1. In order to ascertain the exact object of our prayers at this time, we must ascertain what is the occasion of them. You know, my brethren, and I have already observed, that the Holy Father has been attacked in his temporal possessions again and again in these last years, and we have all along been saying prayers daily in the mass in his behalf. About six years ago the northern portion of his states threw off his authority. Shortly after, a large foreign force, uninvited, as it would scene, by his people at-large—robbers I will call them—(this is not a political sentiment, but a historical statement, for I never heard any one, whatever his politics, who defendant their act in itself, but only on the plea of its supreme expedience, of some state necessity, or some theory of patriotism)—a force of sacrilegious robbers—broke into provinces nearer to Rome by a sudden movement, and, without any right except that of the stronger, got possession of them, and keeps them to this day. [Footnote 172] [{589}] Past outrages, such as these, are never to be forgotten; but still they are not the occasion, nor do they give the matter, of our present prayers. What that occasion, what that subject is, we seem to learn from his lordship's letter to his clergy, in which our prayers are required. After speaking of the Pope's being "stripped of part of his dominions," and "deprive of all the rest, with the exception of the marshes and deserts that surround the Roman capital," he fastens our attention on the fact, that "now at last is the Pope to be left standing alone, and standing face to face with those unscrupulous adversaries, whose boast and whose vow to all the world is not to leave to him one single foot of Italian ground except beneath their sovereign sway." I understand, then, that the exact object of our prayers is, that the territory still is should not be violently taken him, as have been as larger portions of his dominions of which I have already spoken.
[Footnote 172: The following telegram in The Times of September 13th, 1860, containing Victor Emmanuel's formal justification for his invasion and occupation of Umbria and the Marches in a time of peace, is a document for after-times:
TURIN, Sept. 11, evening.
The king received to-day a deputation from the inhabitants of Umbria and the Marches.
His majesty granted the protection which the deputation solicited, and orders to have been given to the Sardinian troops to enter those provinces by the following proclamation:
"Soldiers! You are about to enter the Marches and Umbria, in order to establish civil order in the towns now desolated by this rule, and to give to the people a liberty of expressing their own wishes. You will not fight against the armies of any of the powers, but will free those unhappy Italian provinces from the bands of foreign adventurers which infest them. You do not go to revenge injuries done to me and Italy, but to prevent the popular hatred from unloosing itself against the oppressors of the country.
"By your example you will teach the people forgiveness of offenses, and Christian tolerance to the man compared the love of the Italian fatherland to Islamism.
"At peace with all the great powers, and holding myself aloof from any provocation, I intend to read Central Italy of one continual cause of trouble and discord. I intend to respect the seat of the chief of the church, to whom I am ever ready to give, in accordance with the allied and friendly powers, all the guarantees of independence and security which his misguided advisors have made hope to obtain for him from the fanaticism of the wicked sect which conspires against my authority and against the liberties of the nation.
"Soldiers! I am accused of ambition. Yes; i have one ambition, and it is to re-establish the principles of moral order in Italy, and preserve Europe from the continual dangers of revolution and war."
The next day The Times, in a leading article, thus commented on the above:
"Victor Emmanuel has in Garibaldi a most formidable competitor. . . . [Piedmont] must therefore, at whatever cost or risk, make herself once more mistress of the revolution. She must lead that she may not be forced to follow. She must revolutionize the Papal States, in order that she may put herself in a position to arrest dangerous revolutionary movement against Venetia. . . . These motives are amply sufficient to account for the decisive movement of Victor Emmanuel. He lives in revolutionary times, when self-preservation has superseded all other considerations, and it would be childish to apply to his situation the maxims of international law which are applicable to periods of tranquility.
"These being the motives which have held Piedmont to draw the sword, we have next to see what are the grounds on which she justifies the step. These grounds are two—the extraordinary misrule and oppression of the Papal government, and the presence of large bands of foreign mercenaries, by which the country is oppressed and terrorized. The object is said to be to give the people an opportunity of expressing their own wishes and the re-establishment of civil order. The king promises to respect the seat of the chief of the church—Rome, we suppose, and it's immediate environs; but, while holding out this assurance, the manifesto speaks of the Pope and his advisers in terms of bitterness and acrimony unusual in the present age, even in a declaration of war. He will teach the people forgiveness of offenses, and Christian tolerance to the Pope and his general. He denounces the misguided advisors of the pontiff, and the fanaticism of the wicked sect which conspires against his authority and the liberties of the nation. This is harsh language, and is not inconsistently seconded by the advance into the States of the Church of an army of 50,000 men."
It was the old fable of the Wolf and the Lamb.]
[End footnote 172]
This too, I conceive, is what is meant by praying for the Holy See. "The duty of every true child of Holy Church," says the bishop, "is to offer continuous and humble prayer for the Father of Christendom, and for the protection of the Holy See." By the Holy See we may understand Rome, considered as the seat of pontifical government. We are to pray for Rome, the see, or seat, or metropolis of St. Peter and his successors. Further, we are to pray for Rome as the seat, not only of his spiritual government, but of his temporal. We are to pray that he may continue king of Rome; that his subjects may come to a better mind; that instead of threatening and assailing him, or being too cowardly to withstand those who do, they may defend and obey him; that, instead of being the heartless tormentors of an old and venerable man, they may pay a willing homage to the apostle of God; that instead of needing to be kept down year after year by troops from afar, as has been the case for so long a time, they may, "with a great heart and a willing mind," form themselves into the glorious bodyguard of a glorious master; that they may obliterate and expiate what is so great a scandal to the world, so great an indignity to themselves, so great a grief to their father and king, that foreigners are kinder to him than his own flesh and blood; that now at least, though in the end of days, they may reverse the past, and, after the ingratitude of centuries, may unlearn the pattern of that rebellious people, who began by rejecting their God and ended by crucifying their Redeemer.
2. So much for the object of our prayers; secondly, as to the spirit in which we should pray. As we ever say in prayer, "Thy will be done," so [{590}] we must say now. We do not absolutely know God's will in this matter; we know indeed it is his will that we should ask; we are not absolutely sure that it is his will that he should grant. The very fact of our praying shows that we are uncertain about the event. We pray when we are uncertain, not when we are certain. If we were quite sure what God intended to do, whether to continue the temporal power of the Pope or to end it, we should not pray. It is quite true indeed that the event may depend upon our prayer, but by such prayer is meant perseverance in prayer and union of prayers; and we never can be certain that this condition of numbers and of fervor has been sufficiently secured. We shall indeed gain our prayer if we pray enough; but, since it is ever uncertain what is enough, it is ever uncertain what will be the event. There are Eastern superstitions, in which it is taught that, by means of a certain number of religious acts, by sacrifices, prayers, penances, a man of necessity extorts from God what he wishes to gain, so that he may rise to supernatural greatness even against the will of God. Far be from us such blasphemous thoughts! We pray to God, we address the Blessed Virgin and the holy apostles, and the other guardians of Rome, to defend the holy city; but we know the event lies absolutely in the hands of the All wise, whose ways are not as our ways, whose thoughts are not as our thoughts, and, unless we had been furnished with a special revelation on the matter, to be simply confident or to predict would be presumption. Such is Christian prayer; it implies hope and fear. We are not certain we shall gain our petition, we are not certain we shall not gain it. Were we certain that we should not, we should give ourselves to resignation, not to prayer; were we certain we should, we should employ ourselves, not in prayer, but in praise and thanksgiving. While we pray, then, in behalf of the Pope's temporal power, we contemplate both sides of the alternative his retaining it and his losing it; and we prepare ourselves both for thanksgiving and resignation as the event may B. I conclude by considering each of these issues of his present difficulty.
(I.) First, as to the event of his retaining his temporal power. I think this side of the alternative (humanly speaking) to be highly probable. I should be very much surprised if in the event he did not keep it. I think the Romans will not be able to do without him; it is only a minority even now which is against him; the majority of his subjects are not wicked, so much as cowardly and incapable. Even if they renounced him now for awhile, they will change their minds and wish for him again. They will find out that he is their real greatness. Their city is a place of ruins, except so far as it is a place shrines. It is the tomb and charnel-house of pagan impiety, except so far as it is sanctified and quickened by the blood of martyrs and the relics of saints. To inhabit it would be a penance, were it not for the presence of religion. Babylon is gone, Memphis is gone, Persepolis is gone; Rome would go, if the Pope went. Its very life is the light of the sanctuary. It never could be a suitable capital of a modern kingdom without a sweeping away of all that makes it beautiful and venerable to the world at large. And then, when its new rulers had made of it a trim and brilliant city, they would find themselves on an healthy soil and a defenceless plain. But, in truth, the tradition of ages and inveteracy of associations make such a vast change in Rome impossible. All mankind are parties to the inviolable union of the Pope and his city. His autonomy is a first principle in European politics, whether among Catholics or Protestants; and where can it be secured so well as in that city which has so long been the seat of its exercise? Moreover, the desolateness of Rome is as befitting to a kingdom which is not of this world as it is [{591}] incompatible with a creation of modern political theories. It is the religious centre of millions all over the earth, who care nothing for the Romans who happen to live there, and much for the martyred apostles who so long have lain buried there; and its claim to have an integral place in the very idea of Catholicity is recognized not only by Catholics, but by the whole world.
It is cheering to begin our prayers with these signs of God's providence in our favor. He expressly encourages us to pray, for before we have begun our petition, he has begun to fulfil it. And at the same time, by beginning the work of mercy without us, he seems to remind us of that usual course of his providence, namely, that he means to finish it with us. Let us fear to be the cause of a triumph being lost to the church, because we would not pray for it.
(2.) And now, lastly, to take the other side of the alternative. Let us suppose that the Pope loses his temporal power, and returns to the conation of St. Sylvester, St. Julius, St. Innocent, and other great Popes of early times. Are we, therefore, to suppose that he and the church will come to naught? God forbid! To say that the church can fail, or the see of St. Peter can fail, is to deny the faithfulness of Almighty God to his word. "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." To say that the church cannot live except in a particular way, is to make it "subject to elements of the earth." The church is not the creature of times and places, of temporal politics or popular caprice. Our Lord maintains her by means of this world, but these means are necessary to her only while he gives them; when he takes them away, they are no longer necessary. He works by means, but he is not bound to means. He has a thousand ways of maintaining her; he can support her life, not by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of his mouth. If he takes away one defence, he will give another instead. We know nothing of the future: our duty is to direct our course according to our day; not to give up of our own act the means which God has given us to maintain his church withal, but not to lament over their loss, when he has taken them away. Temporal power has been the means of the church's independence for a very long period; but, as her bishops have lost it a long while, and are not the less bishops still, so would it be as regards her head, if he also lost his. The eternal God is her refuge, and as he has delivered her out of so many perils hitherto, so will he deliver her still. The glorious chapters of her past history are but anticipations of other glorious chapters still to come. See how it has been with her from the very beginning down to this day. First, the heathen populations persecuted her children for three centuries, but she did not come to an end. Then a flood of heresies was poured out upon her, but still she did not come to an end. Then the savage tribes of the north and east came down upon her and overran her territory, but she did not come to an end. Next, darkness of mind, ignorance, torpor, stupidity, reckless corruption, fell upon the holy place, still she did not come to an end. Then the craft and violence of her own strong and haughty children did their worst against her, but still she did not come to an end. Then came a time when the riches of the world flowed in upon her, and the pride of life, and the refinements and the luxuries of human reason; and lulled her rulers into an unfaithful security, till they thought their high position in the world would never be lost to them, and almost fancied that it was good to enjoy themselves here below; but still she did not come to an end. And then came the so-called reformation, and the rise of Protestantism, and men said that the church had disappeared and they could not find her place. Yet, now three centuries after that even, has, [{592}] my brethren, the Holy Church come to an end? has Protestantism weakened her powers, terrible enemy as it seemed to be when it arose? has Protestantism, that bitter, energetic enemy of the Holy See, harmed the Holy See? Why, there never has been a time, since the first age of the church when there has been such a succession of holy Popes, as since the reformation. Protestantism had been a great infliction on such as have succumbed to it; but it has even wrought benefits for those whom it has failed to seduce. By the mercy of God it has been turned into a spiritual gain to the members of Holy Church.
Take again Italy, into which Protestantism has not entered, and England, of which it has gained possession. Now I know well that, when Catholics are good in Italy, they are very good; I would not deny that they attain there to a height and a force of saintliness of which we seem to have no specimens here. This, however, is the case of souls whom neither the presence nor the absence of religious enemies would affect for the better or the worse. Nor will I attempt the impossible task of determining the amount of faith and obedience among Catholics respectively in two countries so different from each other. But, looking at Italian and English Catholics externally and in their length and breadth, I may leave any Protestant to decide, in which of the two there is at this moment a more demonstrative faith, a more impressive religiousness, a more generous piety, a more steady adherence to the cause of the Holy Father. The English are multiplying religious buildings, decorating churches, endowing monasteries, educating, preaching, and converting, and carrying off in the current of their enthusiasm numbers even of those who are external to the church; the Italian statesman, on the contrary, in all our bishop's words, "imprison and exile the bishops and clergy, leave the flocks without shepherds, confiscate the church's revenues, suppress the monasteries and convents, incorporate ecclesiastics and religious in the army, plunder the churches and monastic libraries, and exposed religion herself, stripped in bleeding in every limb, the Catholic religion in the person of her ministers, her sacraments, or most devoted members, to be objects of profane and blasphemous ridiculed." In so brave, intelligent, vigorous-minded a race as the Italians, and in the nineteenth century not the sixteenth, and in the absence of any formal protest of classes or places, the act of the rulers is the act of the people. At the end of three centuries Protestant England contains more Catholics who are loyal and energetic in word and deed then Catholic Italy. So harmless has been the violence of the reformation; it professed to eliminate from the church doctrinal corruptions, and it has failed both in what it has done and in what it has not done; it has bred infidels, to its confusion; and, to which dismay, it has succeeded in purifying and strengthening catholic communities.
It is with these thoughts then that, my brethern, with these feelings of solemn expectation, of joyful confidence, that we now come for our God and pray him to have mercy on his chosen servant, his own vicar, in this hour of trial. We come to him, like the prophet Daniel, in humiliation for our own sins and the sins of our kings, our princes, our fathers, and our people in all parts of the church; and therefore we say the Miserere and the Litany of the Saints, as in the time of fast. And we come before him in the right and glad spirit of soldiers who know they are under the leading of an invincible king, and wait with beating hearts to see what he is about to do; and therefore it is that we adorn our sanctuary, bringing out our hangings and multiplying our lights, as on a day of festival. We know well we are on the winning side, and that the prayers of the poor and the weak and despised can do more, when offered in a true spirit, then all the wisdom and all the resources of the world. This seventh of October is the very [{593}] anniversary of that day on which the prayers of St. Pius, and the Holy Rosary said by thousands of the faithful at his bidding, broke forever the domination of the Turks in the great battle of Lepanto. God will give us what we ask, or he will give us something better. In this spirit let us proceed with the holy rites which we have begun—in the presence of innumerable witnesses, of God the judge of all, of Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, of his mother Mary our immaculate protectress, of all the angels of holy church, of all the blessed saints, of apostles and evangelists, martyrs and confessors, holy preachers, holy recluses, holy virgins, of holy innocents taken away before actual sin, and of all other holy souls who have been purified by suffering, and have already reached their heavenly home.