362

DR. DÖLLINGER AND THE DOGMA OF

INFALLIBILITY.1

BY DR. HERGENRÖTHER, PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY AND CANON LAW IN THE UNIVERSITY OF WURZBURG.

(Translated from the German.)?

VI. CONCLUSION.

WHAT, then, is the drift of this agitation? Are we to have

a system of national Churches set up within the Catholic Church of Christ? A German-Catholic Church subject only to the authority of a national Patriarch? In no other sense can we interpret the demand made by the meeting at Nürnberg for a Council to be assembled "at this side of the Alps," excluding of course the authority and even the participation of Rome; no other meaning can be attached to the claim so boldly and so clearly put forward, that the "national thought" must be recognised in matters of religion; nor is it possible to assign any other interpretation to the petitions already referred to, which call upon the State to withdraw the privileges enjoyed by what Dr. Döllinger and his party are pleased to term the "New Catholic" Church, and to transfer them to the "Old Catholics," that is to say, to themselves-petitions which are strangely at variance with the constitution and fundamental laws both of Prussia and Bavaria, according to which those States can recognise only one, and that the Roman Catholic religion and Church, from which the petitioners, by their action in this matter, plainly show that they have seceded.3

Some years ago, Dr. Aloysius Pichler, whose recent conduct in St. Petersburg has compromised in no small degree, his patron "the great ecclesiastical Professor of Munich," formed the project of a "German union to promote the recognition of true Christianity, and thus to lay the foundation of one great National Church of Germany."

This suggestion he submitted to a scholar of established fame, placed in a position of commanding influence, and possessed of every qualification necessary for playing the part of a Luther or a Photius. As Photius gave to his resistance against the Holy See the character of a struggle between Greeks and

1 Continued from our March number.

2 The notes which are enclosed in brackets [thus], have been added by the translator.

3 Prussian Constitution of 1850. Art. 15: Bavarian Concordat of 1817, Art 1. Die wahren Hindernisse und die Grundbedingungen einer durchgreifenden Reform der Kath. Kirche zunächst in Deutschland. Leipzig, 1870, p. 489.

Latins-as Luther, adopting the same policy, invested his revolt with the character of a struggle between Germany and Rome— so the Munich Professor aims at bringing this new conflict into the same category, as a contest between Germans and Italians. And as Photius turned his scholarship and the traditions of his country to account in his conflict with the West, Dr. Döllinger employs the same weapons in his conflict with the Catholicity of Southern Europe. The constant changes of doctrine, the introduction of the civil power on the plea of protecting its own interests, the reliance on the co-operation of the professors of profane sciences, the boastful assertions of national superiority,1 all these are common to the present conflict and its unhallowed prototypes. A Catholic who has swerved so far from the path of Catholic unity, can feel little difficulty in making common cause with Protestants, and is not unlikely to succeed in making some compromise with at least a small section of them, thus laying the foundation of what its unhappy members may chose to regard as a new German Church.

But it would be, indeed, a deplorable calamity for the people of Germany, if the era of the establishment of their national unity were marked also by the opening of a new schism, and this, especially, in the religious body which has hitherto presented the most signal example of compact unity. It can hardly be supposed that our Protestant fellow-countrymen could derive any advantage from so deplorable a catastrophe, and they are far too clear-sighted to form any such anticipation. They are well aware that the union resulting from such a movement would be a mere amalgamation of heterogeneous elements, that its sole profession of faith would be a negation, -emancipation from the yoke of Rome-and that it would include no Catholics but those whose religious opinions rest on the most unstable foundation, and whose apostacy would bring no discredit to the Catholic Church.

1 ["It may be truly said that theology is now rare, very rare in Rome. There 'is, of course, no lack of theologians but if they were all pounded together in a mortar into one theologian, even this one would find some difficulty in getting his claims recognised in Germany." QUIRINUS. Letters from the Council. Authorized Translation. London, 1870, p. 95.

Elsewhere the same writer speaks of "the decline of study in Rome, and the want, not merely of learned men, but even, and most especially of well grounded theologians." "De Rossi," he says, "the most acute and learned among the genuine Romans, . . has educated himself by the study of German works." Ibid. p. 233.

And Dr. Döllinger, in his Lectures on the Reunion of the Churches, proclaims that he has "found it the almost universal conviction in foreign countries that it is the special mission of Germany to take the lead in this world-wide question, and give to the movement its form, measure, and direction. We are," he adds, "the heart of Europe, richer in theologians than all other lands," &c. Lectures. Authorized Translation. London, 1872, p. 162.]

In the early ages of Christianity the Donatists used to assert that the true Church existed only in Africa: the members of the new sect will be obliged to proclaim in like manner that the true Church exists only in Germany. And for the defence of their position they must place their sole reliance on that which has indeed, for many a year, been the pride and boast of Germany-scholarship; but scholarship which, in this case, though they may regard as "irrefragable," is, after all, but the scholarship of a single man. For what claim can they have to the "old Catholicity," to which they profess to adherence, while, in reality, their creed is the conception of one individual, and cannot fail, if its principles are carried to their ultimate consequence, to lead to the denial of every element of Catholicity? From the days of the Apostles to our own time, the title Catholic has been accorded to those alone who held fast to the unity of faith with the Chair of Peter, subject to the authority of the pastors in communion with the Roman See, and prepared to yield submission to every decision emanating from the teaching authority of the Church.

The present revolt against the authority of the Council has been long since threatened. Every close observer of the course of events, down to the 18th of July, 1870,1 must have perceived that the leaders of the present movement in opposition to the Decrees of the Council, regarded its proceedings from the very first with jealous hostility, and were prepared to submit to its teaching only in case their own favourite ideas were endorsed by it, or at least allowed to pass without censure. What would be thought of a suitor in a court of justice who would declare that unless the decision of the court were in his favour, he would forthwith undertake to organise a revolution? Yet this is precisely what is occurring now. Statesmen and jurists, if they would avoid a fatal blunder, of which they may one day have bitterly to repent, had better look to it in time.

[The date of the Fourth Public Session of the Vatican Council, when the Definition of Papal Infallibility was solemnly ratified].

* We cannot regard as applicable to the persons of whom we speak, the following extract from a work written in opposition to the proposed Definition of Papal Infallibility (Observationes quaedam de Infallibilitatis Ecclesiae Subjecto: Vindob. 1870, cap. xv., p. 82), and ascribed to an eminent Austrian Prelate :-"The recognition of the authority of an Ecumenical Council is as universal as the Catholic faith. Even when the Pope alone instructs the Church, all Catholics declare with confidence that his teaching is free from error. When the Pope, in union with the Bishops, publishes a decree of faith, all must acknowledge that error is impossible." Another work (De Summi Pontificis Infallibilitatis Personali) by S. Mayer, adopting a standpoint still farther removed from that of the extraconciliar opposition, fully acknowledges the Infallibility of the Roman Church, the supreme authority of the Pope as teacher, and the inadmissibility of appeals from his decisions. Nothing was further from the mind of those writers than the idea of a merely conditional obedience to the Decrees of the Council.

Some opponents of the Dogma have gone so far as to call upon the State to adopt a policy of persecution against all who regarding the Definitions of the Vatican Council as binding in conscience, are determined, come what may, to remain faithful to the Church.1 The Catholic Church has already had to sustain many persecutions from heretics and schismatics: but their only result has been to increase the glory of her triumph. Nor will any persecution which may now be raised against her, have a different issue. Not satisfied that the Bishops who, in the discharge of their duty, and in strict conformity with the principles of Canon Law, have undertaken proceedings, not, indeed, against any refractory layman, but against contumacious ecclesiastics, are receiving no aid from the State, these new advocates of religious intolerence, while complaining loudly that they are the victims of ecclesiastical oppression, demand nothing short of the actual suppression of the dogma defined by the Church, which they do not hesitate to stigmatize as a "heretical innovation." They urge that for eighteen centuries this Definition was not considered necessary; but this reasoning, on which almost every heretic has relied, when his error was condemned by the Church, needs no other reply than that by which such allegations have invariably been met by the defenders of the Catholic faith: the Definition is the natural result of several concurring causes-the truth of the doctrine which has been defined, the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, and the danger in which many consciences were placed of being led into error by the denial of this truth of faith.2

Since the fifteenth century, no anti-Pope has disputed the claim of the legitimate successor of Saint Peter to supreme ecclesiastical authority. But the place of those assailants of Catholic unity has been abundantly filled, to some extent, by the reformers of the sixteenth century, prominent among whom, Calvin exercised a religious dictatorship over a large portion of Europe, but in a much larger degree by the revolutionary spirit which, with ever increasing boldness, has continued to assert its independence of all authority, setting up the chair of its own dogmatism in opposition to the Chair of Peter, the overthrow of which is its incessant aim, and endeavouring by every art to spread far and wide the elements of disunion, turmoil, and distrust. But although we may now witness in the Church the result of its operations, it is vain for its 1 See, for instance, the Rhenish Mercury of Dec. 3rd, 1870, and the Allgemeine Zeitung of Dec. the 26th.

2 "Ex fidei veritate, ex Ecclesiae auctoritate, ex periculi necessitate." S. BONAVENT. In Lib. 1. Sent. D. xi. a. 4.

apostles to imagine that she will ever succumb to their attacks. We may to-day repeat those words of the great Pontiff, Alexander III., against whom four anti-Popes, each of them sustained by the civil power, arose one after another, in the beginning of his stormy Pontificate--words which the Pope himself lived to see verified :-" He who said to his Apostles, Behold I am with you all days even unto the consummation of the world' (Matt. xxviii. 20), will not be unmindful of His promise, nor will He fail to secure the triumph of His Church, though for a time she may seem, like Peter's bark, about to sink amid the waves which surround her. False brethren, 'who have gone out from us but who were not of us,' (I. John ii. 19), may endeavour to rend the indivisible garment, but Christ, the Founder and Head of His Church, will protect His Bride, nor will He allow the bark of the faithful fisherman to suffer shipwreck, long and angrily as it may be tossed by the waves."1

At the worst, the present rupture may be developed into open schism, but deplorable as that result would be for the many souls who might be led astray, it could not fail to have a useful and purifying influence: nor would the evil be of long continuance. A calmer appreciation of the true condition of affairs will produce its effect, the bugbear of Ultramontanism will cease to be an object of terror, and all feeling of apprehension will gradually be dispelled. As Catholics, we must hope for this blessed result, and pray for it to our merciful God. Those whose instincts are sound and true, will soon come to perceive that if they persist in rejecting the authority of the Vatican Council, they must set aside the authority of former Councils as well; they must call in question the course which has been pursued for centuries by the Holy See and by the entire Church; they must ignore the significance and deny the fulfilment of the promises made to the Church by her Divine founder; and, in fact, they must deny the perpetuity of the true Church. Nor can they fail to see the frightful abyss, on the brink of which they have been standing since the 18th July, 1870, falsely imagining that they are obeying a voice from heaven, while in reality their inspiration is of the earth, and forgetting that even if an angel from heaven were to preach another doctrine, it would be their duty to adhere to the apostolic teaching which is preserved by the unfailing authority of the Church. Meanwhile, the prayer of our Lord in the hour of his agony, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," (Luke xxiii. 34), must plead in their behalf. Nor should we abandon all hope, that with the lights of his 1 ALEX. III., Epist. 1, (Migne, Patrol. Lat. Tom, cc., p. 69.)