressly declares: " He (the Roman Pontiff) is the father and teacher of all Christians, whose judgment in questions of faith is ' per se' unalterable."

2. The bishops assembled in the Provincial Council, held at Utrecht in 1865, most openly assert: "We unhesitatingly hold that the judgment of the Roman Pontiff in matters which refer to faith and morals is infallible."

3. The provincial council of Prague in i860, to which his Eminence Cardinal Archbishop Frederic de Schwarzenberg and four other bishops subscribed, under the heading, "On the primacy of the Roman Pontiff," decreed as follows: " We reject, moreover, the error of those who pretend that the Church can exist anywhere without being joined in bonds of union with the Church of Rome, in which the tradition which has been handed down by the apostles has been preserved by those who are in every part."¹

" We know that no one who is not joined to the head can be considered as a member of the body of the Church which Christ founded on Peter, and established on His authority. Let them all prefer to confess with us and with the multitude of orthodox believers spread over the whole world, the headship of the Roman ('hurch and the primacy of the Roman Pontiff; let them,

The True Story of the Vatican Council. 121 as is fitting, with us reverence and honour with dutiful affection our Most Holy Father, Pius the Ninth, by God's Providence Pope, the lawful successor of the Prince of the Apostles, the Vicar of Christ on earth, the chief teacher of the faith, and pilot of the ship of Christ, to whom the most exact obedience and internal assent is due from all who wish to belong to the fold of Christ. We declare and teach, that this authority of the Roman Pontiff comes from Christ our Lord, and that consequently it is dependent upon no power or favour of men and remains unimpaired in all times, even in the most bitter persecutions which the Church of Rome has suffered, as was the case during the imprisonment and martyrdom of blessed Peter."

4. The Provincial Council of Kalocsa, held in i860, declared: "That as Peter was... the irrefutable teacher of the doctrines of faith, for whom the Lord Himself prayed that his faith might not fail, so his legitimate successors seated aloft on the Chair of Rome

.. preserve the deposit of faith with supreme and irrefutable powers of declaring the truth.... ^'here-fore we also reject, proscribe, and forbid all the faithful of this province to read or maintain, and much more to teach, the propositions published by the Gallican clergy, in 1682, which have already been censured this same year by the Archbishop of Gran, of pious memory, and by the other bishops of Hungary."

5. The Plenary Council of Baltimore, which met in 1866, and to which 44 archbishops and bishops subscribed, says: " The living and infallible authority flourishes in that Church alone which was built by Christ upon Peter, who is the head, leader, and pastor of the whole Church, whose faith Christ promised should never fail; which ever had legitimate Pontiffs, dating their origin in unbroken line from Peter himself, being seated in his Chair, and being the inheritors and defenders of the like doctrine, dignity, office, and power. And because, where Peter is, there also is the Church, and because Peter speaks in the person of the Roman

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Pontiff, ever lives in his successors, passes judgment and makes known the truths of faith to those who seek them, therefore are the Divine declarations to be received in that sense in which they have been and are held by this Roman See of blessed Peter, that mother and teacher of all Churches, which has ever preserved whole and entire the teaching delivered by Christ, and which has taught it to the faithful showing to all men the paths of salvation and the doctrine of everlasting truth.

6. The first Provincial Council of Westminster, held in 1S52, states: "When our Blessed Lord exhorts us, saying, 'Look to the rock whence you are hewn; look to Abraham your father,' it is fitting that we who have received our faith, our priesthood, and the true religion, directly from the Apostolic See, should more than others be attached to it by the bonds of love and fidelity. Therefore do we maintain that foundation of truth and orthodoxy which /esus Christ -willed should be maintained unshaken; namely, the See of Peter, the teacher and mother of the whole world, the Holy Roman Church. Whatever is once defined by it, for that very reason alone we consider to be fixed and certain; and when we look at its traditions, rites, pious customs, discipline, and all its Apostolic Constitutions, we follow and cherish them with all the affection of our hearts. In fine, we of set purpose publicly declare our obedience and respect for the Pope as Christ's Vicar, and we remain united to him in the closest bonds of Catholic unity."

7. Nearly five hundred of the bishops assembled in Rome to celebrate the Centenary of the Martyrdom of SS. Peter and Paul, in the year 1867, had no hesitation in addressing Pius the Ninth in the following terms: " Believing that Peter has spoken by the mouth of Pius, whatever has been said, confirmed, and decreed by you to preserve the deposit of faith, we also repeat, confirm, and profess, and with one mind and heart we reject all that you have judged it necessary to reprove and condemn as contrary to divine faith, to the salvation of souls, and to the good of society. For what the Fathers

The True Story of the Vatican Council. 123 of Florence defined in their Decree of Union is firmly and deeply impressed in our minds — that the Roman Pontiff is the Vicar of Christ, the head of the whole Church, the father and teacher of all Christians."

The bishops of Italy and the Order of S. Francis sent in petitions of their own to the same effect.

14. On the 9th of February the Pontifical Commission of Postulates was summoned to decide whether this petition should be laid before the Pope. With hardly any dissent the decision was affirmative; and on the 7th of March an additional chapter was distributed to the Council, entitled: " Chapter to be added to the decree on the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff: That the Roman Pontiff, in defining matters of faith and morals, cannot err."

Eighteen days were given to the bishops to study this schema, and to send in their amendments in writing before it would be proposed for discussion.

15. And here we will for a time leave the subject of the infallibility, and go back to examine the first Constitution on Catholic Faith, which, as we have seen, was unanimously passed by six hundred and sixty-seven fathers of the Council in the third Public Session. Thus far we have followed the historical narrative of events. We must now shortly examine the subject-matter of the first Constitution or Decree.

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The following statement is a brief paraphrase of the first Constitution on Catholic Faith: —

It begins in its preface or introduction by enumerating the evils which, since the Council of Trent, have sprung up in the world, and by infection have threatened also the peace of the Church. The first cause of all these evils the Council affirms to be the rejection of the divine, and therefore infallible, authority of the Church. The inevitable consequence of this rejection was to leave all matters of religion to be decided by the judgment of individuals; from this again has followed the multiplication of sects conflicting with each other, whereby the faith of many in Christianity has been wrecked. The Holy Scriptures were asserted three hundred years ago to be the sole fountain of Christian faith; but the Holy Scriptures are now rejected by many as myths. From this abandonment of divine authority and of revealed truth two main principles of error come: the one, Rationalism, which makes the human reason to be the test, the measure, or the source of all truth itself; the other, Naturalism, which denies altogether the existence of a supernatural order of grace and truth. The legitimate offspring of Rationalism and of Naturalism are Pantheism, Atheism, and Materialism. These, in the order of the human mind, destroy even natural theism — that is, the belief of the exis-

The True Story of the Vatican Council. 125 tence of God and of the soul — and in the order of politics have brought in the lawless spirit of revolution, which is now undermining the foundations of human society. Such is the description given in the schema of the intellectual aberrations of the world outside the Church. But it goes on to say that many Catholics also, by contact with these errors, have lost, if not faith, at least piety and the Catholic instinct which is the legitimate antagonist of indifferentism. From which cause erroneous interpretations of the doctrines of the Church have been introduced, and the orders of nature and of grace, of human science and divine faith, have been mixed and confounded together. The Constitution then proceeds to treat in four chapters — (1) of God, the Creator of all things; (2) of revelation; (3) of faith; (4) of the relation of faith and reason.

16. It may be asked why, in the nineteenth century of the Christian world, need an (Ecumenical Council be convened to define these things? The answer is: Because these things are divine and vital truths, and because they have been denied. For three centuries these foundations of all truth have been undermined by systematic negations, which have now issued in a formal and widespread rejection of all faith. They who ask the question can have little knowledge of the intellectual history

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or the intellectual state of the so-called Christian world. They are not likely indeed to have much knowledge of the acts of Pius the Ninth, who, through the whole of his pontificate, has been striving to rectify the intellectual aberrations of these later days. Every age has hitherto had its heresy. It may be said that the nineteenth century has no heresy, or rather that it has all heresies, because it is the century of unbelief. The intellect of man for three hundred years has broken loose from faith, and the heresy of the day is a heresy against the order of even natural truth; it is the assertion that reason is sufficient to itself. We, as compared with the men of the sixteenth century, have a great advantage. We see the whole intellectual movement which then began, fully worked out to its legitimate conclusion. They saw only the first deviation from the path, which then was hardly appreciable. The reason of man either is, or is not, sufficient to itself. If it be, then Rationalism is its perfection. If it be not sufficient to itself then somewhat higher than reason is needed. Or, in other words, reason is either its own teacher, or it needs a teacher higher than itself. The Christian world till the sixteenth century believed that the teacher of the reason of man is God, that the teaching of God is perpetual by the world and in the world, and that the reason of man is thereby

The True Story of the Vatican Council. 127 related to Him as a disciple to a guide. The movement of the sixteenth century in its last analysis is the assertion that the reason of man is the critic and the measure of all truth to itself. The Reformation in all its diversities of national and personal character — German, Swiss, French, English, Scottish — is all one in its principle. It consisted in an appeal from the living authority of the Church to the inspired Scriptures, or to the Scriptures with the written records of Christianity, tested and interpreted by reason. All particular controversies against particular Catholic doctrines or practices were no more than accessories and accidents to the main debate. The essence of the Reformation consisted in the rejection of the doctrinal authority of the Church. The Reformers denied it to be divine, and therefore unerring and certain. The history of the Reformed religion in Germany abundantly proves the truth of this assertion. It has had three periods. The first was a period of dogmatic rigour. The Lutheran doctrine was imposed and believed as the word of God. Men believed the Lutheran religion as they had before believed the Catholic, less only the principle. They had believed the Catholic doctrine to be the word of God; they now believed the Lutheran to be the word of God. They had believed the voice of the Church before; they believed the voice of

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the Bible now. It belonged to no individual to say what is the voice of the Church. But it was left for each to say what is the voice of the Bible. This period could not last long. Its own incompleteness suggested doubts. The contentions and contradictions of the Reformers shook the authority of the Reformation. Men of consecutive minds then began to give up dogma, and to withdraw into a personal piety. The second period was one of pietism, with a diminishing definiteness of Christian doctrines. But pietism, unsustained by the positive objects of faith, could have no duration in itself. It is like the seed which, having no root, withers away. It soon passed into the third period, which was one of Rationalism. Pietism hid its eyes from doctrines it was tempted to doubt; but Rationalism looked them steadily in the face, and searched beyond them into the reasons, evidences, and authorities on which they rested. The search was soon over. It terminated in a book, and the book rested upon human history. Book after book of the Holy Scriptures was tried by Rationalistic criticism, and rejected until the whole Bible was banished to the realm of myths, and the Lutheran Reformation was ruined at its base. The Rationalists of to-day in Germany are the legitimate sons of the Lutherans of three hundred years ago. 17. What has happened in religion has happened

The 'True Story of the Vatican Council. 129 also in philosophy. Three hundred years ago the intellectual system of the world was represented by the philosophy of the Christian Schools. Philosophy was the intellectual prelude or avenue to the scholastic theology, and beyond all doubt this philosophy is the most solid and subtle system which the human intellect has ever elaborated by its own unaided force. The Reformation revolted against both the scholastic theology and the scholastic philosophy. Precisely the same development of doubt, ending in scepticism, pantheism, atheism, and naturalism, has been the result. The line of philosophy from Leibnitz, Wolff, Kant, to Schleiermacher, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, and Strauss exhibits the same steady advance to the rejection of all that is above the level of reason or of nature-And yet the later German philosophy regarded itself as a theology. But it taught that reason cannot prove the existence of God — that the argument from design will yield to us, not God, but only a being great enough to make the universe. It teaches also that God is the world, and the world God; that all things are manifestations or emanations of God, and that God by a necessity creates or manifests Himself for His own justification; that He cannot reveal Himself to men by outward revelation or through the senses; that all materials of reason are derived only through the

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external world; that religious belief and religious feeling are one and the same; that faith is founded in the feeling of the reality of the ideal; that nothing is to be believed, nor can be required of man to believe, which is not capable of demonstration. These propositions were textually before the minds of those who elaborated the first Constitution on Catholic Faith, for these and the like aberrations in philosophy had been spreading for generations through the German people. It is true that they were the offspring of Lutheran ism, and existed formally in the non-Catholic schools; but it is to be remembered that in the mixed universities the Catholic and Protestant populations were confounded together, and that the government appointed Protestant professors, at whose lectures Catholics attended. Infection cannot be circumscribed, nor diseases kept within a ring-fence. The same habits of mind are found to pervade men of the same nation, and among Catholic philosophers unsound theories had begun to appear. Pius the Ninth, during his pontificate, has been compelled to condemn three or four philosophies which were being taught by Catholic professors.

18. With this short paraphrase of the Introduction, we will go on to the chapters of the Constitution de Fide Cat/10/ica, endeavouring to reduce to the narrowest compass the matter contained in it.

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The Vatican Council in this Constitution has defined truths which have never been treated by any Council before.

In the first chapter it affirms that the creation of all things came from the free will of God, in exclusion and condemnation of the philosophies of emanation, manifestation, and pantheistic identity of God and the world, philosophic aberrations not yet extinct.

In the second chapter it affirms that the existence of God can certainly be known by the works of the visible creation. He has given us evidence enough, and reason to collect that evidence. This certainty of our natural reason may be called the infallibility of the natural order. God has so manifested Himself in creation that the reason in a normal state may come to know His existence, His power and divinity. This infallible certainty is the foundation of the moral life of man. St. Paul says that they who know not God, by the things which are made, are inexcusable. But they would not be inexcusable if God could not be known bv the light of reason. And if in this knowledge the reason could be deceived — that is, if it were not certain — then there could be no moral obligation upon the conscience to believe. The atheist, pantheist, and sceptic, would all be excused for their doubt and unbelief. But if the

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existence and moral character of God be doubtful, the basis of all morals is doubtful too. Lex dubia non obligat. No Council of the Church has hitherto ever been compelled to make such a definition as this, for no age of the Christian world has yet so far departed from the theism which, from the beginning of the world under all perversions and corruptions, has pervaded mankind. It may be that, in England, surprise may be felt at such a decree; but nobody who knows Germany and France and the philosophies of this century will fail to understand the reasons of it, and to see its absolute need. It is here to be noted that the Council does not affirm that men must come, or ordinarily do come, to the knowledge, of God by the process of their own reason. It is certain, as a fact, that they receive this knowledge, from their earliest consciousness, by the instructions of others and by the doctrine of faith. The decree affirms two things — the one that the works of creation afford a sufficient evidence of the existence of God; the other that the reason has an intrinsic power of discernment by which that evidence may be collected into a logical proof. In this assertion two errors are excluded — the one which denies that the visible world presents an adequate evidence of the existence of God; the other that denies to the reason a power to read that evidence without the

The True Story of the Vatican Council. 133 tradition and proposition of the truth. The second chapter, after vindicating these truths of the natural order, goes on to affirm the possibility and the fact of revelation; it affirms also that revelation is necessary to two things — first, that man may attain to the knowledge of truths above and beyond the order of nature, and, secondly, that by such revelation man may be raised to a higher order of knowledge and perfection. It thereby denies that man can attain to such elevation and perfection of and by his own natural powers.

The third chapter opens with these words: " Forasmuch as man depends altogether on God, his Maker and Lord, and the created reason is wholly subject to the uncreated truth, we are bound to render to God in His revelation the full obedience of the intellect and of the will by faith." By this, again, the first axioms of Rationalism are denied. They cannot be better stated than in the words of the second and third propositions condemned in the Syllabus: " All action of God upon man and upon the world is to be denied." This would exclude revelation, grace, providence, and the dependence of the reason of man upon God by faith.

Again: " The reason of man, without any regard to God, is the sole judge of truth and falsehood, of good and evil; it is a law to itself, and is sufficient

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by its own natural powers to provide for the welfare of man and of nations."

The axioms of Rationalism may be thus stated: i. Reason is the sole judge of truth, so that whatsoever it critically rejects is incredible. 2. Reason is the measure of truth, so that whatsoever exceeds its comprehension is incredible. 3. Reason is the sole fountain of truth, so that whatsoever is not found within its consciousness, nor can be elicited from it, is incredible. But if these axioms, or any one of them be true, the reason of man is not dependent on God, and God cannot lay upon man the obligation of believing — that is, of faith.

From this it would follow that all revelation is needless, and that there is no truth except within the order of nature. But this denies all revelation, and therefore all supernatural truths such as the Redemption, the Redeemer, the supernatural order of grace. There is no alternative but between Rationalism and faith. The human reason is either a critic or a disciple, and to determine this issue the first necessary truth to be proved is the existence of God. If the world be God, or if God be the world, or if the world be all, or if there be no personal Creator distinct from it, or if we cannot know Him to exist, then the reason of man is the critic of all that remains. All nature is under his feet, and though he cannot create a grain of sand

The True Story of the Vatican Council. 135 or a corn of wheat he bears himself as if he were the lord and judge of all. Such is the ethical character of complete or absolute Rationalism.

But there is another form of Rationalism which is inconsistent and transitional. Many who would shrink from affirming that reason is the sole fountain of truth to itself, and that nothing is true which cannot be found in the human consciousness or elicited from it, nevertheless maintain that reason is the measure of truth, and that nothing which is incomprehensible is credible. The teachers of this school tell us that although without revelation many-truths would not have been known to man, yet when once revealed they may be adequately comprehended and proved by reason, so that they become objects not only of faith but of science. They therefore undertook to demonstrate the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and of the Incarnation, which, when they had been reduced to the measure of reason, ceased to be the doctrines of revelation. This, especially in the last century, was the first momentum which carried many into unbelief of revelation altogether.

But if the truths of faith are not at the same time truths of science — that is, adequately measured by the reason and resolved into their first and self-evident principles — then there is an essential distinction between faith and science. Both are

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operations of the reason, and both are strictly rational, but they are distinguished by their subject-matter, and are therefore distinct in their principles. Faith is the obedience of the created intellect in dependence upon the uncreated intelligence of God. But faith is not a blind and irrational act. The motives and preludes of faith are processes of reason. Reason weighs the evidences which show that it is reasonable and rational to believewhat the uncreated intelligence of God reveals to man. Faith comprehends, therefore, the reasons why it is a rational act to believe what it is beyond reason to discover. Science is the certain knowledge of truth in its principles. But this is possible to man only in the natural order.

In the fourth chapter the Council treats of the relation of faith and reason. It defines that there are two orders of knowledge, distinguished by their principle and their object — by their principle because the one proceeds by natural reason, the other by divine faith; by their object because the one is in the order of nature, the other in the order of supernatural truths. It then declares that between faith and reason there can be no conflict. They move on different planes, and truth can never be opposed to truth, nor can truth contradict itself; wherefore, if at an- time there shall seem to be opposition between the doctrines of faith and the conclusions

The True Story of the Vatican Council. 137 of reason, the conflict can only be apparent and transient, and while it seems to exist we are bound even by reason, which assures us of the certainty of faith, to believe the conflict to be not real, but only apparent.

The Constitution then further declares that faith and reason are mutually helpful: —

Wherefore so far is the Church from opposing the cultivation of human arts and sciences that in many ways it helps and promotes it. It neither ignores nor despises the benefits which flow from science into the life of men: it rather affirms that inasmuch as sciences proceed from God Who is "the God of Sciences," so, if rightly handled, by the help of His grace, they lead to God again. Nor does the Church forbid that such sciences should use their own principles and their own method within their own sphere; but, while recognising this just liberty, it carefully guards the divine doctrines, lest they, in resisting error, receive it into themselves, or, by going beyond their own limits, the sciences should enter upon and disturb the things which are of faith.

It further says that the doctrine of faith is not a philosophical discovery, but a divine deposit to be faithfully guarded and infallibly declared by the Church.

If the Vatican Council had met and parted without any act beyond this one decree, it would have applied a direct and searching remedy to the intellectual aberrations of the nineteenth century. The proof of this may be seen in the outcry of unbelief against the Council. If it had not touched the quick, the outcry would not have been heard.

Footnotes

1. S. Irenseus, Adv. Her. 1. 3, c. 3, n. 2. ↩