1870: Vatican I and the Siege of Paris

As previewed, I'll be talking to Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim about the connection between the First Vatican Council and the Siege of Paris 150 years ago in 1870 this morning on the Son Rise Morning Show about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern.

Please listen live here; the podcast will be archived here!

As The World Digital Library of the Library of Congress describes the Siege of Paris:

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The Franco-Prussian War was brought about by rising tensions between France and Prussia in the 1860s. France, under Emperor Napoleon III, was determined to check the growth of Prussian power and avenge what it saw as a series of diplomatic humiliations. Prussia, under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, believed that a Prussian-led war of the German states against France would be a decisive act leading to creation of a unified German empire. The conflict began on July 19, 1870, when France declared war. The French army proved woefully unprepared and suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Sedan, leaving open the road to Paris. By September 19, the Germans had completely surrounded the city and begun a siege that was to last more than four months. Cut off from supplies from the countryside, the Parisians held out by eating dogs, cats, and even most of the animals in the Paris zoo. The trees on the Champs-Elysées and in parks were cut down and burned for fuel. On January 5, the German armies began a bombardment of the city, which lasted several hours each night for a period of 23 nights. About 12,000 shells fell on Paris neighborhoods, killing some 400 people. Paris surrendered on January 28, effectively ending the war. The French defeat was followed by a popular uprising and the establishment, in March 1871, of the Paris Commune, a revolutionary government formed in accordance with anarchist and socialist principles. The Commune was bloodily suppressed in May 1871 by French troops under the government of Adolphe Thiers. During the brief period in which the communards controlled Paris, they dismantled the imperial column in the Place Vendôme. The suppression of the Commune resulted in further extensive damage to the city, as the communards set fire to the Tuileries Palace, the Louvre, and other buildings, and as desperate fighting between the communards and counterrevolutionary forces destroyed or damaged many other structures.

The Second French Empire had fallen with the surrender of Emperor Napoleon III after defeat at the Battle of Sedan. The Third Republic, the Government of National Defense, continued fighting the Prussians and defending Paris until January of 1871. Then the Germans, as part of the Armistice negotiations, brought food and medicine and other supplies to the people of Paris. Under the Third Republic, from 1871-1940, Paris was restored yet again.

Tomorrow, on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, we'll follow up with the story of how the Empress Eugenie, the Emperor Napoleon III's devoutly Catholic wife, played a role in the The Song of Bernadette--in real life and in the 1943 movie based on Franz Werfel's 1941 novel. Same time, same station.

Preview: Papal Infallibility and the Siege of Paris: 150 Years Ago

On Monday, February 10, we'll discuss two interconnected anniversaries on the Son Rise Morning Show: The dogmatic definition of Papal Infallibility at the First Vatican Council on July 18, 1870 and the Siege of Paris at the end of the Franco-Prussian War beginning on September 19, 1870.

The First Vatican Council was convened by Pope Pius IX (Blessed Pope Pius IX, whose feast is February 7) on December 8, 1869 (the feast of the Immaculate Conception, celebrating the dogma Pope Pius IX had declared in 1854 via the Papal Bull Ineffabilis Deus). 

The purpose of the First Vatican Council was to clarify the Church's teaching about the Church itself. The bishops met, not in the Lateran Basilica like previous councils held in Rome, but in St. Peter's Basilica. As the bishops met in council, Pope Pius IX was already the "Prisoner of the Vatican", as Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia had conquered the Papal States. Troops from the French Empire, ruled by Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon III, protected the Pope in Rome, which had not yet been taken by the Italian revolutionaries.

Although the First Vatican Council is most famous for the proclamation of Papal Infallibility, there was another document issued, Dei Filius, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, on April 24, 1870. It has four chapters: 1. God, Creator of All Things; 2. Revelation; 3. Faith; 4. Faith and Reason. It begins (in translation):

The holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church believes and confesses that there is one, true, living God, Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, omnipotent, eternal, immense, incomprehensible, infinite in intellect and will, and in every perfection; who, although He is one, singular, altogether simple and unchangeable spiritual substance, must be proclaimed distinct in reality and essence from the world; most blessed in Himself and of Himself, and ineffably most high above all things which are or can be conceived outside Himself.

This sole true God by His goodness and "omnipotent power," not to increase His own beatitude, and not to add to, but to manifest His perfection by the blessings which He bestows on creatures, with most free volition, "immediately from the beginning of time fashioned each creature out of nothing, spiritual and corporeal, namely angelic and mundane; and then the human creation, common as it were, composed of both spirit and body" [Lateran Council IV, can. 2 and 5]

But God protects and governs by His providence all things which He created, "reaching from end to end mightily and ordering all things sweetly" [cf. Wis 8:1]. For "all things are naked and open to His eyes" [Heb 4:13], even those which by the free action of creatures are in the future.

The document on the nature of the Church, which included the role of the Papacy, faced more opposition and therefore, Pope Pius IX decided the bishops should define only the role of the Pope in that document, which became known by its first words, Pastor Aeternus, defining Papal Infallibility as one of its topics. Pastor Aeternus was finally adopted on July 18, 1870 with two dissenting votes. One of those dissenting votes was cast by the Bishop of Little Rock, Arkansas: Edward Fitzgerald, whose family had left Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine! He was concerned--as was St. John Henry Newman in England--that the declared definition of the doctrine would hamper his efforts to evangelize. Like Newman, he agreed that the Pope exercised magisterial infallibility in declaring dogma in certain limited occasions; he just thought the public definition was inopportune. The other dissenter was Aloisio Riccio of Sicily. Both accepted the doctrine after it had been declared.

With two documents completed, and after the bishops had been in Rome for seven months, the bishops were to return to their home dioceses for a summer break and then come back to the Vatican for further consultations, taking up the document on the nature of the Church, for example, on the role of the bishops. That's when the Franco-Prussian war intervened.

Prussian troops were advancing in France quickly, so Napoleon III had to recall the French troops garrisoned in Civitavecchia in August of 1870. When the French were defeated at the Battle of Sedan at the beginning of September that year, the new Kingdom of Italy invaded Rome and took over the city, removing it from Papal jurisdiction. On September 20, 1870, Pope Pius IX suspended the First Vatican Council indefinitely. It was formally closed in 1960, before the Second Vatican Council convened.

So while the unification of Italy proceeded apace, so did the Franco-Prussian War, and the French were losing. Just as the Kingdom of Italy needed to take Rome to be unified, the Prussian-German nation needed to take Paris to be victorious. Thus, the Siege of Paris beginning on September 19, 1870.

More about that Monday!!