Pius IX. And His Time

by Æneas MacDonell Dawson

The Roman Pontiff having, by divine right, in the whole church the primacy of honor and jurisdiction, mutual communication, as regards all spiritual things, and the ecclesiastical relations of the bishops, the clergy and the people with the Holy See, shall not be subject to the necessity of obtaining the royal placet, but shall be wholly free.

In a consistorial allocution of 5th November, 1855, Pius IX. gave expression to the joy which it afforded him to have obtained, after so much tedious negotiation, such happy results. The following year, on the 17th of March, he addressed a brief to the bishops of the Austrian Empire, exhorting them to avail themselves of the spiritual independence which they had once more won, in order to guard their dioceses against the ravages of rationalism and indifference.

Difficulties in Spain and Spanish countries. Errors of Gunther.

Meanwhile, new difficulties arose in Spain and Spanish America. The government of Isabella II., regretting the good to which it had so recently been a party, commenced a new war against the church. Notwithstanding the Concordat, it exposed for sale such ecclesiastical property as was not yet sold, forbade religious communities of women to receive novices, and forcibly removed several bishops from their dioceses. The excesses were such that Pius IX. was obliged to recall his representative from Madrid. There were similar persecutions in the South American Republics and in Mexico. The congress of Mexico forbade monastic vows, banished the Archbishop of Mexico, and imprisoned the Bishop of Michoacan. Germany, at the same time, was not without its troubles. A learned theologian of the diocese of Cologne, Dr. Anthony Gunther, had allowed himself to drift from the sure ways of tradition, imperceptibly gliding into rationalism, and confounding reason and faith. His ideas had partisans in several countries of Germany. The vigilant eye of Pius IX. discovered in them germs of heresy, which it was important to check before they attained development. Gunther, on being condemned, accepted humbly the judgment of the Holy See. But there was a long contest with some of his partisans who were less pious than himself.

Pius IX. makes a progress through his States.—His popularity.

The record of Pius the Ninth's progress through his States, in 1857, is alone a sufficient reply to the calumnies of those enemies who never ceased to assert that ever since his return to Rome he had pursued a retrograde policy. Reform was always an object of his solicitude. It was with a view to improve the condition of his people that he undertook, when almost a septuagenarian, a four months' journey through the States of the Church. He travelled slowly, and sometimes on foot, in order the better to observe and ascertain the state of the provinces. All could approach him and address him freely. He visited churches, hospitals and workshops. He examined the works of the ports and the public ways. Many addresses and petitions were presented. Far, however, from asking the abolition of priestly rule, the petitioners prayed for a return to the former state of things, when cardinals and prelates only were set over the provinces. The progress of the Holy Father was a series of joyous ovations from the time that he left Rome—4th May—till his return on the 5th September. His journey was at first in the direction of Ancona, Ravenna and Bologna. He returned by way of Florence and Modena. His progress would have been crowned with success if it had only served to show the loyalty and devotedness of his people. But it was attended with still greater results. The Holy Father bestowed much time at every place in seeking, personally and through his ministers, information which became the basis of reform and improvement. Thus, as is known by the authentic accounts which have been published, many localities derived very material benefit from the Papal visit. The port of Pesaro was to be almost entirely reconstructed, the Holy Father bestowing $80,000 from his own resources. The port of Sinigaglia was also considerably improved, and a new sanitary office built. The cities of Ancona and Civita Vecchia were to be enlarged. At Bologna the High street was widened and beautified; the fine façade of the cathedral was to be completed, the Pope contributing $5,000 for fifteen years. At [pg 164] Perugia new prisons were to be constructed, and the condition of the prisoners was to be in every way improved; a liberal annual contribution was given towards preserving the splendid native collections of art. Ravenna, although long neglected and in decay, was not forgotten. Pius IX. wished to revive, as far as possible, the ancient commercial prosperity of this city, and promised $4,000 annually for ten years towards improving the port. At Ferrara many improvements were ordered, and $9,000 contributed for the completing of the Pamfilio canal. The Holy Father also appointed a commission of engineers, in order to devise a plan by which the river Reno should be turned into the Po, and an extensive tract of fertile land thus saved from periodical inundations. Funds were provided for the relief of poor sailors. Liberal grants were allotted for artesian wells, where required, and for bridges and public roads. Especially were large allowances devoted for the improvement of the highways at Pesaro, Macerata, Imola, Camerino, &c. Telegraphic communication was widely established. Prisons, hospitals and schools were special objects of the Holy Father's care. It was the duty of Monsignor de Merode, who accompanied the Pope, on arriving in any city or town, to visit the prison, enquire into everything connected with it, and report accordingly. Monsignor Talbot had commission to look to the state of charitable, industrial and educational institutions, in all of which he aided in promoting valuable reforms.

It is impossible to consider, without emotion, the reception which greeted the Holy Father in his former diocese of Spoleto. At every step proof upon proof was given of reverence and affection, which time had not diminished. Etiquette and state ceremony were laid aside. The youthful and the aged alike would see their good shepherd, and he was anxious to salute his people, and converse with them all. Many a face, familiar to him of old, was recognized with pleasure, and even names were not forgotten.

As has been seen, the days of the Holy Father's journey were not all spent in pleasurable greetings or official receptions. [pg 165] He never forgot or neglected the work of reform and improvement. Nor were such care and labor new to him. It had often been said that the Popes were hostile to all modern improvements. Why did they not favor railways? Why did they not drain the Pontine Marshes, and cause the Campagna to be cultivated? Let the labors of Pius IX. reply. A railway through the States of the Church was one of his favorite ideas, and he beheld it realized. It must have afforded him no ordinary satisfaction to see the railway which his princely care had provided now winding along the valley of the Tiber, now climbing the heights and stretching its arms across the Apennines, reaching down to the seaboard at Ancona, now passing beyond the limits of the Papal territory, and extending away to the Tuscan capital.

The uneducated or half-educated traveller, who surveys the uncultivated and malarious plains around the city of the Popes, at once discovers, in this desolation which prevails, an argument against priestly rule. With a little more information, however, he would see the ruins and the vestiges of a mighty empire, the works of which, like its conquests, were the wonder of the world. How such works came to be so successfully executed is easily understood, when it is remembered that heathen Rome commanded the wealth, the intellect, and the strong arms of many subject nations. The Popes, on the other hand, though they often tried, as did Pius IX. among the rest, to cultivate the Campagna and drain the Pontine Marshes, had so little means at their disposal, that they could never accomplish anything important. Among other difficulties that the Roman Pontiffs had to contend with, was that of obtaining an outlet towards the sea, whilst ancient Rome commanded all the seas and lands of the known world. Surely it does not require a Solomon to understand that without access to the Mediterranean, it is physically impossible to drain and cultivate such low-lying lands as the Pontine Marshes.

At Perugia the Holy Father received the kindly visit of the Archduke Charles, who came, on the part of his father [pg 166] Leopold, to compliment the Sovereign Pontiff. Archduke Maximilian, of Austria, who, at the time, little thought of a Mexican Empire, came to salute the Pope at Pesaro. Neither he nor Pius IX. had been, as yet, betrayed and abandoned by Napoleon III. The Grand Duke of Tuscany and all his family, together with the Dukes of Parma and Modena, came to pay their homage at Bologna. The Holy Father accepted their pressing invitation to visit Tuscany and Modena, the sovereigns showing publicly, in presence of their people, such reverence and devotedness as recalled the faith and loyalty of the Middle Ages. The Pope himself bears witness to the truly noble and chivalrous conduct of these provinces. “He introduced us himself into Florence,” says Pius IX., in speaking of the Grand Duke Leopold, “walking by our side, and accompanied us to every Tuscan city which we visited. All the archbishops and bishops of his States, all the clergy, the corporate bodies, the magistrates and the nobles showed their delight by testifying their devotion to us in a thousand ways. Not only at Florence, but wherever we went in Tuscany, the people from town and country, far and near, came forth to greet us, acclaiming the Chief Pontiff of the church with such ardent affection, showing such an intense desire to see him, to do him reverence, to receive his benediction, that our fatherly heart was moved to its inmost depths.” On the Holy Father's return to Rome there was high jubilee among all classes of the people a fact which the traducers of Pius IX. would do well to note, as it proves beyond a doubt how idle and ill-founded was all their clamor, to the effect that in the holy city his popularity had departed.