The Congress of Verona, in 1822, took some notice of these revolted countries; but the European powers did not all agree to receive them into the family of nations by a formal recognition, and it is well known that the views expressed in that assembly gave rise on the part of the President of the United States to a declaration of policy which has been called the Monroe Doctrine.[214] The Holy See, having sublimer interests to deal with, could not act as indifferently in this matter as other governments, which looked only to temporal advantage, and wrangled over old systems of public policy regardless of recent events. By the quixotic obstinacy of Spain the South American republics suffered much inconvenience, particularly in point of religion, because Rome could not provide for their spiritual wants without risking an open rupture with his Catholic Majesty—such were royal pretensions of restricting the exercise of papal rights, even in merely nominal dominions.[215]
During the latter part of Pius VII.’s pontificate the government of Chili sent one of its distinguished citizens, the Archdeacon Don José Cienfuegos, envoy to Rome, with instructions to try to establish direct ecclesiastical relations between the Holy See and Santiago, the capital of his country. He arrived there on August 22, 1822, and was well received, but only in his spiritual capacity. The pope would not recognize him as a political agent. On the 7th of September following the Holy Father addressed a brief to the Bishop of Merida de Maracaybo, in which he expressed himself solicitous for the spiritual necessities of his children in those far-distant parts of America, and intimated his ardent desire to relieve them. A little later he formed a special congregation of six cardinals, presided over by Della Genga, who became his successor as Leo XII.; and after mature deliberation on the religious affairs in the ex-viceroyalties of Spain, it was determined to send a mission to Chili, that country being chosen for the honor as having made the first advances. This measure so displeased the Spanish government that the nuncio Monsignor—afterwards Cardinal—Giustiniani was dismissed; and although he was soon after permitted to return, the wound inflicted upon him left its sting behind, for, coming very near to the number of votes requisite to election in the conclave after Pius VIII.’s death, the court of Madrid barred his fortune by the exercise of that odious privilege called the Esclusiva; the ground of his exclusion from the Papacy being supposed at Rome to have been his participation in the appointment of bishops to South America. The right (?) of veto expires with its exercise once in each conclave; and Cardinal Cappellari (Gregory XVI.), who, as we shall see, had the most to do with these episcopal nominations, was elected pope.
The choice of a vicar-apostolic for the Chilian mission fell upon Prof. Ostini (later nuncio to Brazil and a cardinal), who, after having accepted the position, saw fit suddenly to decline it for reasons best known to himself. In his stead Don Giovanni Muzi, then attached to the nunciature at Vienna, was selected, and, having been recalled to Rome, was consecrated Archbishop of Philippi in partibus infidelium,[216] with orders to proceed immediately to Santiago. The mission, of which we shall speak more particularly hereafter, embarked on October 4, 1823, and reached Rome on its return the 7th of July, 1825.
Leo XII. succeeded Pius VII. In 1824 the republic of Colombia sent Don Ignacio Texada to Rome with an application for bishops and apostolic vicars in that immense region; but the Spanish ambassador, Chevalier Vargas, a haughty diplomate, brimful of Españolismo, went to the pope and demanded his dismissal. This was refused. The envoy had come for spiritual interests, not on political grounds; and the Spaniard could not convince Leo that the rebel’s argument—by which he asked no more than that species of indirect recognition granted by the Holy See, under Innocent X. and Alexander VII., to the house of Braganza when it forced Portugal from under Spanish rule—was not a good one and founded on precedent. Nevertheless, Texada returned to Bologna, and finally withdrew altogether from the Papal States. He had some fine qualities, but lacked discretion in speech, which was a fault very injurious to his position. Harpocrates is still the great god of diplomacy the world over. This state of things was embarrassing. Spain had refused to recognize the independence of her many provinces in the New World, although she had ceased practically even to disturb them. The king, who was somewhat of a Marquis de Carabas, claimed all his old rights over them, and, among them, that of episcopal presentation. Cardinal Wiseman, who was an attentive observer of these times, remarks—very properly, we think—that even if such a power could be still called legal, “it would have been quite unreasonable to expect that the free republics would acknowledge the jurisdiction of the country which declared itself at war with them.” This was a clear case in which allegiance should follow protection. After a prudent delay, Leo thought it his duty to represent energetically to the Spanish government the inconvenience he suffered from the existing state of affairs, and the impossibility of his viewing with indifference a condition in which the faithful, long deprived of pastors, were urgently asking for bishops for the vacant sees. Yet His Holiness had taken no decisive step, but called upon his majesty either to reduce his transatlantic subjects to obedience or to leave him free to provide as best he could for the necessities of the church. In the consistory of May 21, 1827, the pope, after protesting that he could not any longer in conscience delay his duty to Spanish America, proceeded to nominate bishops for more than six dioceses in those parts. Madrid was, of course, displeased, although it was twelve years since the government had lost even the shadow of authority there, and at first refused to receive the new nuncio, Tiberi.[217] At this juncture Pedro Gomez de Labrador was sent from Spain expressly to defeat the measure; but although “acknowledged by all parties, and especially by the diplomatic body in Rome, to be one of the most able and accomplished statesmen in Europe, yet he could not carry his point” against the quiet and monk-like Cardinal Cappellari, who was deputed by the pope to meet him. In the allocution pronounced by Labbrador before the Sacred College, assembled in conclave to elect a successor to Leo, he made an allusion to the ever-recurring subject of the revolted Americans; but although done with tact, it grated on the ears of many as too persistently and, under the circumstances, unreasonably put forward.
The discussion between the courts of Rome and Madrid was not renewed during the brief pontificate of Pius VIII.; but in the encyclical letter announcing his election there is a delicate reference to the affair which, although not expressly named, will be perceived by those who are acquainted with the questions of that day. Comte de Maistre says somewhere that if a parish be left without a priest for thirty years, the people will worship—the pigs; and although the absence of a bishop from his diocese for such a length of time might not induce a similar result, yet the faithful would drop, perhaps, into a Presbyterian form of church government and be lost. The veteran statesman Cardinal Consalvi evidently thought so, as we see by the fourth point, which treats of Spanish America, in the conference that he was invited to hold with Leo XII. on the most important interests of the Holy See.[218] When, therefore, Gregory XVI.—who, as Cardinal Cappellari; had not been a stranger to the long dispute—became pope, he ended the matter promptly and for ever. In his first consistory, held in February, 1831, he filled a number of vacant sees and erected new ones where required in South America. On the 31st of August following he published the apostolic constitution “Solicitudo Ecclesiarum,” in which he explained the reasons why the Holy See, in order to be able to govern the universal church, whose interests are paramount to all local disputes, recognizes de facto governments, without intending by this to confer a new right, detract from any legitimate claim, or decide upon de jure questions. The republics of New Granada[219] (1835), Ecuador (1838), and Chili (1840) were subsequently recognized with all the solemnities of international law.
In the last-named country there were two episcopal sees during the Spanish dominion. These were Santiago and Concepcion, both subject to the Metropolitan of Lima; but Gregory rearranged the Chilian episcopate, making the first see an archbishopric, with Concepcion, La Serena, and San Carlos de Ancud (in the island of Chiloe) for suffragan sees.
At the time that the apostolic mission to South America was determined upon, there was living in Rome a young ecclesiastic as yet “to fortune and to fame unknown,” but who was destined to become the first pope who has ever been across the Atlantic, and the foremost man of the XIXth century. This was Don Giovanni Mastai-Ferretti, one of the fourteen canons of the collegiate church of Santa Maria in Via Lata. He was selected by Pius VII. to accompany Mgr. Muzi as adjunct. The secretary of the apostolic delegation was a priest named Giuseppe Sallusti, who wrote a full narrative of the expedition, in which, as Cardinal Wiseman says, “The minutest details are related with the good-humored garrulity of a new traveller, who to habits of business and practical acquaintance with graver matters unites, as is common in the South, a dash of comic humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous, and withal a charming simplicity and freshness of mind, which render the book amusing as well as instructive, in spite of its heavy quotations from that lightest of poets, Metastasio.”[220] It is in 4 vols. 8vo, with a map. Comparatively only a small portion of the work is taken up with the actual voyages and travels of the party, the rest being devoted to the preliminaries or causes of the mission, to a description of Chili, and an account of the many missionary establishments which had once flourished, as well as of those that were still maintained, there. A fifth volume was promised by the author to contain the documents, official acts, and results of the mission; but we believe that it was never published. The vicar-apostolic having received, at the earnest solicitation of a learned ecclesiastic from the Argentine Confederation, Rev. Dr. Pacheco, very ample faculties not only for the country to which he was more immediately accredited, but also for Buenos Ayres, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, and all other parts of the ex-Spanish dominions, and accompanied by the envoy Cienfuegos and Father Raymond Arce, a young Dominican belonging to Santiago, the party left Rome for Bologna, where it rested awhile to get a foretaste of the magnificent scenes in the New World from Father T. de Molina, who had long resided in Chili. The next stage in the journey was to Genoa, the port of embarkation, which was reached only on the 17th of July; but, “by a series of almost ludicrous delays,” the expedition was detained until after the death of Pius VII. and the election of his successor, Leo XII., who confirmed the mission and addressed a brief to the president[221] of the Chilian Republic, recommending its objects and the welfare of its members.
All matters being now satisfactorily arranged, the party got on board the fine French-built brig Eloysa on the 11th of October, 1823. The vessel sailed under Sardinian colors, and was manned by a crew of thirty-four men, and officered by experienced sailors, the captain, Anthony Copello, having several times navigated the South Atlantic. The weather was very rough, as usual, in the Gulf of Lyons; “and gurly grew the sea,” to the dismay and discomfiture of the terrified landsmen, “Mastai,” as Sallusti familiarly calls his companion, suffering horribly from sickness. This was but the beginning of many trials, and even some serious dangers, amidst which we can well imagine that the captain would have been glad beyond measure if any one had hinted at the very special Providence that guarded his ship, by quoting the famous words, “Quid times? Cæsarem vehis et fortunam ejus!” Soon the Eloysa approached the coast of Catalonia, down which she sailed at the rate of ten knots an hour, until struck by a furious southwest hurricane, the libeccio so much dreaded in the Mediterranean, which threatened destruction to all and everything in its course. To a landsman like Sallusti the storms encountered on this voyage would naturally appear worse than they really were, and his frequent account of “waves mountain-high” and “imminent shipwreck” would perhaps sound like “yarns” to an old tar. He delights in describing the Eloysa as
“Uplifted on the surge, to heaven she flies,
Her shattered top half buried in the skies”