“How many times I have heard it said that the Papacy and the Italian government, even though they never came to an agreement, might at least be like two parallel lines indefinitely and pacifically prolonged! This is a mistake arising from a judgment founded on impressions—and when I say impressions, I mean appearances.
“From the beginning, this law of Guarantees was a one-sided and fruitless attempt.... The government and the Chambers never had any doubt as to the refusal of the Pope. This law was like an olive branch presented at the point of the sword as a suitable corrective to palliate the violent occupation of Rome.... I do not think a single statesman could really have believed in the success of this law, otherwise than as the decree of the conqueror.
“Besides the moral, juridical, and historic reasons to hinder an understanding between the Pope and a sovereign master of Rome, there was also the impossibility of coexisting with a power that rests on an unstable foundation.
“Even from the point of view of modern but not subversive ideas, a separation more important than that of state and church is the separation of state and revolution.”[265]
These are golden words. But our diplomatic traveller is forced to acknowledge that the Italian government cannot break its iniquitous bonds, that it lacks honesty and force, and that all the factions seek their own good first and then the evil of others. Our author, though, unfortunately, too indifferent a spectator to Italian persecution, at least has the advantage of being an unexceptionable witness.
“Practically, it is not the state, it is society, that modern Italy separates from the church.... One of the greatest mistakes the unionists have made since the beginning of the Revolution has been the war declared against the clergy and the church. It is at once a political and historical error, and the greater for being committed at Rome.
“Tolerance (practised from time to time according to orders) has its reaction, and of the deepest die, in a recrudescence of insults, sequestrations and confiscations imposed on the ministers of the sanctuary and even the sanctuaries themselves.
“Anti-Christianity has established itself with a bold front at Rome—with its schools of free-thinkers, speeches in which atheism is proclaimed without the least reticence, burial without any religious ceremony, and irreligious books sold at low prices.
“In everything relating to teaching, the choice generally falls on the unbeliever.
“Materialism is taught ex cathedra in all the universities.