PIUS IX. AND MR. GLADSTONE’S MISREPRESENTATIONS.
The recent conduct of the Right Honorable William Ewart Gladstone has filled his former friends and admirers with anger and sorrow, and the nobler among his enemies with astonishment and pity. He has done much to convert the defeat of the liberal party in Great Britain, which might have been but temporary, into absolute rout and lasting confusion; for its return to power is impossible as long as the alienation of the Irish Catholic members of Parliament continues. The more generous of Mr. Gladstone’s political foes cannot but deplore that the once mighty opponent, whom they succeeded in driving from office, has, by his own behavior, fallen into something very like contempt. His strictures on the Vatican decrees and the Speeches of Pius IX. possess little merit in a literary point of view, being written in the bad style common to Exeter Hall controversialists, and being full of inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and oversights. They have accordingly received from the leading critical journals in Great Britain either open censure or that faint praise which is equally damning. The Pall Mall Gazette observes that, if Mr. Gladstone goes on writing in a similar strain, no one will heed what he writes. The wild assault made by him upon Catholics is not only perceived by others to be causeless and gratuitous, but is freely confessed by himself to be uncalled for and unwarranted. Speaking of the questions, whether the Pope claimed temporal jurisdiction or deposing power, or whether the church still teaches the doctrine of persecution, he says in his Expostulation (page 26): “Now, to no one of these questions could the answer really be of the smallest immediate moment to this powerful and solidly-compacted kingdom.” Again, in the Quarterly Review article (page 300), he asserts that the “burning” question of the deposing power, “with reference to the possibilities of life and action, remains the shadow of a shade!” Why, then, does Mr. Gladstone apply the torch to quicken the flame of the burning controversy, which he affirms to be beyond the range of practical politics? Why does he summon the “shadow of a shade” to trouble, terrify, or distress his fellow-countrymen? Has he forgotten the history of his country, which teaches him that these very questions were among those which brought innocent men to the block, and caused multitudes to suffer the tortures of the rack and the pains of ignominious death? We read in Hallam (Constitutional Hist. of England) that one of the earliest novelties of legislation introduced by Henry VIII. was the act of Parliament of 1534, by which “it was made high treason to deny that ecclesiastical supremacy of the crown which, till about two years before, no one had ever ventured to assert. Bishop Fisher, almost the only inflexibly honest churchman of that age, was beheaded for this denial.” Sir Thomas More met the same fate. Burleigh, in a state paper in which he apologizes for the illegal employment of torture in Elizabeth’s reign, includes among the questions “asked during their torture” of those “put to the rack,” the question, “What was their own opinion as to the pope’s right to deprive the queen of her crown?” In those days, then, the mere opinions of Catholics concerning papal supremacy were torturing and beheading questions—questions of the rack, the block, and the stake. Now they are “burning” questions, in a metaphorical sense, and lead to wordy strife, polemical bitterness, and to widening the breach between two sections of Queen Victoria’s subjects, which all wise men during late years have deplored and striven to lessen, but which Mr. Gladstone deliberately sets himself to widen.
Into the causes which have provoked Mr. Gladstone to attack Catholics and the Pope it is not necessary to enter. Corrupt or impure motives are not imputed to him. Nor is it here intended to discuss the theological part of the subject, which has already been exhaustively dealt with by Dr. John Henry Newman, Archbishop Manning, Bishops Ullathorne, Vaughan, and Clifford, Monsignor Capel, and others. The aim of the present writer is to point out the inaccuracies of Mr. Gladstone in his Expostulation and his Quarterly Review article on the Speeches of Pius IX., to exhibit his general untrustworthiness in his references and quotations, and to bring forward the real instead of the travestied sentiments of the Pope.
Now, to honest and fair examination of documents which concern their faith Catholics have no objection. On the contrary, they desire sincerely that Protestants should read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them. Nothing but good to the Catholic Church can result from impartial study of such documents as the Vatican decrees, the Encyclical and Syllabus of Pius IX., to which, in his Expostulation, Mr. Gladstone made such extensive reference. Catholics give him a cordial assent when he says: “It is impossible for persons accepting those decrees justly to complain when such documents are subjected in good faith to a strict examination as respects their compatibility with civil right and the obedience of subjects.” But Catholics and all upright Protestants must join in condemning as unjust and unfair that bad habit common to controversialists of a certain class, who aim at temporary victory for themselves and their party, careless of the interests of eternal verity. There are partisan writers who cite portions of a document, in the belief that the mass of readers will have no knowledge of the entire, and who take extracts hap-hazard from secondary sources, without troubling themselves to search the authentic or original documents. Wilful inaccuracy and purposed misquotations are not, as has already been stated, to be imputed to Mr. Gladstone. But it often occurs that carelessness and prejudice lead distinguished writers into errors similar to those produced by malice, and equally or more detrimental. It so happens that Mr. Gladstone, in describing and quoting the Vatican decrees, the words of Pius IX., the Syllabus and Encyclical, has published statements so incorrect and so misleading as to subject the author, were he less eminent for honor and scrupulous veracity, to the charge either of criminal ignorance or of wilful intention to mislead. For example, he cites, at pages 32-34 of his Expostulation, the form of the present Vatican decrees as proof of the wonderful “change now consummated in the constitution of the Latin Church” and of “the present degradation of its episcopal order.” He says the present Vatican decrees, being promulgated in a strain different from that adopted by the Council of Trent, are scarcely worthy to be termed “the decrees of the Council of the Vatican.” The Trent canons were, he says, real canons of a real council, beginning thus: “Hæc Sacrosancta,” etc., “Synodus,” etc., “docet” or “statuit” or “decernit,” and the like; and its canons, “as published in Rome, are Canones et Decreta Sacrosancti Œcumenici Concilii Tridentini, and so forth. But what we have now to do with is the Constitutio Dogmatica Prima de Ecclesiâ Christi edita in Sessione tertia of the Vatican Council. It is not a constitution made by the council, but one promulgated in the council. And who is it that legislates and decrees? It is Pius Episcopus, servus servorum Dei; and the seductive plural of his docemus et declaramus is simply the dignified and ceremonious ‘we’ of royal declarations. The document is dated ‘Pontificatus nostri Anno XXV.,’ and the humble share of the assembled episcopate in the transaction is represented by sacro approbante concilio.” Mr. Gladstone, stating that the Trent canons are published as Canones et Decreta Sac. Œcum. Concilii Tridentini, and particularizing in a foot-note the place of publication as “Romæ: in Collegio urbano de Propaganda Fide, 1833,” leads his readers wrongfully to infer that there exists no similar publication of the Vatican decrees. However, the very first complete edition of the Vatican decrees, printed especially for distribution to the fathers of the council, bears this title: Acta et Decreta Sacrosancti Œcumenici Concilii Vaticani in Quatuor Prioribus Sessionibus—Romæ ex Typographia Vaticana, 1872. What Mr. Gladstone appears to have quoted are the small tracts, containing portions of the decrees, for general use, one of which is entitled Dogmatic Constitution concerning the Catholic Faith, Published in the Third Session, while another is entitled The First Dogmatic Constitution of the Church of Christ, Published in the Fourth Session. Mr. Gladstone has not scrupled to take one of these tracts as his text-book, misstating its very title; for he quotes it as “edita in sessione tertia” instead of “quarta,” and deriving from it, instead of from the authentic Acta et Decreta, his materials for charging the decrees with a change of form “amounting to revolution.” Had the Acta in their complete version been before him, he could not truthfully have said “the humble share of the assembled episcopate in the transaction is represented by sacro approbante concilio”; for he would have found it distinctly stated, and apparently as reason for their confirmation by the Pope, that the decrees and canons contained in the constitution were read before, and approved by, all the fathers of the council, with two exceptions—“Decreta et Canones qui in constitutione modo lecta continentur, placuerunt patribus omnibus, duobus exceptis, Nosque, sacro approbante concilio, illa et illos, ut lecta sunt, definimus et apostolica auctoritate confirmamus.” Why does Mr. Gladstone call attention to the date as being “Pontificatus nostri Anno XXV.”? Is it in order to show that the Vatican despises the other mode of computation, or is it to exhibit his own minute accuracy in quoting? In either case Mr. Gladstone was wrong, for the date in the Constitutio Dogmatica before him was as follows: “Datum Romæ, etc., Anno Incarnationis Dominicæ 1870, die 18 Julii. Pontificatus Nostri, Anno XXV.” And why should Mr. Gladstone describe as “seductive” the plural of the Pope’s “docemus et declaramus,” and assert that plural form to be “simply the dignified and ceremonious ‘We’ of royal declarations”? Did he mean to impute to the use of the plural number a corrupt intention to make people believe that the ‘we’ included the bishops as well as the Pope? Did he mean also to impute to the use of the plural an arrogant affectation of royal dignity? If such were the purpose of Mr. Gladstone, it can only be said that such rhetorical artifices are unworthy of him and are not warranted by truth. The ‘we’ is simply the habitual form of episcopal utterances, employed even by Protestant prelates in their official acts. It is evident, moreover, that the use of the plural docemus or declaramus, and the employment of the formula sacro approbante concilio, denounced by Mr. Gladstone as innovations, have ancient precedents in their favor. The Acta Synodalia of the Eleventh General and Third Lateran Council, held under Pope Alexander III. in 1179, are thus worded: “Nos … de concilio fratrum nostrorum et sacri approbatione concilii … decrevimus” or “statuimus.” The same form, with trifling variation, was employed in 1225 by Innocent III. in another General Council, the Fourth Lateran. Mr. Gladstone thinks “the very gist of the evil we are dealing with consists in following (and enforcing) precedents of the age of Innocent III.,” so that it may be useless to cite the General Council of Lyons in 1245, under Innocent IV., with its decrees published in the obnoxious strain, “Innocentius Episcopus, servus servorum Dei, etc., sacro præsente concilio ad rei memoriam sempiternam.” The language of another General Council at Lyons, in 1274, under Gregory X., “Nos … sacro approbante concilio, damnamus,” etc., and the language of the Council of Vienne, in 1311, under Clement V., “Nos sacro approbante concilio … damnamus et reprobamus,” come perhaps too near the age of Innocent III. to have weight with Mr. Gladstone. But he cannot object on this score to the Fifth Lateran Council, begun in 1512 under Julius II., and finished in 1517 under Leo X. In this General Council, the next before that of Trent, Pope Leo was present in person, and by him, just as by Pius IX., in the Vatican Council, all the definitions and decrees were made in the strain which Mr. Gladstone calls innovating and revolutionary, namely, in the style, “Leo Episcopus servus servorum Dei ad perpetuam rei memoriam, sacro approbante concilio.” Leo X. uniformly employed the plural statuimus et ordinamus in every session of that council. Pius IX. followed the example of Leo X., and obeyed precedents set him by popes who presided in person—not by legates, as at Trent—at General Councils held in the years 1179, 1225, 1244, 1274, 1311, and 1517. Accordingly, “the change of form in the present, as compared with other conciliatory (sic) decrees,” turns out on examination to be no revolution, but, on the contrary, appears to have in its favor precedents the earliest of which has seven centuries of antiquity. And yet to this alleged change of form, and to this alone, Mr. Gladstone appealed in evidence of “the amount of the wonderful change now consummated in the constitution of the Latin Church” and of “the present degradation of its episcopal order”!
The Encyclical and Syllabus of 1864 have been treated by Mr. Gladstone in the same loose, careless, and unfair way as he treated the Vatican decrees. He promised, at page 15 of his Expostulation, to “state, in the fewest possible words and with references, a few propositions, all the holders of which have been condemned [the italics are Mr. Gladstone’s] by the See of Rome during my own generation, and especially within the last twelve or fifteen years. And in order,” so proceeds Mr. Gladstone, “that I may do nothing towards importing passion into what is matter of pure argument, I will avoid citing any of the fearfully energetic epithets in which the condemnations are sometimes clothed.” The references here given by Mr. Gladstone are to the Encyclical letter of Pope Gregory XVI. in 1831—a date, it may be noticed, rather more ancient than “the last twelve or fifteen years”—and to the following documents, which at page 16 of his pamphlet are thus detailed: The Encyclical “of Pope Pius IX., in 1864”; “Encyclical of Pius IX., December 8, 1864”; “Syllabus of March 18, 1861”; and the “Syllabus of Pope Pius IX., March 8, 1861.” Here are apparently five documents deliberately referred to, the first an Encyclical of Gregory XVI.; the second an Encyclical of Pius IX., in 1864; the third another Encyclical of Pius IX., dated December 8, 1864; the fourth a Syllabus of March 18th, 1861; and the fifth another Syllabus of the 8th of March, 1861. Yet these apparently five documents, to which reference is made by Mr. Gladstone with so much seeming particularity and exactitude of dates, are in reality two documents only, and have but one date—namely, the 8th of December, 1864—on which day the Encyclical, with the Syllabus attached, was published by Pius IX. At page 67 of his pamphlet Mr. Gladstone “cites his originals,” and curiously enough, by a printer’s error, assigns the Encyclical of Gregory XVI. to Gregory XIV. But he cites from two sources only—namely, the Encyclical and Syllabus of 1864. That Encyclical contains a quotation from an Encyclical of Gregory XVI., which and the Syllabus are positively the only documents actually cited. By a series of blunders, all of which cannot be charged to the printer—and in a work which has arrived at the “sixteenth thousand” edition printers’ errors are hardly allowable—the two documents, with their one date, have been made to do duty for five documents, ascribed gravely to as many different dates!
Moreover, Mr. Gladstone’s assertion that he will state “a few propositions, all the holders of which have been condemned by the Holy See,” is inaccurate, as far as his extracts from the Encyclical and the Syllabus—the only documents to which he appeals—are concerned; for in them no “holders” of any propositions are condemned, nor is there a single anathema directed against any individual. The errors only are censured. Mr. Gladstone cannot illustrate any one of his eighteen propositions by a single epithet which could with truth be called “fearfully energetic.” As a matter of fact, there are no epithets at all attached to any condemnations in the eighty propositions of the Syllabus. When, therefore, Mr. Gladstone professes, in order to do nothing “towards importing passion,” that he will “avoid citing any of the fearfully energetic epithets in which the condemnations are sometimes clothed,” he plays a rhetorical trick upon his readers. In truth, had he quoted the entire of the Encyclical and Syllabus, he would not have been able to make his hypocritical insinuation that he might have culled, if he wished, more damaging extracts. Catholics have to lament, not that he quoted too much, but that he quoted too little; not that he quoted with severe rigor, but that he quoted with absolute unfaithfulness. It is justice, not mercy, which Catholics demand from him, and which they ask all the more imperatively because he has himself laid down the axiom: “Exactness in stating truth according to the measure of our intelligence is an indispensable condition of justice and of a title to be heard.”
It was urged by some persons that Mr. Gladstone gave sufficient opportunities for correcting the effect of his inaccuracies by publishing in an appendix the Latin of the propositions he professed to quote. But so glaring is the contrast between the “propositions” in English and the same in Latin that a writer in the Civiltâ Cattolica exclaims in amazement: “Has he [Mr. Gladstone] misunderstood the Latin of the quoted texts? Has he through thoughtlessness travestied the sense? Or has his good faith fallen a victim to the disloyalty of some cunning Old Catholics who furnished him with these propositions?” Mr. Gladstone has asserted that Pius IX. has condemned “those who maintain the liberty of the press,” “or the liberty of conscience and of worship,” “or the liberty of speech.” On referring to the Latin original of these the first three of his eighteen propositions, it is found that Pius IX. has given no occasion for such a monstrous assertion. The Pope has merely condemned that species of liberty which every man not a socialist or communist must from his heart believe worthy of censure. Gregory XVI. called this vicious sort of liberty by the name of delirium, and Pius IX., in his Encyclical, terms it the “liberty of perdition.” It is a liberty “especially pernicious (maxime exitialem) to the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls,” and the claim to it is based on the error “that liberty of conscience and of worship is the proper right of every man; that it ought to be proclaimed and asserted by law in every well-constituted society; and that citizens have an inherent right to liberty of every kind, not to be restrained by any authority, ecclesiastical or civil, so that they may be able, openly and publicly, to manifest and declare their opinions, of whatever kind, by speech, by the press, or by any other means.” Such is the sort of liberty which the Encyclical condemns, which is not the general liberty of the press, or of conscience and worship, as Mr. Gladstone would have it, but that sort of liberty which might be better termed licentiousness—a liberty, that is, which knows no bridle or restraint, whether human or divine, and which refuses to be kept in check by any authority, ecclesiastical or civil—“omnimodam libertatem nullâ vel ecclesiasticâ, vel civili auctoritate coarctandam.” The Expostulation has been widely circulated among the learned, and also in a sixpenny edition among the masses. It is evident that thousands of persons accustomed to entertain a high opinion of the veracity of great men in Mr. Gladstone’s position will take his statements upon trust, and never dream of testing, even had they the requisite acquaintance with a dead language, the accuracy of his translations and quotations. To abuse the confidence of this section of the public is a sin severely to be reprobated.
The Speeches of Pius IX.—which, it would appear, were not read by Mr. Gladstone until after he wrote the Expostulation—have been by him criticised in the Quarterly Review unmercifully and unfairly. He did not take into consideration the circumstance that these speeches are not elaborate orations, but are merely the unprepared, unstudied utterances of a pontiff so aged as to be termed by the reviewer himself a “nonagenarian,” borne down with unparalleled afflictions, weighted with innumerable cares, and oppressed with frequent and at times serious illnesses. The speeches themselves were not reported verbatim or in extenso. No professional shorthand writer attended when they were delivered, and they were not spoken with a view to their publication. But every word which comes from the lips of Pius IX. is precious to Catholics; and as some of these speeches were taken down by various hands and appeared in various periodicals, it was thought proper to allow a collection of them to be formed and published by an ecclesiastic, Don Pasquale de Franciscis, who himself took notes of the greater number of these Discourses. This gentleman is described by Mr. Gladstone as “an accomplished professor of flunkyism in things spiritual,” and one of the “sycophants” about the Pope who administer to His Holiness “an adulation, not only excessive in its degree, but of a kind which to an unbiassed mind may seem to border on profanity.” Mr. Gladstone is fond of insinuating that his own mind is “unbiassed” or “dispassionate,” and that he would by no means “import passion” into a controversy where calm reasoning alone is admissible. But, in point of fact, as the Pall Mall Gazette has pointed out, he shows himself the bigoted controversialist instead of the grave statesman. Forgetting the genius of the Italian people, and the difference between the warm and impulsive natives of the South and the phlegmatic Anglo-Saxons; forgetting, also, the literary toadyism of English writers not many years ago, and the apparently profane adulation paid to British sovereigns, he attacks Don Pasquale for calling the book of the Pope’s speeches “divine,” and accuses him of downright blasphemy. Dr. Newman, in one of his Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England, has given an humorous account of the way in which foreigners might be induced to believe the laws and constitution of England to be profane and blasphemous. This he did by culling out a series of sentences from Blackstone and others, such as “the king can do no wrong,” “the king never dies,” he is “the vicar of God on earth.” Thus impeccability, immortality, and omnipotence may be claimed for the British monarch! Moreover, the subjects of James I. called him “the breath of their nostrils”; he himself, according to Lord Clarendon, on one occasion called himself “a god”; Lord Bacon called him “some sort of little god”; Alexander Pope and Addison termed Queen Anne “a goddess,” the words of the latter writer being: “Thee, goddess, thee Britannia’s isle adores.” What Dr. Newman did in good-humored irony Mr. Gladstone does in sober and bitter earnest. He picks out epithets here and there, tacking on the expressions of one page to those of another, and then flings the collected epithets before his reader as proof of Don Pasquale’s profanity. The temperament of Italians in the present day may or may not furnish a valid defence, in respect to good taste, for Don Pasquale. But it is certain that the phrases used by the latter, when taken in their context and interpreted as any one familiar with Italian ideas would interpret them, afford slight basis for the odious charge of profanity—a charge which Mr. Gladstone urges not only by the means already pointed out, but by other means still more reprehensible, namely, by fastening on Don Pasquale expressions which he did not employ. Thus, at page 274 of the Review, Mr. Gladstone, in reference to the “sufferings pretended to be inflicted by the Italian kingdom upon the so-called prisoner of the Vatican,” adds, “Let us see how, and with what daring misuse of Holy Scripture, they are illustrated in the authorized volume before us. ‘He and his august consort,’ says Don Pasquale, speaking of the Comte and Comtesse de Chambord, ‘were profoundly moved at such great afflictions which the Lamb of the Vatican has to endure.’” It seems, in the first place, rather strained to term the application of the word “lamb” to Pius IX., or any other person, a “daring misuse of Holy Scripture.” Many a man, when expressing pious hope under disaster, exclaims, “The Lord tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” using or misusing, as the case may be, not the language of Holy Scripture, but the words of the author of Tristram Shandy, to whose works, we believe, the epithet “holy” is not commonly applied. If Pius IX. had been termed “the lamb of God,” then indeed Holy Scripture might have been used or misused; but the single word “lamb,” even in the phrase “lamb of the Vatican,” is no more an allusion, profane or otherwise, to the Gospels than it is to the Rev. Laurence Sterne. In the second place, the expression, be it proper or improper, was not used by Don Pasquale. Turning to volume ii. of the Discorsi, page 545, as Mr. Gladstone directs us, we find the words were not employed by Don Pasquale, but by the writer of an article in the Unità Cattolica! Pages 545 and 546, the pages cited, contain a notice of the presentation to the Comte and Comtesse de Chambord of the first volume of the Discorsi; for the article is dated in 1872, and the second volume was not printed until 1873. So that it appears the naughty word was not only not used by Don Pasquale, but did not in reality form part of the “authorized volume,” being merely found in a newspaper extract inserted in an appendix. In this same newspaper extract the Comtesse de Chambord is said to have called the first volume of the Discorsi “a continuation of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.” This statement rests on the authority of the writer in the Unità Cattolica, but is brought up in judgment not only against Don Pasquale, but against the Pope himself, who is held by Mr. Gladstone to be responsible for everything stated either by Don Pasquale in his preface or by any other persons in the appendices to the Discorsi!
Concerning the Pope, Mr. Gladstone, at page 299 of the Review, thus writes: “Whether advisedly or not, the Pontiff does not, except once (vol. i. 204), apply the term [infallible] to himself, but is in other places content with alleging his superiority, as has been shown above, to an inspired prophet, and with commending those who come to hear his words as words proceeding from Jesus Christ (i. 335).” At page 268 of the Review it is also said that Don Pasquale, in his preface, p. 17, calls the voice of Pius IX. “the voice of God,” and that the Pope is “nature that protests” and “God that condemns.” If, however, in order to test the worth of these assertions of Mr. Gladstone, we turn to the passages he has cited, it will be discovered that Pius IX. did not even once apply the term infallible to himself; for he, in the passage cited, applied it not to himself individually, but to the infallible judgment (giudizio infallibile) in principles of revelation, as contrasted with the authoritative right of popes in general. Nor did Pius IX. assert any “superiority to an inspired prophet” by saying (Review, p. 276, Discorsi, vol. i. 366): “I have the right to speak even more than Nathan the prophet to David the king.” The right to speak upon a certain occasion does not surely contain of necessity an allegation of superiority nor imply a claim to inspiration! Nor did Pius IX. commend “those who came to hear his words as words proceeding from Jesus Christ”; for he merely said, in reply to a deputation: “I answer with the church; and the church herself supplies to me the words in the Gospel for this morning. You are here, and have put forth your sentiments; but you desire also to hear the word of Jesus Christ as it issues from the mouth of his Vicar.” That is to say: You shall have for answer “the word of Jesus Christ”—meaning this day’s Gospel—spoken by, or as it issues from, or which proceeds (che esce) out of, the mouth of his Vicar. The words, “He is nature that protests, he is God that condemns,” are evidently metaphorical expressions of the editor, harmless enough; for, as Pius IX. cannot be both God and nature literally, the metaphorical application is apparent to the meanest comprehension. It is true that Don Pasquale, in his preface, page 16, ascribes to Pius IX. this language: “This voice which now sounds before you is the voice of Him whom I represent on earth” (la VOCE di colui che in terra Io rappresento); but, turning to Don Pasquale’s reference (vol. i. p. 299) to verify the quotation, it is found that the editor made a serious mistake, by which the entire character of the passage was altered. The Pope had just contrasted himself (the vox clamantis de Vaticano) with John the Baptist (the vox clamantis in deserto). “Yes,” he adds, “I may also call myself the Voice; for, although unworthy, I am yet the Vicar of Christ, and this voice which now sounds before you is the voice of him who in earth represents him” (è la voce di colui, che in terra lo rappresenta). Don Pasquale imprudently put the word “voce” in capital letters, changed “lo” into “Io,” and “rappresenta” into “rappresento.” The Pope simply said that his voice, as it cried from the Vatican, was the voice of the Vicar of Christ. And in the belief of all Catholics so it is.
The charge of “truculence” is brought against the Pope by Mr. Gladstone. “It is time to turn,” he says (Review, p. 277), “with whatever reluctance, to the truculent and wrathful aspect which unhappily prevails over every other in these Discourses.” The first proof of this “truculence” is, it seems, the fact that the “cadres, or at least the skeletons and relics of the old papal government over the Roman states, are elaborately and carefully maintained.” One would suppose that these cadres were maintained with the bloodthirsty intention of making war on Victor Emanuel. But Mr. Gladstone does not say so; nay, he insinuates in a foot-note that their maintenance is for a purpose far from truculent. “We have seen it stated from a good quarter,” so Mr. Gladstone writes, “that no less than three thousand persons, formerly in the papal employment, now receive some pension or pittance from the Vatican. Doubtless they are expected to be forthcoming on all occasions of great deputations, as they may be wanted, like the supers and dummies at the theatres.” It appears from the Discorsi that the Pope received in audience deputations from the persons formerly in the papal employment on twenty-one occasions, between September, 1870, and September, 1873. On fourteen of these occasions the impiegati were received on days when no other deputations attended. On the other occasions, although other deputations were received on the same days, the ex-employees were never mixed up with other deputations, but were always placed in separate rooms for audience. Mr. Gladstone has not the least ground for insinuating that these unfortunate persons, who refused to take the oath of allegiance to Victor Emanuel, and thereby forfeited employment and pay, were ever called upon like supers or dummies to make a show at great deputations. If these ex-employees receive pay from the Pope, it surely is no proof of papal “truculence.” But “none of these,” so asserts Mr. Gladstone (Review, p. 278), “appear at the Vatican as friends, co-religionists, as receivers of the Pontiff’s alms, or in any character which could be of doubtful interpretation. They appear as being actually and at the moment his subjects and his military and civil servants respectively, although only in disponibilità, or, so to speak, on furlough; they are headed by the proper leading functionaries, and the Pope receives them as persons come for the purpose of doing homage to their sovereign.” The references given for this somewhat confused statement are pages 88 and 365 of volume i., where the Pope very naturally speaks of “the fidelity shown by them to their sovereign,” and of their “faith, constancy, and attachment to religion, to God, and to the Vicar of Jesus Christ, their sovereign.” It was in consequence of the introduction by Victor Emanuel, into the several government departments in Rome, of an oath of allegiance to the head of the state—an oath not demanded previously under the Papal rule—that these impiegati resigned their situations, their consciences not permitting them to take the oath. It was no wonder, then, that Pius IX. should notice their fidelity to himself. But he makes no assertion whatever to the effect that these civil and military servants are merely on furlough or in disponibilità. That they do appear as pensioners on the bounty of Pius IX. may be proved, in spite of Mr. Gladstone’s denial, by reference to the Discorsi, at pages 38, 50, 99, 182, 235, 308, 460, and 472 of volume i. and pages 25, 38, and 122 of volume ii. It cannot be expected that we should quote all these passages at length, but we will quote a few of them. The ex-civil servants, on 13th July, 1872, approached His Holiness to express “their sincere devotion and gratitude for what he had done for their sustentation and comfort under most distressing circumstances.” The police officials, seven days afterwards, were introduced by Mgr. Randi; and one of them, the Marquis Pio Capranica, read an address, in which the persons whom Mr. Gladstone calls “the scum of the earth” (Review, p. 278) thank the Pope for extending to them and their “families his fatherly munificence.” On the 27th of December, 1871, the ex-military officials, through Gen. Kanzler, laid at the foot of the Pope their protestations of unalterable fidelity, their prayers for the prolongation of his life, and their gratitude for his generosity in alleviating the distress and misery of many families of his former soldiers. But perhaps the “truculence” of Pius IX. may be discovered, if not in his compassion and generosity to his ex-servants, at least in his admonitions to them to furbish up their arms and keep their powder dry. Mr. Gladstone asserts (Review, p. 297) that “blood and iron” are “in contemplation at the Vatican.” “No careful reader of this authoritative book (the Speeches) can doubt that these are the means by which the great Christian pastor contemplates and asks—ay, asks as one who should think himself entitled to command—the re-establishment of his power in Rome.” Now, the Pope can ask or command this “blood and iron” assistance from none so well as from his ex-soldiers, and from the civil and military officials still loyal to their chief. It happens, however, that no “careful reader” of the Pope’s speeches to his former soldiers or servants can discover a trace of this “truculent” purpose of His Holiness. He rarely mentions a weapon; but when he does, it is to remind his audience (as at p. 197, vol. i.) that “we must not combat with material weapons, but spiritually—that is to say, with united prayers.” He reminds some young soldiers (vol. i. p. 69) that “prayer is the terrible weapon for use specially in the actual grievous condition of affairs, by which weapon alone can the complete triumph of the church and religion be obtained.” When he would place before some of his faithful civil servants the example of the “Hebrews when rebuilding Jerusalem, who held in one hand the working tools and in the other the sword to combat the enemy,” he warns them to imitation by means of “prayer on the one side, and constancy on the other” (vol. i. p. 475). Prayer is the burden of his advice on all these occasions. “Sursum corda! Lift up the thought and the heart to God, from whom only we can expect comfort, help, counsel, or protection now and always” (vol. ii. p. 25). “They have imagined,” says the Pontiff to the Marquis Pio Capranica and other ex-functionaries of the Police Department (vol. ii. p. 36), “that we wish to cause an armed reaction! To think this is folly, and to assert it is calumny. I have made known to all persons that the reaction which I desire is this: namely, to have people who can protect youth, and provide for the good education of the young in the principles of faith, morality, honesty, and respect towards the church and her ministers. This is the reaction which now and always I will say is our desire. As for the rest, God will do that which he wills. Great reactions are not in my hands, but in His upon whom all depends.” There is one passage cited by Mr. Gladstone to show that the Pope would “take the initiative,” if he could, and lead his troops to battle. It occurs in a speech addressed to Gen. Kanzler and the officers of the late pontifical army, and may be found in vol. ii. pages 141 and 142. The Pope says at the beginning of his speech, “You are come, soldiers of honor, attached to this Holy See and constant in the exercise of your duties, to present yourselves before me; but you come without arms, proving thereby how sad are the present times. Oh! would I also could obey that voice of God which many ages ago said to a people, Transform your ploughs and plough-shares and your instruments of husbandry into spears and swords and implements of war; for the enemies are advancing, and there is need of many weapons and of many armed men. Would that God would to-day repeat those same inspirations even unto us. But God is silent, and I, his Vicar, cannot do aught in distinction from him, and cannot do aught save keep silence.” The foregoing paragraph has undoubtedly a warlike sound, and is of course quoted by Mr. Gladstone; but it is immediately followed by another passage which takes from it all its force, and which is not quoted by Mr. Gladstone: “And I will particularly add that I could never desire to authorize an augmentation of arms, because, as Vicar of the God of Peace, who came on earth to bring peace to us, I am bound to sustain all the rights of peace, which is the fairest gift which God can give to this earth.”
Mr. Gladstone notices “the Pope’s wealth of vituperative power,” and refers to various passages for illustrations. A string of references looks convincing, but it has been already shown how little reliance can be placed on Mr. Gladstone in this respect. He who takes the pains to verify these references will find Pius IX. has indeed used hard language, not only towards the Italian government or Victor Emanuel, but towards insidious proselytizers and bad and immoral teachers, spectacles, and publications. But is Mr. Gladstone an unprejudiced judge of the propriety of the pontifical expressions? The late British premier thinks favorably of Victor Emanuel, and imagines Rome to be much improved by the entrance of the Italians. He thinks the Pope “knows nothing except at second-hand, nothing except as he is prompted by the blindest partisans.” But Mr. Gladstone himself is the infallible authority. He has sought and produced, of course from impartial sources, statistics to show that crime has greatly diminished since the termination of the papal régime. The Gladstonian statistics, of course, refute the statements of the Pope, and also, as it happens, those of the law officers of the crown in Italy, one of whom, Ghiglieri, when lately opening the legal year with an elaborate speech, enlarged on the increasing prevalence of crime in the Roman province since 1870—that is, since Rome became the capital. Every visitor at Rome since that date knows that “flower-girls” and other girls have only since 1870 been permitted to infest the Corso and theatres, and that Rome, though not yet as bad as Paris or London in respect to ostensible immorality, is rapidly advancing to equality in vice with rival capitals. But Mr. Gladstone is not averse to vice in certain quarters. He calls the blind Duke of Sirmoneta “able, venerable, and highly cultivated,” and contrasts him (with perfect accuracy, but rather scandalously) with the other members of the Roman aristocracy, who, according to Edmond About, have not even vice to recommend them. The Carnival of 1875 in Rome is itself an illustration of the progress of vice and of crime in what Mr. Gladstone calls the “orderly and national Italian kingdom.”
There is but space left to us to notice the deposing power, “the most familiar to Englishmen” of all the “burning questions.” And the best way to notice this question is to set before our readers the ipsissima verba of Pius IX. on the subject (as far as a translation can pretend to supply them) from the famous speech to the Academia di Religione Cattolica on July 20, 1871. The Pope said:
“But amid the variety of themes presented to you, one seems to me at present of great importance, and this is to repel the attacks by which they try to falsify the idea of the Pontifical Infallibility. Among other errors, that one is more than all others malicious which would attribute to it the right to depose sovereigns and release nations from the bond of fidelity. This right, without doubt, was sometimes in extreme circumstances exercised by pontiffs; but it has nothing to do with the Pontifical Infallibility. Nor is its source the infallibility, but the pontifical authority. The exercise, moreover, of this right, in those ages of faith which respected in the pope that which he is—namely, the Supreme Judge of Christianity—and recognized the advantages of his tribunal in the great contests of peoples and sovereigns, freely was extended (aided, also, as a duty, by the public right and by the common consent of the nations) to the gravest interests of states and of their rulers. But the present conditions are entirely different from those, and only malice can confound things so diverse—as, for instance, the infallible judgment concerning the principles of revelation—with the right which the popes exercised in virtue of their authority when the common good demanded it. As for the rest, they know it better than we, and every one can perceive the reason why they raise at present a confusion of ideas so absurd and bring upon the field hypotheses to which no one gives heed. They beg, that is, every pretext, even the most frivolous and the furthest from truth, provided it be suited to give us annoyance and to excite princes against the church. Some persons wished that I should explain and make more clear the conciliar definition. This I will not do. It is clear in itself, and has no need of further comments and explanations. Its true sense presents itself easily and obviously to whoever reads the decree with a dispassionate mind.”
Doubtless the deposing power is one of the “rusty tools” which Rome, according to Mr. Gladstone, has “refurbished and paraded anew.” But what man with a dispassionate mind can read the authentic version of the words put by Mr. Gladstone incorrectly before the public without coming to the conclusion that the “refurbishing and parading anew” of the deposing power is altogether a creation of Mr. Gladstone’s “brain-power,” and that Pius IX., so far from showing a disposition to employ again “the rusty tool,” actually manifests an intention to undervalue it and lay it aside? Some persons would “refurbish” up the deposing power by connecting it with infallibility, and the Pope denounces their attempt as absurd and malicious. The abstract right of pontiffs to depose princes and release subjects from allegiance is referred by Pius IX. not to the infallibility which would give it new lustre, but to the pontifical authority, which in olden time was strong and powerful, but which at present is scarcely recognized by the kingdoms of the world. The exercise of this right is delicately touched upon, in such a way as to suggest not the least disposition to resume the right by putting it in practice. It was indeed “sometimes, in extreme circumstances”—talvolta in supreme circostanze—exercised by popes in those times when the pontiff was acknowledged “the Supreme Judge of Christianity,” and when the Holy See, by the common consent of nations, was the tribunal to which appeal was made in the great contests of sovereigns and nations. Then indeed this right was extended to “the gravest interests of nations and of rulers”; but now all is different—“aflatto diverse.” So far from “parading anew” the abstract right, and “furbishing” it up for present use, the Holy Father indignantly repudiates the malicious allegation by declaring that the right itself was but seldom exercised in ancient times, and then only under special conditions such as are not likely to be found in modern days. “Hypotheses” may of course be imagined by those who wish “to give annoyance and excite princes against the church.” But these “hypotheses,” as the Pope remarks, are not serious. No one pays heed or attention to them. They are “ipotesi, alle quali niuno pensa.” The limits of the obedience of subjects to sovereigns are clearly set forth by Pius IX. in his address to an Austrian deputation on the 18th of June, 1871. “Submission and respect to authority are the principal duties of truly good subjects. But at the same time I must remind you,” says the Pope, “that your obedience and fidelity have a limit to be observed. Be faithful to the sovereign whom God has given to you, and obey the laws which govern you; but when necessity calls, let your obedience and fidelity not advance beyond, but be arrested at, the steps of the altar.” You have “duties to the laws as subjects, and to your consciences as Christians.” “Unite these duties well, and let your supreme rule be the holy law of God and his church.” The state of mind of that man who can find nothing in the Speeches of Pius IX. save matter for ridicule, sarcasm, and invective is not to be envied. It reminds one of the phrase employed in the consistorial “processus” for the appointment of a bishop to a diocese in which heretics usurped the churches and impeded the profession and practice of true religion: Illius status potius est deplorandus quam recensendus—It is a condition which is rather to be deplored than described.