The prolific author John W. O'Malley offers this volume on Vatican I as the middle work of a trilogy that includes books on Trent and on Vatican II. He builds upon existing scholarship while drawing upon primary sources in many languages to construct a clear and engaging narrative of the background, internal workings, and aftermath of the council.
O'Malley connects Vatican I with the ultramontane movement, which he places within the context of the Enlightenment, Jansenism, the rise of nationalism, Romanticism, and various forms of bishop-centered ecclesiologies, such as Gallicanism. Ultramontanism itself existed in various versions, most notably a liberal and an authoritarian one. The drama includes a colorful cast of characters, some extreme partisans, others trying to bridge the gaps, and a leader, Pius IX, who swung from initial attempts at fairness to shocking efforts to label and shut down what he deemed to be the opposition. The reader is several times treated to scenes on the council floor during which bishops shouted down fellow bishops, including calling one speaker “Lucifer” and “another Luther” (173).
On the controversial question of whether the council was sufficiently free in making its judgments, O'Malley offers a qualified affirmation. On Dei Filius, the document on faith and reason, he analyzes its inadequacies but then adds a balancing assessment of how it stands as a truly Roman Catholic statement that was much needed in its time.
Concerning Pastor Aeternus, especially chapter 4 on papal infallibility, O'Malley has given me a more nuanced view than I have held previously (although he also cites sources from which such knowledge had already been available). I had thought that the passage of the document represented a victory for the maximalist, ultramontane majority, but that the actual wording of the document represented a victory for the minimalist minority. I emphasized the document's mention of limitations and qualifications placed upon papal infallibility, such as the importance of ecclesial context, focus on the act of defining rather than on the personal power of the pope, and the requirement that infallible statements be made ex cathedra.
O'Malley discusses these elements, but he also brings out how the final document has its own vagueness and ambiguities on important points. It was open to an interpretation that in a qualified manner favored the majority view of papal infallibility as personal, separate, and absolute. In the days before the vote, a majority addition was approved and minority requests concerning the wording were denied. On July 18, 1870, the day that Pastor Aeternus was passed, it was experienced by both sides as a clear victory for the majority in its passage and in its wording. The minority-friendly elements of the document that I used to stress allowed for postconciliar interpretations that, in the face of strong critiques from national government leaders, tipped some of the balance back in the minority direction. What my old analysis missed is that such a reading became possible only in retrospect when taking into consideration the reception of the document.
What the majority achieved at Vatican I, claims O'Malley, has had a lasting and arguably positive impact upon the making of the Catholic Church of today. What the minority fought for was a deeper engagement with the modern world and modern methods of study. Vatican II did its best to affirm Vatican I as it further pursued the goals associated with that council's minority.
O'Malley tells his readers that he wants this book to be like the 1930 two-volume work on Vatican I by Dom Cuthbert Butler, which “moves at a pace and at a level that makes the subject accessible to the nonprofessional” (20). Yet he hopes that “even professional theologians and historians might profit a little from the overview” (266, n17). This virtuoso performance by a great Catholic historian accomplishes both goals with grace and seeming ease. For anyone with the slightest interest in Catholic history, this book is a page-turner. When I reached the end, I had that rare feeling of sadness that one sometimes gets when completing a good novel, wishing that it might continue on for a bit.
