vituperated in this fashion. No one has ever been arrested for such a crime, and no one has ever been cited before the tribunals. The inviolability of the Holy Father, we repeat it, consists practically in the freedom with which every vagabond is permitted publicly to insult him.
3. It is a notorious fact that large bands of these miscreants have often gathered together beneath the walls of the Papal palace to load the guard stationed inside with foul language, that guard being placed there by the consent of the laws of the Guarantees to the Pope. Yet here they hurl their blasphemies and imprecations against the sanctity of the Pope, in the very hearing of the guard of honor placed there by the government, and these have never been known to discompose themselves on this account even to the extent of a gesture of disapprobation toward the rogues thus possessed by the devil. Yet woe to the wretch who should commit any such atrocity at the portals of the Quirinal, when inhabited by certain other inviolable persons in the kingdom of the Subalpinists! Therefore, once more: the inviolability of the Pontiff is practically converted into a tacit license for the lowest rabble to insult his person beneath the very portals and under the windows of the Vatican.
We might enumerate many other facts, equally well known, to demonstrate how little is the practical value of the sovereign inviolability decreed to the captive Pope; but let those already brought forward suffice. These being admitted, it will be understood that his Holiness, thanks to the distinguished privilege conferred on him by our Subalpine gentlemen, not only could not make his appearance in the streets of his own Rome without manifest risk of life, but he could not even descend to the basilica of the
Vatican to perform a sacred function, without exposing himself to contumely and insult by the very side of St. Peter’s tomb, and even on the altar itself. The occurrences of the 8th December, 1870, in the vestibule of the Pontifical residence; of the 10th March, 1871, within the Gesù; and of the 23rd, 24th, 25th August, close to the Lateran and the Church of Maria soprà Minerva, confirm what we assert.
This, then, in its veritable reality, is the present condition of Pope Pius IX. in Rome, after the oft-repeated promulgation of the law declaring him an inviolable sovereign like to the king.
Nor may the salaried apologists of our patrons treat these matters as a jest in order to exculpate themselves from so horrible an abomination. Facts are facts, while words are but breath. The most irrefutable facts prove that if our Holy Father were to show himself publicly in the Rome of to-day, uncivilized as it is by these Subalpine rulers, the treatment he would receive would be no other than such as is given alike to the clergy as to the most holy things, nay, to Christ himself, in the blessed sacrament of the altar.
Now, it cannot be denied, for the Roman journals attest it, citing days, time, places, names and surnames, that every day priests or religious, bishops or prelates, are attacked or ill-used in the most populous districts of Rome; that almost every day sacred images are stoned or profaned at the corners of the streets; and not unfrequently the adorable eucharist, when borne as a viaticum to the sick, is exposed to mockery in the public square, even by those who wear military badges; and all this occurs with the tacit consent of the officers charged with keeping order in the city, no one of whom has ever
imprisoned a single person guilty of such misdeeds. And after that they would have us believe that Pope Pius IX. would be safe either in the city or in the Vatican from the outrages or even from the blow of these most civilized gentlemen who form the new Roman people!
Be silent, as long as we live, O whited sepulchres!—race fit only to patronize assassins!