For the fourth or fifth time since the opening of the Council, the ultramontane correspondents have been instructed to say, that the acoustic defects of the Hall have been remedied through new arrangements. This is not true; the speeches are never understood in many parts of the Chamber, not even where the secretaries sit. Meanwhile the Pope has conceived a desire to appear again in the midst of the Bishops and hold a Solemn Session. Hitherto he has been invisible and generally unapproachable to his "venerable brethren," as he officially styles them. The last time the assembly saw him was at the unsuccessful Solemn Session of January 6, when the Bishops had to go through the useless ceremony of swearing oaths, in order to fill up the vacant time. For Pius does not feel that there is the slightest need for ascertaining the views of the Bishops about the measures in hand, or their wishes and proposals, and hearing their report of the state of Church matters in their own countries. He stands too high for that. A French prelate remarked lately that the Council does not thrive, because the Pope stands at once too near it and too far from it--so near that he robs it of all freedom, so far that there is no community of feeling and views and understanding.
There has never indeed been a period in Church history where it has been made so palpably plain to the Episcopate how much the name of "brother," which the Pontifex gives to every Bishop, is worth, and how immeasurable is the gulf between the "brother" on the Roman throne, the Pope-King, and the brother in Paris or Vienna or Prague.
On the 16th a part of the first _Schema_ was distributed in a revised form, and a General Congregation was held upon it on the 18th, at the very time when the Pope was hearing a mass for Montalembert in reparation for his treatment of the illustrious dead on the 15th and 16th. He wanted to hold a Solemn Session on the 25th, and thought there would be some decrees ready to be published. In defiance of the order of business the Bishops had only a day and a half, instead of ten days, allowed them to get acquainted with the revised text. However, so large a number of speakers sent in their names, and so many new difficulties came to light, that Pius had once more to abandon his design of proclaiming new articles of faith on that day to the expectant world. It looks as if the fourth month of the Council would pass by with as little result as the three first. Easter Monday is already named as the period fixed for publishing the first doctrinal decree. Meanwhile a new power has been introduced in the person of the Jesuit, Kleutgen. He had been condemned some time ago by the Holy Office on account of a scandal in a convent. But he has now been rehabilitated, as the Jesuits have no superfluity of theologians, and is to take part in drawing up the _Schemata_. The time fixed for sending in representations on the infallibility decree has been extended for ten days more, to the 25th. There is no lack of criticisms and counter-statements; the Bishops, although foreseeing that their intellectual progeny will be strangled directly after birth, seem anxious to gain the satisfaction of saying, "dixi et salvavi animam meam." The German Bishops remember the assurances they gave at Fulda. The Archbishop of Cologne reminded the faithful of his diocese, as late as Feb. 9, of this Pastoral, to set their minds at rest. To-day, March 21, in view of the infallibilist _Schema_ and the new order of business, he would no doubt hardly think it prudent to say any longer to the Germans, "Be confident that the Council will establish no new dogma, and proclaim nothing which is not written by faith and conscience on your hearts." The Germans will now be curious to see the circumlocutions and explanations appended, in the fresh Pastorals compiled after the fabrication of the new dogma, to the Pastoral issued from the tomb of St. Boniface.