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Vatican I

The first idea of convening an Ecumenical Council in Rome to elevate the temporal power into a dogma, originated in the celebration of the third centenary of the Council of Trent, which took place in that city in December, 1863, and was attended by a number of Austrian and Hungarian prelates. A new Council, to be held in the chief Christian temple, to proclaim, as dogma, the temporal power was regarded by the most bigoted Ultramontanes as likely to carry great political weight. Never had European conditions been more favourable. Austria and Spain had not recognised the new kingdom of Italy; and France, with her army, guaranteed to the Pope the remnant of temporal power. It was also proposed that the heads of the Catholic States, especially the Emperor Francis Joseph and Queen Isabella, should assist at the promulgation of the new dogma.

The gap between Roman Catholics and other Christians is wide and deep. The Eastern Orthodox churches and the Roman Catholic Church have been separate since 1054. The massive separation of Protestant churches from Rome began with the sixteenth-century Reformation. The chasm was enlarged by the First Vatican Council of 1869-70, when it defined and promulgated the doctrine of papal infallibility. Pope John used the language of return. He said that when the Church had purified and brought itself up to date through the Second Vatican Council it will then be possible for "separated brethren" to recognize the Roman Catholic Church as their true home and take or retake their place in it. The question was whether all the "returning" had to be done by Protestants, Anglicans, and the Eastern Orthodox.

The Civilta Cattolica suggested that the Papal Infallibility should be substituted for the dogma of temporal power, and by the allocution Pericunda the Council was proclaimed, and its opening fixed for December 8, 1869. Theology was substituted for politics, the definitions of a doctrine, for political protests, which might have produced dissensions and disputes on the part of the bishops disinclined to submit to the excessive pretensions of the ultra-intransigents. There was an indefinite atmosphere about the idea of Infallibility, there was no possibility of knowing where it would lead. This alarmed the governments, and opened up difficult doctrinal, metaphysical, and traditional questions. It was foreseen that the discussions would not be free, because Pius IX. placed himself at the head of the Infallibilist party and looked on all opponents as heretics or personal enemies.

The Council was opened, as proposed, on December 8, 1869, fifteen years after the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and five years after that of the Syllabus. The first Council was, at least in its effective composition and declared intentions, a conservative council initially assembled by Pope Pius IX (1846-78), not with any intention of compromising with contemporary progress, but with the express purpose of resisting all and any future movements designed to radicalise the Church. It is relevant to note that the Jesuits, along with such extreme theological reactionaries as the English Cardinal Manning, represented the dominant force. The ecclesiastical liberals (the learned Dr. Dollinger of Munich, was the intellectual leader of the mainly French and German minority), were first out-voted and then ruthlessly silenced or expelled, if they continued their opposition to the acts of the Council and, in particular, to its most publicised and controversial decision, the declaration of papal infallibility, which was passed on July 18th, 1870. In the eyes of its contemporaries, both clerical and secular, the first Vatican Council represented a victory for clerical reaction in every sphere.