:: done everything was pre-arranged and imposed on the Council by the Pope, and even the secretaries and scrutators were named beforehand. No initiative is allowed to the Bishops; the Commission for examining motions is formed of the hottest Infallibilists and members of the Curia, but the final decision is reserved to the Pope. The proposers of a motion are not even allowed to explain and defend it, so that the freedom nominally conceded to the Bishops of proposing measures is rendered purely illusory. By the composition of the four Commissions, elected from Roman lists of names, all work of critical importance is kept in the hands of the few Infallibilists chosen for the purpose by the Curia, to the exclusion of 700 Bishops, among whom are all the German Bishops who signed the Fulda Letter to the Pope, and the most influential French Prelates. In short, all Bishops not known to be thorough-going Infallibilists have been systematically excluded from the Commissions. Very different was it at Trent, where all the Fathers, divided into four Congregations, took a real part in the work. We must add the monstrous disproportion of national representation-the enormous and overwhelming preponderance of the Italians, still further strengthened by the host of Vicars-Apostolic, who can at any moment be deposed by the Propaganda without any legal formality. Thus the Italian Bishops alone outnumber all the French, German, Hungarian and North American together, though these last represent a population nearly three times as large. The weakness of the two French Cardinals, Bonnechose and Mathieu, who ought to have taken the lead, has frustrated the attempt to unite the French Bishops in a national group. Bonnechose consulted Antonelli, who said the French must not assemble in larger bodies than fifteen or at most twenty together. The evil consequences were at once shown in the elections. "The Bishops are compelled by the Pope to hold their sittings in a place where at least a third cannot understand a word that is said, so that, e.g., Cardinal di Pietro long since declared he had not really understood a single speech, and another Cardinal said that not twenty words of all the speeches had reached his ear. A really searching discussion and living interchange of observations and replies is out of the question. No speaker can hope to produce any impression on this audience. And thus the first Schema, which consists of 140 pages, was the subject of general discussion for weeks without any detailed discussion of the separate articles being arrived at, or any point certainly ascertained, notwithstanding the number of speakers. The only result was a great waste of time, bodily fatigue and a deep discouragement. Had the object been to satiate the assembly with speeches usque ad nauseam it could not have been better managed. It would be something if the Fathers could read the speeches they can't hear, but neither are they allowed to be read; the Bishops may not even print their addresses at their own cost. Thus many of them are wholly deprived of the opportunity of expressing their views, knowing that they will not be heard. "Vigorous preparations were made for two years before the opening of the Council. There is matter enough for ten Councils, but it is only communicated to the Bishops piecemeal, so that they can get no insight into the connection and plan of the separate propositions. Thus a ready-made Council has been put before 700 Bishops, which they are obliged again to unstitch like a web. As the Bishops had no means of gaining previous information, the Council is mostly deaf and dumb, and has at last got driven into a narrow pass from which there is no exit without a thorough alteration of the order of business. No one can say how it will be with the examination of the separate articles of the Schemata, and yet the Council ought to have most carefully weighed every word of decrees which are to be imposed on the world under anathema." TWENTY-FIFTH LETTER. Rome, Feb. 24, 1870.-Since my last letter, the Council, whose movements for a long time were like those of a tortoise, has made gigantic strides. The Goddess of Insolence (ßpis) rules here just as the Greek tragedians-especially Sophocles-describe her. All rumours of an adjournment of the Council were partly well-meant wishes of several Bishops, partly produced by the fact of the Governments-the French in particular-earnestly desiring it. Here in Rome no one of the Vatican party has thought of it for a moment. All who know the real state of things and persons here must be convinced that the Council will certainly be gone through with to the end, either completely-in full accordance with the well-calculated plan sketched out during the last two years for partly Jesuitizing and partly Romanizing everything in the Church, in theology and in the religious life, and carry |