Edward Bouverie Pusey · 19 of 21

Note B · Part 4

41. The Archbishop of Otranto.—“As to my own opinion, I should think (‘I speak as one unwise’) that such a declaration is not at all necessary, both because there are not, as in past ages, any disagreements among Catholics as to this privilege of the Blessed Virgin, no enemy, no controversy in the schools; and they who once supported the opposite opinion, panegyrize this privilege in the preaching of the Word of God; and all Churches, during Mass, gladly praise God for the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as also because the chief end of any decree or dogmatic declaration is already obtained, such a cultus throughout the world as should seem to need no new accession of piety. Yet I am constrained to confess that the grounds, whereon this privilege of the Blessed Virgin rests, are of such weight, that they ought to induce any Catholic to believe it de fide. In my opinion then there are all the grounds of probability to induce me to assert that this privilege of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin

Mary may be declared a dogma of faith.

“Yet I should think that, if the Church should judge that it should come to this declaration, out of many forms which she has at times used in defining a dogma of faith, it would be most prudent to use that, whereby the dogma of the privilege should be defined indirectly as the subject-matter, but directly the infallibility of the Church which teaches it, which formula the Tridentine Fathers at times used, Sess. xxiv.

c. 7. ‘If any say that the Church errs when it teaches,’” &c.—ii. 365, 366.

42. The Archbishop of Perugia.—“I should think that, before any definition is published, some account should be had of that difficulty which the adversaries cease not to proclaim loudly, that not without wrong would so many most wise men, who, either with the assent or at least the permission of the Church, adopted with impunity the opposite opinion, be proscribed at one blow, and punished with the note of heresy, and so (unless your Blessedness should think of any other mode of satisfying as far as possible this specious difficulty), the words of the decree should be so tempered for the former Theologians, that all, even the slightest, occasion of new complaints should be removed.”— ii. 290.

Three weeks afterwards he united with the Archbishop of Spoleto, two other Archbishops and fifteen Bishops, in earnestly imploring the issue of the decree, on account of “the increased devotion to the Blessed Virgin which it would occasion, and the help and defence which she, so honoured and invoked under this title, would give to the whole Christian people and the Holy Roman Church.” He did not, however, withdraw the above wish.—ii. 379—81.

b) The Bishop of Santorino.—“Although most devoted to the Immaculate Conception of the most Holy Mother, they [his Chapter and Clergy] did not deem it suitable, in these calamitous times of general confusion, to decide the question of the Conception. The speaker, moreover, who stood forward in the name of the rest, said that he thought it more advisable that the question of the Immaculate Conception should continue undecided, because the devotion of the people was deeply rooted; and that to bring it to a decision and make it an article of faith would perhaps be an obstacle in the case of attempting union with the Greek schismatics, it not being possible to prove it by clear arguments from Scripture and the Fathers, but merely by the argument of congruity. Thus far this Canon. Had he, however, said that in the case of the Protestants it would have given rise to new disputes, all very good; but as for the Greeks, I do not see either that union with them is a likely thing to happen immediately, or that they have any rights: and, besides, the Greeks believe in and celebrate the festival of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin by S. Anne, which is what the Catholics also say and believe.” He himself held, as decisive, the texts “full of grace,” “the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee,” “she shall bruise thy head; “nondum erant abyssi, et ego jam concepta eram “(Prov. viii.), “Fecit potentiam in brachio suo,” and this, “ab initio creaturæ.”—i. 201.

The Bishop of Majorca.—“To these most pious wishes, longings, feelings, the Bishop of Majorca (to express at length his own mind), knowing well how much (in things which in any way appertain to faith) that criterion is to be accounted of, which is not unfitly called an instinct of piety, infused into the hearts of the faithful by inspiration of God, viz., the unanimous feeling of Pastors and faithful, or of the whole Catholic Church, especially when Holy Scripture and the holy Fathers, the chief witnesses of tradition, are either altogether silent, or speak somewhat obscurely, or do not so agree together in attesting it, that their opinion can be certainly known, nor can any certainty be arrived at, through their aid, what was handed down from the beginning of the Catholic Church.

“No testimony is, in truth, found in Scripture which any so clear tradition has explained, as to be equal to the passing of a dogmatic judgment and to be a stable foundation thereof, although in some one, perhaps, the meaning may perhaps lie hid, as the germ in the seed. Some Fathers seem to oppose the ‘pious opinion,’ especially S. Bernard and the Angelic Doctor, whose words S. Antoninus, Abp. of Florence, asserted to be twisted by the defenders of the Immaculate Conception against their intention; others, as S. Bonaventura, seem at one time to support the one opinion, at onother the opposite. But it is marvellous and worthy of consideration, that the sayings of the Holy Fathers, whereby the Immaculate Conception is impugned, at least in appearance, are found to have been for the most part written or spoken, when, as Doctors and Theologians, they were discussing the doctrine of faith by the light of the Divine word, written or handed down; contrariwise, what has been wont to be adduced in behalf of the singular privilege of the

Virgin, whether in plain or equivalent terms, is taken almost entirely from sermons, prayers, hymns, and praises, when they expressed the affection of the heart towards the most benignant Mother rather than the judgment of the mind, the feelings of piety rather than the opinion of the understanding. Nay, the words of certain Fathers, which seem self-contradictory, may perhaps be reconciled in this way? that some attest the obscurity of Scripture and tradition in their eyes, some explain their inmost feelings, which led the Fathers and orthodox writers from the very birth of the Church to extol the integrity of the Virgin Mother from all spot with so many distinguished and elegant praises, yet so as sometimes to enunciate explicitly the mystery of the Conception. For the vehicles of tradition cannot be said to be clear, viz., sayings of Fathers, practice of the Church, sacred liturgies, and consent or persuasion of the faithful as to so excellent a privilege, since those most clear-sighted Bernard and Aquinas, Orators of the Blessed Virgin, did not see it. There lurked in the heart, and sometimes there burst forth in flames, as it were, that divine ardour and inmost feeling whereby the whole Church was borne to extol and celebrate the dignity and excellence of the Mother of God, than which no greater can be conceived under God. The opinion as to the Immaculate Conception had its germ, was cherished, grew, through the implanted warmth of piety, seizing step by step on the sacred rites of outward worship, the universities, and the minds of the faithful. Yet not so rapidly did it pervade the minds of the learned, who, in scholastic method, especially under the guidance of Aquinas and the Master of the Sentences, evolved the testimonies of the Bible and the ancient Fathers as to original sin (among whom are Card. Caietan, Melchior Cano, and other most excellent Theologians), until silence being imposed by the supreme Pontiffs on the opposite party, and the Feast of the Conception being sanctioned, there now remains no country, city, college, or community which does not, from the inmost heart, venerate that mystery. Although then, perhaps, some are not wanting, who, sincerely using the cultus of the Immaculate Conception in heart and external practice in order to obey the Pontifical decrees, yet in their inner judgment of the mind do not assent to it as a dogma of revelation (of which number were the most illustrious P. de Herrera and Master Vincent Ferré, whose MS. elucubrations are certainly extant at Salamanca, perhaps elsewhere); yet at present there is doubtless a common feeling of the faithful, a consent of the living instruction of Pastors with their wishes; there is in the Church a wondrous conspiracy of minds who profess the privilege of Mary, to which our safest criterion of the mystery which lurked obscurely under the veil of Scripture and the folds of primitive tradition, it pleased the Holy Spirit to reserve a clearer revelation in process of time.

“The aim of all this, most Blessed Father, is, that while the Bishop of Majorca, giving his judgment, so subscribes to the truth of the Immaculate Conception, that else the Holy Spirit would seem to him to have deserted the Catholic Church, he at the same time estimates the difficulties which might arise out of the dogmatic definition, on account of the number and authority of distinguished Doctors who dissent, of the odium cast on the opposite opinion; and lastly (unless it seem otherwise to the prudence of the Supreme Pastor, led by the hand, as it were, by the Holy Spirit), the Bishop does not, on reflection, see any reason why that most safe way, trodden by the Council of Trent and your Predecessors, should be deserted, who thought good not to decide or define any thing dogmatically which had not been decided before, although Bishops, Congregations of religious, flourishing Universities, most powerful Kings and Princes who had deserved well of the Church, urged it. Of a truth, the cultus of this great mystery has so prevailed throughout the whole world, that it could hardly be carried further by a dogmatic definition, as other mysteries also of the Nativity and Assumption of the Virgin Mary, which have most solid foundation in ancient tradition, are celebrated throughout the world, without the faithful anywhere being anxious about their dogmatic definition, not from any carelessness about sacred things, but being content with the reverence which they entertain and manifest towards the Divine Mother.

“But, most Blessed Father, your Holiness, placed in the highest watch-tower of the Church, and approaching nearer to the light from above, by the office of the Apostolate and singular piety towards the Mother of God, will, by the Divine inspiration, understand and certainly know in what way the opinion of the Immaculate Conception ought to be confirmed, or more or less directly defined by a solemn judgment, which judgment of your Holiness, whatsoever it may be,” &c.—ii. 157—160.

44. The Bishop of Lugo.—“But as our humble opinion also is asked, not only upon the ground of

the doctrine, but also on the convenience and utility of the authoritative declaration of it, perhaps our agreement in this particular may not be so general or comprehensive. In Spain already no Academical Degrees are received in the Schools, nor is any Collation to Prebends or Ecclesiastical Benefices allowed, whether the Benefice be with or without cure of souls .... without the previous requirement of an oath expressly made, to defend the mystery of the Immaculate Conception.....I do not therefore understand,— and some of our first-rate Theologians are of the same judgment with me,—that there is any necessity or expediency in now proceeding to the declaration, which certain persons, carried along by their tender devotion towards the most Holy Virgin, are soliciting from your Holiness: for there would be no augmentation made by this means to the devotion and unbounded confidence in the protection of the Queen of Angels; on the contrary, it would in some measure go to impair that confidence by depriving the pious opinion of its voluntary character, adopted, without being made a dogma of faith; in that it holds it as a duty to our Lady to attribute to her the gift of original purity: for we thus understand the honour, rather than that she was set free from the guilt of the children of Adam after having contracted it. Notwithstanding, it is possible that in this opinion we may deceive ourselves, as we should deceive ourselves if we believed it was a greater honour to Jesus Christ and His holy Mother to descend only from holy women, and not to reckon in this genealogy Tha-mar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba, the four specially marked with dishonourable stains among the people of Judah. Wherein is seen how different the judgment of men is wont to be from the judgment of God, which we can only know by the revelation made of it in Holy Scripture and constant tradition of the old Fathers, as the Universal Church has understood and understands them.

“My opinion therefore is, most Holy Father, keeping in view these reasons which I have slightly intimated, that there is no express mention in Holy Scripture, nor in consistent Tradition, of the exclusion of the most Holy Virgin from the general mass of mankind which sinned in Adam; and that it is not expedient, even supposing that I deceive myself in the opinion which I have formed, to declare as a point of doctrine that which is only a pious persuasion. Nevertheless, if your Holiness should judge and define otherwise, I, for my part, as a faithful and obedient son of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, will submit my heart and mind to the decisions of its supreme Chief. Yet I venture to entreat your Holiness, that, supposing you decide the pious persuasion to be a point of Faith, you will condescend to adopt such modification of it as you may judge to be most suitable, that the great defender of the Church, S. Thomas Aquinas, may continue to hold the distinguished and honourable place which the Church itself on very solemn occasions has granted him.”— ii. 98.

The Bishop of Zamora.—“But as regards the mode of defining, your excellent prudence and wisdom will judge what is most right, and the same as to formulas of words; and this only he [the Bishop] suppliantly desires, that no note be branded upon the supporters of the opposite judgment, who nourished before and after the aforesaid Council of Trent.”—i. 415.

The Bishop of Iaca.—“I cannot dissemble, that the Church has not been wont to publish her dogmatic decisions, except when compelled by a sort of necessity, especially the impugning of heretics, and that in our days they wage no special war against the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, which perhaps would burst out anew if a definition were asked for. But I am fully persuaded that no account is to be had of heretics in this matter, since their learned and instructed teachers have passed over in great measure into rationalism, and have sunk in the deep, despising these and all other controversies of this sort. The same judgment is not to be passed as to Catholics, who, if in any numbers they impugned the Immaculate Conception, might cause some trouble. But since those who, in our time, do not acquiesce in ‘ the pious opinion,’ seem to be few, I trust that they will not (out of a sort of reverence to the Doctors who hitherto thought otherwise) resist the votes of the Church everywhere, when weighed and solemnly pronounced by your Holiness.....

“I have explained my own opinion as to this most grave controversy. But I think it not unadvisable to inform your Holiness that there are, in the very celebrated University of Salamanca, where I long taught Greek, some Doctors of Divinity, of no low rank, who, so far from holding that the Word of God written or handed down favours the pious opinion, contend determinedly that it is contrary thereto; and who hold

most firmly that the definition ought to be abstained from altogether, as not at all necessary, they say, to the life of the Church, and as likely, perhaps, to occasion division and tumult. I had lately a great discussion hereon, by letter, with my master, F. P. Sanchez, a Doctor in Theology of Salamanca, of the Dominicans, whom I thought that I ought to consult, as being eminent in all sorts of learning, extremely well versed in Theology, and thoroughly acquainted with the whole history and turns of this question. Moreover he took with him two MSS. in folio from the library of the Convent of S. Stephen in Salamanca (when, the tempest raging, all the Spanish families of religious were expelled from their convents): the one, a copy of which is said to be in the Vatican, elaborated by M. Herrera, the most wise moderator of the first class of Theology at Salamanca, afterwards a Bishop; the other, elaborated by M. Ferré580 with unwearied toil, to prove the assertion of Maracci to be false, who affirms that both Greek and Latin Fathers are on the side of the pious opinion. He weighs them all one by one, cites editions, chapters, pages, and at last concludes that that saying of S. Antoninus of the defenders of the Immaculate Conception is most true, ‘that they twist the sayings of the ancients against the intention of the speakers.’ I own that I have not read these MSS., which, it is said, ought to be highly accounted of, nor can I give any judgment of my own about them; but I have no doubt that that saying of my master is most true, that there is nothing missing in them, which can avail to throw great light on all this question, nothing which has not been examined and weighed; so that they should be waited for, as master-works, treating the controversy thoroughly and most copiously, and as magazines, from which the adversaries may draw their arguments, both to impugn the Immaculate Conception and to throw discredit on the object of the definition. I wish then, most Blessed Father, that these two MSS. should be examined by the Theological body, with the aid of your Holiness, before any thing be decreed on this most grave question, lest we should incur that censure, ‘Whoso decrees any thing, one side unheard, though he decree what is just, is himself not just.’” i. 480.

46. b) The Bishop of Santander.—“I say, ‘if it be ripe for a definition,’ because there are some here, who, although they shrink from imagining that Mary was conceived in original sin, yet think that her immunity from this stain was not revealed by God through Scripture or the tradition of the Church, but was left only to the piety and reverence of the faithful. For since there are many truths, which are not certainly to be revealed to men, except in their heavenly home, such as are, perhaps, those which maintain that S. John Baptist was ever free from any even light fault of speech, and S. Joseph, the spouse of the most pure Virgin, from any stain concerning chastity; these think that of the number of these truths is this also, which maintains the immunity of the most Blessed Mother of God from original guilt. For sought out, say those who thus think, and too far-fetched are those arguments, whereby some celebrated writers contend that they demonstrate that this pious opinion is proximately definable. Too twisted are the interpretations whereby they endeavour to draw over to their side others, who are even openly opposed to it; so that one may now, too, say of them, what S. Antoninus said formerly of their leaders (Summ. part. v. lib. 8, c. 2), ‘They twist their sayings (those of ancient and modern doctors) against the intention of the speakers.’ And they say that they have found a notable instance of such forced interpretation in a celebrated dissertation on this subject, published a few years ago by a most eminent man. For in it (at least as it was published in Spanish in 1847) Melchior Cano is counted among writers who supported the pious opinion, whereas neither did he utter the words adduced in confirmation thereof in his own person, but in the person of those who impugn the authority of the Holy Fathers; nor do those words signify other than that the opinion of the immunity of the most Holy Virgin from original sin is pious and praiseworthy, which any one who estimates things fairly would in such questions, not defined by the Church, doubt not readily to confess of the opinion adverse to his own.

580 Narvaez (1. c. p. 56) mentions another learned Spanish writer on the same side: “A Dominican father, Vincentius de Bandelis of New Castille, who, as that most wise Pontiff, Lord Benedict XIV., says (de festo

V. M., c. xv., de festo Conceptionis, n. 8), maintained the opinion contrary to the Immaculate Conception, printed and published a treatise on the subject, whose title is, ‘On the singular purity and prerogative of the Conception of our Saviour Jesus Christ, on the authorities of 260 most illustrious Doctors.’”

“So these think, more freely perchance than is meet.”—i. 424, 425.

The Bishop of Chiapo in Mexico.—“Omitting what all know, that the adapted or allegorical meaning, unless inspired writers themselves have in other places so employed it, does not yield any firm argument in Theological matters, I wish to use the words of a Theologian of the first rank, and one of the chief maintainers of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, F. F. Suarez, who says when writing thereon, ‘You must not ask for any clear passage from Scripture, where this should be asserted, for it would be rash to require this, when other privileges of the Virgin, which the Church holds for certain, do not require such testimony of Scripture. And in respect to tradition, he says, that ‘it is worthy of consideration that the ancient Fathers have said little of this privilege of the Virgin,’ having said before, as to the sanctification of the Blessed Virgin in the womb, ‘This truth is not expressly defined, nor handed down as of faith.’ And S. Thomas, who had read the writings of the Fathers better, perhaps, than any, did not find it, I say not ‘handed down as of faith,’ but not in any way; else, doubtless, he would never have maintained the contrary. I am aware how many have strained with all their might to detach this most eminent Saint therefrom; but in vain, as I think; since in so many places of his works, especially the Summa, in which, last of all and expressly, he treated this question, he taught it most openly, on account of the reverence due to the general sayings of Holy Scripture, and because there was as yet no leaning of the Church towards the pious opinion. Pétau again, another of the more eminent Theologians, and most versed in the Fathers, although he contended for the Immaculate Conception of the most Holy Virgin, did not find it clearly handed down to them. If then, as is evident, the truth of the Immaculate Conception is not found so expressed in the Holy Scriptures that it can be proposed to the people as a dogma of faith; if it is not clear in the writings of the holy Fathers that it was ‘always, everywhere, and by all’ handed down, and much more handed down as of faith, since neither was her sanctification in the womb (which was easier), as Suarez asserts, so handed down; since I have no qualifications which enable me to decide better than S. Thomas or at least Pétau, what is contained in tradition thereon; since neither did the Fathers, who remained at Basle, and who left nothing untried to settle this matter, define it in this sense; and since those words, whereby the most Blessed Virgin is called ‘Immaculate,’ may be understood, like those in 2 Pet. iii. 12, ‘Wherefore, most dearly beloved, considering these things, be diligent, that ye may be found of Him immaculate in peace,’ not without great grief of heart, most Blessed Father, I dare not give a suffrage for the declaration of the aforesaid truth as a dogma of faith. Let, then, that most firm truth abide among all, yet with that certainty, wherewith the Assumption of the most Blessed Virgin into heaven, with body and soul at once, is believed, although it is not held as a dogma of faith. I have been not a little delayed, because a ‘religious’ man, who had done good service in literature with others whom I called that I might have the more light, only on the 16th of April last, showed me a work of some magnitude, elaborated with great care, and chiefly derived from the seraphic treasure-house, without examining which, from the desire I had of embracing a different opinion, I did not think it at all reasonable to deliver my judgment.

“Although this has not happened [that his opinion had been changed], and what I have said notwithstanding, if the Immaculate Conception of the most Holy Virgin be defined by your Holiness, or by any successor of yours, should I not myself be departed, I will receive it with the greatest exultation, and with my whole heart, and will defend it with all my power.”—T. ix., App. i. 19, 20.

Vicar Apostolic of Mysore.—“Although we are all by nature children of wrath, even although all perished in the first Adam, yet it is not repugnant either to my faith or reason to admit a marvellous and free exception as to the most Blessed Virgin in fact; nay, it seems to me in the highest degree congruous, that there should have been such an exception; whence I believe, by a faith of nature (‘naturaliter credo’), that God gave such a privilege with many other gifts of His free mercy to the Blessed Virgin Mary. But because neither Holy Scripture nor ancient tradition prove sufficiently clearly that such exemption from the stain of original sin was granted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, I cannot, believe it with a Divine faith. On the other side, considering that the Word of God had no repugnance to many other indignities in the life of His ancestors according to the flesh, both men and women, by parity of reason, it might have been absolutely, that He should have taken a Mother who had the stain of a fault strictly not her own, at least in the original moment [of her being]; whence my opinion, therefore, stands only in the natural sense of fittingness

towards my Redeemer, and in the pious desire of glory and veneration towards His most beloved Mother.

“Fearing, lest Protestants and philosophers, objecting that such a decision, as de fide, is contrary to the Catholic axiom, ‘quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus,’ and muttering that the Roman Church imposes mere opinions under pain of damnation, should also refuse most certain dogmas; and, moreover, not clearly seeing that the confidence of Christians as to the most pure Mary, or their fervour in the cultus of Mary, the refuge of sinners, can be increased by such a decision; especially being unwilling at this time to impose, as de fide, and under pain of damnation, an opinion which was free for eighteen centuries, and which, although thoroughly examined by many most pious and most learned Pontiffs, has yet always been undecided, with the most profound submission to the future judgment of your Holiness, I can in no way desire such a definition, and am compelled by my conscience so to confess.”—iii. 353.

49. The Vicar Apostolic of Coimbatoor.—“Although, I repeat, I have no doubt as to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, I cannot but fear that from the definition of that doctrine as an article of faith some evils would arise to the Church; I cannot but fear that such a definition (saving the reverence due to the many and most pious theologians who urge it) bears on its front a certain appearance of novelty, and diminishes the force and majesty of tradition, the firmness whereof will hereafter be more and more to be desired.

“Doubtless, if the Holy See shall declare the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary an article of revealed faith, it will thereby define that the tradition was always such (for I think that this revelation will never be rested on Scripture alone, which seems to me yet more perilous). This will suffice for one who is firm and constant in the faith. But as to those weaker in the faith, whose weakness will always be to be indulged, the grounds of this tradition, resting on which the Church delivers the definition, are to be weighed. No easy task. Notwithstanding the pious attempts and industry of more recent theologians, must we not confess that their demonstrations, though rigorous, are not mostly easy to the conception of the faithful? But ifc seems to me of great moment that tradition, on other grounds most precious (which will be an anchor of safety in the storms whereby Mother Church will still be tossed), should be found clear and conspicuous to the minds of all.

“Perhaps, most Blessed Father, I fear where no fear is. But I own I fear the thick falsehood, which seems about to involve the human mind more and more. Aided thereby, the prince of darkness will seduce many, unless we reverence tradition most scrupulously. Let others boast the vain science of this world, and assert that the world clay by day makes progress. I grieve to see mankind casting itself headlong into an inevitable gulf of darkness. The portentous abuses of printing, the venom of journals, which creeps even into uncivilized nations, corrupt the minds, and turn them from the right path: licence in writing, printing, and circulating everywhere all sorts of books, good or bad, on any subject, with an unworthy mixture of sacred with profane, maintaining error with a bold iron forehead; and under the appearance of sound philosophy or theology propagating false doctrine, enveloped in artfully contrived subtleties, so that the most wise laws of the Church hereon cannot be effectually maintained even in empires wholly Catholic; these things, with many other causes, seem likely to bring so great a disturbance on the intellect of men, that hereafter, more perhaps than before, Catholics, mistrusting reasoning, but cleaving to the documents of sacred tradition, will be compelled to acknowledge that only with the certainty of faith, ‘which has been believed, everywhere, always, and by all.’