BOOKS

The triumph of Pio Yes-Yes

A. N. Wilson

'Infallibility is the work of the devil'. JL That was the view of Pope John XXII in 1324. In his bull Qui quorundam he re- jected Franciscan suggestions that popes were infallible on the sensible grounds that the doctrine would be a restriction of his sovereign powers. If his predecessors had been infallible, how could he reverse their decisions?

This conundrum must have weighed heavily on Pope Paul VI as he pushed through the reforms of the 1960s in the Roman Church. It is greatly to his credit that he allowed scholars free access to the Vatican archives. August Bernhard Hasler (a German Catholic) was one of many in- quirers who were allowed to read, and to publish, material which a more cautious Pontiff would have wanted forgotten. The result is a fascinating book which Hasler published, in German, a year before his death in 1980. It now appears in an English translation, and it is compulsively readable. It ends with an open letter to the present pope, who has convinced himself that 'in- fallibility is . .. the key to the certainty with which the faith is confessed and proclaim- ed'; it asks him how the doctrine of In- fallibility can be justified on Biblical, tradi- tional, or theological grounds. And, quite devastatingly, it tells the story of how the doctrine came to be promulgated at the First Vatican Council.

'Jesus has placed the pope higher than the prophets, than the precursor John the Baptist, than the angels. Jesus has put the pope on the same level as God'. These words were spoken by the founder of the Salesian order, St John Bosco. Their veraci- ty had been vouchsafed in a heavenly vision and he hastened to pass them on to Pope Pius IX. That Pontiff had been having very similar thoughts for a number of years. Further encouraged by Bosco's mystical in- sights, Pio Nono felt that the time was ripe, in 1869, for the summoning of an ecumenical council to define the doctrine of Papal Infallibility.

'I have the Mother of God on my side', the pope averred. It was just as well, since he did not have on his side the bishops of France, Germany, Eastern Europe and America; and they, unlike their Celestial Patroness, had votes. 1,084 men were en- titled to vote in the Council. By the time the matter was finally put to the test, a mere 451 gave full assent to the doctrine that the pope was infallible. 88 bishops voted against it; 62 assented, but only with reser- vations. The rest, nearly half the Council fathers, had either failed to attend the

council, or had left it early, like the saintly bishop of Montpellier, Francois Lecourtier, who threw his council documents in the Tiber. 'An imposing minority', he declared in exasperation, 'representing the faith of more than one hundred million Catholics, is crushed beneath the yoke of a restrictive agenda which contradicts conciliar tradi- tions.' Others, almost able to tolerate the manner in which the Infallibility matter was steamrollered through the Council delibera- tions, had been affronted by the unseemly wrangles which went on behind the scenes, and by the threats to withdraw moneys and privileges from poorer dioceses which did not vote the pope's way.

Since 1870, the schismatic churches of Moscow and Constantinople, the renegade

'old Catholics' who broke away from the Roman Church at that date, as well as those of more heterodox obedience — Arme- nians, Copts, Anglicans and the rest have cast doubt on the validity of the decree. The First Vatican Council was not, they claim, a true ecumenical council, since it restricted the freedom of its members. As such, it is not binding upon Christendom to accept its deliberations.

The Greek Melchite patriarch, Gregor Yussef, whose church was in communion with Rome, was one of the most fervent op- ponents of infallibility, and a defender of the rights of the ancient patriarchates, of which Rome was but one. Pio Nono sum- moned him. When the ancient Yussef kiss- ed the Pope's foot, Pius brought his heel down hard on the old man's neck and said, 'Gregor, you hard head, you'.

Others, primarily the French and Ger- man bishops, raised arguments from history. If previous popes had been infalli- ble, it was pointed out that they had taught heresy. Pope Liberius (352-366) had been an Arian. Pope Virgilius (537-555) had condemned the teachings of the Council of Chalcedon. Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) had taught that political, as well as religious, obedience to the papacy was necessary to salvation.

None of these arguments carried any weight with Pius IX. The fiercer the opposi- tion became, the more frequently he flew into childish tantrums. His (perfectly justified) sense that people were plotting against him led to the development of paranoid insecurity. He even ordered the confiscation of a brand of matches which was advertised as infallible (fiammiferi in- fallibili). But the disloyalty of his op- ponents was matched by the adulation of his Ultramontane supporters, who claimed that the pope was 'the Word made flesh'. The bishop of Geneva spoke of the threefold incarnation of the Son of God: in the Virgin's womb, in the Eucharist, and in the old man of the Vatican. No wonder that Pius began to act the part. In June 1870, as he was passing the church of Trinita dei Monti, the Pope approached a cripple who was lying in front of the crowd. The Pontiff was not uncertain of his powers. 'Rise up and walk!' he ordered. The paralytic, anx- ious to obey this celestial injunction, was helped to his feet, but collapsed again at once, to the disedification of the faithful who witnessed the scene.

As this story went the rounds, fears were naturally expressed about the pope's sanity. There was his history of epilepsy. Now, delusions of divinity were interspersed by outbursts of uncontrollable rage. There were particularly vitriolic public contre- temps with Cardinal Guidi, believed to be the natural son of the infallible pontiff. All this tittle tattle was, however, an ir- relevance. 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life', Pius replied to those who had ex- pressed lingering doubts about the matter.

For all this, Hasler failed to convince me that Pio Nono was mad. In fact, having read this book, it is impossible not to ad- mire him. He managed to persuade the representatives of the entire Roman Catholic world to assent to a proposition which most of them believed to be untrue. There are splendid illustrations, too. The photograph of Pius IX blessing his kneeling troops at the Campi di Annibale compares not unfavourably with pictures of John Paul II urging pacifism on the baying yob- boes of Bellahouston.

Pius IX commands respect because he won, even if the formulation of the doctrine of infallibility was, in the end, much modified. While not denying the view of the Bishop of Tulle, that 'when the pope meditates it is God who thinks in him', the Council settled, in the event, for the idea that he was only actually infallible when speaking from a particular object of furn- iture in St Peter's. Once this sacred doctrine

had been proclaimed, the opponents diminished in number. The Croatian Bishop Joseph Georg Strossmayer stub- bornly protested, 'Better to be exposed to every humiliation than to bend my knee to Baal, to arrogance incarnate'. Coercion worked more effectively on younger bishops still in harness. German bishops who dissented from the doctrine lost their right to issue marriage dispensations, which Meant that, within a few months they were beleaguered by hordes of angry couples, beseeching them to submit to the Holy Father. Other primates and prelates under- went conversions. Aided by the prayers of the Mother of God and of St John Bosco, their minds became suddenly illumined. The primate of Hungary, for instance, sup- ported by his bishops, had risen in the Council to say that the Hungarian people knew nothing of infallibility. Less than a Year was to pass, however, before, taught by divine institution, he proclaimed in a Pastoral letter that 'everyone in Hungary had always believed in Infalliblity'. It was not the last time in history that the unfor- tunate Hungarians had to swallow un- Palateable doctrines wholesale.