“I!” And Phil Redmond blurted out something with reference to explanation and unfair treatment in his usual brusque way.
It was chill October, and a huge log burned in the cavernous fire-place in the banquet-hall at Coolgreny. The claret was upon the ebon-colored oak table, and round it sat no less a party than that which was assembled upon the memorable night when Phil Redmond so innocently brought the wrath of his host upon his devoted head.
“To think,” said Minchin in a state of ecstatic glow, “that we should meet here under such remarkable circumstances. Ye gods!”
“Yes,” said the O’Byrne, rising, “I wanted the same party exactly, and I have been fortunate. You all heard me swear that I would never sell a rood of Ballymacreedy, Kilnagadd, or Derralossory; but”—with a smile—“that oath does not prevent my giving them away, and, please God, when you, Father O’Doherty, unite my honest young friend Philip Redmond to my only child, he shall be restored to the lands of his fathers through his wife.”
THE BEGINNING OF THE POPE’S TEMPORAL PRINCIPALITY.
The Vicar of Jesus Christ is by virtue of his office, and by divine right, of necessity in his own person a sovereign. He is exempt from all subjection to any temporal power, and perfectly free in respect to his own person and the full exercise of his spiritual supremacy, to which kings are as much subject as other baptized persons, and nations as individuals. The right of acquiring property and domain, in a manner which does not violate any other human right, is inherent in this personal sovereignty, and carries with it all the rights of eminent domain, so that whatever is acquired in this way becomes inalienable except by a voluntary cession. The possession of actual sovereign dominion over a sufficient territory is evidently the logical and natural complement of this personal sovereignty, yet is not acquired except by some legal, human act, similar to that which subjects any given domain in particular to any other given individual or corporation. The possession of spiritual sovereignty united with the temporal dignity and power of a civil monarch is, manifestly, the most dangerous and liable to abuse of all the attributions which any individual ruler or dynasty of supreme rulers can be supposed to have received as a stable and permanent right. The danger is increased in proportion to the magnitude and duration of the spiritual empire and the political monarchy united with it. We are obliged, therefore, to believe that Jesus Christ, as the Sovereign Lord of the world, when he founded such an institution, provided efficaciously for the protection of Christian society against this danger and liability to abuse. This he could not do without exercising a special and supernatural providence over his earthly vicariate, the Papacy. Yet, according to the analogy of all other departments of the divine government, this special providence ought to be reduced to a minimum and made as little miraculous as possible, by a wise ordering of natural and secondary causes in reference to the desired effect. In point of fact, we see, from the history of the Papacy, that God has permitted it to exhibit as much of the weakness and imperfection of all human things as was consistent with the fulfilment of the end of its institution. His supernatural overruling of the natural course of events has been limited to this result. And the preservation of the Holy See from perversion by human passions into a merely earthly power, an empire of this world, has been accomplished in great part by the difficulties and struggles which have always environed the possession of the greatest of human dignities and powers—the papal sovereignty.
From Nero to Constantine the Popes were obliged to struggle with the heathen emperors in order to conquer their liberty at the cost of martyrdom. From Sylvester to Gregory the Great they were obliged to struggle with civil and ecclesiastical princes for the recognition and maintenance of their spiritual supremacy. The temporal and civil domain necessary for the stable possession and exercise of the personal, sovereign independence of the Pope as Supreme Pastor of the church was not given until its necessity became manifest. It came in the natural course of events, without violence or miracle. Its tenure was precarious and constantly disputed, and has so remained until the present day. Our present purpose is to sketch the history of the struggles by which the first Popes who were kings of Rome secured the dominion of the patrimony of St. Peter as an inalienable right recognized by the international law of Christendom.
The temporal domain of the Popes began with the natural and gradual acquisition of landed property, which in those times carried with it princely authority over the tenants and inhabitants of estates. Not only the Popes but the principal bishops in Italy and other countries became in this way dukes and counts. The sovereign rights of the emperors lapsed through a long-continued neglect to fulfil the essential duties of sovereignty, and there was no other royal power in Italy which succeeded to them in a legitimate manner. The ruling power devolved naturally upon the local princes. The Roman people turned toward the Pope as their immediate bishop; just as the people of Ravenna, Milan, Treves, Cologne, and many other cities did to their own bishop, because he was the chief of their aristocracy, and also the protector of the people, and was the only one who was both willing and able to take the place vacated by their former rulers. The Western Roman Empire ceased to exist when the Heruli under Odoacer took and sacked Rome, making themselves masters of Italy. Odoacer was in turn conquered and killed by the Ostrogoth Theodoric, who was nominally the lieutenant of the Greek emperor, but in reality conquered Italy for himself. When the empire revived under the able administration of Justinian, the kingdom of the Ostrogoths was subdued and overthrown by the great general Belisarius. A new invasion of Lombards, or Long-beards, from Germany put an end once more to the imperial dominion in Italy, with the exception of a certain part called the exarchate, which had its capital at Ravenna. The authority of the Lombard kings was very limited and precarious, and under their sway the duchies and marquisates and independent municipalities of Italy assumed that character of autonomy which made Italy ever after incapable of anything except a federative unity. The Lombards were at first Arians, but the conversion of their beautiful and accomplished queen, Theodolinda, by St. Gregory the Great was the beginning of a general reconciliation of the whole people to the Catholic Church, and of the complete extinction of the Arian heresy in Italy. The Popes never acknowledged the sovereignty of the Lombard kings over the city and duchy of Rome. The Greek exarch at Ravenna, as the representative of the emperor, was recognized as having lawful jurisdiction, and a magistrate delegated by him, called a duke, resided in Rome. The actual authority of these representatives of the ancient imperial power and of their master at Constantinople became, however, continually more and more a restricted and almost nominal formality, until it was altogether extinguished by the fall of the Greek exarchate. A few passages from the Italian historian Cantù will show in a clear and brief manner how the temporal sovereignty of the Popes in Rome resulted naturally and necessarily out of the new order of things which issued from the universal disorder and confusion that prevailed:
“At the time of the descent of the Lombards upon Italy the country lacked a head possessing general authority, and the Roman people, as well that portion of them who had been subjugated as those who were still free, had no other eminent personage to whom they could look except the Pope. He possessed immense domains in Sicily, Calabria, Apulia, the Campagna, the Sabine territory, Dalmatia, Illyria, Sardinia, in the Cottian Alps, and even in the Gauls. These domains being cultivated by farmers, he exercised over them a legal jurisdiction, appointed officers and gave orders; and, besides, his revenue enabled him to distribute succors in times of dearth, to furnish asylum to refugees, and to pay troops. After the conquest had interrupted the communications between Rome and the exarch of Ravenna, the Pope remained the de facto head of the city where he resided; he corresponded directly with the Byzantine court; made war and peace with the Lombard kings; and, moreover, by putting himself in an attitude of resistance to their conquests, he became the representative of the national party. The chair of St. Peter awaited only a pontiff who should feel all the importance and display all the dignity of his high position. Such a man was Gregory the Great” (580-603).