Another article in the first volume of the Civiltá gives such expression to the principles which underlie the whole struggle ever since conducted, that some account of it will do more to put the reader in possession of certain of those principles than formal explanations. It is on the central question of the relations of Church and State; or, as the Civiltá puts it, of the separation of Church and State—a phrase which, like almost every other, has a different meaning in its pages from what it has with us. The following headings give an idea of the drift of the article: "6. The nation is a part of the Church." "7. The part ought to be subordinate to the whole." "8. Because the Church has authority." "9. The authority of jurisdiction."[18]
I believe in the holy Catholic Church, in the Apostles' Creed, is thus interpreted: "I believe that every Catholic individual and nation forms a part of the Catholic society, and that only by virtue of its being a part does it partake of the benefit of the whole, through being subordinated to the laws of the whole."
On the point of jurisdiction, the writer first unearths "the serpent," which is the notion that the Church may judge about sins, virtues, doctrines, rites, and such-like, but must not touch temporal jurisdiction. This serpent he proceeds to kill. First, he solemnly appeals to the faith of the reader. "Do you believe that the Church is infallible in dogmatic Bulls, at least, unless they are formally rejected by the episcopate?" After this, he resorts to pleasantry: "Come close to me, and I will tell it in your ear. The Bull of John XXII condemned John Gianduno and Marsilius of Padua as heretics, because they denied to the Church the right of punishing by corporal pains, and it declared that she could inflict pains even unto death.[19] But I tell you this in secret, solely that you may know what is the doctrine of the Catholic Church, which you profess—doctrine put in practice through very many centuries, down to the last Council (Trent), which fulminated I know not how many penalties, and material ones, even against counts, marquises, princes, and emperors. Woe to us if they should hear us!" Thus jauntily did those who had only just been reinstated by foreign arms treat the neo-Catholic doctrine, or, as it has since been called, the Liberal Catholic one. "I tell you plainly," adds the writer, "that if the Church cannot rule her sons, even in material things, the Church is lost; at least, the Catholic Church. She might survive as that invisible Church which was discovered by Luther among the ruins of the middle ages, and, reconstructed as the amphitherium and palæotherium, were discovered in the geological strata, and reconstructed by Cuvier."
Addressing kings, the writer solemnly counsels them to bring forth all their codes, and pass them under a careful examination. But the light by which such examination is to be conducted must be that "of pure Catholicism, to which all other legislation must be subordinated. Restore every article of your code, according to the articles of your creed, not only in what relates to the duties of subjects, but also in what would seem to diminish the rights of rulers. And that the Catholic influence, which modifies codes, may shine in all its fulness, let it not be ministers or legists, but bishops and the Pontiff, who shall minutely search into your legislation for every anti-Catholic element."
The theocratic Papal polity might have been almost intentionally framed to contrast with the first principles of the Mosaic theocratic polity. The latter, put in one word, seems to be this: God as the general Father is the great right-holder, and He identifies the rights of every creature with His own, identifying at the same time their welfare with His own glory. Therefore He leaves no creature to the care of a Vicar, no province to any departmental divinity. Every act done for the benefit of our fellow-creatures He reckons as a tribute to Himself. Every infringement of their rights He treats as an offence against Himself. Every man was taught to see, not an abstract principle, but a great Father standing beside the gleaning widow, the supperless hireling, the pauper forced to pawn, and having no second coat—was taught to hear this common Father saying for these to happier neighbours, "I am the Lord." Every man tempted to lie, cheat, steal, oppress, seduce, or strike, saw the same great Father rising up against him, and saying, "I am the Lord."
It was of the essence of this theocracy that all who held authority did so by and under a written law in the vulgar tongue. Of this law every father in his own house was made the guardian, and in it he was the responsible instructor of his children. Every prophet professing that he bore a fresh message was to be brought to the test of this written law. Those who were to apply the test were the men of the whole community. Every one who claimed to bear a special commission was bound first to conform to the law, and secondly, to show signs of special divine power. It was a theocracy of direct divine government, not of government by a Vicar; a theocracy of written law, not of arbitrary will styling itself authority; a theocracy of private judgment, not of a veda shut up from the low caste, to be read and interpreted only by the twice-born Brahman. Finally, it was a theocracy in which whatever came from God became its own witness by benefits to God's children not to be mistaken, and obvious to all.
The statement made in the Civiltá as to the guidance under which the reactionary policy in Austria was devised, gives light upon the duties then engrossing nuncios and confessors at the various Courts where Papal influence was powerful. All that appeared to the world was, that at every one of those Courts a cold current of reaction set in and ran strong. The Jesuits took it for a tide, and the bark of St. Peter was to sail cheerily over all the shoals. But the Liberal Catholics were proportionably disquieted as to the prospects of the Church. The first days of Pius IX had fired them with hope that Rome might yet be fit to face three things of which she was shy—the Bible, History, and Freedom. But the advent of the Jesuits to power caused serious forebodings, which soon began to be realized. To quote the memorable words of Montalembert, "Who could have thought that the clergy, after crying out for liberty in Belgium, would turn round as they did in 1852, till we found them beating down all our liberties and privileges—in fact, all our ideas—as held in times preceding Napoleon III?"[20]
We now find that at the time when the Pontiff was using his clergy to help kings in taking away constitutional rights from their subjects, he was himself preparing to take from the kings what they indeed looked upon as rights, but what he regarded in the light of constitutional concessions, infringing the higher rights of their divinely appointed suzerain. When the Italian government took possession of the Collegio Romano, it was found that the Jesuits had left in the great library of the establishment little belonging to the present pontificate. One pamphlet is of some significance. A manuscript note on the title-page proudly tells how his Holiness wished to have it circulated as widely as possible. It also adds that on February 1, 1853, when the fathers of the Collegio Romano stood before his Holiness, he singled out the author, Father Camillo Tarquini, in presence of the other Jesuits and of the Court, and addressed him thus: "Father Tarquini, I am delighted; bravo! well done! I confirm it, and confirm it with all my heart."[21] This was an early foretoken of the purple in which Tarquini died. He is the writer to whom Cardinal Manning appeals, as softening the doctrine of Bellarmine and Suarez to a temper fitter for our times. The pamphlet signalized by this display of favour aims at proving the wickedness of kings in subjecting the bulls, briefs, or any acts whatever of the Pope, to a placet, exequatur, or other form of royal assent, before recognizing them as having the force of law in their States. This is one form of the error of regalism.