Front matter (continued 7)

Events which might have moved somewhat tardily before, were, after this explicit declaration of the pope in favor of the Austrians and against a constitution, hastened into great activity. Everything demonstrated that the people were acting under the influence of a settled conviction that all their best and dearest interests required that they should establish an independent constitutional government at whatsoever cost. And the resoluteness with which the purpose to accomplish this end was formed and maintained by the Italian people will fully appear in the sequel of their history, which furnishes a conspicuous instance of the manner in which the example of the people of the United States reacted upon the modern populations of the European States.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XVII.

TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE OVERTHROWN.

When Pius IX suffered himself to be betrayed into the emotional remark quoted in the last chapter—that he neither could nor would admit such modifications of the laws as the people desired—he made a fatal mistake. It placed him in direct opposition to the expulsion of the Austrians, the creation of a constitutional government, and an independent Italian nation. He must have been grossly deceived by his ecclesiastical advisers if he did not know that the popular mind had become intensely aroused by the desire to see all these things accomplished, that the revolution had no other meaning, and that everything transpiring indicated unmistakably that pacification was impossible without them. He would have known, upon a little reflection, that the true Christian faith of the Church, as taught by the apostles and "the fathers," was, in no proper sense, involved in any of these propositions; that they had the approval of millions of Roman Catholics throughout the world, and a vast majority of the Italians, and that by employing his pontifical authority to ingraft upon the faith the odious Jesuit doctrine that it was heresy to deny the temporal power and kingship of the pope, he was not only doing violence to the honest convictions of these multitudes of Christians, but was endeavoring to convert the Church, as the representative of the whole body of its members, into a machine for the perpetuation of monarchism, and the suppression of the right of popular self-government.

To say to the people of Italy, as he did, that a constitutional government established by them would violate the divine law, in the face of what such governments had done elsewhere in the world—especially in the United States—was, besides being an act of weakness on his part, an arraignment of the popular intelligence of the world. Such a doctrine was only endured in the Middle Ages because the multitude were trained to servility and obedience, and held in that condition by the united authority of Church and State. But its avowal at the middle of the nineteenth century could be understood in no other sense, even at Rome, than the expression of a desire to see the period of human progress brought to an end by the permanent triumph of imperial power. It was the mapping out for the modern progressive nations such a policy as would, by destroying their constitutions, subject them to papal domination throughout the vast domain of faith and morals; for if, as he declared, the two hundred millions of Roman Catholics scattered through the world were to become subject to his summons to defend the temporal power of the pope, they would thereby become the creatures of his will and the passive instruments of his power. There were very few so ignorant as to be misled by his appeals for the continuance of his own monarchical and absolute power, and therefore his attempt, by the aid of the Austrians, to put stronger rivets in their chains, only made them the more resolute in the determination to break their fetters entirely.

As each day passed, the people became better acquainted with the opinions and purposes of Pius IX. Yet, with commendable patience, they submitted to his repeated censures, on account of their real love for him, no less than their veneration for his office. If he could have comprehended them fully, mingled emotions would have been excited in his mind—those which spring up when the cords that reach the sympathies of the heart are touched, and such as pride, vanity, and ambition invariably engender. But, apart from the emotions he may have personally experienced, he was controlled by circumstances against which he was powerless to contend, because the existing complications had been produced before his time, by combinations which recognized no sympathy for popular suffering, and had become strong enough to master even the papacy itself. Possibly his natural tendencies may have inclined him to break the bonds which held him in the grasp of the monarchs and the Jesuits; but he was as unable to do this as a child is to tear away from the arms of a strong man. He was, in fact, scarcely himself, but the victim of others far less scrupulous, who lulled or aroused his passions and vanity at their pleasure, no matter what fate befell him, the Church, or the people of Italy. If he looked beyond Italy, he found the great military and monarchical power of Austria holding him by the throat, and tightening its grasp every day. If he looked at Rome, where he ought to have had wise counsels, he saw himself surrounded by a corps of ecclesiastics whose minds—howsoever otherwise enlightened—were dwarfed from the want of practical knowledge of the world and practical experience in the management of affairs, and who saw in human progress only that which placed a curb upon their own ambition and a limit to ecclesiastical authority. But in whatsoever direction he turned his eyes, he was haunted by the specter of Loyola, which flitted through the recesses of the Vatican at all times, ready "to whet his almost blunted purpose" whensoever he became wavering and irresolute. The popular cry of "constitution" sounded like a death-knell to all these advisers, with whom a war with Austria and an independent Italy were sacrilegious violations of the divine law. We should not, therefore, censure Pius IX too severely when we find him surrounded and hedged in by such influences as these, which few men would have strength enough to resist. No matter what glories clustered about his sacred office, he was human like other men.

War with Austria soon became the popular cry; and when the people of the provinces were apprised that the pope did not favor it, they began at once to look in another direction for assistance. The relations between Austria and Sardinia had long been hostile, and it was natural that they should look to an alliance with Piedmont, then armed, for the protection the pope refused. When Pius IX became sufficiently composed to anticipate even the possibility of such a step as this, he, probably for the first time, was made to realize how rapidly dangers were gathering and thickening around the papacy, and how incompetent he would be to encounter them, if the popular vengeance, aroused by his indifference and neglect, should be turned against him. He was, accordingly, induced to yield again to the better impulses of his nature, and attempted to turn away the public wrath by additional measures of reform. There were some political prisoners who had not been included in his amnesty, and these were pardoned. He also had the walls pulled down which separated the Jews from the other parts of the population. But these measures, although important, were of slight consequence so long as the Jesuits were permitted to remain in Rome. Their society, was regarded as a cankerous sore eating at the heart of society, with an appetite too voracious to be appeased. They had been driven from every city in the provinces, and were followed by a degree of popular odium which would have dispirited any other body of men. But so far from that effect having been produced upon them, their knowledge of the disrepute in which they were held had the effect only to intensify their hatred of everything that tended to aid the cause of the people in their efforts to secure a constitution. Having found shelter in Rome, they crowded around the pope, practicing all their arts in playing upon his vanity, inciting his passions, and turning him against the people. At last the measure of popular odium which rested upon them became so great that Pius IX was awakened to a consciousness of their dangerous presence, and he drove them out of Italy. It required some courage to do this, but it would have required infinitely more not to do it, inasmuch as the detestation in which they were held was well-nigh universal among the people, large numbers of whom were disposed to attribute to their influence alone much of what was done by the pope. Their expulsion, under the circumstances, was, therefore, creditable to Pius IX, not alone because it was done in deference to public opinion, but because it indicated that he had become apprised of their evil influences, and was desirous to avoid them.

It can never be known, of course, to what extent the Jesuits molded the opinions of Pius IX. But as they had employed the whole period after their re-establishment in endeavoring to dictate to all the popes, and were eminently successful with Gregory XVI, it may fairly be supposed that the unsuspecting and impressible mind of Pius IX was unable to detect their cunning, and consequently became influenced by them. Taking into consideration everything bearing upon their relations with him, in so far as they can be now known, the conclusion is inevitable that their expulsion from Italy by the pope was not only the result of imperative necessity, but the highest possible evidence of their unworthiness. This is the natural and unavoidable inference from the fact itself. Nevertheless, he had already gone so far in attempting to enforce doctrines which the people attributed to the Jesuits, that even their expulsion did not relieve him from the suspicion of having already yielded too much to them. On this account he may have derived more harm than benefit from it. Whilst they remained in Italy they served as a shield, protecting him, in a large degree, from public censure; for as the people loved him and hated them, they had to stand in the front and receive the full force of the indignation that fell upon him after their departure.

When the Jesuits were out of the way, and it came to be seen that Pius IX still adhered to their obnoxious doctrines with regard to an independent constitutional government and the religious obligation to maintain the temporal power of the pope as a tenet of faith, he found himself, far more than before, unable to escape the public criticism and reproof. If he had pursued his course up to this time without having given due consideration to possible results, and was then for the first time brought to reflect upon them, it is not easy to see how he failed to realize that he had gone too far, and had put it out of his power to arrest the current of events then rapidly hastening to the very results he deplored the most. He had probably never suffered himself to regard the people as a power to be dreaded; for, besides knowing their inclination to be faithful to the Church and their personal esteem for him, he was manifestly influenced by the belief that the combinations between Church and State were sufficiently powerful to suppress any popular uprising in favor of constitutional government. If these ideas occupied his thoughts, he must have become satisfied, after he had expelled the Jesuits, that he had been deluded by them, and that they had been the real authors of his misfortunes. It is not probable, however, that his excitement subsided sufficiently for calm reflection. Nor is it likely that anything occurred to awaken him from his dream of security until he discovered that his renewed effort at reform had no other effect than to assure the Italian people that their independence could be achieved only by abolishing the temporal power of the pope by means of an alliance with Sardinia. He had unwisely made the issue with his own people, and was no longer able to control it.

The imminence of war led to sending Italian troops to the frontier to drive out the Austrians; and as Pius IX could not take part in such a war because he considered himself "the father of all the faithful"—the Austrians included—he begged the Emperor of Austria to withdraw his troops, and sent a nuncio to the King of Sardinia, inviting his co-operation in forming a confederacy of Italian republics, with the pope at its head! The emperor refused to comply with his request; and the king had no leisure to devote to impracticable and visionary schemes with such an enemy as Austria near at hand, ready to strip him of his territories and convert Sardinia into an Austrian dependency. The Austrians, becoming incensed at the movements of the Italian troops, announced that they would treat them as bandits and brigands, and threatened to invade and desolate the Italian provinces. The Italians, therefore, having failed to obtain any assistance or encouragement from the pope, although he insisted that he was their rightful king and they his subjects, and being left to deal alone with Austria, had to make choice between war and degradation. Under these circumstances they could not fail to realize that everything pertaining to their future prosperity and interests commanded the former—their pride forbade the latter. Hence, the war from that time was, upon their part, in self-defense. And it was not difficult to see, from the beginning, that with such an adversary as Austria to contend against, and the pope resisting rather than aiding them, the Italians were compelled to rely upon their alliance with Sardinia, which by that time had become separated from the influences dictated by the "Holy Alliance," and was rapidly becoming an important and independent power.

At the battle of Novara, between Austria and Sardinia, Charles Albert, the Sardinian king, was defeated with terrible loss. He immediately abdicated his office and turned over the crown to Victor Emmanuel, his son, who so conducted affairs as to make himself influential in the great movements that led to the peace of Villafranca, and by skillful statesmanship to procure from the Austrians the recession of Lombardy to Sardinia. The military strength of Sardinia having been thus increased, greatly encouraged the Italians, and in order to counteract the influences which were tending to an alliance between them and Victor Emmanuel, the proposition to create an Italian confederacy, with the pope at its head, was revived. But the Italians, who had become unwilling to submit to the dominion of an absolute monarch any longer, resisted this scheme, from the conviction that it would still keep them at the feet of their old masters. And to make this resistance more effective, several of the Italian provinces transferred their allegiance to Sardinia, thus increasing her strength beyond what it had ever been, and adding to her importance as a military power.

The attitude occupied by Sardinia after these accessions, introduced into the politics of Europe a new and most important question—whether these revolted Italian provinces should be compelled to return under the temporal dominion of the pope, or be allowed to settle their own position and destiny for themselves? Although this question involved the principle of self-government, it was considered as having somewhat an international aspect, and consequently attracted the notice of other powers beside those immediately interested. Louis Napoleon had, in the meantime, made himself Emperor of France, and being fully imbued with the "Napoleonic idea" of his own importance, ventured to suggest to Pius IX, by way of advice, that it would be well for him and the Church to let the revolted provinces "go in peace." The pope, however, scornfully rejected this advice, and declared that he preferred death to such degradation—in which it is fair to suppose he was sincere. But his refusal settled nothing, having only invited renewed resistance to his policy among the Italians. It led, however, to such results that the right of the Italian provinces to unite with Sardinia, if they deemed it expedient, was recognized. This was a practical question, as it involved the right of the people of each province to remain under the rule of the pope or not at their pleasure. As was to be expected, Pius IX considered this as a death-blow aimed at his temporal power, and, consequently, anathematized it severely. From the papal standpoint he could not have done otherwise. And yet, if he had rightfully interpreted the passing events, he could have seen that the temporal scepter was rapidly passing out of his hands, and that severe measures upon his part, instead of preventing, would only hasten that result. The violence of his resistance was responded to by Parma and Modena, both of which provinces were annexed to Sardinia. Tuscany and the Æmilian provinces followed by the votes of an immense majority of the people. Other provinces also followed their example. And thus, by means of these important accessions, Victor Emmanuel was enabled to signalize his reign by converting Sardinia into the Kingdom of Italy. This measure of attraction having been presented to the Italians, soon became an enthusiastic rallying-point, and the Two Sicilies, under the lead of Garibaldi, united with Sardinia by a popular vote nearly unanimous. Umbria and Ancona did the same. One by one, therefore, these Italian provinces, filled with Roman Catholic populations, separated themselves by solemn votes from the temporal dominion of the pope, and left Pius IX to mourn over his rapidly-sinking fortunes, and to repent—if his excited passions allowed of repentance—over the folly which had produced that result.

The Government of Sardinia, without unnecessary delay, enacted such laws as were demanded by this new condition of affairs. Victor Emmanuel endeavored, consequently, to open negotiations with a view to bring about a reconciliation between the two powers, spiritual and temporal. This proposition involved, necessarily, the separation of Church and State, and was designed to define the respective spheres and functions of each, so that in the future there should be no conflict or rivalry between them. Victor Emmanuel was a Roman Catholic, and neither expressed nor entertained the desire to impair, in any degree whatsoever, the spiritual authority or independence of the pope. Nor did any such desire prevail among the great body of the people who had aided in bringing about the new order of things—they still remaining Roman Catholic, as they had always been. All that he and they desired was to make the State independent of the Church in the enactment and administration of temporal laws, and to leave the Church, with the pope remaining its head, independent of the State in spiritual affairs. If in this a model for imitation had been needed, it would have been found in the form of government constructed by the people of the United States, which must have influenced those conducting Sardinian affairs at all events to the extent of separating Church and State. But Pius IX could not consent to this without being unfaithful to the cause of the papacy, as distinct from the welfare and best interest of the Church, which manifestly required that he should conciliate, and not further antagonize, the Roman Catholic populations in whose behalf the proposition of the Sardinian Government was made. Instead of conciliation, however, he—with a mind singularly constituted and curiously erratic—surrendered himself entirely to the dominion of his passions, and, in order to condemn that form of government and to rebuke the amicable spirit exhibited by Victor Emmanuel, issued a pontifical allocution, which may well be called "brutum fulmen," because it was made entirely harmless by the violence of its language, as well as by its inconsiderate and intemperate assault upon the leading principles which prevail among modern nations. Inasmuch as this allocution was intended to be an official announcement of the faith maintained by him upon the politico-religious questions involved, and was of so recent date, it deserves special consideration, because of its direct bearing upon the question of restoring the pope's temporal power. Where else shall we look for papal doctrines but to the infallible head of the papacy?

He accused the new Government of Italy with "attacking the Catholic Church, its wholesome laws, and all its sacred ministers"—an accusation which lost its force by the excess of its misrepresentation, as the facts just detailed abundantly show. The burden of this attack was the proposed separation of Church and State; but, besides other matters of which he complained, he specially designated civil marriages—such as are provided for by the laws of all the States of the United States—which he said "encouraged a concubinage that is perfectly scandalous." He meant by this that the issue of all marriages solemnized otherwise than by the Roman Catholic clergy are bastardized by the unchristian and illegitimate character of the ceremony. And with the express view, doubtless, of fully explaining himself upon the vital question then pending, he announced his claim to "civil authority"—that is, his right to wear the crown of a temporal king—by declaring that he and his successors never can be "subject to any lay power," but must "exercise, in entire liberty, supreme authority and jurisdiction over the Church" in all its entirety. His idea—more than once repeated by him, and affirmed by his successor—was this: that, in whatsoever country the Church shall have a footing, it shall not be governed by the temporal laws of the State in conflict with its interests, but only by the Canon laws which it has itself provided, and which confer upon the popes plenary and sovereign power to define what they may do and require of others within the domain of faith and morals, along with the coercive power necessary to secure obedience. Seemingly unconscious that he was placing himself in the track of the popular storm then sweeping away the props upon which the papal throne had long rested, he fancied that his "apostolic authority" would yet enable him so to direct its course as would prevent the final wreck of the temporal power. Putting on, therefore, his full papal armor in imitation of some of his predecessors, he endeavored to upturn and destroy the new Government of Italy by the thunder of his anathemas. He, accordingly, abrogated and declared "null and void, and without force and effect," all its laws and decrees in conflict with his claim of supreme and absolute authority over both spiritual and temporal affairs throughout the whole of Italy, including the provinces annexed to Sardinia! It requires a very inventive imagination to conceive of an act of more supreme folly than this useless allocution.[185]

If Pius IX had been less perturbed, and calm enough to reason logically, he might have observed how fatal to his own conclusion was an important confession made by him in this official allocution. Without seeming to comprehend its full meaning and force, he declared it to be "a singular arrangement of Divine providence" that the pope "was invested with his civil authority" at the time of the fall of the Roman Empire; that is, during the latter half of the fifth century, and nearly five hundred years after the beginning of the Christian era. In this he admits—certainly by necessary implication—that during all the long period preceding that event, the affairs of the Church had been conducted without the assistance of a temporal monarch at Rome or elsewhere, and by spiritual authority alone—by bishops who looked after religious and not political affairs.[186] He must have been guilty of a singular omission of duty if it did not occur to him to inquire why so great and radical a change in the management of Church affairs had not been made before the fall of the Roman Empire, but had been deferred until that particular period. It is easy enough to understand how the popes may have become kings in a purely temporal sense, after that event; but that was not the question he was considering. His object was to show that when the Roman Empire fell, the temporal power was divinely added to the spiritual power of the pope, and, therefore, that it would violate the divine law if he were deprived of the crown of temporal royalty, which the popes of the primitive times did not possess. A little calm reflection might have enabled him to see, in the light of his own statement, what fallacy there is in the pretense that belief in the Divine establishment of the temporal power is a necessary and essential part of true religious faith; for if it had been the Divine purpose that Christianity should not exist without it, that purpose would have been fulfilled long before the fall of the Roman Empire. The concession of Pius IX must consequently be taken as fatal to the claim of temporal power as necessarily pertaining to the cause of Christianity or to the Church as a religious body. The primitive Christians had no knowledge of it, and the fact that they had not—which he concedes—suggests such a contrast between what the early Church was immediately following the apostolic period, and what it became after the papacy was established by means alone of the temporal power, as to show conclusively that the papal pretense of sovereignty must have been the result of usurpation.

The condition of the European nations at the period here referred to—although certainly not designed for that purpose by the chief actors—was favorable to the cause of Italian independence. The jealousies and rivalries among the sovereigns had brought them into such relations as to require immense standing armies to keep watch over each other. Austria was not only one of the most restless, but the most arbitrary of the great powers, and soon found it necessary, of her own accord, to withdraw her armies from Italy, in order to protect herself against attack at exposed points within her own borders. The removal of this formidable adversary greatly encouraged the whole populations of the Italian peninsula, among whom the desire to become united with the kingdom of Italy became almost universal. After Venetia, by a vote practically unanimous, decided to do so, the revolutionary spirit was greatly aroused. There were, however, among the revolutionists, some who were so enthusiastic as to demand a republic, which, for a time, somewhat threatened the cause of independence. All of these favored the new Government under Victor Emmanuel to a longer continuance of papal rule, but desired to dispense with a king entirely, preferring that the entire political sovereignty should be vested in the people. These readily rallied at the call of Garibaldi, and made preparations for attacking Rome. In the meantime, after the withdrawal of the Austrians, Louis Napoleon—acting under a species of infatuation which he never could well explain, and nobody could fully understand—had sent a large body of French troops to Italy to protect the temporal power of Pius IX, and hold him upon the throne, it having been fully demonstrated by this time that nothing but foreign military force could do so. The Garibaldians were defeated by the French, which event, although it produced a temporary sadness among the patriotic Italians, did not intimidate them. The course of events among the sovereigns favored their cause to such a degree that there are far better grounds for saying that they were providentially designed to abolish the temporal power than there are in support of the pretense that it was divinely established at the fall of the Roman Empire, or at any other time. Louis Napoleon had his own affairs to look after. His stealth of the imperial crown of France had given fresh spur to his ambition, but his perfidy was so flagrant that even among the stanchest monarchists he was held in contempt. His self-conceit made war between Prussia and France inevitable; and when that event was brought on, he realized, probably for the first time, that he had been engaged in the ignominious work of preventing the independence of Italy, and forcing the Italian people to accept a king they had almost unanimously decided to reject. Whether he fully realized this or not, his necessities compelled him to withdraw the French troops from Italy, and to leave Pius IX without the support of foreign troops, who had stood guard over his temporal crown during every hour of his pontificate. The war between Prussia and France was a terrible blow at Pius IX, but an event of incalculable value to the cause of Italian independence. And when it led to Sedan, the capture of Paris, and the loss of Alsace and Lorraine by France, Victor Emmanuel steadily kept his eyes upon the unification of Italy, which even Pius IX understood to mean the abolition of the temporal power.

Victor Emmanuel again had an opportunity of acting frankly towards the pope and fairly with the Church. He endeavored to explain himself in a letter to Pius IX, wherein, "with the faith of a Catholic" but "with the dignity of a king," he declared that it was not his purpose to impair or interfere with the spiritual authority or independence of the pope, and that he would maintain these with his troops; and, counseling him to recognize the stubborn facts which confronted him and which he was powerless to change, he urged him to accept this as the only practical and possible solution of the difficulties surrounding him. He closed his appeal in these words: "Your holiness, in delivering Rome from the foreign troops, in freeing it from the continual peril of being the battle-field of subversive parties, will have accomplished a marvelous work, given peace to the Church, and shown to Europe, shocked by the horrors of war, how great battles can be won and immortal victories achieved by an act of justice, and by a single word of affection."[187] Here, in an eloquent and touching appeal, the king implored the pope to "give peace to the Church," well knowing, as he did, that the only purpose of the revolution was to get rid of the temporal power and establish a constitutional government, and that if this question were disposed of by the acquiescence of Pius IX the vast multitude of Roman Catholics then in arms would return to their homes and be content to live in peace and quiet under his spiritual dominion. The issue was a single and a simple one, which could not be misunderstood; and that it should be made so clear that even the commonest mind could comprehend it fully, Victor Emmanuel accompanied his letter with a statement of the terms which he proposed for adjusting the relations between the Church and the State. They were these: All nations should have free access to the pope; all Churches in Rome to be neutralized; ambassadors to the pope to enjoy full immunity; the cardinals to retain their revenues and immunity; the salaries of all military and civil functionaries to be paid as before; and the bishops and clergy throughout Italy to have "the full and absolutely free exercise of their ecclesiastical functions."

It would be hard, if not impossible, for a liberal mind to find fault with these propositions. They were so generally accepted as fair that any comment upon them is unnecessary. They encountered no objection—except from those who preferred that the pope should remain an absolute temporal monarch, with full power to make and unmake all the laws—to a constitutional government representing the people. They were made by a Roman Catholic king, representing and speaking for several millions of Roman Catholic people, and, besides being in a conciliatory and kindly spirit, bore upon their face conclusive evidence of sincerity. If they had been accepted by the pope, the true faith of the Church would have been untouched, and the pope in the full possession of all his rightful and necessary spiritual powers. The Church, in fact, would have been brought back to its primitive condition before the fall of the Roman Empire. But Pius IX, instead of reciprocating the generosity of the king, mourned over the "deep sorrow," which filled his "life with bitterness," and, at the same time, treated the propositions of the king with intense scorn. He was then the first pope, in all the long history of the Church, who had been allowed authoritatively to avow his own personal infallibility. He had convened the celebrated Council of the Vatican, in which, but a few weeks before, the Jesuits had succeeded in having him declared infallible by the passage of a decree dictated by himself, and secured by the suppression of debate, against the protest of a number of bishops, including several from the United States.[188] Having obtained this victory over the liberalism of the Church, and thus thrown himself completely into the arms of the Jesuits, and preferring an alliance with them to union with millions of Roman Catholics who favored a constitutional government, he made it impossible to take a single step towards conciliation, or to carry on even an amicable discussion with the king. He manifestly felt as if no human power had the right to demand or to expect conciliation or discussion from an infallible pope. The Council had affirmed his universal sovereignty, and had encouraged him in the belief that he possessed the power of omnipotence, so that those who refused obedience to him were under the curse of God. The time for debate, therefore, had passed with him, and no longer were thoughts of peace and conciliation to be entertained. Consequently, he is represented by a friendly pen as having, with an air of imperial majesty, broken off the official interview with the envoy of Victor Emmanuel, by expressing "the full measure of his scorn and indignation" in these expressive words: "In the name of Jesus Christ, I tell you that you are all whited sepulchers!"[189]

There was nothing then left for Victor Emmanuel but to advance his troops, and take possession of the city of Rome, in the name of the new kingdom of Italy. He delayed no longer. After crossing the frontier of the papal territory, his army engaged in several skirmishes with the Zouaves of the pope, but met with no serious resistance. On the 20th of September, 1870, orders were given to attack the city. Two breaches were soon opened in the walls, and as the victorious Italians entered, the papal troops retreated, and Pius IX took refuge in the castle of St. Angelo as a fugitive from the city where, but a short time before, a decree of his personal infallibility had been forced through a packed Council by such methods as no other body of men in the world would have submitted to, and to which it is not likely they would have submitted but for the influences of the Jesuits. The pope having fled and made himself a voluntary prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo, the remaining duties pertaining to the papal Government devolved upon Cardinal Antonelli, who still called himself Secretary of State. This consisted of a formal and puerile protest in the name of the fugitive pope, wherein he declared that nothing done by the kingdom of Italy had conveyed any rights whatsoever against the dominion and possession of the pope, and that the pope "both knows his rights, and intends to conserve them intact, and re-enter at the proper time into their actual possession." All that can be said of this is, that, whilst practically it was mere unmeaning bravado, it fully set forth the policy and purposes of Pius IX, by which he expected, with the aid of the two hundred millions of Roman Catholics in the world, to destroy the new Italian Government, and bring the people again under papal dominion. Strange fatuity, made the more strange by the fact that these announcements proceeded from the first pope whose personal infallibility had been approved by conciliar decree!

The possession of Rome and the flight of the pope made it necessary to put in operation the machinery of the new Government. Accordingly, a temporary Government was formed and provision made for taking the vote of the whole population to decide whether or no the people were for or against the "unification of Italy." At this vote an overwhelming majority decided in favor of the new Government—thus indicating that even if the people had hitherto been persuaded to believe that the kingship of the pope had been of Divine creation, they had become enlightened enough to understand that Providence had permitted it to continue long enough; and that as it had succeeded in separating the Western from the Eastern Christians, and splitting the whole into rival and warring factions, the time had been reached when, by a new dispensation, the spiritual department of the Church should be purified by stripping the pope of his imperial authority and enlarging the sphere of his spiritual functions and duties. Realizing that God governs the world in all things by his providences, and casting their eyes over the nations to see where the largest degree of prosperity and happiness prevailed, they were awakened to the conviction that, as these had been produced where Church and State were separated, the Divine wisdom had been displayed by pointing out to them a like measure of relief from their existing grievances. Taught by their own instincts to believe that the shifting dispensations of God's providences were only so many methods of exhibiting his sovereign power, and that as he had permitted their forefathers and themselves to bear the burden of the papal temporal power for centuries, it was natural for them to conclude that he had at least indicated to them the duty of exchanging it for that liberty and intellectual development which free constitutional governments had assured to other peoples as the means of making them happier and more prosperous—better able to appreciate and discharge the duties which pertain to citizenship as well as to Christian life. God had tolerated their misfortunes only in the sense in which he has permitted slavery to exist; but they could not be persuaded to believe that he intended longer to perpetuate them by his providences, any more than can the people of this country consent that the former existence of slavery here overthrew the fundamental truth set forth in our Declaration of Independence, that the inalienable right to freedom and civil equality is derived from the natural law.

A very large majority of the aggregate vote cast in the provinces having been in favor of the new Government—the negative vote having been less than two thousand—it became necessary to adjust the future relations between the Church and the State so that they could exist harmoniously together, each in full possession of its proper functions. Accordingly, the pope and all the papal authorities were notified that the utmost liberality would be displayed toward the Church, and that there would be no interference with it whatsoever except the abolition of the pope's temporal power, and such provisions in regard to temporal affairs as that rendered necessary. It is only necessary to observe the leading provisions made by the new Government to show their liberality and to demonstrate the folly of their rejection; and to realize how much the Church has lost by the unwise and infatuated policy of Pius IX, it is sufficient to observe that there is no Government existing in the world to-day from which the same conciliatory terms could be obtained. Not all of them could have been obtained, even then, from any other but a Roman Catholic population.

The policy of the new Government was set forth as follows: The pope was to be left entirely free to exercise all his spiritual rights as before; he was to continue to possess "the prerogatives of a sovereign prince," and his court was to be provided for with that view; he was to be secured "a territorial immunity," limited, of course, within bounds to be defined, wherein he should be free and independent of the State; all the prelates, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and those in ecclesiastical orders, who should be summoned to Rome by the pope, were to enjoy immunity from civil interference; the pope was to be permitted to communicate with foreign powers and the Church throughout the world, and to have special postal and telegraphic service at his command; all the representatives of foreign powers at the court of the pope were to enjoy perfect liberty; freedom of publication and communication were assured; the pope was guaranteed "full liberty to travel at all times, and at all seasons, in and out of the country," and was to be treated and honored as "a foreign lay sovereign" throughout Italy; his "royal appanage" and the members of his court were to be furnished by the new Government, which should also pay the debts of the pontifical States; and the liberties of the Church and the spiritual independence of the pope were to be fully and amply guaranteed.[190]

These fair and liberal provisions had reference only to the changed relations produced by the abolition of the temporal power. They involved a purely political question, except as it had been made politico-religious by the doctrine of the Jesuits, which Pius IX had adopted, to the effect that it was a necessary part of the faith of the Church that the pope should be a temporal monarch. The Roman Catholic population of Italy having rejected this doctrine, and demanded the expulsion of the Jesuits because they taught it, these provisions were the result of their desire to leave Pius IX in the full possession and enjoyment of all his spiritual powers. It was intended by them to provide merely for the new condition of affairs, and to recognize the kingdom of Italy as an accomplished fact, neither to be controverted nor changed. Victor Emmanuel, as a firm and consistent Roman Catholic, was not disposed to do anything less, and his obligations to the Italian people would not allow him to do more. But Pius IX, still continuing to sorrow over the destruction of the "old régime," and clinging to the Jesuit idea that God was offended because he had lost his temporal crown, refused to be reconciled. Bemoaning the incompetency of the people to decide what was right and what was wrong in affairs of government, and the inevitable ruin which he imagined would follow their attempt to be governed without a pope-king, he again hurled his fiercest anathemas at the new Government, and at the heads of all who had aided in its creation. And having done this, the controversy was brought to an end, leaving it well understood that Church and State had been finally separated in Italy by a Roman Catholic population, and that Pius IX would not be reconciled to the loss of his temporal sovereignty which that separation occasioned, or to anything short of his restoration to absolute royal power. There were other acts necessary to complete the entire drama, but these would draw us off into fields crowded with a multitude of combatants. We are now concerned only with the conflict about the temporal power, and the bearing of that power upon the right of the Italian people to have a voice in the construction of the Government, and the passage of such laws as their own welfare required. That was the only issue between the Italians and the papacy—between Victor Emmanuel and Pius IX. If the latter had adhered to the convictions of his own mind when he first introduced measures of reform, and had followed the kindly dictates of his own heart, many heartburnings and bickerings might have been avoided, and the Church might have escaped a serious and staggering blow. The contestants upon both sides were attached to the Church, its history, its traditions, and its faith. A calm discussion between them as to what it had or had not taught with regard to the temporal power, would have made it clear that it did not involve any essential article of the Christian creed, and they might thus have been led to see that, as this power did not exist in the apostolic and primitive times, there could not rightfully exist in the changed condition of the world anything to render it absolutely necessary to the existence and growth of Christianity in the present age. But when Pius IX suffered his mind to be impressed by the teachings and doctrines of the Jesuits, and allowed them to mold his pontifical policy, passionate declamation took the place of calm discussion, and made reconciliation impossible.

And now, when those most devoted to the Church look back upon this conflict, and realize upon what a multitude of their Christian brethren the papal anathemas are still resting, because of their refusal to assent to a dogma of faith which strikes at the foundation of free constitutional government, they can not fail to observe that, whilst the blow has fallen heavily upon the Church, the Jesuits alone have achieved a triumph. They laid the foundation of this triumph by extorting from Pius IX—at a time when his unsuspicious nature was easily imposed upon—his celebrated Encyclical and Syllabus, whereby he declared that freedom of speech, of conscience, and of the press were errors which the Church could not tolerate; that the Church must be the sole judge of its own jurisdiction, and possess the power of coercing obedience within the circle it shall assign to itself; and that it never can become reconciled to, or agree with, the "progress, liberalism, and civilization" of the present age. By this he placed a barrier between the papacy and all the leading modern nations, which the Jesuits are striving hard to overleap, but can not; but which can only be broken down by that Christian charity which ennobles the nature of its possessor, and teaches that God has implanted in the hearts of mankind a spirit of brotherhood which no creeds or dogmas or ceremonies should be permitted to extinguish.

But Pius IX added to his sufferings by the pretense of hardships that were not real. He was allowed to return to Rome unmolested, and to take up his residence again in the Vatican. He called himself a prisoner, and induced others to do so, thereby setting an example his successor has imitated. But he was not a prisoner, except when he, of his own accord, shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo. He was, up till the close of his life, free to go wheresoever and when he pleased. There was no restraint imposed upon his actions. No indignity to his spiritual office or to his person was allowed. He could open and close the doors of the Vatican at his own pleasure, and admit or exclude whomsoever he pleased. He enjoyed the utmost liberty of speech and of writing, and bestowed praise or censure at discretion. But instead of enjoying the real liberty guaranteed to him by the laws of the Government upon which his pontifical curse was resting, he wore his life away by useless complaining, and by sending forth additional anathemas, which indicated only that his vanity was ungratified and his ambition disappointed. He died at last, not broken-hearted—for he was always a spiritual sovereign—but with the melancholy consciousness that his pontifical arm had become too feeble to bear up the temporal scepter which many of his predecessors had grasped so tightly. It would be hard to write his life well and faithfully; it was so impulsive, varied, and feverish. His purposes were honest, his affections sincere, his generosity unbounded, his nature kindly and sympathetic; but he was as powerless to drive back the storm that beat upon the papacy, as a seaman is to check the speed of the winds when the storm is raging. And now that he has appeared before the final Judge, who is infallible, it might be appropriately engraved upon his tomb that he was a good priest but a poor and incompetent statesman.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XVIII.

PAPAL DEMANDS.

At the death of Pius IX he left to whosoever should succeed him, as an official inheritance, the decision of the question whether or no the Church should acquiesce in and become reconciled to the abolition of the temporal power of the pope, or be agitated and possibly further disrupted by the demand for its restoration. In the meantime Italy had become an organized nation, and was so recognized throughout the world. The capital, after several removals, had been established at Rome, and legislative chambers were assembled almost within the shadow of the old senate-house of the Cæsars, under the checks and guards of a written Constitution, to enact laws for and in the name of the Italian people. A king existed, but without absolute power, and had attained great popularity on account of his eminent fitness and recognized fidelity to the trusts committed to him. It, consequently, required but little practical knowledge of affairs to foresee that the future peace and welfare of the Church depended, in a large degree, upon the policy to be pursued with regard to the temporal power—which no longer existed, but had been abolished by Roman Catholic populations, who had, with great deliberation and extraordinary unanimity, taken the right to manage their own political affairs into their own hands, in imitation of the example set them by the people of the United States. Thoughtful minds were inspired by the hope that moderate, wise, and conciliatory counsels would prevail with the new pope, whosoever he might be.

The occasion rendered it necessary that the distinction between the Church as a Christian organization, and the papacy as a magisterial power over temporals, should be observed; that is, that the ability of the former for Christian usefulness was left unimpaired, whilst the latter was only designed to make the pope an absolute monarch over the Italian people. Nobody understood this better than Pius IX, and, therefore, the year before his death he signalized the first important exhibition of his infallible authority by issuing a decree amending the Confession of Faith, which had been prescribed by Pius IV nearly three hundred years before, and an "allocution," or authoritative and ex-cathedra epistle to the clergy and the Church, with regard to the relations existing between the Church and the Government of Italy. The former concerns only those whose faith is influenced by it; the latter concerns all the progressive nations, and none more than the United States.

In this allocution he accused the invaders of his "civil principality"—that is, of his temporal power—with riding roughshod over every right, human and divine; with the attempt to undermine "all the institutions of the Church;" and characterized the act of establishing the Italian kingdom as one of "sovereign iniquity"—a "sacrilegious invasion." He complained that the ministers of religion "were deprived of the right of disapproving the laws of the State which they considered as violating those of the Church"—which was equivalent to asserting it to be a principle of faith that he and the clergy should be permitted to defy any law of a State which he and they considered violative of their prerogative rights. He pointed out "the shameful and obscene spectacle" to be seen in Rome, in "the temples erected in these latter days to dissenting worship;" in "schools of corruption scattered broadcast," and in "houses of perdition established everywhere"—thus intending, undoubtedly, to intimate what his meaning was when he said in his Syllabus, a few years before, that the Church could never be reconciled to the spirit of progress prevailing among the progressive nations. He insisted that the pope can not exist in Rome except as "a sovereign or a prisoner"—which has been disproved by all the subsequent years of actual experience—and that there can be no "peace, security, or tranquillity for the entire Catholic Church so long as the exercise of the supreme ecclesiastical ministry is at the mercy of the passions of party, the caprice of Governments, the vicissitudes of political elections, and of the projects and actions of designing men"—meaning thereby, in plain words, that the pope must be so supreme wheresoever his clergy are as to require them to execute his decrees, notwithstanding the laws of Governments shall expressly provide otherwise. He expresses this idea with equal plainness by saying that the pope "can not exercise full freedom in the power of his ministry" scattered throughout the world, so long as he "continues subject to the will of another party;" in other words, that he must be free to require his clergy, wheresoever they may be, to obey him and not the laws of any Government in conflict with his will. He congratulates himself that the "whole Catholic people," everywhere, are united with him in supporting all these propositions, and makes it known that he expects them "to take in hand the cause and defense of the Roman pontificate;" that is, the restoration of the temporal power and kingship of the pope. He expresses the belief that the attachment shown to him by the multitudes of pilgrims who visit Rome "will go on increasing until the day when the pastor of the universal Church will be restored at last to the possession of his full and genuine freedom"—which he can not enjoy without the crown of absolute monarchy upon his head. And with a view to the accomplishment of this, he instructs all the ministers of the Church, everywhere, to "exhort the faithful confided to them to make use of all the means which the laws of their country place within their reach; to act with promptness with those who govern; to induce these latter to consider more attentively the painful situation forced upon the head of the Church, and take effective measures towards dissipating the obstacles that stand in the way of his absolute independence."[191]

All this is plain and emphatic—not susceptible of misunderstanding. It makes the restoration of the temporal power of the pope, so as to make him king of Italy against the positive and expressed will of the people of that country, a politico-religious question, and commands the faithful in every part of the world to form themselves into a politico-religious party to influence the Governments of their respective countries to contribute to that result. This counsel is given in face of what the world knows to be the fact, that the temporal power can not be restored without war—without drenching the plains of Italy with blood, in order to force upon the people of Italy a king whom they have repudiated by their highest act of sovereignty.

This allocution was among the first fruits of the pope's infallibility, and makes known with distinctness the method dictated by Pius IX for reconstructing the papacy. At the time of its issuance he had encountered so many embarrassments without the ability to resist them successfully, he could scarcely have expected that his hopes would be realized during his pontificate. He was confronted by the existence of a kingdom, still Roman Catholic but not papal, within the limits of which Rome was included, and no man knew better than he that what he sought after would have to await the formation of a politico-religious party beyond the limits of Italy, and among the peoples of other nations, strong enough to coerce the Roman Catholic people of Italy, at the point of the bayonet, into obedience to the papacy they had repudiated. Therefore this infallible allocution may properly be considered his last pontifical will and testament, whereby he devised all his right and title to the temporal power to his successor; or perhaps it would be more apt to say, as the politicians do, that it was intended to be the main plank in the papal platform. How far it became so we shall see.

When, after the death of Pius IX, the cardinals assembled in Conclave, February 17, 1878, their first official act was specially significant. It displayed a settled purpose to hold the wavering, if there were any, to the policy of Pius IX with reference to the restoration of the temporal power, and to make that the test of fidelity to the Church; in other words, that his successor should be pledged to carry out that policy, and elected with that express view. The cardinals, therefore, entered into an agreement among themselves to confirm and maintain all the protests made by Pius IX against the Italian Government. This agreement was to the effect that they "thereby renewed all the protests and reservations made by the deceased sovereign pontiff, whether against the occupation of the States of the Church, or against the laws and decrees enacted to the detriment of the same Church and the Apostolic See;" and that they were unanimously "determined to follow the course marked out by the deceased pontiff, whatsoever trials may happen to befall them through the force of events."[192]

It may fairly be supposed that Cardinal Pecci was the projector of this plan of procedure, as it is stated by his biographer that he "stood in the foremost place at the head of his brethren." At all events, he, together with the other cardinals, was pledged to it. When, therefore, he was elected pope—as he was soon after—and took the name of Leo XIII, he accepted the pontificate under the solemn obligation so to employ all his powers and prerogatives as to regain the temporal power his predecessor had lost, upon the distinct ground that fidelity to the doctrines and faith of the Church required it.

In view of the result to be thus attained, the election of Leo XIII was unquestionably wise. Besides possessing the highest intellectual qualifications—being, in fact, one of the foremost men of the present time—his Christian character is pure and without a blemish. He is cool, calm, and deliberate in considering great questions, and not apt, as Pius IX was, to be misled by indiscreet advisers, or entrapped by enemies. His passions seemed well restrained, and he brought to the duties of his high office abilities far exceeding those of any of the eminent men who composed the College of Cardinals. There is not a sovereign in Europe of whom he is not the equal, if not the superior, in all such qualities as fit a man for rank, station, and authority. In the rightful and proper sphere of his spiritual duties he is "sans peur et sans reproche." But when he ventures to depart from that sphere, and employ the authority of his high office to reopen a political issue already closed, to deny to the people of Italy the right to regulate their own temporal affairs, as those of the United States have done, and prescribes or approves a plan of Church organization which shall measure the value of a professed Christian life by the depth to which its possessor shall sink in the mire of politico-religious controversy in those countries where Church and State have been separated, he presents himself to the world in another and different aspect. If, by imitating others who have grasped after kingly crowns, he sees proper to lay aside the rightful weapons of his spiritual ministry, and arm himself and his followers with such as pertain to the strife of politics, there can be no just ground of complaint against those whose policy of civil government he assails, if they shall arraign him and them at the bar of public opinion, and challenge his and their right to disturb the peace by scattering the seeds of discord among them.

The people of Italy achieved their independence by revolution, and decided to separate Church and State, and that they would not have the pope for their king; they put an end to the absolute monarchism of the papacy, and substituted a constitutional monarchy, with such checks and guards as they deemed necessary to their own protection. In doing this they exercised the same power of popular sovereignty as the people of the United States, when they decided that no king should ever rule over them. In each case the act was intended to be final—not subject to reversal by any earthly power. Neither country, therefore, has the right to plot against the quiet and peace of the other; nor have the populations of either the right to do so. All this is forbidden by the law of nations, and if knowingly tolerated would be, by that law, just cause of war. If a politico-religious party should be formed in Italy to change our institutions by reuniting Church and State, and substitute a king in the place of the people in the management of public affairs, it would incite the spirit of resistance in every loyal American heart. And if a politico-religious party, formed under any plea whatsoever, shall be permitted to combine in this country for the avowed object of reuniting Church and State in Italy, and compelling the people of that country to accept the pope as an absolute sovereign, in the face of the result they have accomplished by their revolution, wherein do we escape condemnation by the law of nations? The question whether or no any people shall exercise the right of self-government is political, not religious. This has been decided by the people of the United States. Consequently, to demand of them that they shall reverse this decision, violates the spirit of their institutions, and mocks at their authority.

No liberal and fair-minded people questioned the right of Pius IX to declare himself infallible, or that of others to concede it to him, in matters purely spiritual. Nor is this same right denied to Leo XIII. But when he extends his infallibility so far as to include authority over the fundamental principles of civil government, and thus seeks to imperil the fortunes of the modern progressive nations where Church and State have been separated, it should not be expected that those who share those fortunes in common will sanction his imperial assumption by direct affirmance or by silent acquiescence. The age of "passive obedience" has passed, and is not likely to be revived so long as the Reformation period shall continue to bear its rich and abundant fruits, like such as spring from the popular institutions of the United States. The fundamental principle upon which all such institutions rest is the separation of Church and State; for without that there can be no freedom of religious belief and no such development of the intellectual faculties as fits society for self-government. Every assault upon this great fundamental principle must be resisted, no matter under what pretense it may be made or from what quarter it shall come. When it was assaulted and condemned by the vacillating and irascible Pius IX, it was in far less peril than now, when the calm and sagacious Leo XIII has become the general-in-chief of the aggressive forces. The former was not even master of himself—the latter is master of vast multitudes of men.

The election of Leo XIII caused general satisfaction outside the circle of Church influence. He was regarded as a representative of the highest enlightenment, and this gave rise to the hope that he would become reconciled to the existing condition of affairs in Italy, in order to pacify those members of the Church who had wrenched from his immediate predecessor the scepter of temporal sovereignty. A more favorable opportunity for pacification could not have existed; and if it had been accepted in a conciliatory spirit, the rejoicing would not have been confined to the Italians alone, but would have been well-nigh universal. But little time elapsed, however, before there were signs indicating that, instead of throwing oil upon the troubled waters, he preferred that they should remain in agitation. Two facts now conspire to account for this: First, the agreement made by the College of Cardinals to adopt the principles and adhere to the policy of Pius IX; and, second, his Jesuit education and training. Both of these facts are stated by his biographer, and the last with such particularity as to show that when he was only eight years of age he was separated from his family and placed under Jesuit care, and that his education was obtained at the colleges of that society at Viterbo and at Rome.[193] If the world had known, at the beginning of his pontificate, how solemnly he had pledged himself to his brother cardinals before his election, and how his youthful mind had been trained and fashioned by the Jesuits, it is not probable that anything would have been anticipated, or even hoped for, beyond what has transpired; for the skill of the Jesuits is displayed in nothing more effectually than in the indelible impressions they understand so well how to make upon young and undeveloped minds. Although the question to be decided seemed simple enough to the general public, both in the United States and in Europe, yet to the Jesuits it was of supreme importance; for with Church and State separated in Italy, and with Rome as the permanent capital of a kingdom independent of the pope and submissive to the popular will, their society would be crushed by the weight of public odium resting upon them. During the progress of the controversy and before the abolition of the temporal power, Pius IX had been compelled to expel them from the States of the Church on account of this odium existing in Italy; but they rallied again, with their unabated energy, after his successor had been chosen, doubtless realizing how readily a mind trained and disciplined under their system of education would yield to their demands. For a time Leo XIII seemed to be hesitating, as if in the issue between liberalism and retrogression there was some middle ground. But the Church and the world did not have long to wait before the issuance of his first official encyclical letter, which put an end to all hopes of reconciliation or compromise. In this celebrated document the war upon liberalism and progress, as recognized by the modern nations, was continued with increased and Jesuitical violence—"war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt." There was no longer any hesitation or faltering, but the distinct avowal of the purpose to revive the papacy, by the restoration of the temporal power, and to carry on the conflict until the world shall be turned away from all modern civilization and back towards the Middle Ages. His biographer takes special pains to make this plain, so that the encyclical may be interpreted according to the pope's intention. After stating that there were those who expected Leo XIII "to devise a modus vivendi with the masters of Rome and Italy," and reconcile the Church and the papacy to "modern society and its exigencies," he boastingly proclaims that the encyclical "woefully disappointed all who fancied or hoped that a pope could reconcile the revealed truth of which he is the divinely-appointed guardian, the righteousness, justice, and divine morality which flow from the revealed law of life, with the awful errors, the unbridled licentiousness of thought and word and deed, the iniquity and the immorality which are cloaked over by their pretended civilization."[194]

This learned biographer does not intend that the pope's encyclical shall be misunderstood; and when he thus indicates the "awful errors," the "unbridled licentiousness," "the iniquity and the immorality," which have been scattered over the world by modern progress and civilization—which he characterizes as "pretended" and not real—he manifestly understood the mind and motives of the pope, as he also did the issue which the papacy has made with all the most enlightened peoples of the world, and, more especially, with the prevailing popular sentiment in the United States. We must consequently accept this arraignment of our form of civilization as intentionally and deliberately made. And that he understood this issue as not confined to Italy alone, but as universal in its character, he proceeds immediately to show that the pope "speaks with authority to all mankind, the light imparted by his teaching illuminates both hemispheres."

But this encyclical itself leaves no room to doubt with regard to the universality of jurisdiction and authority claimed by the pope. Almost at the beginning it announces that he considers himself called upon, by virtue of his spiritual sovereignty, to decide matters of general import, and not merely such as are understood to pertain to the Church of Rome or to the people of Italy. Regarding himself as possessing this unlimited jurisdiction because he occupies "the place of the Prince of Pastors, Jesus Christ," he asserts pontifical authority over the whole world, in these words: "From the very beginning of our pontificate we have had before our eyes the sad spectacle of the evils which assail mankind from every side." And, accordingly, he makes his purposes known by drawing a sad picture of modern society, "impatient of all lawful power," and threatened, in consequence, with anarchy and dissolution, on account of its "contempt of the laws of morality and justice." All this, to his mind, has arisen out of the lawless spirit of revolution which modern peoples have invoked to free themselves from the crushing weight of imperial and absolute monarchism, which he proposes to revive in Italy by the re-establishment of the temporal power which the people of that country wrested from the hands of his immediate predecessor by revolution. What we, somewhat triumphantly, call patriotism, liberty, and natural right, he denounces as "a pestilential virus which creeps into the vital organs and members of human society, which allows them no rest, and which forebodes for the social order new revolutions ending in calamitous results."

Against these threatened calamities he felt himself constrained, by virtue of the universality of his spiritual dominion, to warn the world, especially that part of it which has voluntarily brought what he considers affliction upon itself, by separating Church and State and establishing freedom of religious belief, free speech, a free press, and free popular government. He seems to have allowed his mind to become disturbed and agitated by this gloomy condition of affairs, because it has been produced by the rejection of the pope's divine right to regulate whatsoever sentiments and opinions he may deem to be within the circle of his spiritual jurisdiction. "The cause of all these evils," he says, "lies principally in this: that men have despised and rejected the holy and august authority of the Church, which, in the name of God, is placed over the human race, and is the avenger and protector of all legitimate authority;" that is, that no authority whatsoever, whether of governments, peoples, or individuals, can be set up against it as rightful or legitimate. Then, looking down from this high pinnacle upon the disturbed and raging elements below, and sorrowing because his temporal dominion has been lost, he enumerates some of the principal causes which, in his opinion, threaten to wreck the happiness and welfare of society. Among these, he makes conspicuously prominent the following: Overturning the constitution of the Church by laws in force "in most countries;" obstacles to the "free exercise of the ecclesiastical ministry," which those laws have created; "the unbridled liberty of teaching and publishing all manner of evil;" depriving the Church of "the right," which he considers irrefragable, to "train and educate the young;" and, far from being least in magnitude or importance, the sacrilegious violation of the Divine law by the abolition of the pope's temporal power and imperial sovereignty over the Italian people. This enumeration was manifestly made, as may be implied from the language of his biographer, to enable him to point out more clearly to "the Catholic hierarchy" in all parts of the world, "toward what purpose their common zeal must be chiefly directed;" that is, what he expects them to contribute toward turning the world away from these modern innovations upon the papal policy, so that it may be carried back to its condition during the Middle Ages, when the papal supremacy was maintained by the terrible tribunal of the Inquisition. That he prefers that period, with its ignorance and superstition, to the present, with its advanced enlightenment and prosperity, is plainly and emphatically avowed in these words: "If any sensible man in our day will compare the age in which we live, so bitterly hostile to the religion and Church of Christ, to those blessed ages when the Church was honored as a mother of the nations, he will surely find that the society of our day, so convulsed by revolutions and destructive upheavals, is moving straightway and rapidly toward its ruin; while the society of the former ages, when most docile to the rule of the Church and most obedient to her laws, was adorned with the noblest institutions, and enjoyed tranquillity, riches, and prosperity."[195]

This is strange infatuation to be indulged in during the nineteenth century, when human energy is taxed to the utmost to give increased velocity to the car of progress, and to outstrip all previous ages in placing checks and guards upon the ambition of temporal monarchs. It requires but little research to learn that the "blessed ages" to which Leo XIII refers, and gives such marked preference over the present period, were especially distinguished by the ignorance and superstition of the multitude. History is crowded with evidences of this. Maitland—who is highly appreciated and often quoted by papal writers on account of his criticisms of Robertson, the historian—says that "the ecclesiastics were the reading men and the writing men;"[196] but does not pretend that such was the case with the peasants or common people, as the bulk of the populations were called. There is nothing better established than that no facilities for learning were afforded them, and that they were kept down at a common level of ignorance, so as to reconcile them more easily to submission and obedience. This is shown by the picture of society drawn by all the early chroniclers, especially by Froissart and Monstrelet, as well as by the more modern historians, Hallam, Robertson, and Berington. The men of learning and letters belonged to the "upper classes," for whom alone colleges and schools were provided. The people, as such, were left uninstructed, in order to make them passively obedient to the authority of Church and State, which were united by ties they were powerless to break. They were forced—with but little less severity than was shown to the captives of the Pharaohs who built the pyramids, the temple of Karnak, and other Egyptian monuments—to serve taskmasters in erecting magnificent palaces, cathedrals, and churches, designed for display by those whose vanity and pride made them oblivious to the fact that they were the product of unrewarded labor, and did not contain a stone or marble block not stained by the tears and sweat and blood of numberless humiliated victims. But all these unrequited victims were ignorant, and therefore obedient—obedient, and therefore happy! But Leo XIII, exulting at this reflection, instructs the modern nations that the curse of God is resting upon their progressive advancement, and that he, in Christ's name and place, is divinely empowered to turn them back to those "blessed ages," because, if they do not, "they must, by corrupting both minds and hearts, drag down by their very weight, nations into every crime, ruin all order, and at length bring the condition and peace of a commonwealth to extreme and certain destruction."

To escape these dreadful consequences, and save modern society from keeping open the gaping wounds it has inflicted upon itself, he makes known his pontifical purpose in these words: "We declare that we shall never cease to contend for the full obedience to our authority, for the removal of all obstacles put in the way of our full and free exercise of our ministry and power, and for our restoration to that condition of things in which the provident design of the Divine Wisdom had formerly placed the Roman pontiff." Having thus instructed all the faithful that whatsoever prohibits him from acquiring all the power and authority "formerly" possessed by the popes, must be resisted and put out of the way, whether it be constitutions, laws, or customs, he declares to them, by way of encouragement, that the world shall have no rest until this is accomplished; "not only because the civil sovereignty is necessary for the protecting and preserving of the full liberty of the spiritual power, but because, moreover—a thing in itself evident—whenever there is a question of the temporal principality of the Holy See, then the interests of the public good and the salvation of the whole of human society are involved." His enthusiasm is always heightened, and his eloquence of style becomes captivating, when his mind displays its power at the contemplation of that "temporal sovereignty" by which he hopes that he and his successors shall bring all mankind within the bounds of the pontifical jurisdiction, so that they shall have no care for this or a higher life but what is involved in the duty of passive and uninquiring obedience. It is when this enthusiasm fully possesses him that he seizes upon the occasion to give the word of command to his ecclesiastical army in all parts of the world; as when he tells them they must display their "priestly zeal and pastoral vigilance in kindling in the souls of your [their] people the love of our holy religion, in order that they may thereby become more closely and heartily attached to this chair of truth and justice, accept all its teachings with the deepest assent of mind and will, and unhesitatingly reject all opinions, even the most widespread, which they know to be in opposition to the doctrines of the Church."

This instruction is comprehensive enough to include all, both priests and laymen. It has the merit of simplicity, requiring only obedience to the pope, the full "assent of mind and will" to all the doctrines he shall announce, and the rejection of "all opinions" in opposition to them; no matter if their submission shall involve disobedience to the constitutions and laws under which they may live. He descends also to particulars, and prescribes a course of conduct for all his subordinates—like a commanding general laying down the plan of a military campaign. They must obtain the control of education, so as to "scatter the seeds of heavenly doctrines broadcast," in order to save "the young especially" from the deadly influences of State and public schools, where, according to his teaching, the method of education "clouds their intellect and corrupts their morals." They are required to instruct their pupils "in conformity with the Catholic faith, especially as regards mental philosophy," as taught by Thomas Aquinas and "the other teachers of Christian wisdom." They are to make exterminating war upon the "impious laws" which allow civil marriages, because those thus united, "desecrating the holy dignity of marriage, have lived in legal concubinage instead of Christian matrimony." And lastly, and no less imperatively, all are to be instructed in the indispensable obligation "to obey their superiors."[197]

But Leo XIII has not been content with these distinct avowals of his pontifical opinions and purposes. He has chosen to give emphasis to them in other official methods. After the death of Cardinal Franchi, his secretary of state, he appointed Cardinal Nina to that place. Whether he considered the latter not sufficiently instructed with regard to his opinions, or availed himself of the occasion to express anew and more explicitly the principles of his pontifical policy, there is no means of deciding; but whether the one or the other, he addressed to him an official communication, wherein these principles were made known with perfect distinctness. Still contemplating "the very serious peril of society from the ever-increasing disorders which confront us on every side," and "the intellectual and moral decay which sickens society," in consequence of its having thrown off allegiance to the temporal power of the pope, he arraigns as prominent among the existing evils the separation of Church and State—precisely that condition of things which exists in the United States more distinctively than anywhere in the civilized world. Upon this subject—which involves so much that is absolutely fundamental in free popular government—he says: "The chief reason of this great moral ruin was the openly proclaimed separation and the attempted apostasy of the society of our day from Christ and his Church, which alone has all the power to repair all the evils of society." And referring to the manner in which the pope had been "despoiled" of his temporal power, he admonished him "to consider that the Catholics in the different States can never feel at rest till their supreme pontiff, the superior teacher of their faith, the moderator of their consciences, is in the full enjoyment of a true liberty and a real independence;" that is, that Roman Catholics everywhere are expected to contribute immediate and active aid in bringing about the restoration of the temporal power, so that "the progress made by heresy" may be arrested, and "heterodox temples and schools" shall be destroyed.[198]

There is nothing in all this, or in anything officially done by Leo XIII—howsoever earnestly it may be rejected by liberal minds—that should detract in the least degree from the estimate in which he deserves to be held by all who appreciate upright conduct and the consistent observance of Christian virtue. For these his life has been eminently distinguished, and when its end shall have been reached—fears of which are expressed at the time these words are written—he will well deserve a lofty niche in the papal mausoleum among the greatest and best of the pontiffs. If his opinions and utterances were to be estimated alone by his personal integrity and private virtues, the force of any criticism of them would be materially lessened. But they belong to and are an essential part of the papal system which he represents and is bound by the necessities of his position to maintain against everything in conflict with it. What he has said, and so frequently repeated, is echoed back from the tombs of those of his predecessors who fought their battles with liberalism and progress when the forces which defended them were weak and the papacy was strong. He could not break a single thread in the net which encompasses him, howsoever anxiously he might desire it, and is consequently constrained to carry on the battle waged by his predecessors until final victory is won or the flag of the temporal power is sunk out of sight forever. His task grows harder and harder every day; for now the progressive forces are growing stronger while the powers of the papacy, lessened by the loss of temporal sovereignty, are steadily waning away. He is struggling against the patriotic sentiments of mankind, like a strong man battling with the waves of a tempestuous sea. Although the light of modern progress is not permitted to penetrate the walls of the Vatican, and he is shut in behind impenetrable screens especially to keep it out, he ought, nevertheless, to know that those to whose prosperity and advancement it has contributed are unwilling to acquiesce in its extinction, or to sit silently by when it is attempted. Whilst his arraignment of civil institutions which have grown up within the circle of this light may be well attributed to the papal system he officially represents, he has expressed his desire for their overthrow in such terms of censure and rebuke as to excite the suspicion that he is moved by an uncompromising and unconciliatory spirit. Whatsoever he has shown of this may rightfully be assigned to his Jesuit training and education. Having been placed under the care of that scheming and insinuating society before his opinions were matured and whilst his youthful mind was unable to detect their sophistry or their cunning, they were enabled to mold him to their purposes, as the softened wax is impressed by any seal. Any intelligent investigation of his pontifical policy, in so far as it involves the relations of the papacy to existing civil governments, will demonstrate this to all whose faculties have not been dwarfed by the same system of education and guardianship. We see every day, in the natural world, conclusive proof that "as the twig is bent so the tree is inclined."

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XIX.

PRESENT ATTITUDE OF THE PAPACY.

The opinions and utterances of the pope concerning religious duty are considered, at least by his army of ecclesiastics, as commands which are to be obeyed at the peril of pontifical censure. Among these the learned biographer of Leo XIII is a conspicuous example. He not only exhibits his own zeal in behalf of the restoration of the temporal power in defiance of the expressed will of the Italian people, but ventures to speak for the whole body of the Roman Catholic population of the United States. With unflagging eloquence he says: "For we Catholics from every land, thronging to the tomb of the holy apostles and to the home of our common father, bear back with us to our own land the memory of the humiliation he endures, of the restraints put upon his liberty, of the rudeness and insults offered to ourselves; and we resolve that the day shall come when the pope shall be again sovereign of Rome." And addressing his appeal to our Protestant people, he continues: "Even in our own great Republic will not the quick American sense, and the instinctive love of justice, and the passion for freedom of conscience, soon be made to perceive that the dearest religious rights of our millions of Catholics, the dearest interests of civilization among the heathen, demand that the pope, the great international peacemaking power of the world, should be sovereign in the city where he has reigned for eleven hundred years?"[199]

This appeal surpasses in extravagance and hyperbole anything we are accustomed to hear: it would constitute an admirable exhibition of word-painting if recited from the rostrum. We, in the United States, have made the toleration of all forms of religious belief a fundamental principle of our civil institutions, and the present Constitutional Government of Italy, by the abolition of the temporal power of the pope, has, in imitation of our example, done the same thing. When, before that, did religious toleration exist in Rome? What pope ever gave it the sanction of a papal decree, or recognized Protestantism as worthy of anything higher than his fiercest anathemas? Let the millions of persecuted victims of pontifical and inquisitorial vengeance—Albigenses, Waldenses, Huguenots, and Netherlanders—answer from their graves. And yet the American people are appealed to, because they maintain "freedom of conscience" as inseparable from their national existence, to plot against the present Government of Italy—established by the Italian people for themselves—in order to restore the temporal power of the pope, so that he may again possess authority to condemn this same freedom of conscience as heresy, in order to bring about the unification of religious faith throughout the world! We attribute our marvelous advancement—which has no parallel among the nations—in an essential degree, to the separation of Church and State. But Leo XIII has told us that because of this we are in rapid decay; and that unless we reunite ourselves with the Holy See of Rome, and obey him and his successors—occupying the place of Christ on earth—our ultimate ruin is inevitable. What does this reverend biographer mean when he invokes the aid of our tolerant spirit to re-establish an authority which, for centuries, has been exercised in behalf of religious intolerance? Are the followers of the pope the only people in the world entitled to freedom of conscience? It is abundantly secured to them and all others in the United States and in Italy as well. Nevertheless, in the face of this, we are invited to aid in restoring the temporal power of the pope in Rome, so that he may be empowered to turn back the modern nations from their present progress toward the "blessed" Middle Ages, and thus secure ultimate triumph to the spirit of religious intolerance! Can those guilty of such inconsistencies be serious? Or is their seriousness merely simulated, as means to an end?

What have we to do with the pope as an international peacemaker? Why does he become so merely by wearing the crown of a temporal king in Rome? There is but one answer, which was undoubtedly present in the mind of his reverend biographer; that is, because, by means of his imperial authority as the head of the Church, he may extend his spiritual jurisdiction and dominion over such temporal affairs in any part of the world as relate to spiritual matters, as he at his own will and discretion shall decide. In order to understand this we need go no further than to Leo XIII himself, whose Jesuit training is easily discernible in all his doctrinal teachings. His idea of the temporal power which shall give full liberty and independence to his spiritual power, is this: that wheresoever, among all the nations, he shall consider it necessary to interfere with and direct the course of temporal affairs in furtherance of his spiritual duties and obligations, he may do so at his own discretion; and where they impede the freedom of his pontifical policy, he shall have the divine right to resist or disregard any constitution, law, or custom which shall stand in his way. To a mind like his—with its faculties developed under Jesuit supervision, and filled with the metaphysical subtleties of the Aristotelian philosophy, the sophistries of Thomas Aquinas, and the scholasticism of the Middle Ages—this, doubtless, appears plain, simple, and conclusive, in so far as his spiritual relations to mankind are concerned. It may possibly be that he supposes himself not to have mistaken his relations to the United States and to the Roman Catholic part of our population. This may be, in view of the fact that he can have no other but an imperfect knowledge of our form of government, our laws, and civil institutions. His learned biographer, however, can not shield himself behind this same plea of ignorance. As a citizen of the United States he must know that any conspiracy formed in this country to procure the restoration of the pope's temporal power in defiance of the Constitutional Government of Italy and against the expressed will of the Italian people, would violate our neutrality laws as well as the law of nations, be offensive and insulting to the kingdom of Italy, a disregard of our treaty of amity with that power, and a flagrant cause of war. He does not seem moved, or willing to have the papal car arrested in its course, by any of these considerations, manifestly considering them as mere trifles when weighed in the scale against the triumph of the papacy over popular government. Ignorance of our institutions may excuse Leo XIII; but a citizen of the United States, whether native or naturalized, should understand better the duties and obligations of citizenship.

When the "Holy Alliance"—as explained in a former chapter—conspired to prevent the establishment of popular government upon the American Continent and in Europe, and to secure the universal triumph of monarchism, the President of the United States announced that if these efforts were extended to the Spanish American States, they would be forcibly resisted by the military power of the nation. It has hitherto been supposed that this met the full approval of our people, and that this approval has neither been withdrawn nor modified. Yet, in the very face of this, we now find ourselves confronted by the proposition—boldly and authoritatively made—that a portion of our citizens shall organize themselves into a party, under religious sanction, for the sole purpose of forcing an absolute temporal monarch upon the Italian people against their consent, thereby upturning the Constitutional Government they have established, and placing the United States on the side of the "Holy Alliance," and in direct opposition to the popular right of self-government! To say the least, this proposition insults the national honor; and, accompanied as it is by the assertion that it involves religious duty, and that everything contrary to it is heresy, it involves, upon our part, the obligation to guard well all the approaches to our popular liberty. It puts the spirit of toleration to a hard trial when our "freedom of conscience" is made the shelter for papal or other intrigues against itself; and when it is availed of as the means of entangling us in alliance with the papal temporal power, which, during the thousand years of its existence—with exceptions too few to change the general rule—has maintained the absolutism of monarchy as a religious necessity, and has never ceased its demand for universal spiritual sovereignty and dominion. Is it to be forgotten that we are living in the nineteenth century, in the foremost rank among the advancing nations, and that there are obligations imposed upon us by that fact we have no right to disregard or disobey?

An incident is related by his biographer wherein Leo XIII indicated the imperiousness of the papacy and his own ideas of individual freedom, as well as that of the press. It exhibits him in the attitude of denying the right of individuals either to entertain or express opinions of their own concerning the papacy, its rights, duties, or prerogatives. He alone, among all mankind, is divinely endowed with this authority; and when his opinions are made known, "every knee shall bow" in humble acquiescence and submission. This is the kind of faith which prevailed in the Middle Ages, and to which we are invited by Leo XIII to return, in order to be rescued from the yawning gulf into which the modern nations are hastening as punishment divinely inflicted upon them for having impiously dared to separate the State from the Church! At the height of papal imperialism it was expressed by the saying: "When Rome has spoken, let all the world be silent."

When a little more than a year of the pontificate of Leo XIII had passed, "a Congress of Catholic writers and journalists" assembled in Rome. They are represented to have come "from all countries," with the desire "to take advice from the Holy Father on the line of conduct to be followed by the Catholic press in treating of politico-religious questions," including, of course, the restoration of the pope's temporal power. Whilst, of course, other matters might have been included in the conference, that to which it had most direct reference was the course which the public press should pursue with regard to this great question, which absorbed all others; that is, whether the kingdom of Italy should be accepted as an accomplished fact, and the loss of the temporal power acquiesced in, or the power of the press should be employed to agitate the question of restoration, and to demand it as a right divinely established. Those present were not all united in opinion. Some "insisted on coming to terms with the revolution;" that is, upon not involving themselves in traitorous plottings against the Government of Italy. What was said by these we are not informed, but whatsoever it was, the pope must have been highly incensed, for it is related that he gave them "a severe rebuke;" in other words, that he indignantly disapproved of their suggestion. This was done by telling them they had no right to entertain individual opinions at all upon such a subject, but were bound to obey and execute his commands, without the least inquiry whether they approved or disapproved them in their own consciences; that is, that they were not allowed to think for themselves, but were bound to implicit and submissive obedience to him. He expressly told them they "must not presume to decide in their own name and by their own light public controversies of the highest importance bearing on the circumstances of the Apostolic See, nor seem to have opinions in opposition to what is required by the dignity and liberty of the Roman pontiff." The reason he assigned was the entire and absolute sovereignty which the temporal power, added to the spiritual, gives the pope over all Governments, peoples, and opinions, because "there is no power on earth which can pretend to be superior or equal to it in the legitimacy of the right and title from which it sprang."[200]