“2. And if so, whether this excommunication be reserved to the Sovereign Pontiff?”
“The Sacred Penitentiary, having considered all that has been laid before it, and duly examined into the nature and end of this society, having referred the foregoing to our most holy lord, Pius IX., with his approbation, replies to the proposed questions as follows:
“To the first, affirmatively.
“To the second: The excommunication is incurred by the very fact, and is in a special manner reserved to the Roman Pontiff.
“Given at Rome, in the Sacred Penitentiary, August 4, 1876.
“R. Card. Monaco, for the
Grand Penitentiary.
“Hip. Canon Palombi, S. P.
Secretary.”
Such is the state of things we have to present to our readers as a
result of the triumph of Freemasonry in Italy and of the seizure of Rome: the Pope a captive; his temporal power gone; his spiritual power trammelled; his influence subject to daily attacks that aim at its destruction; and, to crown all, looming up in the distance, a possible schism, resulting from interference, patronized by the Italian government, in the future election of the Head of two hundred millions of Catholics throughout the world, whose most momentous interests are at stake. Surely nothing could be of more weight to show how impossible a thing a pope under the dominion of a sovereign is; nor could we desire anything better adapted to show the necessity of the restoration of his perfect independence in the temporal order. We believe this will be; and, as things are, we can see no other way possible than by the restoration of his temporal power; how, or when, is in the hands of divine Providence.
[86] Art. XVI. “The disposition of the civil laws with regard to the creation and the manner of existence of ecclesiastical institutions, and the alienation of their property, remains in force.” There is no mention of the exequatur being required for a bishop to plead before a court; that is, to begin to act under the provisions of Art. XVI.