In spite of the grave condition of the Catholic world, the ill-concealed spread of liberal ideas among the educated, and the spurts of rebellion throughout Europe, the cardinals met the new danger with as little wisdom as their predecessors had confronted the Reformation. The three Conclaves which were held within eight years of the death of Pius VII. were marred by the old wrangles of parties and ambitions of individuals, and they issued in the election of entirely unsuitable Popes. The Papacy allied itself with the monarchs in an effort to stifle the growing modern spirit, and imitated their unscrupulous methods. Leo XII. and Gregory XVI., at least, left behind them records at which modern sentiment shudders. Yet they showed as little appreciation as Louis XVIII. or Charles X. of the irresistible development through which Europe was passing, and there seem to be whole centuries of evolution between their acts and announcements and those of Leo XIII.
Cardinal della Ganga, who became Leo XII. at the death of Pius, was a deeply religious and narrow-minded man who achieved much moral and social reform in his dominions, yet his death in 1829 was, says Baron Bunsen, hailed at Rome "with indecent joy." His despotic Puritan measures angered his subjects, and his gross injustice to the Jews and fierce persecution of the Carbonari and Liberals fed the growing Italian hatred of the Papacy. Pius VIII. (1829-30) was a milder Zelante and had won—a singular distinction for a Pope in such a crisis—some repute in canon law and numismatics. He was nearly seventy years old, and his Secretary of State, the disreputable Albani, was over eighty. The revolutionary movement of 1830 completed his afflictions, and a Roman wag proposed as his epitaph: "He was born: he wept: he died."[352] Then came the longer Pontificate of Gregory XVI., the chief events of which will pass before us as we review the earlier career of Pius IX. Gregory was a pious, narrow-minded Camaldulese monk. Like his predecessor, he was well versed in canon law and as ill fitted as a man could be to rule in the nineteenth century. He left the repression of the rebels to his Secretary of State Lambruschini, and said his beads, and ate sweetmeats at merry little gatherings of cardinals, while Young Italy marched nobly to the scaffold and its brilliant writers opened the eyes of the world to the foul condition of the Papal States.
Gregory died on June 1, 1846, dimly foreseeing an age of revolution, and reform was now the great issue before the Conclave. The late Pope's supporters put forward the truculent Lambruschini, but from the first Cardinal Mastai-Ferretti was conspicuous in the voting, and on the second day of the Conclave he was elected by thirty-seven out of fifty votes. It was useless any longer to ignore that appalling indictment of abuses, corruption, and incompetence which the Italian writers were circulating throughout Europe. The cardinals chose a reformer: a man who was at times described even as a Liberal.
Giovanni Maria Gianbattista Pietro Pellegrino Isidoro Mastai-Ferretti—the name reflects the piety of his mother—was then fifty-four years old. He had been born at Sinigaglia on May 13, 1792, of parents who belonged to the small provincial nobility. He was sent to school at Volterra, and he is variously described by fellow-pupils who took opposite sides in the fierce conflict of his later years as a pale, pure little angel of marvellous industry, and as a sickly, epileptic little idler with the reputation, Trollope says, of being "the biggest liar in the school."[353] He seems to have been a delicate, handsome, undistinguished pupil of proper character. His virtuous mother wished him to become a priest, and he received the tonsure at Volterra in 1809. In October he was sent to continue his studies at Rome, and for some months he lived in the Quirinal, in charge of an uncle who was a canon of St. Peter's. They were related to Pius VII. and were favoured. The French invasion of 1810 drove them back to Sinigaglia, and Giovanni was summoned for service in the Noble Guard of the Viceroy of Italy. His epileptic tendency was successfully pleaded for exemption, and he returned to Rome in 1814. It seems, however, that he was not deeply religious, and he applied for service in the Papal Guard rather than for orders.[354] His fits closed the military service of the Pope against him, and, on the letter of the law, should equally exclude him from the clergy. He became very depressed and morose, but Pius VII. strained the regulations in favour of his young relative. He was to receive ordination on condition that he never said mass without an assistant. In 1819 he became a priest, and made the small progress which a distant relative of the Pope might expect. In 1823 he accompanied a Papal representative to Chile, and the voyage probably strengthened his constitution. Pius VII. died during his absence from Rome, but as Giovanni's protector, Cardinal della Ganga, became Pope, he returned to favour at Rome. He received a canonry, the administration of the Hospital of St. Michael, and (in 1827) the archbishopric of Spoleto.
It is clear that the young Archbishop did excellent work at Spoleto, and we must read with discretion the statements of his less temperate critics. His predecessor had been idle and worthless, and Mastai-Ferretti applied himself with zeal, judgment, and success to the reform of clergy and laity. In 1829 Leo XII., his patron, died, and Pius VIII. entered upon his short and futile Pontificate. Gregory XVI., who succeeded him, at once met the blasts of the Revolution of 1830. The outbreak at Rome was suppressed, but the revolutionaries captured Bologna and brought about a dangerous agitation throughout Italy. Mastai-Ferretti is said to have been compelled to fly from Spoleto, but his actions and attitude at this time are not wholly clear. Austrian troops suppressed the Revolution, and Gregory entered upon that truculent crusade against the Liberals and their claims which diverted England from its new alliance with the Papacy and even shocked Metternich. When the Austrians compelled him to take the Secretaryship of State from Cardinal Bernetti, he bestowed it on the more intemperate Cardinal Lambruschini, and the struggle with the Carbonari and the Young Italians continued. In his Encyclical Mirari Vos (August 15, 1832) Gregory pledged the Papacy to a stern refusal of the democratic reforms which the new Europe demanded.
Mastai-Ferretti had meantime (February 16, 1832) been removed to the bishopric of Imola: a more profitable see and a recognized path to higher honours. His amiable and conciliatory character inclined him to meet the more moderate Liberals with ease, though he does not seem to have made any profound study of the political development of his time. When Cardinal Lambruschini condemned scientific associations, the Bishop of Imola is reported to have commented that he saw no inconsistency between science and religion. On these safe and innocuous expressions the Bishop won a repute for "Liberalism" among the more reactionary members of the Curia, and Gregory XVI. long hesitated to raise him to the cardinalate. He was an exemplary bishop, and in the reform of education and of philanthropic institutions he performed no slight social service, which may have attracted the esteem of the more moderate Liberals. He was admitted to the Sacred College on December 14, 1840, and continued for six years to direct his diocese and encourage those temperate reforms which most of his colleagues were too indolent or too prejudiced to favour. The condition of the Church was again becoming critical. The Carbonari were weakened and dispersed in Italy, but Mazzini had begun to lead "the Youth of Italy" to a more open and more heretical attack on Austria and the Papacy, while high-minded and humanitarian priests like Gioberti, Ventura, and Rosmini in Italy, and Lamennais in France, were, in varying degrees, looking to a Catholic Liberalism to ease the pressure of the growing popular revolt. Gregory XVI. and his advisers regarded the entire Liberal movement, in every shade, as a sinful and temporary aberration. They passed the most drastic laws for its suppression: the prisons of Italy were distended with their victims: yet their orthodox militia, the Sanfedisti, had to wage a perpetual and bitter struggle against the spreading revolt.
We who look back on this painful travail of the birth of democracy are at times unduly impatient with idealists who failed to recognize its promise at the time. Not merely ecclesiastical statesmen, but heterodox observers and sons of the people like Carlyle, looked upon the new movement as an emanation from the pit, a menace to society. But most biographers pass to the opposite extreme when they conceive Pius IX. as judiciously studying the demands of the age, realizing that a moderate measure of democracy and liberty was just and inevitable, and then renouncing his Liberal faith when he saw the excesses of the democrats. For this there is no documentary support. Pius was amiable, accessible, and anxious to please all: he was neither a statesman nor an economist, and had not a firm judgment of the European situation. He was disposed to see justice in the semi-Liberalism of Gioberti or Ventura, and disposed the next day to listen to the Mephistophelean counsels of Metternich. Europe was to him a world in which a large number of thoughtful people demanded reforms which were consistent with the political and religious supremacy of the Papacy, and he was disposed to favour and indulge them. He failed to realize, until 1848, that the firm and consistent demands of the new age were inconsistent with Papal supremacy. But he clearly disliked the mediæval policy of the Curia and he was regarded with hope by the reformers within the fold. It was they who greeted his election in June, 1846. The more radical Italians did not want a reforming Pope, because they did not want a Papacy.
Pius was crowned on June 21st, and at once turned to what he would regard as "democratic" measures. He gave dowries to a thousand poor girls, and decreed that all pledges in the Monte di Pietà which were less in value than two lire should be returned to their owners. On July 16th he declared a general amnesty of political prisoners, and the Romans flocked to the Quirinal to cheer their handsome and courageous Pope, and demonstrations of joy resounded throughout Italy. The amnesty was in reality conditional: the released prisoners and returning exiles were to promise not again to "disturb the public order." However, there was at the time no severe application of the condition, and Pius continued in his reforming mood. That he had no serious leaning to Liberalism he made abundantly clear to the more thoughtful before the end of the year. On November 9th he issued an Encyclical in which he condemned Bible Societies, secret political societies, critics of the Church, license of the press, and so on.[355] The Radicals still mingled with the crowds below his balcony and flattered him. Some, no doubt, had the idea that he might be induced to go farther; but Mazzini and others have revealed that they astutely used these demonstrations to educate the people in larger demands and provoke a more serious revolt. Pius threw open his garden to the public on certain days, opened night schools and Sunday schools, re-opened the Accademia dei Lincei (for the promotion of science), and discussed plans of railways for Italy. He was in a patriarchal mood which came near to social idealism. Journals multiplied, and clubs became active: especially the Circolo Romano, which gradually came under the influence of a prosperous and very radical publican from the Trastevere, Angelo Brunetti, nicknamed "little Cicero" (Ciceruacchio) for his demagogic eloquence. The dreamy Christian Liberals, Gioberti and Ventura, gave the not very penetrating Pope the idea that he was going to make a model State of Papal Italy and, through it, to lead the world on the new upward path.
The Radicals encouraged the clouds of incense which obscured the Pope's vision, and he listened gravely to the requests for representative government. On April 19, 1847, he proposed a Consulto di Stato: a council composed of laymen from the various provinces—all carefully selected by the clergy and gravely reminded that their business was merely to offer suggestions. In July he formed a Civic Guard for Rome: in November he inaugurated a scheme of municipal administration for Rome: and at the close of December he formed a ministry—of cardinals and other clerical dignitaries. By this time, however, Pius had become perplexed and suspicious. Cardinal Gizzi, his Secretary of State, resigned, the Gregorian cardinals frowned, and the Austrians complained of his concessions. There was a banquet in Rome to Cobden, and there was a very noisy and triumphant banquet to Ciceruacchio. The Pope forbade popular demonstrations, yet he perceived daily that his concessions did nothing to appease the popular appetite. The Italians demanded elected, lay officers.
To make matters worse for the Pope the Austrians advanced against the Papal States. The difference was adjusted, but from the summer of 1847 hostility to Austria increased rapidly, and the people demanded an efficient Papal army to resist them. When, on February 8th, the news came of the third French Revolution, the agitators, who had now complete influence, became bolder. Ciceruacchio himself, supported by the Liberal Princes Corsini and Borghese, saw the Pope, and demanded war on Austria and democratic institutions. At sight of the massive and resolute crowds which supported them, the Pope promised a lay ministry and a more efficient army; but on the following day he, addressing the crowd in patriarchal terms, complained of the excessive demands of a "minority" among them and protested that the Papacy needed no war on Austria, as the Catholic Powers would protect it. The Radical leaders saw his weakness, and under their steady pressure he began to make his famous concessions to democracy. A new ministry, with lay nobles in most of the positions, was formed in March, the Jesuits were advised to leave Rome, the ancient walls and restrictions of the Ghetto were abolished, and a constitution was granted. The members of the Lower Chamber were to be elected, but the College of Cardinals would have a veto on the proceedings of both houses, and they could not discuss ecclesiastical or "mixed" affairs: a very grave restriction in a theocratic State.