[183] Trollope, Vol. I, pp. 216-218.
[184] Ibid., p. 220.
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.