Ecumenical council

“ At the council of Nicaea, and at the ecumenical councils which followed, the idea of an infallible episcopate giving authoritative and permanent utterance to apostolic and therefore divine truth, found clear expression, and has been handed down as a part of the faith of the Catholic Church both East and West. The infallibility of the episcopate guarantees the infallibility of a general council in which not the laity and not the clergy in general, but the bishops as successors of the apostles, speak officially and collectively. ”

“ The selfish and futile negotiations between the colleges of cardinals and the popes justified the notion that there might perhaps be a power in Christendom superior even to that of the pope. Might not a council, representing all Christendom, and inspired by the Holy Ghost, judge even a pope? Such councils had been held in the East during the later Roman [Pg 312] Empire, beginning with the first general or ecumenical council of Nicæa under Constantine. They had established the teachings of the Church and had legislated for all Christian people and clergy. ”

“ Council of Nicæa.
An ecumenical council was a new experiment. Local councils had long since grown to be a recognised organ of the Church both for legislation and for judicial proceedings. But no precedent as yet prescribed, no ecclesiastical law or theological principle had as yet enthroned, the ‘General Council’ as the supreme expression of the Church’s mind. ”

“ In the Roman Church a council is regarded as ecumenical when it has been summoned from the whole church under the presidency of the pope or his legates; the decrees confirmed by the pope are binding. The word has also been applied to assemblies of other religious bodies, such as the Oecumenical Methodist Conferences, which met for the first time in 1881. ”

“ It was argued that the Council of Constance possessed an ecumenical character. Now either this claim is legitimate or it is not. If it is, we must accept its principles, which affirm that an Ecumenical Council has its authority direct from Christ, and that all, of whatever rank, including papal, are subjected to its decisions. If it is not, then its work in deposing John XXIII., Gregory XII., and Benedict XIII., and in replacing them by Martin V. is invalid, and cannot be sustained. ”

“ We have therefore this new thing, that the laity in power had begun to set quietly aside the immunities and privileges of the Church, to this extent at least, that the civil authorities compelled the local ecclesiastical institutions within their dominions to live under the rule of reform laid down by an ecumenical council, and that they did this despite the remonstrances of the superior ecclesiastical authorities.
The same assertion of the rights of laymen to do Christian work in their own way appears when the records of the boroughs are examined. ”

“ The papal confirmation is indispensable; it is conceived of as the stamp without which the expression of conciliar opinion lacks legal validity. In other words, the oecumenical council is now practically in the position of the senate of an absolute monarch. It is in fact an open question whether a council is to be ranked as really oecumenical until after its decrees have been approved by the pope. (See Vatican Council, Ultramontanism, Infallibility.) ”

“ The Reform Synods of the 15th century gave a decisive vote to doctors and licentiates of theology and of laws, some of them sitting as individuals, some as representatives of universities. Roman Catholic canonists now confine the right to vote at oecumenical councils to bishops, cardinal deacons, generals or vicars general of monastic orders and the praelati nullius (exempt abbots, &c.) ; all other persons, lay or clerical, who are admitted or invited, have merely the votum consultativum—they are chiefly procurators of absent bishops, or very learned priests. ”

“ As to the authority of the general council, the decrees published at Constance are renewed, by which it is said that the general council holds its power immediately from Jesus Christ; that all persons, even of papal dignity, are subject to it in that which regards the faith, the extirpation of schism, and the reformation of the Church in the head and in the members; and that all must obey it, even the pope, who is punishable if he transgresses it. ”

“ It was decreed that they should not elect or nominate, or, indeed, do anything without the consent of the bishops of the Catholic and Apostolical Church, who are under Alexander. But those who, by the grace of God, and in answer to prayer, have been preserved from schism, and have continued blameless in the Catholic and Apostolical Church, are to have the power of electing, and of nominating, those who are worthy of the clerical office, and are permitted to do everything that accords with law and the authority of the Church. ”

“ It is a world-congress of men in every intellectual and moral respect the most venerable that could possibly be collected on the earth; without comparison superior to any other deliberative or legislative assembly. An œcumenical council is, as the church teaches and every Catholic is bound to believe, infallibly directed and assisted by the Holy Spirit. ”

“ Nothing is to us the subject of such ardent longing as to see both ourselves and the whole church deriving from this precious union the most salutary blessings. It has long been a serious matter of thought for us, and which, indeed, we communicated to several of the episcopal body, to hold an Œcumenical Council, in which, with the Divine assistance, our united counsels and solicitude should devise such efficient remedies as are necessary for the evils that afflict the church. ”

“ But if once the personal infallibility of the Pope were defined, Councils would become superfluous and useless, and the Bishops would be robbed of their authority as witnesses and judges of faith. In the one way the greatest injury would be done to the prosperity of the Church, and in the other the rights of Bishops would be reduced to a mere assent, so that they would hardly any longer be consultors and theologians ”

“ Is an assembly free, when no speech can be made, no single decision come to, without the express permission of an external master? If this is freedom, there has never been an unfree Council. So I hear many saying, as well clergy as laity, and even Bishops. The Pope, of course, has not forgotten that, on the day of his election, sitting on the High Altar of that very church where the Council is now being held, he was adored by the Cardinals, and four days afterwards crowned with the triple tiara, with the words, “Scias te esse rectorem orbis.” ”

“ It having come to the knowledge of the great and holy Council, that, in certain places and cities, the eucharist is administered, by deacons, to presbyters, and neither law nor custom permitting that those, who have no authority to offer the body of Christ, should deliver it to those who have; and it being also understood, that some deacons receive the eucharist before even the bishops, let, therefore, all these irregularities be removed, and let the deacons remain within their own limits, knowing that they are ministers of the bishops, and inferior to the presbyters. ”

“ The decision was that the vote should be allowed to the generals of religious orders also, and that the right of the proxies of absent bishops to vote should be referred to the pope. The title to be given to the council at the head of the decrees in each session was then discussed, and a proposal to add the words "representing the church universal " (as at Basel and Constance) to the usual formula "general and oecumenical" was rejected at the instance of the legates, as indirectly menacing to papal autocracy. ”

“ We, therefore, for the preservation, safe–keeping, and increase of the Catholic flock, with the approval of the Sacred Council, do judge it to be necessary to propose to the belief and acceptance of all the faithful, in accordance with the ancient and constant faith of the universal Church, the doctrine touching the institution, perpetuity, and nature of the sacred Apostolic Primacy, in which is found the strength and sureness of the entire Church, and at the same time to inhibit and condemn the contrary errors, so hurtful to the flock of Christ. ”

“ The œcumenical council must have its complete and legitimate authority, in which the authority of the whole church and the whole episcopate is concentrated and applied, independently of the assent or dissent of any number of individuals, even bishops or patriarchs, who are not actually concurring in its judgment. ”

“ Presbyterian Protestants make no claim to episcopal succession or ordination. Consequently they, by their own admission, must be regarded by the council, and by all who adhere to the hierarchical principle on which the first six councils were constituted, as destitute of any right to a position above that of laymen. Nevertheless, they are the heads and teachers of large and respectable societies, equal in point of fact, in our judgment, to those who call themselves bishops or presbyters in episcopally-governed Protestant societies, and therefore entitled to respect and consideration. ”

“ Since the Schema de Ecclesiâ has been in the hands of the Bishops, it is clear to all that the Council has been convoked simply for the purpose of extending the power of the Pope and strengthening the influence of the Jesuits, and that everything is designed to subserve this one end. The Bishops are to forge chains for binding, first the secular powers, and then themselves and the whole clergy with them. The feeling they are [pg 292] possessed with is a bitter and painful one. They feel outwitted and caught in a trap. ”

“ No council, they urged, could be considered a general one which was called against the will of the pope, because, without the bishop of the Roman or mother church, the council obviously could not lay claim to represent all Christendom. The defenders of the papal power maintained, moreover, that the pope was the supreme legislator, that he might change or annul the act of any council or of a previous pope, that he might judge others but might not himself be judged by any one. ”

“ The ministers of a church have a particular interest in its legislation—are to be presumed to have an especial knowledge of the best way in which that should be conducted. But they are not to be presumed to have an exclusive interest in ecclesiastical legislation—an exclusive knowledge of what is best for the church. Many people have these things at heart, and are endowed with this knowledge, equally with the clergy. The Christian community at large must be allowed an extensive share in the legislature of the council which deals with ecclesiastical concerns. ”

“ Even in the mean time the thought of such a council is neither impertinent, nor unpractical: for I suppose no one will hold that a national synod or convocation may determine anything as to its Church’s doctrine, and yet no man be justified in leaving her communion. Such course however must be taken, to be taken rightly, not on the impulse of a man’s own will, or the bent of his own mind; but only in obedience to what Christendom has definitely ruled, and in implicit submission to what she would now say, could she meet in free and general council. ”

“ An amendment to one of Theodore’s canons proves the freedom of discussion and voting at these assemblies. Provincial councils were attended by a few of the principal clergy of each diocese, who came up to them with their bishop. Kings and nobles were often present at ecclesiastical councils, and joined in attesting their proceedings, so that it is sometimes difficult to decide whether a council was a clerical assembly or a meeting of the witan.
[Pg 30] The harmony between Church and State is no less evident in matters of jurisdiction than it is in legislation. ”

“ It is the sacred duty of the Bishops in Council to bear witness to the ancient doctrine of the Church, and to reform it when it has been obscured by abuses in practice and in the rule of the hierarchy. The more abuses there are, so much the more difficult, and so much the more indispensable also is this reform. What the Catholic world expects of the Council is not a fresh sanction, still less an increase, of these abuses, but the deliverance and purification of the Church from them. ”

“ Into the character of that Council, and of those who constituted it, our present investigation does not lead us to inquire. It is now, I believe, generally understood, that its decrees are binding on all who profess allegiance to the Sovereign Roman Pontiff; and that the man would be considered to have renounced the Roman Catholic Communion, who should professedly withhold his assent from the doctrines there promulgated as vital, or against the oppugners of which the Council itself pronounced an anathema. ”

“ What the Council discussed was to be the work of unknown divines: what it voted was to be the work of a majority in a Commission of twenty-four. It was in the election of these Commissions that the episcopate obtained the chance of influencing the formation of its decrees. But the papal theologians retained their predominance, for they might be summoned to defend or alter their work in the Commission, from which the bishops who had spoken or proposed amendments were excluded. Practically, the right of initiative was the deciding point. ”

“ In time, the canons freed themselves from their rules, the observance relaxed, and at length they ceased to live in community ; yet they still formed bodies, which through increase of wealth and the power naturally accruing to corporate societies claimed other functions besides the celebration of the common office in the church, assuming the rights of the rest of the clergy, making themselves necessary as a council of the bishop, taking upon them the administration of a see during a vacancy, and the election of a bishop to supply it. ”