Litchfield enquirer., 1869-12-02

4ad FATHER HYAOINTHE. a e.7s E On the 9th of December will open at Rome the vignette scene of what can hard Iy be other than 8 historical crisis After an interval of centuries the Pope has call; ed General council. and in his writ of convocation he declares that the calling of It IS necessary-no unmeaning declaration. It would seem as if the genius of Roman Catholicism were about to come in direct and decisive conflict with the pronounced tendencies of the times. The struggle must be grand one, for the prize is the maste- ry of the world. 2d s~a II EaiWaa v |
 History moves with dramatic rapidity in our day, already it is shaping itself as the Holy Father never intended when he call ed together the Council. In the document inviting the prelates of the Church to meet in convention the position and action of that body were assumed. It was taken for granted that it was to be what we call re- actionary-what in Western Europe is pop ularly known as ultramontaine. So strong ly had the Pontif committed in advance the Church that from many quarters it was felt necessary to. protest. Bishop after bishop raised their voices, dissenting first from the Irregular assumption of the Pope and then from the very doctrines them. selves. Now, the battle between reaction and advance will be fought inside the Council itself. The Council which was call ed as an army of defence, suddenly finds itself rent with the conflict.
 There is no escaping this conclusion. The Continental bishops of Europe have
 spoken boldly It is question s sfSSsI Xss ghssh and if at all, under what conditions. The Bohemian clergy have led of with start ling paper. They recognize the fact that religion and education cannot be separated in this country, whatever the past; that & believer, to be strong one, must be an enlightened one. They have written let ter. to be submitted to the Ecumenical Council, in which they ask the infallibility of the Pope. the corporal assumption of the Virgin Mary, and other questions, be left upon former decisions and to theologi- cal discussion. That, above all, the Church should show herself friend and protect. ress of science, and that the assistance of the bishops and clergy should be given to the support of the healthy education of the people and the culture of the learned. The last two letters from Count de Montalem- bert to the German Catholics, and the manner in which those documents were re- ceived. the proceedings of the Bavarian Cabinet, the declarations of several emil nent theologians beyond the Rhine, the circular of the Bishops collected at Fulda, are SO many facts which are symptoms of the condition of the mind of Europe, and which cannot be ignored. They challenge hearing, and must have it.
 But the leader of the Catholic advance party best known in this country is the barefooted Carmelite, Father Hyacinthe. His recent remarkable letter to the Gen. eral of his Order. makes the issue squarely between the two orders of thought. The ken of. the importance attached to his let
 ter by the leading journals of all Europe proclaim that he is no ordinary man; anC more than that, that he is speaking not on ly for himself, but for the people, Fenelo1 spoke just as boldly, but recanted. France to-day declares that Hyacinthe is made o sterner stuff. Bossuet, two centuries ago wrote with perhaps more audacity, but il was felt that it was but the language of 6 scholar and theologian. He spoke on ly for himself, but was not backed up by an impulse of popular thought. Therein Fly. acinthe differs from, and has the advan tage of, his predecessors. He stands where Luther stood three hundred years ago.
 Father Hyacinthe holds, too, in another respect, historical position He revives the old platform of the Gallican Church in 1862, the main tenets of which were that the jurisdiction of St. Peter was confined to things spiritual, that the General Coun oil was superior to the Pope, and that eyer in questions of faith the judgment of the latter was not irreversible until ratified by the Church. These declarations first gave to the French Church. its somewhat dis. tinctive character, and are the ancient ba. sis of any opposition therein to the doc trines of the Syllabus. If Hyacinthe be the man that is promised, he speaks not only for his own time, but for two centu. ries of suppressed thought. '0 e4''11 @'' l All this opposition, however, only has weight and meaning as it represents pop
 ular feeling; and the evidences that it does so are strong. The masses of the Catholic people in Italy, in Spain, in Austria, and in other large countries, are beginning te speak out their sentiments so plainly and so loudly, that they must be listened to-
 Vienna petitions for the abolition of con vents. Cracow threatens popular disturb fances on this same point. c Hungary ask for lay representation. Germany organizes Liberal Catholic, Associations. AL
 Dr. Dollinger, whom the especial cham fpions fPapal power have been eulogizine for at least twenty years as one of the l ablest theologians of their Church, no Ion- ger conceals his utter dissatisfaction with the spirit which now prevails in Rome, e,and as leader of ecclesiastical thought, pre-
 sents his sprotesto Il a'neIblidJ .g,I1 qo1 flo
 Seeing the great struggle which is ap
 preaching, the people of this country al ready manifest a deep interest. in 2 the' i'm
 pending Council. The enterprising jour nalism of the day will keep them well in formed of the movement 0of thought ant
 the struggle of ideas as they progress
 That is what the intelligent .Americai public want to know. The splendid page antry of the occasion will have little at traction for them. The routine record Q every hours official action will not inter
 est them. Statistics of the old Councils I Latin precedents, the curious sinformatiol tof the past they will not read, but the in lteligent judgment on the current event of an educated, liberal American thinker 1 in full sympathy with the spirit of the age and not liable to ibe prejudiced one Wa.