First Vatican Council

As early as late 1864, Pius IX had commissioned the cardinals resident in Rome to tender him their opinions as to the advisability of a council. The majority pronounced in favour of the scheme, dissenting voices being rare. After March 1865 the convocation of the council was no longer in doubt. Special bulls were issued with invitations to the bishops of the Eastern Orthodox Church, to Protestants and to other non-Catholics, none of which groups complied with the request.[7]

The Council was summoned by the pope by a bull on 29 June 1868.[1] The first session was held in St. Peter's Basilica on 8 December 1869.[8] Preliminary sessions dealt with general administrative matters and committee assignments. Bishop Bernard John McQuaid complained of rainy weather, inadequate heating facilities, and boredom.[9] Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley of Newark, New Jersey, noted the high prices in Rome.[9] When Lord Houghton asked Cardinal Manning what had been going on, he answered: "Well, we meet, and we look at one another, and then we talk a little, but when we want to know what we have been doing, we read the Times".[10]

Papal primacy, supremacy and infallibility
Overview Primacy of Peter & Papal primacy Papal supremacy Papal infallibility First Vatican Council § Papal infallibility Du Pape
Patriarchs compared to popes Papal primacy Episcopal see § Catholic Church Pentarchy § After the East–West Schism Pope John XIX § Life Gregory II Youssef § First Vatican Council Ravenna Document Eastern Orthodox opposition to papal supremacy
Ecumenical councils compared to popes Conciliarity Conciliarism § Modern conciliarism Ecumenical council § Acceptance of the councils To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation § The Third Wall: Authority to Call a Council Ultrajectines
Catholic episcopal councils compared to popes Febronianism Christus Dominus § Controversy The Ratzinger Report
Political rulers compared to popes Gallicanism Patronato real Josephinism Febronianism Cisalpinism Appointment of Catholic bishops § Centralization of papal power Concordat § List Papal deposing power
Existing dogma compared to popes Development of doctrine Sedevacantism Second Vatican Council § Objections to the council Cum ex apostolatus officio Pascendi Dominici gregis
Objections and controversy Ecclesiastical differences between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church § Papal authority Ignaz von Döllinger § Papal authority Ultramontanism § Position of other apostolic churches Papal infallibility § Objections Old Catholic Church § Impact of the First Vatican Council: second stage Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope Josip Juraj Strossmayer § Catholic diplomacy Ultrajectine

The object of the council was a mystery for a while. The first revelation was given, in February 1869, by an article in La Civiltà Cattolica, a Jesuit periodical. It claimed, as the view of many Catholics in France, that the council would be of very brief duration, since the majority of its members were in agreement, and mentioned inter alia the proclamation of papal infallibility. Factions around the proposal arose across Europe, and some Italians even proposed setting up a rival council in Naples. However, before the Council met all became quiet in view of the studied vagueness of the invitation.[7]

Pope Pius defined as dogma the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in 1854.[11] However, the proposal to define papal infallibility itself as dogma met with resistance, not because of doubts about the substance of the proposed definition, but because some considered it inopportune to take that step at that time.[11] Richard McBrien divides the bishops attending Vatican I into three groups. The first group, which McBrien calls the "active infallibilists", was led by Henry Edward Manning and Ignatius von Senestréy. According to McBrien, the majority of the bishops were not so much interested in a formal definition of papal infallibility as they were in strengthening papal authority and, because of this, were willing to accept the agenda of the infallibilists. A minority, some 10 per cent of the bishops, McBrien says, opposed the proposed definition of papal infallibility on both ecclesiastical and pragmatic grounds, because, in their opinion, it departed from the ecclesiastical structure of the early Christian church.[12] From a pragmatic perspective, they feared that defining papal infallibility would alienate some Catholics, create new difficulties for union with non-Catholics, and provoke interference by governments in ecclesiastical affairs.[13] Those who held this view included most of the German and Austro-Hungarian bishops, nearly half of the Americans, one third of the French, most of the Chaldaeans and Melkites, and a few Armenians.[13] Only a few bishops appear to have had doubts about the dogma itself.[13]

On 24 April 1870, the dogmatic constitution on the Catholic faith Dei Filius was adopted unanimously. The draft presented to the Council on 8 March drew no serious criticism, but a group of 35 English-speaking bishops, who feared that the opening phrase of the first chapter, "Sancta romana catholica Ecclesia" ('Holy Roman Catholic Church'), might be construed as favouring the Anglican branch theory, later succeeded in having an additional adjective inserted, so that the final text read: "Sancta catholica apostolica romana Ecclesia" ('Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church').[14] The constitution thus set forth the teaching of the "Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church" on God, revelation and faith.[15]

Ecclesiastics of several countries gathered in Rome for the council

There was stronger opposition to the draft constitution on the nature of the church, which at first did not include the question of papal infallibility,[4] but the majority party in the council, whose position on this matter was much stronger,[11] brought it forward. It was decided to postpone discussion of everything in the draft except infallibility.[11] The decree did not go forward without controversy; Cardinal Filippo Guidi, Archbishop of Bologna, proposed adding that the pope is assisted by "the counsel of the bishops manifesting the tradition of the churches". Pius IX rejected Guidi's view of the bishops as witnesses to the tradition, maintaining: "I am the tradition",[16] meaning I am the successor of Peter, the Rock on which Christ chose to build His Church.

On 13 July 1870, a preliminary vote on the section on infallibility was held in a general congregation: 451 voted simply in favour (placet), 88 against (non placet), and 62 in favour but on condition of some amendment (placet iuxta modum).[17] This made evident what the final outcome would be, and some 60 members of the opposition left Rome so as not to be associated with approval of the document. The final vote, with a choice only between placet and non placet, was taken on 18 July 1870, with 433 votes in favour and only 2 against defining as a dogma the infallibility of the pope when speaking ex cathedra.[4] The two votes in opposition were cast by Bishops Aloisio Riccio and Edward Fitzgerald.[18]

The dogmatic constitution states, in chapter 4:9, that the Pope has "full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church" (chapter 3:9); and that, when he:

speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.

None of the bishops who had argued that proclaiming the definition was inopportune refused to accept it. Some Catholics, mainly of German language and largely inspired by the historian Ignaz von Döllinger, formed the separate Old Catholic Church in protest; von Döllinger did not formally join the new group himself.[19]

Drawing showing the First Vatican Council

Discussion of the rest of the document on the nature of the church was to continue when the bishops returned after a summer break. However, in the meanwhile the Franco-Prussian War broke out. With the swift German advance and the capture of Emperor Napoleon III, French troops protecting papal rule in Rome withdrew from the city.

Consequently, on 20 September 1870, one month after the Kingdom of Italy had occupied Rome, Pope Pius IX, who then considered himself a prisoner in the Vatican, issued the bull Postquam Dei munere, adjourning the Council indefinitely.[20] While some proposed to continue the council in the Belgian city of Mechlin, it was never reconvened.[21] The Council was formally closed in 1960, prior to the formation of the Second Vatican Council.[22]

Meanwhile, in reaction to the political implications of the doctrine of infallibility on the secular states, some took rapid action. Austria annulled the Concordat arranged with the Curia in 1855. In Prussia the anti-Catholic Kulturkampf broke out immediately afterwards, and in France the synod so accentuated the power of ultramontanism (an emphasis on the powers of the Pope), that the republic took steps to curb it by revoking the Concordat of 1801 and completely separating the Church from the State.[23]

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