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Chapter II Infallibility (2 Thes. ii. 4, and 1 Tim. iv. 2.)

THE year 1870 will be forever memorable in the history of the Papacy. It has witnessed the grotesquely solemn ascription of one of the attributes of deity to the pretended successor of Peter. “Speaking lies in hypocrisy,” and raving in a delirium of passion, the sovereign pontiff shouts:

“I am the Pope: the Vicar of Jesus Christ; the chief of the Catholic Church, and I have called this Council, which shall do His work, . . . . I say,—I, who can not but speak the truth, —that if we would establish liberty, we must never fear to speak the truth, and to denounce error. I too would be free as well as the truth itself”

“And there are those now who are in fear of the world! They fear revolution! . . . . They will sacrifice all the rights of the Holy See, and their love for the Vicar of Jesus Christ, Miserable men, what must they do? They seek the applause of men. We, my children, we seek the approbation of God. You must sustain the claims of truth and righteousness. It is the duty of the bishops fearlessly to fight in the defense of truth alongside of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. My children, do not forsake me.” – From the Pope’s speech to the Vicars Apostolic, March 23, 1870.

In answer to this pathetic appeal the unterrified made the Vatican ring with cries, “ No, No, No, Vive l’Infallible! Vive l’Infallible!! Vive l’Infallible!!!” At the public reception, May 14, 1870, one continuous deafening shout was heard, “ Long live the Infallible.” Was Paul picturing this scene when he wrote, “Who opposes himself, and exalts himself against all that is called God, and against all worship: even to seat himself in the temple of God, and take on himself openly the signs of Godhead?” (Conybeare and Howson’s Version.)

Preparations for this solemn farce were made even so early as the year 1864. Then was issued the Encyclical and Syllabus, since so famous, which commend most of the arrogant assumptions of previous Pontiffs, and denounce, in no measured terms, the civilization, progress, religion and education of the present. With characteristic impudence they claim for the Pope the right of abrogating civil law, of enforcing obedience to Catholic dogmas, of employing corporl punishment, and even of compelling princes to execute civil penalties for ecclesiastical offenses. They insist, in language not to be mistaken, that to Holy Mother belongs the exclusive right to educate the young, that priests are not subject to civil governments, that the Pope rules, jure divino, in temporal things, that the right to solemnize marriage is the exclusive possession of the priesthood, that Catholicism is the only system of faith entitled to man’s suffrage, and, accordingly, that Protestant worship ought not to be tolerated, and where it can be suppressed, as in New Granada and in Rome, must be.

Not content with endorsing Gregory’s condemnation of liberty of conscience as an insanity, His Infallibility denominates it the liberty of perdition. The privilege of embracing that religion which, led by the light of reason, a man conscientiously believes to be right, is repeatedly and emphatically denied. Even the will of an entire nation, though calmly, kindly and intelligently expressed, can by no possibility constitute law; cannot lawfully demand the respect of Christ’s Vicar. Having thus condemned all liberty, personal and national, civil and religious, he commits himself unqualifiedly to despotism, by anathematizing those who demand that the Roman Pontiff should harmonize himself with progress and modern civilization, and by denying to the down-trodden even the God-given right of rebellion. Fitly is this proud tyranny crowned with the unblushing assertion, that the judgments, decisions, dogmas and practices of the Church are infallible.

Conceived in iniquity, this now famous dogma was brought forth by the suppression of free discussion. Protests against its adoption, though respectfully worded and courteously presented, were sent back without comment or communication, and in some instances even unread. Arguments in every way deserving of serious attention obtained no answer.* The German prelates, in a carefully prepared protest, said, “Unless these (the great difficulties arising from the words and acts of the Fathers of the Church, as contained in authentic documents of Catholic history) can be resolved, it will be impossible to impose this doctrine upon Christian people as being a revelation from heaven.” And yet far from succeeding, scarcely an effort was made in removing the difficulties. “All religion,” said Cardinal Schwarzenberg, “is at an end in Bohemia if this definition is affirmed.” “No words,” said another prelate, “can express the evils which will accrue to the cause of religion throughout Hungary, if infallibility is affirmed.” These, like all the bishops who dared to anticipate social and political evils from the adoption of this new dogma, were treated as disturbers of the peace, as disloyal to Christ’s Vicar, as grossly impertinent and presumptuous.

A correspondent of the Liberté gives an account of a strange scene between the Pope and the Syrian Patriarch of Babylon. The Patriarch, who, before leaving for Rome had taken solemn oath to defend the liberties of the Oriental Churches, said in Council: “We Orientals reserve our rights, which moreover have been recognized by the Council of Florence.” The Pope, irritated, sent for him. The venerable Prelate immediately repaired to the Vatican. The Pontiff, pale and greatly agitated, presented a paper by which the Patriarch renounced all his rights and privileges. “Sign that,” said Pius IX.“ I cannot,” replied the Prelate. The Pope, seized with one of his violent fits of anger, striking his hand on the table, exclaimed: “You cannot leave without signing it.” The Patriarch reminded him of his oath. “ Your oath is a nullity, sign.” After an hour’s useless struggle the Prelate submitted, appending his signature.

Those who, with irresistible logic demanded unanimity as the condition of promulgating a new dogma, especially one so important and far-reaching in its consequences, were insulted, threatened with deposition, and in the end forced either to absent themselves or to vote infallibility.* The Pope, as in the preparations for the Council, so in its proceedings, assumed to decide the gravest questions. He ostentatiously proclaimed himself as by divine appointment the infallible head of the Church. By lauding and honoring the friends of infallibility, and insulting and denouncing their opponents, denominating them “bad Catholics,” he showed himself the worthy head of the order of Jesuits. Freedom of opinion became a mere name; discussion only a pretense. The result was predetermined; known when the Council was called. The French bishops, in a manifesto portraying with just indignation the successive steps taken in suppressing all freedom, affirm: “Debate in general convocation has been a mere illusion: discussion has been muzzled, and free speech gagged. Passion is dominating more and more: old traditions and usages are abandoned, just claims forgotten, and the most elementary rules set at naught. . . . . A good cause does not need to be supported by violence.”

By such agencies as these an assembly of bishops, who according to ancient Roman law had no right to originate dogma, but simply to express in formula doctrines which had ever been held as objects of universal belief, promulgated a dogma as dishonoring to God as it is insulting to man.

And the arguments by which this monstrous claim was supported, are, like those by which St. Liguori proves Mary a proper object of worship, so excessively weak as to excite contempt. We do not affirm that those who employ them are men of feeble intellect. This, in many instances, is certainly not the case. But men of powerful minds, when thoroughly committed to an absurdity, are, of course, forced to bring forward arguments which strike every unbiased listener as simply ridiculous. And to hear mitred bishops and self-inflated cardinals, and a host of priests repeatedly and solemnly declaring that the doctrine of infallibility is as old as the Christian Church, would certainly excite universal laughter, were not the consequences of the claim so appalling. And the argument from silence, so much employed, how conclusive! For ten centuries you find no protest against it. The fathers never mention it. They present no labored arguments in its favor. The councils uttered no anathemas against those refusing adhesion to it. The Popes, those sacred custodians of truth, have held no allocutions respecting it, have issued no bulls against those who questioned it. Therefore, of course, it must have been the universal faith from the time of the Apostles. Now, however, for the first time, some damnable heretics have presumed to call it in question. It is on this account that we deem it necessary to proclaim what has ever been the faith of those constituting the Church. Why this argument would not prove that two and two make five it would be difficult for a Protestant to conceive. But Papists, apparently, deem it entirely conclusive. The Rev. James Kent Stone, a recent convert to Catholicism, expands it to great length, and seemingly considers it unanswerable. Surely arguments must be scarce.

Dr. Henry Newman, another champion of Romeanism, in his “Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent,” appeals to common sense in proof of infallibility! He undertakes to show that the principles of assent applied to the ordinary affairs of life, logically lead to an enforced belief in the last dogma of Rome. We have the same reasons for believing that the Pope is infallible that we have for believing that Napoleon III. is a prisoner, viz., a great many people say so. We Protestants, upstarts of three centuries, ought to have the modesty to confess ourselves unable to see the force in metaphysical disquisitions so abstruse.

Then there is the Scriptural argument so laboriously drawn out in the London Vatican of July 29th, 1870: “Did not Christ say: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church?’ (We fancy we have heard that quoted before by Papists.) Even this, however, was not enough for the Most High to say to the first primate. Hence he adds, ‘And the gates of hell shall never prevail against it. Not enough yet. The sovereign Pope must reign in both worlds at once. ‘I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Not sufficient still, ‘And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then, moreover, Jesus said to Peter, not to John (the records must needs be amended, so the facts of Peter’s fall, denial and profanity are cautiously and very considerately suppressed): ‘I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.’ God’s Vicar could not err, because his fall would have been the ruin of the Church.” (The sacred record, you see, must be incorrect. Peter must have remained firm, for the Church has been infallible ever since. This passage must be like that other, which speaks of Peter’s wife’s mother, whereas Peter could by no possibility have been guilty of having a wife, since all his successors, following his illustrious example, vow celibacy.) Then follows the admonition addressed to the first pontiff, and through him to the long succession of Holy Fathers, “Confirm thy brethren.” So you see, or don’t you see?—the Pope is infallible. Can’t you say with “the greatest theologian of the age,” “There is hardly a doctrine of Christianity which is so conspicuously vouched in Holy Scripture, or which its divine author thought proper to reveal by such an astonishing iteration of words and acts, as that of the primacy and inerrancy of his Vicar?” This famous passage which does battle everywhere, which proves that priests can forgive sins, that the Pope can send a man to hell, to heaven, or to purgatory, that Peter was primate, that the Catholic Church is as unchangeable as a rock, that no man can be saved unless within its sinless pale, that Popery, in the exact form in which it now exists, shall continue till the Church militant becomes the Church triumphant, that corporp punishment for spiritual offenses is heaven ordained, and that Peter never fell, also, according to Papal logic, incontestably, unmistakably, irresistibly proves that Pio Nono, in this nineteenth century, is infallible.

Lastly, we have the argument of the bishop of Poitiers, which elicited such applause in the Vatican Council: “St. Paul was beheaded ; consequently his head, which represents the ordinary episcopate, was not indissolubly united to the body. St. Peter, on the contrary, was crucified with his head downwards, to show that his head, which was the image of the Papacy, sustained the whole body.” So you perceive the present Pope must be infallible. He says so. And how otherwise could he sustain the entire Church?—how be a Rock?

Proved, to the satisfaction of Papists by arguments such as these, infallibility was, July 18th, 1870, exalted into a dogma. The entire Catholic world must henceforth believe, on pain of eternal damnation, “ that when the Roman pontiff speaks ex cathedra . . . . he possesses infallibility. In interpretation of this the New York Freeman’s Journal and Catholic Register, of September 3rd, 1870, says: “Tn his personal character as Pope, without awaiting the agreement of the Catholic Episcopate, the Pope is infallible personally. The expression personal infallibility of the Pope is therefore correct.”

So the famous and long-continued discussion, where resides the infallibility of the Church—in the Pope, in a General Council, or in the concurrent voice of both?— is at last ended. No second Dean Swift need tauntingly say, “Really, Holy Mother might as well be without an infallible head, as not to know where to find him in necessity.” Five hundred and thirty-three robed bishops have solemnly proclaimed that he lives in Rome, or did, and is the legitimate successor of the fallible Peter. He eats bread, drinks wine, rides out daily in his coach, twirls his finger in an ecstasy of delight as he pronounces benedictions on those who shout, “ Vive l’Infallible,” and scowls with rage as he utters anathemas against the Protestant failure.

As this last and most insolent dogma of Popery has been established without argument, or rather in spite of argument, it certainly were folly for Protestants to dignify it by attempting a formal refutation. To argue a shouting crowd into silence is impossible. And a cloud, dense, dark, impalpable, portending storm, is not dissolved by man’s howling out a few syllogisms. Many an error has been argued into respectability by its opponents. For some absurdities no argument is more powerful than ridicule; for some pretensions no treatment so galling as silent contempt. And Protestants can certainly well afford to let bishops, priests, and people tell each other that they believe, or make believe, Pio Nono is infallible. If, however, any desire to examine a complete demolition of Rome’s last arrogant claim, we commend to their careful perusal, “The Pope and the Council,” by Janus. This work, originating in the bosom of the Papal Church, written by persons claiming to be genuine Catholics, and proving with inexorable logic that the doctrine of infallibility is a mere novelty in the religious world, has caused much uneasiness even in the seared conscience of the Papal Church, and called forth a vast amount of fruitless effort at refutation. We have seldom seen such pitiable exhibitions of the inherent weakness of a cause as may be seen in the absurdly feeble attempts to answer Janus. The Catholic World of New York (June, July, and August numbers, 1870), contains articles which, for feebleness and clumsy special pleading, are, we firmly believe, entitled to the first place in the literature of the last half century. Every unprejudiced reader must certainly rise from their perusal thoroughly convinced that the reception of the infallibility dogma is purely an act of faith. If that is Rome’s best showing, her proud claim evidently rests exclusively on bold and oft-repeated assertion and specious falsehood.

Since at last we have an infallible man, we ought to know how his decrees are to be transmitted to us fallibles. He is accessible only to a limited few. How can he make every child of Holy Mother infallibly certain what the truth is? Are all archbishops and bishops and priests to be next declared infallible? Are we to have a set of infallible telegraph operators, and infallible printers, who shall inform prelates and bishops, who in turn shall peddle out infallibility’s last announcement to every loyal Papist? And unless this is done, of what use is an infallible head? Must the faithful take an infallible system on the testimony of fallibles? Are they required to believe by proxy? The Pope says, “All must believe what I believe, because I believe what all believe.” Then every Romanist, it is to be presumed, believes everything contained in “the whole Word of God, written and unwritten.” This requires belief in at least one hundred and fifty folio volumes, a cart-load of contradictory doctrines and clashing traditions. If employing private judgment, the layman conscientiously endeavors to eliminate truth from this mass of useless rubbish, he is guilty of a damnable heresy. And how is he to know with infallible certainty what is the interpretation of Pius IX.? Must he go to Rome? Must he await the next Ecumenical Council which shall decree Papal transmission infallible? Or must he content himself with this circular argument? I believe what the Pope believes. The Pope believes what I believe. We both believe exactly the same. He and I are therefore infallible. And if he is, surely I must be. An unerring head and an erring body and members, were a kind of nondescript, a monster known neither in heaven, on earth, nor in hell.

This marvellous prerogative, it is now claimed, has always belonged to the successor of Peter. Has it ever decided a single controversy?—ever healed a single dissension?—ever settled a single quarrel either in private, in social or in national life? In this intensely practical age men therefore ask, what good is to result from this dogma? The fiercely bitter strifes between the Calvinistic Jansenists and the Arminian Jesuits, between the Franciscans and the Dominicans touching the kind of homage due the transubstantiated wafer, between the advocates and the opponents of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, were they, even in the slightest degree, alleviated or repressed by Christ’s infallible Vicar? And of what value was the inerrancy of Pope Liberius who embraced the Arian heresy? An infallible primate endorsing a doctrine which had already been repeatedly and emphatically anathematized, and by the present “ Infallible Judge in faith and morals” is deemed no less heinous than infidelity itself, is surely a strange proof of indefectibility. And of what value was this boasted prerogative to Pope Honorius, that old transgressor, whose doctrinal errors cost the last Ecumenical Council such an immense amount of arguing and falsifying? Being unanimously condemned by the sixth General Council for holding doctrines then, since, and now considered heretical, the advocates of Papal infallibility are placed in the awkward dilemma of being forced to believe that exact contraries are precisely the same. Benediction and anathema, assertion and denial, truth and error, are one and the same thing to those who can legislate vice into virtue and virtue into vice. Of what practical worth is that infallibility which in the seventeenth century, “desirous of providing against increased detriment to the holy faith,” solemnly affirmed: “The proposition that the earth moves is absurd, philosophically false, and theologically considered at least, erroneous in faith;” and in this nineteenth century, not merely believes the Copernican system, but with brazen-faced effrontery endeavors to deny that Galileo suffered persecution for opinion’s sake? And then, too, unless His Infallibility can reconcile the two thousand variations between the authorized Vulgate Bible of Pope Sextus, the infallible, and that of Pope Clement, the infallible, the unbelieving world will continue to smile at the deliverance of the invincible five hundred.

Let Rome’s arguments and anathemas therefore be never so powerful, an infallibility which suspends civil law, spreads rebellion and celebrates a Te Deum for the massacre of heretics; which corrupts the doctrines of the Bible, opposes popular education, and hangs on the skirts of progress shouting halt; which inveighs against the civilization of the present, stops commerce, fetters science, enslaves the mind, impoverishes the nations, and mingles even with her prayers curses against civil and religious liberty, is a dogma which this age at least can contemplate only with mingled horror and derision. Were it less ridiculous we might almost weep tears of blood over the spiritual thraldom of one hundred and eighty millions of human beings henceforth forced, on pain of excommunication, refusal of the sacraments and everlasting damnation, to believe an erring mortal “infallible judge in faith and morals,” Christ’s inerrant Vicar. Were it less fatal to the freedom, the morals, and the eternal hopes of enslaved Papists we might give way to uproarious laughter, and shame the absurdity off the world’s stage. We can view it however only as a declaration of war against civilization ; only as a death knell to the hopes of those who are subject to the Roman priesthood. Henceforth Popery is to be narrower, more bigoted, more impenetrable to truth than ever. While the Protestant world is advancing in liberty, intelligence, morality and material prosperity, the Papal seems destined to stagnation, if not, alas, to even grosser superstition, deeper ignorance and more abject spiritual servitude.

What results may flow from this last arrogant assumption of Rome’s proud Pontiff, it is yet too soon to predict. The struggle of the last three centuries—a struggle between intelligence and superstition, between progress and reaction, between light and darkness, between all that makes this age hopeful and made the middle ages the world’s midnight—has ended, ended in the triumph of bigotry. In this we may, perhaps, discover the beginning of the end. Certainly Catholic aggression in civilized countries is henceforth impossible. The absurdity is too apparent to impose upon even common intelligence.

Infallible but powerless! French troops withdrawn, Napoleon dethroned, Catholic France beaten and helpless, the Pope’s temporal power gone, his erring sheep following the guidance of liberal ideas, himself, though claiming to be Supreme Judge over all kings, virtually a prisoner, bishops in scores denouncing the infallibility blunder, the entire Catholic world in momentary apprehension of yet more terrible calamities, surely we are powerfully reminded of that ancient and honorable declaration, “In one hour is she made desolate.” What wonders has God wrought! How suddenly have her woes come upon her!“ This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.”

And now from all parts of the Catholic world may be heard one long drawn sigh over Popery’s helpless condition, one deep wail of terror, harmonized from the cry of the impotent infallible, the half frantic whinings of bishops and priests, and the evil forebodings of pamphlets, magazines, periodicals, and papers. Plainly, whatever results were fondly anticipated from the consummation of the work for which the Council was summoned, Holy Mother deems herself in dreadful agonies. Says the Tablet, a Roman organ, “There is, alas, no room for doubt that a heavy calamity has befallen the Holy Church of Rome and the Apostolic See. ‘The infidels have converted and educated the bad Catholics up to the reception of certain opinions and principles of their own.” So even Romanists will think for themselves, notwithstanding there is an infallible Pope to think for them. And even now, after all their efforts, Italy is tainted to the very core with love of liberty; private judgment is even now untrammelled. The vengeance sworn against Republicanism, were it not so impotent, might strike terror. It is evidently, however, only the wail of despair.

A cloud, portentous, though small, may be seen on the horizon. An ominous increase in the number of Jesuits, those unprincipled political tricksters, has taken place. In Germany, France, England, and even in the United States, the Catholic papers are sounding “a call for a new Crusade.” With this as their watchword, “Rome belongs to the Catholic Church,” they are seeking to fire the hearts of the young. Already we learn on Papal authority, that “The Catholic youth of Europe are stirring, and preparing for the conflict. In our own land thousands of hearts, of young Catholic men, are burning with desire to add their part to the Grand Crusade.” In New Orleans an immense mass meeting has been held, and that too on Sunday, in utter disregard of the rights of Protestants and the laws of the country, to express sympathy with and secure material aid for the Infallible Judge in faith and morals.” All this may, most likely will, end in smoke. Possibly, however, they may be so infatuated as to continue their repinings over the terrible fate of Christ’s Vicar, perhaps may inaugurate agencies for his restoration, possibly may “take up arms against a sea of troubles,” and thereby hasten the end. The old Romans, whose Pagan religion these modern heathen have inherited, had an adage containing a mine of good sense, “ Whom the gods design to destroy they first make mad.” Are we witnessing the infatuation which precedes destruction?