Vatican I Council 1869–1870 Pope Pius IX began laying the groundwork for the fi rst Vatican Council in late 1864.. He intended to con-sult various bishops throughout the world concern-in
Trang 1Vatican I Council (1869–1870)
Pope Pius IX began laying the groundwork for the
fi rst Vatican Council in late 1864 He intended to
con-sult various bishops throughout the world
concern-ing whether the church should convene an ecumenical
council and what its agenda should be The responses
were favorable enough that Pius IX announced on June
26, 1867, his intention to summon the Council On
June 29, 1868, a proclamation, or bull, was written
announcing December 8, 1869, as the day the Council
would solemnly begin
Throughout Europe and America, critics
assert-ed that the pope’s hidden agenda was to promote
papal infallibility
On the eve of the Council, however, offi cial papers
showed the following agenda: errors resulting from
Rationalism; the Church of Christ; Christian marriage;
church discipline concerning bishops, dioceses,
semi-naries, catechism, rituals, Christian morals, customs
of the church year, and current developments in
soci-ety such as dueling, spiritualism and secret societies;
decrees on religious orders; and concerns involving the
Eastern Churches
In addition, many Catholic bishops throughout the
world demanded that a dogma concerning the
Assump-tion of the Blessed Virgin Mary be addressed, that St
Joseph be proclaimed Patron of the Universal Church,
and that the infallibility of the pope be clearly defi ned
A document concerning infallibility was not found in
any of the drafts of preparation
The preliminary gathering for Vatican I began
as close to 500 bishops met in the Sistine Chapel on December 2, 1869 Approximately 74 percent of the eligible 1,050 worldwide prelates played some role
in the nine-month proceedings All told, the Council Fathers sat at 89 general congregations and four pub-lic sessions
The fi rst debate of the council was on the errors resulting from rationalism This philosophy places human reason as the supreme criterion of truth It fl ows from the teachings of Gottfried Leibniz and Christian Wolff and can be characterized by spiritualism, dogma-tism, and determinism The church wished to address the weaknesses of these philosophies and offer a Catho-lic response to them
The next topics to be discussed concerned bishops, dioceses without a bishop, morality among clerics, and
a catechism These items were sidelined throughout the proceedings by the growing desire among many of the bishops for a statement on papal infallibility Mean-while, pressures were being felt by the bishops that impeded the progress of the council, so the pope made some procedural changes that expedited decision
mak-ing One important result was the “constitution,” De
Fide Catholica, promulgated on April 24, 1870.
Finally, on May 9, participants received a draft of
De Romano Pontifi ce, a document that spelled out the
dogma of papal infallibility Debate about this issue continued through June and into July On July 4 the debate ended, and a vote was called for July 13 By this time many bishops had left Rome on hearing the news
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