Edward Bouverie Pusey · 6 of 21

Main Body · Part 6

“What is the remedy that is wanted? what is the remedy indicated by God

himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense increase of devotion to our Blessed Lady, but remember, nothing short of an immense one. Here, in England, Mary is not half enough preached. Devotion to her is low and thin and poor. It is frightened out of its wits by the sneers of heresy. It is always invoking human respect and carnal prudence, wishing to make Mary so little of a Mary, that Protestants may feel at ease about her. Its ignorance of theology makes it unsubstantial and unworthy. It is not the prominent characteristic of our religion which it ought to be. It has no faith in itself. Hence it is, that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that the Church is not exalted; that souls, which might be saints, wither and dwindle; that the sacraments are not rightly frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelized. Jesus is obscured, because Mary is kept in the background. Thousands of souls perish, because Mary is withheld from them. It is the miserable unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the Blessed Virgin, that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and declines. Yet, if we are to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to His Blessed Mother.”

It must often come to us to ask on reading such statements,—“If devotion to the Blessed Virgin were so essential to salvation, how could it be, that God, in His last and final revelation of Himself, is so wholly silent about it?” Christians had “fiery trials” then, and were to count them no “strange thing.” The sufferings of the martyrs are almost past our powers of conception; yet there were slight and easy and self-deceiving ways, by which to deny Christ. Converts had temptations, from which, if we will, we are exempt, the memory of heathen sins and evil habits, antecedent to grace. How can it be thought by any, that Jesus,—Who “ever liveth to make intercession for us,” Who crowned his own and was crowned in them; Whose words in His everlasting Gospel are, “Come unto Me, all that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest;” “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, He will give it you;” “Whatsoever ye shall ask in My Name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if ye shall ask any thing in My Name, I will do it,” —is not willing to hear us, unless we seek a Mediatrix with Him, who is to dispose him to hear us?

However, to judge from the official answers of the Bishops to Pius IX. in answer to his inquiry, “with what devotion your Clergy and faithful people are animated towards the Conception of the Immaculate Virgin,” Faber was right as to the immensely greater devotion and trust in the Blessed Virgin, at least in countries where there is no check from the contact with Protestants. Certainly the prominent impression in my mind from reading those answers (they occupy more than three close volumes) was, “if the devotion

to God were like that to the Blessed Virgin, it would be a world of saints.” “In this Diocese,” says the Bishop of Cochabamba, “as in the whole of civilized America, it has attained to the highest degree, so that nothing more can be desired.” “Our only hope in these countries, tried by divers tribulations,” says the Vicar Apostolic in Cochin China, “is placed in our most holy Mother, from whom we expect salvation [salus].” “The devotion to the Blessed Virgin is such as is to be defined by no bounds,” says the Bishop of Scutari. In Spain and Portugal devotion to the Blessed Virgin is in its natural home. They are familiarly called Marian kingdoms. I fear that F. Faber is right in another point too, that this cultus of the Blessed Virgin is about to receive “an immense increase.”

You will well remember, with what a deep pang we heard of the Encyclical Letter of Pius IX. from Gaeta, in which, he expressed to the Bishops in the Roman Communion, his “vehement wish, that with the greatest possible speed you would signify to us, with what devotion your clergy and faithful people are animated towards the conception of the Immaculate Virgin, and with what longing they burn, that the matter should be decreed by the Apostolic See; and most especially we desire to know, what you yourselves, in your excellent wisdom, think on that matter and what you desire.” We felt that the decree, if passed, would be one more difficulty in the way of the reunion of Christendom, one more ground of severance between the Roman and the Greek Church; an insoluble difference between the modern Roman and the ancient Church. Even amid our own recent troubles, we heard of the decision in 1854 in silent sorrow.

The object of the decree was (as some of the Roman Catholic Bishops pointed out in their answers) new in the history of the Church. It was not to allay any controversy. In the Roman Communion, controversy had long since been hushed by authority; outside of it, there was the less ground for controversy, because the doctrine occupied no apparent prominence. Several Bishops expressed their fears, lest the definition should awaken the controversy. The ground, put forward by Pius IX., was of this sort, that as we believe that what is done purely for the Glory of God draws down fresh favours from God, so, “the Blessed Virgin being placed,” as they hold, “between Christ and the Church,” what should be done for the glory of the Blessed Virgin would draw down from her fresh favours for the Church. He wrote,

“On this hope we chiefly rely, that the most Blessed Virgin,—who raised the height of merits above all the choirs of Angels to the throne of the Deity, and by the foot of Virtue ‘bruised the serpent’s head,’ and who, being constituted between Christ and His Church, and, being wholly sweet and full of graces, hath ever delivered the Christian

people from calamities of all sorts, and from the snares and assaults of all enemies, and hath rescued them from destruction, and, commiserating our most sad and most sorrowful vicissitudes and our most severe straits, toils, necessities with that most large feeling of her motherly mind—will, by her most present and most powerful patronage with God, both turn away the scourges of Divine wrath wherewith we are afflicted for our sins, and will allay, dissipate the most turbulent storms of ills, wherewith, to the incredible sorrow of our mind, the Church everywhere is tossed, and will turn our sorrow into joy. For ye know very well, Ven. Brethren, that the whole of our confidence is placed in the most Holy Virgin, since God has placed in Mary the fulness of all good, that accordingly we may know that if there is any hope in us, if any grace, if any salvation, it redounds to us from her, because such is His will Who hath willed that we should have every thing through Mary.”

Much the same language had been addressed to Gregory XVI. and to Pius IX. himself by Bishops (almost exclusively Italian and French), who had asked them successively to proclaim the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception to be de fide. They hoped (as some expressed it), that “she who requited every the least office towards her,” and who, they say, was and is to “bruise the serpent’s head,” and is “the destroyer of all heresies,” would establish the truth, restore peace, destroy heresy. The Encyclical of Pius IX. was, so far, a response to those Bishops who had applied to Gregory XVI. and to himself, to define, “by his infallible authority,” the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, as a matter of faith. But it is not the less a great change, both in the constitution of the Church and the principles upon which it declares any matter to be

de fide. “In the constitution of the Church,” because the personal infallibility of the Pope, by himself, comes out in the strongest way, despite of the terrible denial of the faith by Liberius, and the formal error of Honorius, with the anathema of the Sixth General Council. The Bishops who applied to the two Popes asked each severally to set the seal of infallibility upon the opinion, by virtue of his own act. Those who answered the Encyclical letter, spoke of the act, as his, not theirs; those who dissented from its expediency, declared themselves ready to submit to his judgment; some Spanish and Portuguese Bishops, while they declared that “no injury could arise to” their own countrymen who could not imagine the doctrine not to be of faith, professed not to be able to judge as to its effects on the whole Church, and left the decision to the Pope. The Bishops did not meet in Council, either to address the Pope, or to consider his Encyclical letter, except in Ireland, where the Roman Catholic Bishops, to inaugurate their restored synods, chose an act which should do honour to the Blessed Virgin. The Pope asked the opinion of each Bishop individually; the Bishops answered, as sons who had but a delegated authority, to an infallible head. What advice could any individual give to one, who, as all believed, was to give an inspired decision, to reject which, was, they held, to reject God?

The full weight of Papal authority was given beforehand to the conclusion, to which Pius IX. wished to bring the Bishops in the Roman Communion. Not his wishes only, but the great fervency of those wishes were expressed in the Encyclical letter, addressed severally to each Bishop. Any Bishop, who should hesitate to accede to those wishes, must have felt that he was going counter to the whole mind of him whom he owned as the Vicegerent of God upon earth. Nothing but the strong imperative voice of conscience could induce any one, in any degree, to oppose him. It was not imperative to answer, and many took refuge in silence. But each was bound to submit himself to the decision, whatever it might be. In a Council, any considerable number of orthodox Bishops who dissented from a point not yet ruled, could not but have weight. The wording of at least one decree of the Council of Trent was modified in order not to condemn the opinion of a single Bishop. We all know how a minority makes itself felt; much more, when any thing affecting men’s souls is at issue, and Bishops can plead, in fervid living words, that they fear the effect of a decision on the souls of their fellow-men committed to their care. In the individual collecting of opinions by letter, minorities had no voice. They had no collective existence. Each Archbishop or Bishop was but an unit, which could scarcely put forth itself, and which certainly could not assert itself in presence of infallibility. Pius IX., in his “Constitution,” ignored the minority, as if it had never existed. “We were touched with no slight consolation when the responses of those venerable brethren [the Bishops] came to us. For, writing back to us with an

incredible happiness, joy, and eagerness, they not only asserted anew their own singular piety and mind, and that of the clergy and people of each, towards the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, but also asked of us, as it were, with a common vote, that the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin herself should be defined by our supreme judgment and authority.”

The wishes expressed by the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Bishops were nearly unanimous; and these formed near three-fifths of those who sent answers. Yet even from Italy came a distinct, well-worded objection from the Bishop of Mondovi, who “could not dare,” even after the prayers of his Diocese, to decide that there was evidence enough to erect the “pious opinion” into a matter of faith, or that then was the best time to define it. Doubts were also expressed by the Cardinal Bishop of Viterbo and Toscanella, the Cardinal Archbishop of Urbino, “with some of the most pious and learned of his clergy,” “fearing loss of souls.” The Cardinal Bishop of Ancona and Umana, the Bishops of Cervia and Otranto, and the Archbishop of Perugia, wished the decree to be tempered, and made indirect; the Bishop of Majorca felt the difficulties and dissuaded; the Archbishop of Milan, and five Bishops in the North of Italy, left the decision “in these most difficult times “to “the Holy See, to which is promised the special assistance of the Holy Spirit.” In Spain, the Bishop of Lugo wished the decree to be made indirect, if it should be given at all, his own mind being against it. The Bishop of Zamora wished that no note should be set on those who had maintained the contrary, before or after the Council of Trent. Two very remarkable answers came from the Bishops of Iaca, in Portugal, and of Chiapo, in Mexico. The Bishop of Iaca much desired that the definition should be delayed until two learned works of divines of Salamanca, written in disproof of the testimonies of the Fathers alleged by Maracci, could be examined; the Bishop of Chiapo was constrained, though with much regret, to oppose the decision, as being unsupported by any clear testimony

from Scripture, or from Tradition. Yet more striking, perhaps, is the answer of the Bishop of Ventimiglia from Italy itself, resting his doubt on the probable intention of God the Holy Ghost, as evinced by His silence in Scripture. “For that not without a purpose the origin of the most holy Mother is passed over by the Evangelist, her Nativity is not described, nor is it recorded how she was conceived (as the holy Bishop of Valence observes), and the whole praise of her is touched upon in the very few words, in which her Divine Maternity is declared, forces on me grave fear, lest the Holy Ghost, in the inscrutable counsel of His Wisdom, willed that her holy origin should remain hidden; so that the only cause of her singular honour revealed should be the glory of the Immaculate Conception of Him, the Holy and Immaculate High Priest, Who was to bring cleansing to all besides.”

The Irish Roman Catholic Bishops agreed (although the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin reports the remarkable dissent of “the Jesuit Fathers at Dublin, and almost all the Professors of Maynooth),” so did the five Vicars Apostolic in Scotland (who reported that the cultus of the Blessed Virgin was the dearer to their people, because they alone in Scotland had it), and the one Vicar Apostolic of Norway and Sweden with his five priests.

Of the Archbishops and Bishops of France, no answer came from one-fourth; the Archbishops of Paris and Rouen wrote earnestly to deprecate any decision, as did the Bishops of Coutances, and Evreux; Chartres was anxious; Anneçy, Meaux, Carcassonne doubted. The Archbishop of Rheims, with the Bishops of Soissons, Amiens, Beauvais, Blois, wished the decree to be softened so as to leave those who disbelieved it free from the note of heresy (which would, I suppose, have left things much as they were before). Of those who had asked Gregory XVI. to define

the doctrine, after nine years the Archbishop of Bourges feared that “more evil than good would come from it;” the Bishop of Versailles hesitated, lest it should be an additional hindrance to the return of the Protestants, whom it was difficult to make believe what was already of faith in regard to her; the Bishop of Périgueux, much as he wished it, yet “in these most difficult times, in which we live,” left the matter to the Pope, as did the Bishop of Angoulême. The Bishop of Angers expressed his doubts, stating that “the same thoughts and fears were shared by some at least of his colleagues in the Episcopate, and by priests, not less distinguished by learning than piety towards the Blessed Virgin.” The statement is the more remarkable, on account of his strong opposite bias. “We fully trust that she [the Blessed Virgin] will bestow on the holy Church of God and the whole world new and unheard of benefits, when, a decree supervening from the Holy See, so many men and women, so loved by God and his Son Jesus Christ, shall with one mouth, firm faith, exulting minds, confess that Mary was immaculate in her Conception,” &c. The Bishops, then, who requested the definition, were but a bare majority of the Bishops of France (41 out of 80). In a Gallican Council, it can hardly be doubted, that the earnest pleadings of the Archbishops of Paris and Rouen, and of the Bishop of Evreux, would have prevailed, and the question would have remained undecided.

In Germany the Apostolic Nuncio at Vienna wrote to Cardinal Antonelli that he had tried to elicit a favourable opinion from the Archbishops, and had failed. He said:—

“I have written anew confidentially to the Archbishops of this monarchy to excite them to express their own opinion, and that of their Suffragans, on the important subject of the Immaculate Conception of the Madonna. Their” silence hitherto, as I have had the honour to point out to your Eminence, can only be an argument, that they are not inclined to a determination, directed to declare the pious belief of the Immaculate Conception as a dogma.” The Archbishops and Bishops of the Austrian Empire are counted at 121, exclusive of those in the Austrian possessions in Italy, and of those in Carinthia, Carniola, Transylvania, whose numbers I do not know. Three, out of nine Dalmatian Bishops, wrote, expressing their assent; but these also are Italian. Of the 121 Archbishops and Bishops (anyhow, of the Bishops of the rest of the Austrian Empire out of Italy), only

four (out of 21) Hungarian Bishops expressed agreement. From Moravia, the Archbishop of Olmütz and the Bishop of Brünn wrote earnestly, “after mature deliberation, and fervidly imploring light from above,” expressing their wish that the decree should be delayed on account of the peril of souls among their people. The four Bohemian Bishops expressed the same desire on the same ground. The Archbishop of Gorizia and Gradisca, the Cardinal Archbishop of Salzburg, and the Bishop of Trieste (which three alone wrote from Austria proper), wrote, with different degrees of strength, requesting that things should remain as the Council of Trent had left them.

From the Prussian territory the Archbishop of Breslau wrote against it with a respectful, but touching solemnity, “Dixi et salvavi animam meam.” Doubts were expressed by the Bishop of Munster; the Bishop of Paderborn expressed his wish that any decision should be delayed; the Bishop of Warmia mentioned the opinion of many (among others his chapter) in favour of delay, gave no opinion, but declared that whatever the Pope “might decree, would be received as a Divine oracle.” The Bishop of Trèves doubted for a time on account of the un-Catholics, but decided that the decree would be advantageous, “since it was the Blessed Virgin alone who destroyed all heresies in the whole world.”

In Hanover, the Bishop of Hildesheim reported that the greater part of his Clergy thought that, at least in those parts, a dogmatic decree was neither necessary nor desirable. He himself left it to the Pope’s “wiser judgment.”

In Hesse, “Clergy, distinguished for knowledge, full of piety towards Mother Church,” dissuaded it. The Bishop of Fulda, like the Bishop of Trèves, held that, “the greater the number of adversaries, the more the Church, who had to strive against the powers of darkness, ought to pray for her help and aid, who bruised the serpent ’s head, the more extol and venerate by prayer her who, praying her Son, alone destroyed all heresies in the whole world.”

In Nassau, the Apostolic Administrator of Limburg gave strong reasons against the decision, but acquiesced, because, the question having been raised, things could not remain as they were.

The Card. Archbishop of Malines stated, that “in these parts, and especially in the neighbouring kingdoms of Trance and Holland, ecclesiastics, conspicuous for piety, knowledge, and prudence, feared, lest heretics and unbelievers should take fresh occasion to calumniate the Catholic Church, as though she invented new dogmas, and paid undue worship to the most holy Mother of God, whence many, who were inclined to embrace the faith, might turn back.”

In Bavaria, the Archbishop of Munich “could not decide about the expediency of defining, in the present circumstances of the Church, for fear of occasioning fresh dissensions where Catholics were mixed with heretics;” the Bishop of Bamberg held that the evidence was not strong enough. “8 To the body of the more erudite and learned in our Germany the matter does not seem so clear, that (whatever the very learned and illustrious Tramontanes have recently written) they can think that this opinion, which has hitherto been cherished as pious, should be inserted among dogmas which no one may doubt.” He begged that the decision might be left to a General Council at some future time.

In Switzerland and Savoy, the Bishop of St. Gall, with his counsellors, thought that the dogmatic definition would not increase the devotion towards the Immaculate Conception, and was superfluous at that time, and ill-advised. The Archbishop of Chambéry held that the “tradition was not sufficiently clear to make it an article of faith and a true dogma, to be believed by all under pain of mortal sin;” and so thought it best to “follow the prudent line of the Council of Trent by either abstaining from defining, or at least defining the question only indirectly and broadly, by asserting that the cultus of the Catholic Church towards the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was pious and holy.”

Even the Patriarch of the Melchites in the Patriarchates of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem reported, “Some of my Bishops think best, on account of the very many heretics, abounding here in the Levant, not, without great necessity, to multiply the articles of faith, in order to give them no motive to speak, however unjustly, against the Apostolic See.” The Vicar Apostolic of Constantinople dissuaded the definition on theological grounds: “Notwithstanding the weight of the recent theological dissertations on this point, the reserve of the Scriptures in regard to this privilege, the hesitation of the Holy Fathers to treat the said question, the delays of the Church itself to decide it, united to the dispositions of spirits in various countries, amid Catholics, too, in this century, in which reason, priding itself, burns to wage war with faith, make me judge

before God, that the question ought to remain undecided; and even should the Church support the instruction that Mary was conceived immaculate, that it should not impose the obligation to believe this as a doctrine of faith.”

A remarkable response, objecting to the decree with much solidity and clearness, came from the Vicar Apostolic of Mysore, and another from Coimbatoor. The Vicar Apostolic of Patna (a German) sent his adhesion, with the remarkable addition, “If the tradition be established by recent authors.”The Coadjutor Bishop at Calcutta falls in with “the greater number of Bishops.” The Vicar Apostolic of Central Tonkin said that he could neither affirm nor deny that the pious opinion should be placed among the articles of faith, having no means to examine the subject duly, and that, for himself, he trusted the infallibility of the Apostolic See.

A remarkable hiatus occurs in the United States. In 1849 there were twenty-eight Roman Catholic Bishops in those States. One only answer came, from Oregon, containing the assent of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Oregon City, the Bishops of Vancouver and Walla Walla.

The European Missionary Bishops for the most part followed their nation, or, as the Vicar Apostolic of Ispahan, refer the decision to the head of the Church.

I have entered into all this detail, because it gives two remarkable aspects of things in the Roman Communion. On the one side were those, chiefly Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese (whether in Europe or America), and the Irish who set their hope in the Blessed Virgin, as being “placed between Christ and the Church,” and whose one thought is, that whatever shall exalt the Blessed Virgin will obtain fresh favours from her. Of those, who asked that the Immaculate Conception might be made an article of faith, I counted 130 who expressed this as the ground of their desire, more or less strongly, besides such as only echoed the language of Pius IX., “to the glory of God, the praise of the most Blessed Virgin, the benefit of the Church militant.” Of these, 70 were Italians, 23 Spanish and Portuguese, 25 the Irish Roman Catholic Bishops. The sentiment itself was often clothed in very strong words; and benefits, which Holy Scripture ascribes directly to God, seem to be purposely ascribed to the Blessed Virgin (of course, as the instrument of God in dispensing them, but still as their dispenser): “Glorify the Mother of God,” wrote the Bishop of Bova to the Pope, “that the Mother of God may glorify thee;—she will render thee glorious who hast glorified so great a lady. For, I doubt not, in order that you may be confirmed in this hope, the Virgin herself makes thee certain of

this promise, by a voice brought down from heaven, by those words, ‘I have glorified thee, and will glorify thee again.’” “She,” writes the Vicar Apostolic of Uruguai, “will direct the goings of your Holiness into the way of peace. She will command her angels, that they keep your Holiness in all your ways, that yon may walk on asp and basilisk, and tread on lion and dragon; and because your Holiness will hope in her, therefore she will deliver and protect you, because you have known her name, i. e. the fitting time foreordained by the Father of lights for defining her Immaculate Conception. Your Holiness, crying aloud to her, will doubtless hear, ‘she will be in the trouble,’ which you now experience, out of which she will infallibly deliver you; she will glorify your Holiness, filling you with length of days, and at last showing you her salvation, i. e. her Son Jesus.” “We,” said the Bishop of Perpignan, “rely upon the hope, that the most Blessed Mother, the Queen of heaven and Mistress of the world, in return for the solemn declaration of her Immaculate Conception, will be pleased to dissipate all our sad and sorrowful vicissitudes, and sharpest anguish, labours, necessities, compassionating us with that most large affection of her motherly mind, as is her wont, by her most present and most powerful patronage with God, and will quell, dissipate those most turbulent storms of ills wherewith the Church is tossed everywhere, and turn our sorrow into joy.” “In these most difficult times,” said the Bishop of the Canaries, “in which the ship of the Church is tossed in all directions by furious waves, upraised not by those only who are without, but very chiefly by those who have been reborn of water and the Holy Spirit in the bosom of the Catholic Church, and who as yet do not disdain openly to call themselves Catholics, yet with wolf’s heart under the sheep’s skin, let a most firm anchor be sought for her, that the ship of Peter may abide secure, &c. But what is this anchor? Mary.”

“The great one herself,” said the delegate Apostolic of Greece, “will requite you, and by her most powerful patronage will disperse these horrible tempests, wherewith, in these most sad times, your Blessedness, with the whole Church, is tossed. “Winds and storm will cease; and there will be a great calm.” “I daily,” said the Bishop of Cesena, “most earnestly and unintermittingly implore the most merciful and holy Virgin, the consoler of the sorrowful, that she, assenting to our prayers, would restore thee very speedily to thy kingdom and august see.” “She loves those who love her,” said

the Archbishop of Granada, “and most abundantly builds up with graces, and disposes her servants to become the habitation and temple of her Blessed Son and the Holy Spirit. She was full of grace, that ‘of her fulness’ all creatures may ‘receive,’ and have a large shower of heavenly gifts infused into them. She is the Mother of fair love, and fear, and knowledge, and holy hope, and in her is all grace of the way and of truth, all hope of life and virtue. Since then the most Blessed Virgin has been enriched with such endowments by God, it is to be hoped most exceedingly, that, propitiated and conquered by such praises and deferences most grateful to her, she, turning her eyes of mercy to us, will powerfully rescue us from the ills with which in the present most horrible tempest we are oppressed.” “For all heresies,” said the Bishop of Firenza, “in the whole world were slain by Her; She is terrible as an ordered host to protect the universal Church of Her Only Begotten Son, and to put its enemies to flight; in Her is all hope of life and virtue.” “The preparation of the heart,” said the Bishop de la Rochelle, “the Immaculate Mother of the Redeemer will hear.” “If an opportune and fitting time were to be desired for decreeing this honour of the most Holy Virgin,” said the Bishop of Leon, “none could be found more opportune and fitting than this wherein we live. For in this most immense mass of errors, calamities, and troubles, wherewith we are oppressed and shaken on all sides, our whole hope is to be placed in that most powerful Virgin, which bruised the dragon, to whom it was given to destroy all heresies, and at whose free will all the treasures of heaven are dispensed.” “We have little hope,” said the Bishop of Lerida, “that human remedies will profit us, unless the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, who is our true health, apply her healing hands, and she, most tender one, will, if,” &c.