When we consider who the Sovereign Pontiff is, and consult the opinions of men famed for their foresight and statesmanship, it is difficult to deny that the restoration of the Pontiff to his rights is very possible. Napoleon Bonaparte, although he afterwards made Pius VII. his prisoner, left recorded his opinion that it was impossible that the Pope should be the subject of any one sovereign, and that it was providential the head of the church had been given the possession of a small state to secure his independence. M. Thiers, in commendation of whom we need say nothing, as his reputation is world-wide, has clearly and forcibly proclaimed this very opinion. In the debates on the temporal power in the French Senate, in 1867, his voice was heard calling on France to protect Rome, and it was his energy forced from the hypocritical government of his country the famous word, uttered by Rouher, that struck terror into Italy—"Jamais." One would imagine that now Rome has fallen, and France is reduced to the verge of desperation, no man of "liberal" political views would be foolhardy enough to risk his reputation by reiterating an opinion like this. Yet, strange to say, there is one who has been willing to run the risk, and that in the very Chamber of Deputies at Florence. Only a few weeks ago, the Deputy Toscanelli, a liberal, and, we learn, a free-thinker, with a courage, a strength of argument, and flow of wit that gained the respect and attention of the house, almost in the words of M. Thiers gave the same opinion. In the days of the last of the Medici, said the distinguished deputy, there was a court-jester riding a spirited horse down the Via Calzaioli, in Florence. The horse got the better of his rider, and started off at full speed. "Ho! Sor Fagioli," cried out one of the crowd, "where are you going to fall?" "No one knows or can know," was the jester's answer, as he held on with both hands. Just so is it with the government; it has mounted a policy that is running away with it, and neither it nor any one else knows where it is going to fall. The government has gone to Rome, and in Rome it cannot stay; it cannot hold its own face to face with the Pope. "I give you, then, this advice: leave Rome, declare it a free city under the protection of the kingdom of Italy." So much for the opinions of political men of eminence; we will examine the question for a moment on its intrinsic merits.
We know the Sovereign Pontiff in his official capacity of teacher of the whole church is infallible in declarations regarding faith or morals. But in other matters of policy, of fact, he has no guarantee against error beyond what is afforded him by the use of the means which he has at hand, the information of his advisers, and especially of the Sacred College of Cardinals. Suppose for a moment this means of information is done away with, or made a vehicle of untrue statements. Suppose unworthy men are artfully intruded on the Pope, and act in accordance with instructions received from the rulers of Italy. Imagine Italy at war or on bad terms with the United States or England. A crafty statesman sees an opportunity of putting in a position to aid him in one or the other country an able man, through the influence of some high ecclesiastic, whose good opinion will have great weight with men of standing or with the people. The whole matter is artfully carried out. There is an understanding between the Italian statesman and his American or English friend; both act cautiously and avoid alarming susceptibilities. The affair works well. Persons around the Pope are made to drop a word incidentally in praise of the virtue and ability of the one whom it is intended to raise to power. The Pope in his relations with the bishops of foreign countries, speaking of the prospects of the church in good faith, speaks also to the ecclesiastic of whom we have made mention, and in favorable terms, of the person in question. Who that knows human nature can fail to see the thorough nature of the influence thus used? The crafty originators are the ones to blame, and the harm done is effected in perfect good faith by the unconscious instruments of their design. To show we are not building on our fancy, we turn to the pages of a man whose name all revere—Cardinal Wiseman. In his Recollections of the Last Four Popes, he speaks of the character of Pius VII.:
"When no longer a monarch, but a captive—when bereft of all advice and sympathy, but pressed on close by those who, themselves probably deceived, thoroughly deceived him, he committed the one error of his life and pontificate, in 1813. For there came to him men 'of the seed of Aaron,' who could not be expected to mislead him, themselves free and moving in the busiest of the world, who showed him, through the loopholes of his prison, that world from which he was shut out, as though agitated on its surface, and to its lowest depths, through his unbendingness; the church torn to schism, and religion weakened to destruction, from what they termed his obstinacy. He who had but prayed and bent his neck to suffering was made to appear in his own eyes a harsh and cruel master, who would rather see all perish than loose his grasp on unrelenting but impotent jurisdiction.
"He yielded for a moment of conscientious alarm; he consented, though conditionally, under false but virtuous impressions, to the terms proposed to him for a new concordat. But no sooner had his upright mind discovered the error, than it nobly and successfully repaired it." (Chap. IV.)
Such are the words of a man writing after years of intercourse with the first men of Europe. They are instructive words—for human nature is ever the same. There are men still in Italy who follow out closely the principles of Macchiavelli—to whom everything sacred or profane, no matter what veneration may have surrounded it, is but the means to self-aggrandizement and the satisfaction of ambition. It is for the nations of the world to say whether they are willing to allow the existence of the permanent danger to themselves, arising from the subjection of the spiritual head of the church to any crowned head or even republic whatsoever. Perhaps, of the two, the latter would be the more to be dreaded. The Roman mobs that drove Eugenius IV. from Rome, and pelted him as he went down the Tiber, or made many another Pope seek safety in flight, could be easily gotten together again, as the present residents of the Eternal City know only too well.
We answer, then, our first query, and say that this state of things cannot last. Time, the great remedy of human ills, will solve this question, and establish the See of Peter on a perfectly independent basis—independent of all sovereign control, even if this be not done shortly through the armed interference of European powers.
It is hardly necessary to inquire whether the Italian kingdom is so firmly constituted that no hope of restoration of the Pope is to be seen. For ourselves, we think there are indications that point to a speedy dissolution of this state on the first breaking out of a war between Italy and any great power. Her policy is to avoid entangling alliances, and this she is following out, striving to propitiate the Emperor of Germany for her leaning towards France. The first army that will enter the peninsula to aid the Pope will shiver Italy to fragments. The southern provinces have too lively a recollection of the days of plenty under their kings, and too painful an impression of heavy taxation and proconsular domination of the Piedmontese race, to hesitate between submission to them and the regaining their own autonomy, which will make Naples again one of the queenly capitals of the world.
One index of the general discontent or indifference is the small number of those who vote at the elections in proportion to those who are inscribed on the electoral lists. The motto proposed by the Unità Cattolica, the foremost Catholic journal of Italy—"Neither elected nor electors"—has been adopted and acted upon by very many throughout the country. We feel no difficulty in saying that the majority of the Italians are not with the House of Savoy, nor are they in favor of United Italy. The ruling power has the government and the command of the army, a fact that quite accounts for the existing state of things.
Our third question, whether the kingdom of Italy can be brought to make restitution of the territories it has seized, without itself undergoing destruction, remains to be answered. We believe it cannot, unless half-measures—always more or less dangerous—be adopted. The late spoliation is not more criminal than the first, and no amount of plébiscite can make it legitimate, no more than—to use the words of the able editor of the Unità Cattolica—the popular approbation of the condemnation of Jesus Christ legitimized the crucifixion. The claim, then, to restitution extends to the whole of the former provinces, justly held by the Popes to supply them with the revenue needed to make them independent of the precarious contributions of the Peter Pence, and which was none too large for that purpose.
Whatever may come, we know the future of the church is in the hands of One in whose holding are the hearts of princes and peoples. What we have to do is to pray earnestly for our spiritual head, aid him by our means, console him with our sympathy, and give him whatever support, moral or other, it be in our power to offer. And while we do so, it is a joy to us to know we have lessened the grief of his hardships by what we have done hitherto, even gladdened the hours of his captivity. A few days ago, speaking to the Belgian deputation, Pius IX. said: "Belgium gives me very often proofs of her fidelity. Continue in the way in which you are walking; do not allow your courage to fail. What is happening to-day is only a trial, and the church came into existence in the midst of trials, lived always amid them, and amid them she will end her earthly career. It is our duty to battle and stand firm in the face of danger.... We have an Italian proverb which says: It is one thing to talk of dying; quite another to die. People speak very resignedly of persecutions, but sometimes it is hard to bear them. The world offers to-day a very sad spectacle, and particularly this our city of Rome, in which we see things to which our eyes have not been accustomed. Let us all pray together that God may soon deliver his church, and re-establish public order, so deeply shaken. Your efforts, your prayers, your pious pilgrimages, all tend to this end, and I therefore bless them with all my heart." May the words of the Holy Father find an echo in our hearts; let us not lose courage, but keep up our efforts, so happily begun, and never rest till wrong be righted, until we see the most sublime dignity and power on earth freed from the surroundings that would seek to make it as little as themselves.