GREAT EVENTS OF THE PONTIFICATE.
The definition of two great dogmas marks the pontificate of Pius IX. and will make it memorable for ever in the annals of the church: the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mother, and of the Papal Infallibility. The last was a death-blow to schism and heresy. We do not mean that schism and heresy will die out because of it. But it roots them out of their holes; and henceforth they will know that over them hangs a voice, not often used, indeed, or idly, but which, once it has uttered its last and final and solemn decision, is irrevocable. The scenes that Rome witnessed in its last declining days as the city of the popes will dwell in the memory of men. The bishops of all the earth, in numbers unprecedented, flocking to what was vainly thought to be the rocking chair of Peter, was perhaps one of the most striking testimonies to a scoffing and unbelieving age of the immense vitality of the faith, of the vastness, the splendor, and renown of the Catholic Church. A more solemn testimony still was the joyful acceptance by the faithful of the dogma of Papal Infallibility, which, it was thought by those who knew not the Catholic faith, would rend the church asunder. The canonization of the martyrs of Japan, the thronging of the bishops and faithful to Rome on the occasion of the various jubilees, and the crowning event of last year, when all the Catholic world assisted at the celebration of the fiftieth episcopal jubilee of Pius IX., are other events that mark this great pontificate with significance and splendor. These last were as much personal tributes to the man as of respect to the supreme head of the church, and they showed, if aught were needed to show, that Pius, stripped of his dominions, bereft of his possessions, imprisoned in the Vatican, lived and reigned as, perhaps, no other pope lived and reigned in the hearts, not of a small section of his people, but of all the great church that covers the earth.
THE POPE’S PERSONAL CHARACTER.
One feature of all others marks the character of Pius IX. Personally the meekest and most yielding of men, he was always filled with the sense of his position and his sacred charge. We do not mean that as Pope he was proud, overbearing, intolerant. He was anything but that. But in all that touched the faith and the sacred prerogatives that had been placed in his pure hands he was simply inflexible. He would not yield a jot of them. He would not compromise. He would not temporize. A singularly open, honest, and frank character, ready to trust all men, he seemed to scent out danger from afar off when it threatened what was dearer to him than life—life was always a small matter in his eyes—the chair of Peter and the faith of Christ. The utterances of his bulls and encyclical letters, the speeches that he delivered, sometimes off-hand, on important subjects, bear all one tone, never contradict one another. They are resolute and bold and breathe authority throughout. He saw from the first the movement of the age, and that it was moving in a false direction. The movement was, in one word, towards a complete rejection of divine authority, of divine revelation, and consequently of the church as a divine institution, and of all authority save such as men choose to set up for themselves. From his first papal allocution to the Syllabus of Errors to be condemned, he always struck at this spirit, and this spirit recognized its vigilant foe and master. Hence the rage with which his utterances were received in the courts of Europe and by the infidel press. But he never swerved from his course. He was never weary of condemning what he knew to be wrong; and the state of public opinion to-day regarding rights that were once held as sacred even by large and powerful non-Catholic bodies is a sufficient vindication, if any were needed, of the pontiff’s course. Rights, natural and supernatural, are everywhere invaded. The cloister is desecrated. The home is threatened with disruption by divorce and an easy marriage that is no marriage. Innocent infants are no longer consecrated to God. “Free” thought finds its issue in “free” religion, and free religion means no religion. The sense of right has yielded to the sense of force. Education is handed over to infidels. This is the larger growth of the conspiracy that swept away the States of the Church only by way of a beginning to a wider sweeping that was to desolate the earth.
All this was what Pius IX. felt coming on and resisted to his last breath. He guarded the church well, and, if human judgment be allowed to follow him, he goes before his divine Master with a clean heart and untroubled conscience, having done his work thoroughly. We shall miss that majestic figure from our busy scene. We shall miss the grand old man seated prophet-like on the now bare and barren rock of Peter, the storms of the earth roaring around and threatening to overwhelm him, and he calm and unmoved, his head lifted above them clear and lovely in the white light of heaven. We shall miss the face that we all know as we know and cherish the picture of a father: with its large, bright eyes, its sweet lips, and that smile that could only come from a heart free from guile and clear from constant communings with heaven. Set the men of the age beside him, and see how they dwarf and dwindle away. Set Cavour, Louis Napoleon, Bismarck, Thiers, Palmerston, those known as the greatest among the leaders of men, by Pius IX., and what a contrast! The story of the struggle that he waged is told in this. Ages stamp themselves in the men they deify. In brutal, debased, but “civilized” pagan Rome statues were set up to men like Nero and Domitian and Claudius and Diocletian; and these were the gods of the degenerate Romans. The gods of to-day, the idols of the people, are the men we have mentioned above and the lower brood of the Mazzinis, Garibaldis, Victor Emanuels, Gambettas. To the worshippers of these heroes Pius IX. was a despot and a ruler of a brood of despots, an enemy of the human race. The gown of the cleric has become the garb of ignominy and darkness; the blood-red cap of the revolutionist the beacon of liberty and light. The intellectual stream of Voltaire and the Voltairists, the men of “science” of to-day, filters down into the mud and blood of the rabble. These dainty gentlemen prepare the dynamite, leaving others more ignorant to fire it. This is the progress that Pius IX. stigmatized, and these the lights of the age whom he condemned. But his work has been effectual. He guarded the vineyard of the Lord. He made straight its paths. He weeded it well and watered it, if not with his heart’s blood, with the labors and sufferings of a long life that never knew rest or thought but of good to the whole human race. He has left to the world the example of a life of unspotted virtue, of large and wise charity, of undaunted courage and zeal, of meekness and childlike simplicity. He goes to his grave amid the tears and benedictions of the mightiest body on earth, followed by the sorrowing sympathy of all who esteem piety, honor integrity, and admire courage.