obscurity which reign over the political order in this age of revolutions.

Only two cardinals out of twenty-one thought an Ecumenical Council not to be required-the one being of opinion that Councils are to be called only when some grave peril to the faith exists; the other that the subjects to be treated were of too delicate a nature, and that the external helps needed for the celebration of a Council did not now exist.

One also declined to give an opinion, referring himself to the judgment of the Supreme Pontiff.

Four, who thought a Council to be the remedy required by the evils of these times, nevertheless doubted if the moment were opportune, but still they admitted that, at least, all necessary preparations should be made for its convocation.

(3.) The Consultors then enumerated the obstacles in the way of holding a Council:-the confusions and disorders of the times; the animosity of the unbelieving and the profane, who would neither respect the authority of the Council nor fail to make pretexts out of its acts for attacking it more bitterly; the attitude of all civil governments, which are either hostile or indifferent; the probability of European wars which would disperse or endanger the Council. Then again they suggest the difficulties internal to the Church; the absence of bishops from their dioceses; the danger that dissensions and parties might arise in the Council itself, and thereby divide the unity of the Catholic episcopate-a danger common to all times, but especially to these in which the subjects of possible divergence are so delicate and so wide-spread in their consequences. These reasons made some hesitate, and some pronounce against the holding of the Council. And even the majority who advised its convocation were fully aware of these opposing reasons, and did not deny their great weight.

Nevertheless they were of opinion that the need that a Council should be held was greater than the dangers of holding it. They believed that, grave as are the political and religious confusions, higher and nobler aspirations are not extinct; that a tendency to return towards the order of divine and supernatural truth is to be seen not only in individuals, but in the masses; that among the Catholic peoples a new life has sprung up, a great return of fervour, and an outspoken resistance to erroneous doctrines. They thought, therefore, that a Council would encourage and consolidate the faithful and fervent members of the Church, and, by its witness for truth, weaken the pretensions of those who oppose it; that the world could not do more against the Church after the Council than before it; that the Council of Nicæa was held in the face of the Arian contentions, and the Council of Trent when the north of Europe was on the verge of schism; that difficulties and dangers and the opposition of

civil powers since the fourth century have threatened all Councils, but that Councils have always done their work which remains to this day. They said, too, that the great and lasting good gained by the Council for the whole Church would more than outweigh any harm from the temporary absence of bishops from their dioceses; and, finally, that if there should be dissensions and parties, so there were at Trent, but that when the Council had made its final decisions all returned to submission and concord. So it would be in the future Council.

One of the cardinals wrote as follows:

In these great affairs of the Church, they who have to treat them ought to rise high above those who are busied in politics. Men of the world trust in subtleties, astuteness, duplicities, and in means and views purely human. They who rule the Church trust in the prudence of the Gospel, in the truth, in the discharge of their own duties, and in the special assistance promised to the Church by its Divine Founder. Therefore it is that oftentimes what appears to be imprudent in the eye of those who go by human prudence alone is an act of evangelical prudence, and is both good and a duty, as well as an act of Divine Providence.

Another writes:

I see that whensoever the Church has deliberated about holding an Ecumenical Council, there were difficulties to surmount not less than those of to-day, and that if Divine Providence not only overcame them, but made them to turn to the greater good of the Church, so assuredly this assistance of the Holy Spirit, who sweetly and mightily orders all things, will not be wanting in a time when so many reasons concur to show the opportuneness of the same remedy, which, in all times whensoever it has been applied, has always produced the happiest and most imposing effects.

A third said:

God, who has suggested to your Holiness the thought of an Ecumenical Council to raise a strong defence against the vast evils of our time, will make the way plain, overcome all the difficulties, and give to your Holiness and to the bishops a moment of truce; peace, and time enough to fulfil so great a work.

(4.) The last point of consultation was of the matters to be treated. The Consultors first suggest the condemnation of modern errors, the exposition of Catholic doctrine, the observance of discipline, its adaptation to the needs of the present time, and the raising of the state of the clergy and of the religious orders. Some of the cardinals touched upon special points, such as the license of the press, the secret societies, civil marriage, the impediments to marriage, mixed marriages, ecclesiastical possessions, the observance of the feasts, abstinence, fasting, and the like. Two only spoke of the infallibility of the Pontiff: one of these spoke in general of Gallicanism. A third spoke also of Gallicanism, and of the present necessity of the temporal power of the Roman Pontiff in order to a free exercise of his ecclesiastical office. But this Consultor was one

who opposed the holding of the Council.

A fourth mentioned the

temporal power. One only spoke of the syllabus, and he also was opposed to the holding of the Council. The Archbishop of Florence then goes on as follows:

Certainly we must say that if the course of history does not prove that a pretended Jesuitical conspiracy controlled the programme of the Council, the cause of those who tell us, usque ad nauseam, that 'Rome, by hidden schemes of that celebrated society, conceived the design of concentrating all power, ecclesiastical and civil, in the hands of the Supreme Pontiff, and setting up in the Church a new and exorbitant authority by the servility of the bishops,' will be irreparably lost.1

Other points were touched upon by the cardinals. Many expressed their ardent desire that our brethren separated from the Catholic Church might through the work of the Council find a way of return to the true mother of all the children of God.

II. After such full and careful deliberation, many might expect that Pius the Ninth would have proceeded to decide upon the convocation of the Council of the Vatican. Indeed, many have said that he was so strongly bent upon it, for the special purpose of his own 'apotheosis,' that he waited for no consultation, and endured no advice. History tells another tale. All that had hitherto been done was no more than a preliminary deliberation; and that only as to whether the subject of holding an Ecumenical Council should be so much as proposed for further deliberation.

In the first days of March, 1865, Pius the Ninth directed certain of the cardinals to meet and confer together, by way of a preliminary discussion, on the very question whether an Ecumenical Council should be convoked or not. He ordered, likewise, that the written voti, or judgments of the Consultors, of which account has been already given, should be reduced to a compendium for the use of the new commission. This was done by the Procurator-General of the Dominican Order, in a brief form, under the title Sketch of the Opinions expressed by the Cardinals invited by Pius the Ninth to advise on the Convocation of an Ecumenical Council.' The compendium begins as follows: The cardinals, to the number of thirteen, advised affirmatively for the convoking of a Council; one answered negatively, submitting his judgment to that of the Holy Father; one other concluded that a Council ought not to be convoked.' The new commission then was composed of the Cardinals Patrizi, Reisach, Panebianco, Bizzarri, and Caterini.

The secretary of the commission was the Archbishop of Sardis, now Cardinal Giannelli, then Secretary of the Congregation of the Council, that is, for the interpretation of the Council of Trent and of all similar questions.

The first session was held on the 9th of March, 1865, and the Consultors proceeded to re-examine the four heads of which a hasty sketch has been already given.

Cecconi, lib. i. c. i. p. 17.

The compendium was then subjected to a new and rigorous examination; and under the first head came the question of the necessity of Councils. It has been already said that the holding of Councils is not of absolute but only of relative necessity for the government of the Church. The meaning of this judgment is as follows. There is no divine commandment, no divine obligation, requiring that the bishops of the Universal Church should meet in one place. The government of the Church is adequately provided for in the divine institution of the Primacy and of the Episcopate. Nevertheless, for a multitude of reasons, both of natural and supernatural prudence, the Church, following the example of the Apostles, has always held not only diocesan and provincial synods, but also Ecumenical Councils.

For the first three hundred years no General Council was convened; for the last three hundred years no General Council has been summoned. For eighteen centuries, before 1869, only eighteen Councils had been held. General Councils, therefore, though useful and sometimes necessary, relatively to particular errors or particular times, are not absolutely necessary to the office of the Church. The Church is not infallible by reason of General Councils, but General Councils are infallible by reason of the Church. The Church does not depend on General Councils for the knowledge of the truth. Councils meet to give to truth, already known by divine tradition, a more precise expression for common and universal use. The whole Church, both the Ecclesia docens and the Ecclesia discens-that is, pastors in teaching, and the flock in believing-diffused throughout the world, is guided and kept in the way of truth at all times. The Church discharges its office as witness, judge, and teacher, always and in all places. The Primacy in Rome and the Episcopate throughout the world, by the assistance of the Spirit of Truth abiding with it for ever, can never err in guarding and declaring the divine tradition of revelation. In the three hundred years before the Council of Nicæa, the living voice of the Church sufficed for the promulgation and diffusion of the faith; in the intervals between Council and Council the voice of the Church was sufficient in its declarations of truth and its condemnation of error. In the three hundred years since the Council of Trent, the Church has taught with the same divine and unerring authority. If it be asked, then, what need there can be for an Ecumenical Council, the answer is, that in applying remedies to the evils of the whole world, a knowledge of these wide-spread evils is necessary. More is seen by a multitude of eyes, and heard by a multitude of ears. The collective intelligence, culture, experience, instincts, and discernment, natural and supernatural, of the episcopate, is the highest light of counsel upon earth. Such is the meaning of the words that the holding of Councils is not absolutely but relatively necessary.2

1 Petri Privilegium, part i. pp. 76-81. Longmans.

As to the obstacles in the way of holding the Council, the first was a doubt as to the disposition of the civil powers to permit the bishops of their respective jurisdictions to attend. Fear was especially entertained on this point in respect to the governments of France, Italy, and Portugal. It was remembered that in 1862 the government of Italy hindered the Italian bishops from coming to Rome for the canonisation of the martyrs of Japan. But if the governments of Germany, Spain, Belgium, Holland, England, and America should put no hindrance, it was certain that a sufficient number of bishops would obey the call of the Supreme Pontiff.

As to the course to be pursued towards the sovereigns and civit powers, it was known that in all times, in convening Ecumenical Councils, the Church has endeavoured to act in accordance with Catholic sovereigns. This procedure was always held to be both fitting and useful, though not of necessity. Paul the Third, in convoking the Council of Trent, sought to obtain not only the assent of sovereigns, but their presence. In the bull of convocation he says: 'We asked the opinion of the princes, as it seemed to us that their assent to such an undertaking was above all expedient and opportune.” And afterwards he adds: We urgently invited the Catholic sovereigns to come to the Council, and to bring with them the prelates of their respective countries.' But he found the sovereigns undecided; and therefore, after many ineffectual attempts, he resolved to convoke the Council.

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We desired (he said) to effect this object in accordance with and by the goodwill of the princes of Christendom. But while we were waiting on their will, and looking for the time appointed by Thy will, O God, we felt ourselves at last impelled to declare that all times are surely acceptable to God in which deliberation is taken in respect to things that are sacred and pertaining to Christian piety. Wherefore, seeing, to our immeasurable sorrow, the Christian world daily growing worse, Hungary trodden down by the Turks, the Germans in peril, all other peoples afflicted with fear and grief, we have decided to wait no longer for the assent of any prince, nor to look to anything but to the will of Almighty God, and to the welfare of the Christian commonwealth.3

It was therefore thought fit that the Catholic sovereigns should be invited to appear by their legates at the Council of the Vatican, 'according to the usage of the Church and the precedent of the Council of Trent,'

Next it was proposed to call certain ecclesiastical persons from all parts of the world for previous consultation, inasmuch as the benefit of the Council consists for the most part in knowing the state of the various regions and the remedies which there exist.'

Finally, the secretary recommended that all matters to be treated should be fully prepared and set in order before the assembling of the bishops, not only to avoid loss of time, but above all to preclude