SIXTY-SEVENTH LETTER.

Rome, July 16, 1870.-As I had to report in my last letter, the attempt of the Legates and the Deputation to outwit and catch the minority by a violation of their own order of business had all but succeeded. Darboy and Strossmayer frustrated this plot, on which it is literally true that the fate of the Church was staked. For the third canon of the third chapter had been brought forward in so enlarged and altered a form, that it involved in substance the abolition of the entire episcopate, as an integral constituent of the Christian Church, and substituted for it the papal "totality," as the theologians of the seventeenth century called it; i.e., the theory that in the whole Church there is one sole individual who is in exclusive possession of all plenary powers and all ecclesiastical rights. The weight and importance of the doctrine thereby designed to be

for the first time imposed on the Church cannot even be made intelligible in a few words. Most readers are naturally unaware of the sense attached in canon law and the language of the Curia to the words, "potestas immediata et ordinaria." Well! they mean that all Christians, whether laymen or clerics, are personally subjects, body and soul, of their lord and master, the Pope, who can impose on them without restriction whatever commands seem good to him. There are, besides the Pope, who exercises immediate authority by virtue of his universal episcopate, papal commissaries in the separate dioceses, who call themselves Bishops, and are so named by the Roman Chancery. They exercise the powers delegated to them by the one true and universal Bishop, and carry out the particular orders they receive from Rome. According to this view the whole Church has, properly speaking, no other right or law or order but the pleasure of the reigning Pope. This is the most perfect form of absolutism ever yet excogitated in any man's brains.

The order of business prohibits any alteration in the text of the decrees being voted upon without previous discussion in Council. That however was now attempted, and the violation of the order of business by

the Legates themselves was so flagrant, the design of fraud so palpable, that the incident continued to be the subject of general conversation up to the 12th July. When the plot had miscarried, it was alleged in excuse that the previous discussion had been forgotten!-forgotten precisely in the case of the most important article yet brought forward, and of a change of such immeasurable weight that one may truly say no discussion of equal weight and influence has been passed in any Council during 1800 years. The affair of course made a great sensation. The words "deceit" and "lying" were used more than once in the national meetings of the Opposition Bishops, and it was urged that the whole Deputation de Fide were accomplices of the Legates in this unworthy trick, and that the Bishops were being compelled in a truly revolting manner to vote on alterations of the most comprehensive kind, which had only been communicated to them the day before. A short memorandum was issued by the French Bishops, which recommended that this opportunity should be seized for leaving Rome. It runs as follows:

"(1). L'heure de la Providence a sonné : le moment décisif de sauver l'Église est arrivé. (2.) Par les addi

tions faites au III. canon du 3me chap. la Commission de Fide a violé le règlement qui ne permet l'introduction d'aucun amendement sans discussion conciliaire. (3.) L'addition subreptice est d'une importance incalculable; c'est le changement de la constitution de l'Église, la monarchie pure, absolue, indivisible du Pape, l'abolition de la judicature et de la co-souveraineté des évêques, l'affirmation et la définition anticipée de l'infaillibilité separée et personnelle. (4.) Le devoir et l'honneur ne permettent pas de voter sans discussion ce canon, qui contient une immense révolution. La discussion pourrait et devrait durer six mois, parce qu'il s'agit de la question capitale, la constitution même de la souveraineté dans l'Église. (5.) Cette discussion est impossible à cause des fatigues extrêmes de la saison et des dispositions de la majorité. (6.) Une seule chose, digne et honorable, reste à faire: Demander immédiatement la prorogation du Concile au mois d'Octobre, et présenter une déclaration, où seraient énumérées toutes les protestations déjà faites, et où la dernière violation du règlement, le mépris de la dignité et de la liberté des évêques seraient mis en lumière. Annoncer en même temps un départ, qui ne peut plus être différé. (7.) Par le départ ainsi motivé d'un nombre considér

able d'évêques de toutes les nations, l'œcuménicité du Concile cesserait et tous les actes, qu'il pourrait faire ensuite, seraient d'une autorité nulle. (8.) Le courage et le dévouement de la minorité auraient, dans le monde, un retentissement immense. Le Concile se réunirait au mois d'Octobre dans des conditions infiniment meilleures. Toutes les questions, à peine ébauchées, pourraient être reprises, traitées avec dignité et liberté. L'Église et l'ordre moral du monde seraient sauvés."

But the majority of the Opposition did not assent to this; they resolved to present another Protest, which the Court party might apply, like its predecessors, “ad piper et quidquid chartis amicitur ineptis." It was drawn up by Bishop Dinkel of Augsburgh, and signed, so far as I know, by all of them.

On the evening of the 9th July a proposal of a new formula of infallibility was distributed to the Bishops; it was apparently designed to split up the Opposition, and was broad, declamatory, full of quotations, and lavish of assurances that the Roman See has always administered its supreme teaching office in the most excellent manner and proclaimed nothing but truth. Now, it was added, since there has been a great deal of con