We heard the Civiltá, in September, foretell that when December 8 should come it would witness a splendid session. Now at last it came, a waymark noting the end of a very eventful year—eventful in the life of France, in the life of Italy, in the life of the German nation, and in that of the Papal Church. But the anniversary of the Immaculate, of the Syllabus, and of the opening of the Vatican Council, brought with it no splendid session. They who twelve months ago had met to sit in judgment on the nations were scattered, and were in various languages making strange explanations and dexterous appeals to allay the general disquiet relating to their political plans; and in doing so were creating in the minds of all who understood what they said, and who knew what they had done, an impossibility of ever hereafter trusting to representations of theirs. Meantime, without his seven hundred bishops, without his adoring crowds, without the glitter of fallen royalties and of quasi-civic dignitaries, without his beloved zouaves, yet still guarded by his stalwart and fantastic Swiss—for at that Court it is ever foreign steel that is true—the Pope, sitting in a palace of eleven thousand apartments, rich as any king, and free as any bishop in the world, yet felt and called himself a prisoner. Therefore when the day of exciting memories came, it was, says the Civiltá, spent in mourning and desolation. But a new offering to the Virgin was to raise the sacredness of December 8, even in this year of sorrow, to a higher pitch than ever. Hitherto the patron of the Holy Church had been St. Michael the Archangel, under whose spear the first rebel fell—which rebel, as some time ago we saw, prefigured the latest rebel, Garibaldi. Indeed, after Mentana, St. Michael was, as military men say, "mentioned" in the Court journal. For the Civiltá, in relating the overthrow of the Garibaldians, did not fail to note the fact that "it was on the day consecrated to the Prince of the Angelic Host, to the Patron of the Holy Church, St. Michael," that the invaders crossed the border. But now the Immaculate, who alone is terrible as an army with banners, who alone destroys all heresies, was to be further exalted, by the raising of her husband to that celestial dignity which had hitherto been borne by the great archangel. It was, say the reverend college of writers in the ruling periodical, a grand consolation that amid the mourning and desolation wherein December 8 was passed, the Decree proclaiming St. Joseph as the Patron of the Catholic Church was promulged. They add that this Decree was issued to satisfy the Fathers of the Council, and that it might be considered as a firstfruit of devotion and piety reaped from the Council. The Italians said that St. Michael, as captain of the Lord's host, had not in late years wielded the sword to the satisfaction of the authorities. Others said that the reason of the slight put upon him was simply that St. Joseph was the patron of the Company of Jesus. Others again looked no further for an explanation than to the fact that a form of religion which now—whatever was imagined and in theory professed—had in reality no standard of faith left but that of the fait accompli, would naturally seek change for the sake of rest.
Certain it is that from centre to circumference of the Papal orb, the devout were besieging the altars of those powers among whom Modern Rome distributes the affairs of that department which was by Ancient Rome assigned to Mars. In England, as the Civiltá proudly tells, was formed "The Prayer League of our Lady of Victories, entirely composed of innocent children." In Vienna the arch-confraternity of St. Michael called the citizens to a solemn novena; Belgium moved in a similar manner, and Spain on December 8 beheld the faithful thronging to the altars of Mary. "Processions and pilgrimages" added a "splendid" demonstration, in which Belgium, Germany, and the Tyrol merited particular mention. The tomb of St. Boniface was besieged with pilgrims, praying that the tomb of Peter might be redeemed from the hands of the Italian Islamite. And the tomb of Henry the Emperor Saint, "fierce defender of the rights of the Holy See," was so beset with pilgrims on the day two months after the commencement of the captivity, that the streets of Bamberg resounded with the suppliant song of eighty-two processions seeking to move the warrior saint. In Munich, after exhibiting in "functions" within the Churches "all that is grand in the Catholic cult," the clergy, the archbishop, and the devout, in crowds said to comprise all Munich, paraded the streets chanting prayers for the ransom of the Pontiff.
If St. Michael had not retained his militant position, his confraternity in Vienna, conscious of where lay the sinews of war, sent loads of Peter's Pence. So in point after point of Europe the vows and bonds assumed in favour of Peter's Pence by fresh associations from Holland to Portugal, and from England to Hungary, are recorded. In England it was to the ladies that the "work" of raising Peter's Pence was assigned. The ladies of Vienna claimed it, the ladies of Madrid followed the example. And a valiant meeting in Belfast, and a meeting in Galway, resolved largely to swell the tide of Peter's Pence. The Catholic clubs joined in the movement, not only to console the Holy Father, but to condemn "the guilty policy of spoliation." Italy was grievously complained of for having dealt, by law, with certain Catholic Associations as political bodies, committing offences against the nation. But the great and splendid "work" of the Pence of Peter is not enough. The meetings and manifestoes are equally necessary, and of the manifestoes the spirit is breathed in these words, addressed to governments: "Do us justice; or if not, to shake you out of your indifference, we shall avail ourselves of every means which the law allows."
One brave claim of German Catholics is this: "As loyal subjects we demand that our rights and our interests shall be protected even in the territories of the Church." And politicians, knowing these things, will say and write that men moved from a foreign centre to make such claims of intervention on their governments are as good subjects as other men! They well know that such an agitation raised in the midst of a mortal struggle, if it succeeds, plunges the nation into a second war; and even if it does not succeed, diverts the nation from its own defence, and tends to divide it. But these German patriots say that they will embrace every opportunity that arises of pressing such rights as those above indicated upon their governments, by the Press, by "councils," by meetings, and especially by sending men to Parliament who will have courage to take up the Catholic cause. The Civiltá characterizes this language as the proclamation "of a vigorous, a continued, and a legal struggle against all governments which do not care for the cause of the Pontiff." "What the law allows," would, in the mind of many an honest Catholic, mean the law of the land; but on how many of such men could reliance be placed when, after all had been done which the law of the land allowed, they were instructed by sacred lips that when it contradicted the "divine" law it ceased to be binding, and that then the law in the case was God's law, which was whatever the Church declared it to be?
Geneva was made a chosen centre of activity, and the names of great and famous personages were paraded. While the ultimate ends to be aimed at were fitly expressed as "reinstating the Holy Father in his temporal sovereignty, and re-establishing the social reign of the gospel," the proximate ends were, to move the heart of Christ to mercy by pilgrimages and prayers, to act upon governments, to excite opinion by the Press, and to procure for the Pope means. Fifty meetings in the middle of December in the diocese of Fulda alone, while Germany was in the crisis of the war; the object of those meetings being to plunge her into a war with Italy! Indeed, it seemed to the Civiltá as if, awoke from the slumber of ages by the prayers of the Catholics around his tomb, St. Boniface had gone out anew upon his apostolic pilgrimage, to rouse up the ancient devotion of the people to the Holy See.[481]
One new society, which has not its name specified, is said to be already a great one. It is composed of all who had borne arms in the crusade of Pius IX. From Holland to Marseilles, from Canada to the Tyrol, they had bound themselves together in a common bond. We are not left in doubt as to what that bond might be. Indeed, we are told that "what it is cannot be obscure; their former enterprise makes it clear." To us the former enterprise would make the means clear—namely, war; but not so clear the end. They formerly warred to avert the fall of the temporal power. Were they now to go to war for the immediate and local object of "reinstating the Holy Father," and at the same time for the ulterior and world-conquering object of "re-establishing the social reign of the gospel"; that is, of forming the world into Spiritual States, or at least into States under the spiritual reign of the clergy? The object is prudently veiled in vague language, but language clear enough for the instructed; "full of warlike ardour in a meeting of Dutch and Belgians at Lovaine, they said that the aim of their union was to meet the future wants of the Church, was to conquer all the forces of impiety."[482] But even in the language put into the lips of soldiers, and into the resolutions of public meetings, the object is never defined so as to limit it to restoring the temporal power, and generally a wide object beyond that narrow one is allowed to transpire. When old crusaders undertake with "warlike ardour" to meet the future wants of the Church, we may divine of what kind her future wants are to be; and when such men undertake to conquer all the forces of impiety, we may expect a social reign of the gospel, ushered in by the zouaves—such a social reign of it as some of the spiritual princes of the Continent re-established when, after their Spiritual States had been shaken by the Reformation, Catholic leagues reinstated the prince-bishops in power. As to England, the Civiltá, at a date subsequent to notices already alluded to, names the Duke of Norfolk as heading a protest against the occupation of Rome from the noblest of the nation; Lord Campden and "Giorgio Clifford" as leading a universal subscription of English youth; the ladies as conducting the "work" of Peter's Pence; R. Martin as forming a league of prayer for persons of all grades; and Warteton (sic) as instituting "the crusade for Pius IX, a league of our Lady of Victories entirely composed of children."[483] How many British children are learning in this much-mentioned league by the inspirations of our Lady of Victories, to covet their baptism of fire in the projected crusade, we do not know, nor yet how they are to be taught to select the particular branch of the "forces of impiety" against which their first arms are to be proved. But, says the Civiltá—
there will be a struggle, there will be travails, there will be sorrows. But the victory is in their [the Catholics'] hands: of this the proof more than manifest is found in eighteen centuries of continuous combats and victories of Catholicism. As the great Matthias, indignant because before his eyes an officer of the king dared to burn incense to an idol, rose up crying, "Let him that is true to the law follow me," and commenced those grand struggles and grand victories of the Maccabees which are known to all, so the most fervent Catholics, indignant and horrified at the capture of Rome, pointing out the Revolution, in the meetings at Fulda and at Malines, at Ghent and at Geneva, as the cause of so much evil, as the enemy of Christ and of His Vicar, cried, "Let all that are Catholics at heart rise up and follow us in the fight." Their cry has been heard, and the general crusade is already begun.[484]
The development of the general crusade has been slower than the seers in their many Maccabean visions saw; but at the end of six years all the preparations for it are in progress, and the two-fold end is steadily kept in view: first, Rome is to receive back the Pope at the point of the bayonet; and secondly, the whole world is to accept "the social reign of the gospel" at the point of the bayonet too, unless nations, being timely wise, bow the neck and lick the dust where marches the Vicar of God. So man proposes. But since the day in 1850 when, as we heard at the beginning, a "salutary conspiracy and a holy crusade" were formally announced as the two things needful, much that man astutely planned and firmly proposed has not come to pass according to man's design, but has been strangely turned to the purposes of a clearer wisdom, and a kinder will. Even the monument in the cemetery of St. Lorenzo to the Crusaders, which exhibits Peter, under the effigy of Pio Nono, giving the sword to the Christian army, and commanding it to make a Catholic world, now bears, in addition to its texts from the Maccabees, a fresh inscription: "Ransomed Rome leaves to posterity, as a lasting sign of calamitous times, this monument, erected by the theocratic government to foreign mercenaries."
On the last day of 1870—that year of which the echoes will sound all down the vale of time, repeating the cry, "Man proposes but God disposes"—a strange sound was heard in Rome. Floods had brought sorrow into the city. Victor Emmanuel left Florence, and at four o'clock in the morning of December 31, for the first time, as king in his capital, set foot in Rome. In its sovereigns the city was familiar with titles of Saints, of Great, of Holiness, and of Blessedness, and with ancient titles noting many a shade of skill and power. But there was a title which was not only unknown, but seemed alien to all the traditions that had gathered around the place from the days of Sulla and of Catiline till now. As the burly king, amid the frantic joy which had marked his brief visit, was about to enter the carriage to return, a little girl approached with a nosegay of fair flowers, and said: "Take this, King Honest Man!"
If with the expiring hours of 1870 the reign of Craft died in Rome, and that of Honesty began, it would mark the mightiest of all the modern revolutions.