Letters From Rome on the CouncilDöllinger, Johann Joseph Ignaz von
History
Letters From Rome on the Council
Döllinger, Johann Joseph Ignaz von
Popes -- Infallibility; Vatican Council (1st : 1869-1870 : Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano)
I have just received the last number of the Paris _Correspondant_, with
its article by the Viscount of Meaux, Montalembert’s son-in-law, who is
here. His account of how the Council is treated is so much to the point,
and so thoroughly confirms my own statements, that I will quote it for
you.
“The _Schemata_,” he says, at p. 347, “are prepared beforehand, the order
of business is imposed by authority (_imposée_), the Commissions are
elected before any consultation, from official lists, by a disciplined
majority which votes as one man. On these Commissions the minority is not
represented, and there are no other deliberations except in Congregation.
Before these Congregations the subjects are brought in all their novelty
and laid before the 700 members, without any previous explanations. It is
difficult to understand the speeches, and there are no reports which the
Fathers can inspect, so that no Bishops have the opportunity of submitting
their thoughts to the deliberate examination of their colleagues.
Moreover, they are forbidden to have anything printed here for the
Council. All these characteristics indicate an assembly summoned to
approve, not to discuss, intended to exalt, not to moderate, the power
which has summoned it. And with what haste does it push on in this
direction! How impatiently does the majority press for a declaration of
Papal Infallibility!” So far the Viscount. Matters must indeed have come
to a pass when so cautious and strictly Catholic a journal as the
_Correspondant_ presents its readers with this picture of the Council.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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