These are the principal facts which most clearly demonstrate the state of imprisonment into which the Sovereign Pontiff was thrown, by the events of the 20th September, 1870, in his own city of Rome: and we defy all the sophistry of all the journalists, politicians, and diplomatists of the government, seated as it is in the metropolis of the Catholic world, to deny it, without denying the light of the sun at mid-day.
Besides this, that the captivity of the Holy Father has been aggravated during these fourteen months is seen and felt by every one who is not under the influence of the Subalpinists, those men who have carried their effrontery to the length of placing the centre of their government in the city of Rome itself, and with one of their laws of guaranty for the independence of the Pope have arrogated to themselves the right of imposing the future conditions of his existence in the Vatican, as if they were the rulers of the Holy See. Whoever considers the forces of moral and material hostility that these Subalpinists have accumulated in Rome against his prerogatives, cannot fail to perceive that the rights which in this city are most readily trodden under foot, are, after those of God, those of the Pope: and the person who is the most insulted therein is, after that of Christ, precisely
the person of the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IX., decreed sovereign and inviolable, by the law, as the person of the king himself.
From this it follows that the Holy Father is at the present moment the legal prisoner, in Rome, of the Subalpine government, since by the aforenamed laws, termed those of the Guarantees, not only has that government confirmed the violent spoliation of himself, but, in spite of the opinion of the world, has dared to justify the act by defining in those laws the limits of the liberty it intends to concede to him. This is neither more nor less than the usage commonly observed towards a prisoner of state or of war.
By this means, the present condition of the Pontiff in his own Rome is in truth that of the strictest imprisonment by the anti-Christian sect, headed by the government of the Subalpinists now lording it over Italy.
III.
Neither is the Holy Father, Pius IX., the prisoner of an inimical power solely on account of his civil prerogatives: it is his ecclesiastical jurisdiction that is aimed at more than anything else: while usurping the regal crown, it seeks equally to abolish the Papal tiara; and, if, after having barbarously dispossessed him of his kingdom, it does not also make a barbarous assault on the majesty of his Pontificate, this reserve arises only from the hindrance occasioned by very strong and extrinsic causes, and not from good-will or any other than a reprobate sentiment.
This profound enmity of the Subalpine rulers to the Pope as the supreme pastor of the Catholic Church is so well-known as to need no demonstration. Yet for superabundance
of proof, we will say that it is shown:
1. By all that has been previously done against Catholicity for twenty-two years past in Piedmont, and for half that time throughout the rest of Italy, by the faction to which these rulers belong—a faction whose politics are expressed by an obstinate war, sometimes of a Julianistic character, sometimes of that of a Nero—a war which attacks directly or indirectly the church itself, and all connected with it, and this in such a manner as to render it palpable that not even the Unity of Italy is desired for its own sake, but rather as a means by which to work the destruction of Catholicity and the overthrow of the Papacy.