On July 18, 1870, the Vatican Council approved Pastor Aeternus, the definition of Papal infalibility by a vote of 533 to 2. However, many of the Council fathers who opposed the definition were absent. The following day, the French invaded Prussia, which soon became the nucleus of the new German Empire. The coming of war forced the Council to adjourn.
The confused situation left Pope Pius IX with an unfortunate problem. Clearly, the overwhelming majority favored infallibility. At the same time, some important Council fathers still remained on the record in opposition to it. Only with difficulty did the Pope convince the minority bishops, especially members of the Austro-Hungarian episcopate, to adhere to the infallibility decree. Eventually, all submitted, but many did so only after painful reluctance.
The problem was more straightforward in France, where the Ultramontane movement was victorious even before the Council. The pressure that fact exerted on the minority bishops made any resistance impossible. These prelates were aware that they would not count on the support of the faithful nor even their own priests if they adopted an openly uncooperative attitude. Therefore, they tried to disguise their defeat by minimizing the importance of the Council’s decisions. They even referred to it with mock contempt. For example, Archbishop Georges Darboy of Paris wrote a letter to Bishop Louis Isoard of Annecy and a prelate of the Roman Rota. ‘At the moment, we are no longer dealing with the Council,” the Parisian Archbishop wrote. “France’s difficulties have relegated sacristans and their byzantine discussions to the background.”
The fact that the Germans invaded France gave Archbishop Darboy a pretext for concealing the embarrassment of the anti-infallibilists. After the dogma’s definition, the liberal bishops who had fought it only based on its ‘untimeliness’ had no arguments left. And, according to their doctrine, the Gallicans1 were obliged to accept any act of a universal Council.
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A vigilant Pius IX demanded the explicit adherence of all minority bishops. He granted them no dispensations or other graces until each signaled his acquiescence. In a letter to the Pope, Bishop Felix Dupanloup of Orléans, de facto leader of French anti-infallibilists, declared: “I have no difficulty about this question because I only wrote and spoke against the timeliness of the definition. As for the doctrine, I have always professed it in my heart and in publications for which the Holy Father deigned to congratulate me with most affectionate briefs.” More dryly, Archbishop Darboy expressed himself thus: “I do not wish to miss the occasion of this letter, Most Holy Father, to declare to you that I purely and simply adhere to the decree of July 18 last. This declaration might seem redundant after the note I had the honor to send Your Holiness with several of my colleagues, but I am pleased to make it so long as it is agreeable to you.”
Submission was more difficult among prelates in Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. These opponents of the definition warned of the danger of a great schism. University professors, following the leadership of the defrocked priest, Ignaz von Döllinger, would support such an insurrection. Cardinal Friedrich Schwarzenberg of Prague wrote to the bishops about this possibility.
“As I anticipated, I found great excitement in my diocese. Some pious people and some highly placed personages, who see the doctrine of infallibility as strengthening the principle of authority, rejoice and hope for a speedy promulgation of the decree. But the great majority are very disturbed; almost all the German-speaking and Slavic clergy, all prudent, intelligent and wise men, are downcast and expect the worst consequences of the promulgation. I can say that most of my subjects will not submit to the definition with true faith.”
Cardinal Lajos Haynald of Calosca in Hungary proposed that the German and Austro-Hungarian prelates agree not to make any decision before hearing Cardinal Schwarzenberg and Cardinal Joseph Rauscher of Vienna. In Germany, Cardinal Paul Melchers of Cologne soon disproved this pessimism. He was favorably impressed by the Council’s atmosphere, especially the nearly unanimous vote for infallibility. He promoted a meeting of the German episcopate in Fulda. There, he promoted a joint pastoral letter affirming the Council’s decisions. At first, only five bishops refused to sign it, but they eventually agreed.
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The famous historian Bishop Karl Josef von Hephelé of Rottenburg resisted. He had returned from the Vatican Council angrily declaring that “he thought he was serving the Catholic Church but served its Jesuit-made caricature.” He was the last of the five to adhere, only doing so on April 4, 1871.
Other German academics borrowed Von Döllinger’s ideas, forming the so-called Old Catholic Church. Many thought that the breakaway sect, which Von Döllinger never officially joined, would be the catalyst for a schism. To the great apprehension of the Ultramontane historian Father Johannes Janssen, the Old Catholics sought the support of the Austro-Hungarian episcopate, especially Cardinal Strossmayer. In May 1871, Janssen wrote: “If Strossmayer takes the direction of the Old Catholics, we can expect a schism such as history has never seen.”
Cardinal von Schwarzenberg was mistaken. The vast majority of the Austrian faithful sincerely accepted infallibility, and all the anti-infallibilist Austrian bishops officially adhered to it sometime between December 1870 and January 1871. In Hungary, it took longer. Cardinal Haynald waited until October 1871, and only in December 1872 did Bishop Strossmayer, the most reluctant, officially accept the infallibility decree.
The declaration that arose out of the meeting at Fulda removed all fears that the Old Catholic movement would have a lasting influence. Old Catholicism only managed to win over a small number of laypeople led by a few university professors with Döllinger at their head, without any bishops. That current would not even deserve remembering were it not for German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s protection-he used it to support the anti-Catholic kulturkampf.2
Two years after the Vatican Council, thanks to Pius IX’s energy and the Ultramontane movement-which stopped the progress of liberal errors-the entire episcopate had accepted the dogma of infallibility.
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Footnotes
- Gallicans were French prelates and priests who believed that the French state’s authority over the Church was comparable-and sometimes superior to-that of the Pope.
- By 1910, the Catholic Encyclopedia could write, “All things considered, Old Catholicism has practically ceased to exist. It is no longer of any public importance.”