Chapter 14

Meantime Consalvi had won back the Papal States (except Avignon and Venaissin and a strip of Ferrara) at the Vienna Congress, and had returned to moderate the excesses of the reactionary Pacca. Consalvi had no liberal sentiments, but he had intelligence. At least half of the educated Italians were Freethinkers, and the secret society of theCarbonarispread over the country, ferociously combatted by the orthodoxSanfedisti. Italy entered on what the wits called the long struggle of the "cats" and the "dogs": a rife period for brigands. Consalvi, in spite of Pacca and theZelanti, compromised. He retained many of the Napoleonic reforms, though, when the Spanish revolution of 1820 had its revolutionary echoes all over Italy, he drew nearer to the Holy Alliance for the bloody extirpation of liberalism. Rome prospered once more, and artists and princes flocked to it, but Pius VII. must have felt in his last years that the soil of Europe still heaved and shuddered.

The relations of the Quirinal[351]with other countries were restored in some measure, in face of stern opposition. A new Concordat with France was signed in 1817, but the Legislative Assembly refused to pass it and it did not come into force before the death of Pius. Spain set up a régime of truculent orthodoxy under the sanguinary rule of Ferdinand, and the Revolution of 1820 was crushed for him by the French. Austria made no new Concordat and retained much of the Febronian temper. Prussia signed a favourable Concordat in 1821. Bavaria came to an agreement in 1817, but the liberals defeated it; and Naples and Sardinia were ruled in the spirit of the Holy Alliance. William I. sought a Concordat for the Netherlands, though without result: England endeavoured to bring about an agreement in regard to the Irish bishops, which was defeated by the Irish: and the dioceses of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, Richmond, and Cincinnati were set up in America.

I do not enter into closer detail, as we recognize in all this work the hand of Consalvi rather than of Pius. The aged Pope continued to rejoice over every symptom, or apparent symptom, of religious recovery, and to miscalculate his age. Even the revolution of 1820 failed to shake orthodox security and led only to a more truculent persecution of the new spirit. Pius had now passed his eightieth year and could not be expected to see what neither Metternich nor Consalvi could see. In the summer of 1823 he fell into his last illness. As he sank, men noticed that he was murmuring "Savona, Fontainebleau," but he died praying quietly on August 17th. It was a strange fate that put Barnaba Luigi Chiaramonti on a throne in such an age. Whatever church-lore he may have had, he confronted the problems of his age with dim and feeble intelligence, and he was at times, when there was no Pacca or Consalvi to guide him, induced to make concessions which are not consistent with the fond title of "martyr-Pope." He was a good Bishop of Imola.

FOOTNOTES:[336]It is not true that Clement abstained from passing judgment on the Society; nor, on the other hand, need we regard seriously the statement that he was poisoned by the ex-Jesuits. See the author'sCandid History of the Jesuits, pp. 355 and 368.[337]In Austria the movement was called Febronianism, as it had begun with a work (De Statu Ecclesiæ) published in 1763 by Johann von Hontheim under the pseudonym of "Febronius." Hontheim had learned Gallican sentiments at Louvain. Joseph II. had wisely and firmly adopted the chief principles of the school: religious toleration, restriction of the interference of the Popes, and control of ecclesiastical property.[338]Petrucelli della Gattina'sHistoire diplomatique des Conclaves, 4 vols., 1864-6.[339]The chief source of our knowledge of the earlier years of Pius is the sketch of his life by Artaud de Montor. Cardinal Wiseman (another eulogist) covers the ground in the early chapters of hisRecollections of the Last Four Popes(1858). Dr. E.L.T. Henke'sPapst Pius VII.(1860) is an excellent impartial study, while D. Bertolotti'sVita di Papa Pio VII.(1881) is less scholarly, and Mary Allies'Pius the Seventhis rather a tract than an historical study. The Pope's relations with Napoleon (after the coronation) are minutely, though far from impartially, studied in H. Welschinger'sLe Pape et l'Empereur(1905) and Father Ilario Rinieri'sNapoleone e Pio VII.(2 vols., 1906): both make some use of unpublished documents. See also F. Rinieri'sIl Concordato tra Pio VII. e il Primo Console(1902). The Pope's Bulls are in theBullarii Romani Continuatio(ed. Barberi, vols. xi.-xv). Contemporary documents abound, and one need mention only the Memoirs of Consalvi, Pacca, and Talleyrand, and theCorrespondance de Napoleon I.Special studies will be quoted later. Dr. F. Nielsen'sHistory of the Papacy in the Nineteenth Century(2 vols., 1906) is the best recent study of the period of Pius VII. to Pius IX.; it is scholarly and impartial.[340]February 9, 1801.[341]This Pius entirely failed to prevent. See Father Leo Koenig'sPius VII.: Die Sakularisation und das Reichskonkordat(1904).[342]Consalvi's Memoirs are naturally prejudiced, and not reliable. Theiner'sHistoire des deux Concordats(1869) and Séché'sLes Origines du Concordat(1894) are carefully documented.[343]Correspondance de Napoleon I., xi., 642.[344]Ibid., xii., 477.[345]Memorie, i., 68.[346]Pacca relates that the English sent a friar to say that they had a frigate ready to take away the Pope and his secretary. Such were the relations of Rome and England.[347]L'Église Romaine et le Premier Empire, 5 vols., 1868-1870.[348]Le Pape et l'Empereur(1905), pp. 177-196.[349]SeeRinieri, pp. 165 and 166.[350]By the BriefCatholicæ Fidei, March 7, 1801.[351]Almost the only mention of the Vatican at this period is that in 1807 Pius had it prepared for the reception of Napoleon!

FOOTNOTES:

[336]It is not true that Clement abstained from passing judgment on the Society; nor, on the other hand, need we regard seriously the statement that he was poisoned by the ex-Jesuits. See the author'sCandid History of the Jesuits, pp. 355 and 368.

[337]In Austria the movement was called Febronianism, as it had begun with a work (De Statu Ecclesiæ) published in 1763 by Johann von Hontheim under the pseudonym of "Febronius." Hontheim had learned Gallican sentiments at Louvain. Joseph II. had wisely and firmly adopted the chief principles of the school: religious toleration, restriction of the interference of the Popes, and control of ecclesiastical property.

[338]Petrucelli della Gattina'sHistoire diplomatique des Conclaves, 4 vols., 1864-6.

[339]The chief source of our knowledge of the earlier years of Pius is the sketch of his life by Artaud de Montor. Cardinal Wiseman (another eulogist) covers the ground in the early chapters of hisRecollections of the Last Four Popes(1858). Dr. E.L.T. Henke'sPapst Pius VII.(1860) is an excellent impartial study, while D. Bertolotti'sVita di Papa Pio VII.(1881) is less scholarly, and Mary Allies'Pius the Seventhis rather a tract than an historical study. The Pope's relations with Napoleon (after the coronation) are minutely, though far from impartially, studied in H. Welschinger'sLe Pape et l'Empereur(1905) and Father Ilario Rinieri'sNapoleone e Pio VII.(2 vols., 1906): both make some use of unpublished documents. See also F. Rinieri'sIl Concordato tra Pio VII. e il Primo Console(1902). The Pope's Bulls are in theBullarii Romani Continuatio(ed. Barberi, vols. xi.-xv). Contemporary documents abound, and one need mention only the Memoirs of Consalvi, Pacca, and Talleyrand, and theCorrespondance de Napoleon I.Special studies will be quoted later. Dr. F. Nielsen'sHistory of the Papacy in the Nineteenth Century(2 vols., 1906) is the best recent study of the period of Pius VII. to Pius IX.; it is scholarly and impartial.

[340]February 9, 1801.

[341]This Pius entirely failed to prevent. See Father Leo Koenig'sPius VII.: Die Sakularisation und das Reichskonkordat(1904).

[342]Consalvi's Memoirs are naturally prejudiced, and not reliable. Theiner'sHistoire des deux Concordats(1869) and Séché'sLes Origines du Concordat(1894) are carefully documented.

[343]Correspondance de Napoleon I., xi., 642.

[344]Ibid., xii., 477.

[345]Memorie, i., 68.

[346]Pacca relates that the English sent a friar to say that they had a frigate ready to take away the Pope and his secretary. Such were the relations of Rome and England.

[347]L'Église Romaine et le Premier Empire, 5 vols., 1868-1870.

[348]Le Pape et l'Empereur(1905), pp. 177-196.

[349]SeeRinieri, pp. 165 and 166.

[350]By the BriefCatholicæ Fidei, March 7, 1801.

[351]Almost the only mention of the Vatican at this period is that in 1807 Pius had it prepared for the reception of Napoleon!

CHAPTER XIX

PIUS IX.

Inspite of the grave condition of the Catholic world, the ill-concealed spread of liberal ideas among the educated, and the spurts of rebellion throughout Europe, the cardinals met the new danger with as little wisdom as their predecessors had confronted the Reformation. The three Conclaves which were held within eight years of the death of Pius VII. were marred by the old wrangles of parties and ambitions of individuals, and they issued in the election of entirely unsuitable Popes. The Papacy allied itself with the monarchs in an effort to stifle the growing modern spirit, and imitated their unscrupulous methods. Leo XII. and Gregory XVI., at least, left behind them records at which modern sentiment shudders. Yet they showed as little appreciation as Louis XVIII. or Charles X. of the irresistible development through which Europe was passing, and there seem to be whole centuries of evolution between their acts and announcements and those of Leo XIII.

Cardinal della Ganga, who became Leo XII. at the death of Pius, was a deeply religious and narrow-minded man who achieved much moral and social reform in his dominions, yet his death in 1829 was, says Baron Bunsen, hailed at Rome "with indecent joy." His despotic Puritan measures angered his subjects, and his grossinjustice to the Jews and fierce persecution of the Carbonari and Liberals fed the growing Italian hatred of the Papacy. Pius VIII. (1829-30) was a milderZelanteand had won—a singular distinction for a Pope in such a crisis—some repute in canon law and numismatics. He was nearly seventy years old, and his Secretary of State, the disreputable Albani, was over eighty. The revolutionary movement of 1830 completed his afflictions, and a Roman wag proposed as his epitaph: "He was born: he wept: he died."[352]Then came the longer Pontificate of Gregory XVI., the chief events of which will pass before us as we review the earlier career of Pius IX. Gregory was a pious, narrow-minded Camaldulese monk. Like his predecessor, he was well versed in canon law and as ill fitted as a man could be to rule in the nineteenth century. He left the repression of the rebels to his Secretary of State Lambruschini, and said his beads, and ate sweetmeats at merry little gatherings of cardinals, while Young Italy marched nobly to the scaffold and its brilliant writers opened the eyes of the world to the foul condition of the Papal States.

Gregory died on June 1, 1846, dimly foreseeing an age of revolution, and reform was now the great issue before the Conclave. The late Pope's supporters put forward the truculent Lambruschini, but from the first Cardinal Mastai-Ferretti was conspicuous in the voting, and on the second day of the Conclave he was elected by thirty-seven out of fifty votes. It was useless any longer to ignore that appalling indictment of abuses,corruption, and incompetence which the Italian writers were circulating throughout Europe. The cardinals chose a reformer: a man who was at times described even as a Liberal.

Giovanni Maria Gianbattista Pietro Pellegrino Isidoro Mastai-Ferretti—the name reflects the piety of his mother—was then fifty-four years old. He had been born at Sinigaglia on May 13, 1792, of parents who belonged to the small provincial nobility. He was sent to school at Volterra, and he is variously described by fellow-pupils who took opposite sides in the fierce conflict of his later years as a pale, pure little angel of marvellous industry, and as a sickly, epileptic little idler with the reputation, Trollope says, of being "the biggest liar in the school."[353]He seems to have been a delicate, handsome, undistinguished pupil of proper character. His virtuous mother wished him to become a priest, and he received the tonsure at Volterra in 1809. In October he was sent to continue his studies at Rome,and for some months he lived in the Quirinal, in charge of an uncle who was a canon of St. Peter's. They were related to Pius VII. and were favoured. The French invasion of 1810 drove them back to Sinigaglia, and Giovanni was summoned for service in the Noble Guard of the Viceroy of Italy. His epileptic tendency was successfully pleaded for exemption, and he returned to Rome in 1814. It seems, however, that he was not deeply religious, and he applied for service in the Papal Guard rather than for orders.[354]His fits closed the military service of the Pope against him, and, on the letter of the law, should equally exclude him from the clergy. He became very depressed and morose, but Pius VII. strained the regulations in favour of his young relative. He was to receive ordination on condition that he never said mass without an assistant. In 1819 he became a priest, and made the small progress which a distant relative of the Pope might expect. In 1823 he accompanied a Papal representative to Chile, and the voyage probably strengthened his constitution. Pius VII. died during his absence from Rome, but as Giovanni's protector, Cardinal della Ganga, became Pope, he returned to favour at Rome. He received a canonry, the administration of the Hospital of St. Michael, and (in 1827) the archbishopric of Spoleto.

It is clear that the young Archbishop did excellent work at Spoleto, and we must read with discretion the statements of his less temperate critics. His predecessor had been idle and worthless, and Mastai-Ferretti applied himself with zeal, judgment, and success to the reform of clergy and laity. In 1829 Leo XII., hispatron, died, and Pius VIII. entered upon his short and futile Pontificate. Gregory XVI., who succeeded him, at once met the blasts of the Revolution of 1830. The outbreak at Rome was suppressed, but the revolutionaries captured Bologna and brought about a dangerous agitation throughout Italy. Mastai-Ferretti is said to have been compelled to fly from Spoleto, but his actions and attitude at this time are not wholly clear. Austrian troops suppressed the Revolution, and Gregory entered upon that truculent crusade against the Liberals and their claims which diverted England from its new alliance with the Papacy and even shocked Metternich. When the Austrians compelled him to take the Secretaryship of State from Cardinal Bernetti, he bestowed it on the more intemperate Cardinal Lambruschini, and the struggle with the Carbonari and the Young Italians continued. In his EncyclicalMirari Vos(August 15, 1832) Gregory pledged the Papacy to a stern refusal of the democratic reforms which the new Europe demanded.

Mastai-Ferretti had meantime (February 16, 1832) been removed to the bishopric of Imola: a more profitable see and a recognized path to higher honours. His amiable and conciliatory character inclined him to meet the more moderate Liberals with ease, though he does not seem to have made any profound study of the political development of his time. When Cardinal Lambruschini condemned scientific associations, the Bishop of Imola is reported to have commented that he saw no inconsistency between science and religion. On these safe and innocuous expressions the Bishop won a repute for "Liberalism" among the more reactionary members of the Curia, and Gregory XVI. long hesitated to raise him to the cardinalate. He was an exemplarybishop, and in the reform of education and of philanthropic institutions he performed no slight social service, which may have attracted the esteem of the more moderate Liberals. He was admitted to the Sacred College on December 14, 1840, and continued for six years to direct his diocese and encourage those temperate reforms which most of his colleagues were too indolent or too prejudiced to favour. The condition of the Church was again becoming critical. The Carbonari were weakened and dispersed in Italy, but Mazzini had begun to lead "the Youth of Italy" to a more open and more heretical attack on Austria and the Papacy, while high-minded and humanitarian priests like Gioberti, Ventura, and Rosmini in Italy, and Lamennais in France, were, in varying degrees, looking to a Catholic Liberalism to ease the pressure of the growing popular revolt. Gregory XVI. and his advisers regarded the entire Liberal movement, in every shade, as a sinful and temporary aberration. They passed the most drastic laws for its suppression: the prisons of Italy were distended with their victims: yet their orthodox militia, the Sanfedisti, had to wage a perpetual and bitter struggle against the spreading revolt.

We who look back on this painful travail of the birth of democracy are at times unduly impatient with idealists who failed to recognize its promise at the time. Not merely ecclesiastical statesmen, but heterodox observers and sons of the people like Carlyle, looked upon the new movement as an emanation from the pit, a menace to society. But most biographers pass to the opposite extreme when they conceive Pius IX. as judiciously studying the demands of the age, realizing that a moderate measure of democracy and liberty was just and inevitable, and then renouncing his Liberalfaith when he saw the excesses of the democrats. For this there is no documentary support. Pius was amiable, accessible, and anxious to please all: he was neither a statesman nor an economist, and had not a firm judgment of the European situation. He was disposed to see justice in the semi-Liberalism of Gioberti or Ventura, and disposed the next day to listen to the Mephistophelean counsels of Metternich. Europe was to him a world in which a large number of thoughtful people demanded reforms which were consistent with the political and religious supremacy of the Papacy, and he was disposed to favour and indulge them. He failed to realize, until 1848, that the firm and consistent demands of the new age were inconsistent with Papal supremacy. But he clearly disliked the mediæval policy of the Curia and he was regarded with hope by the reformers within the fold. It was they who greeted his election in June, 1846. The more radical Italians did not want a reforming Pope, because they did not want a Papacy.

Pius was crowned on June 21st, and at once turned to what he would regard as "democratic" measures. He gave dowries to a thousand poor girls, and decreed that all pledges in the Monte di Pietà which were less in value than two lire should be returned to their owners. On July 16th he declared a general amnesty of political prisoners, and the Romans flocked to the Quirinal to cheer their handsome and courageous Pope, and demonstrations of joy resounded throughout Italy. The amnesty was in reality conditional: the released prisoners and returning exiles were to promise not again to "disturb the public order." However, there was at the time no severe application of the condition, and Pius continued in his reforming mood. That he had noserious leaning to Liberalism he made abundantly clear to the more thoughtful before the end of the year. On November 9th he issued an Encyclical in which he condemned Bible Societies, secret political societies, critics of the Church, license of the press, and so on.[355]The Radicals still mingled with the crowds below his balcony and flattered him. Some, no doubt, had the idea that he might be induced to go farther; but Mazzini and others have revealed that they astutely used these demonstrations to educate the people in larger demands and provoke a more serious revolt. Pius threw open his garden to the public on certain days, opened night schools and Sunday schools, re-opened the Accademia dei Lincei (for the promotion of science), and discussed plans of railways for Italy. He was in a patriarchal mood which came near to social idealism. Journals multiplied, and clubs became active: especially the Circolo Romano, which gradually came under the influence of a prosperous and very radical publican from the Trastevere, Angelo Brunetti, nicknamed "little Cicero" (Ciceruacchio) for his demagogic eloquence. The dreamy Christian Liberals, Gioberti and Ventura, gave the not very penetrating Pope the idea that he was going to make a model State of Papal Italy and, through it, to lead the world on the new upward path.

The Radicals encouraged the clouds of incense which obscured the Pope's vision, and he listened gravely to the requests for representative government. On April 19, 1847, he proposed a Consulto di Stato: a council composed of laymen from the various provinces—all carefully selected by the clergy and gravely reminded that their business was merely to offer suggestions. In July he formed a Civic Guard for Rome: in November he inaugurated a scheme of municipal administration for Rome: and at the close of December he formed a ministry—of cardinals and other clerical dignitaries. By this time, however, Pius had become perplexed and suspicious. Cardinal Gizzi, his Secretary of State, resigned, the Gregorian cardinals frowned, and the Austrians complained of his concessions. There was a banquet in Rome to Cobden, and there was a very noisy and triumphant banquet to Ciceruacchio. The Pope forbade popular demonstrations, yet he perceived daily that his concessions did nothing to appease the popular appetite. The Italians demanded elected, lay officers.

To make matters worse for the Pope the Austrians advanced against the Papal States. The difference was adjusted, but from the summer of 1847 hostility to Austria increased rapidly, and the people demanded an efficient Papal army to resist them. When, on February 8th, the news came of the third French Revolution, the agitators, who had now complete influence, became bolder. Ciceruacchio himself, supported by the Liberal Princes Corsini and Borghese, saw the Pope, and demanded war on Austria and democratic institutions. At sight of the massive and resolute crowds which supported them, the Pope promised a lay ministry and a more efficient army; but on the following day he, addressing the crowd in patriarchal terms, complained of the excessive demands of a "minority" among them and protested that the Papacy needed no war on Austria, as the Catholic Powers would protect it. The Radical leaders saw his weakness, and under their steady pressure he began to make his famous concessions to democracy. A new ministry, with lay nobles in most of the positions, was formed in March, the Jesuits were advised to leave Rome, the ancientwalls and restrictions of the Ghetto were abolished, and a constitution was granted. The members of the Lower Chamber were to be elected, but the College of Cardinals would have a veto on the proceedings of both houses, and they could not discuss ecclesiastical or "mixed" affairs: a very grave restriction in a theocratic State.

The Radicals now concentrated the people on the cry of war with Austria, and on that issue the Pope fell. The Papal troops had crossed the frontier in support of the Sardinians, and, as Pius refused to declare war, the Austrians treated them as brigands. The meetings in Rome became more and more violent, the new ministry resigned, and, as Pius still refused to declare war, a second ministry handed in its resignation. The summer and autumn of 1848 passed in this struggle. Pius insisted that war was not consistent with his religious character, and all Rome united in opposing him. In November, at the suggestion of Rosmini, the Pope ordered Pellegrino Rossi to form a new ministry. Rossi, a friend of Napoleon III., was hated by the Radicals, and his dream of a union of Italian princes under the Pope's direction conflicted with their plan of a united and free Italy. He was assassinated on November 15th, and on the following day a vast crowd, partly armed, marched to the Quirinal and peremptorily laid down their claims. In the confusion a prelate at one of the windows was shot, and the Pope, seeing the Roman Guard mingling with the crowd, abjectly surrendered, and retired to disavow his concession and prepare for flight. The situation was very grave, and the action of the Pope was far from heroic. It is not a maxim of the higher morality that you may evade an angry crowd by making promises that you do not intend tofulfil, or that you may afterwards discover that such promises were void.

The sequel is well-known. With the assistance of the foreign ambassadors the Pope, disguised as a simple priest, fled to Gaeta. So great was his concern that when the King of Naples, warned of his flight, came the next day and inquired for the Pope, the officials at Gaeta were quite unaware that Pius had been amongst them for twenty-four hours. The cardinals gathered about him, and he appealed to the Catholic Powers to restore his authority and suppress the rebels. It is not an entirely accurate analysis to say that the Pope's "Liberalism" now ended, and he became a reactionary. He had been duped by the Radicals and had never understood his subjects. A feeble and carefully controlled lay representation, with neither legislative nor executive power, was not a part of the Liberal creed. Pius IX. was never a Liberal. He was from the first unwilling to surrender the absolute authority of the clergy, to grant freedom of discussion, to abolish the monstrous growth of clerical officialdom, or to apply a fitting proportion of the income of the Papal States to their effective military defence. When he saw that even moderate Liberals demanded these things, he recognized that he had never been in agreement with them, and that his own half-measures were of no value. He now further recognized that the advanced Liberals had captured his people, and he turned, quite logically, to a policy of oppression. There was no material change of his political faith.

From Gaeta he appointed a "governing commission" (under a cardinal) for Rome, and, when the people refused it and set up a Republic, he placidly entrusted his case to France, Spain, Naples, and Sardinia, anddevoted himself to the preparation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Rosmini was still with him, urging compromise with the democrats, but the somewhat unscrupulous Cardinal Antonelli, who now became Secretary of State, astutely destroyed the influence of the reformer, and confirmed Pius in his attitude of defiance and repression. Even when the French troops—apparently thinking that they could seduce the Romans to admit them in peace and could then compel the Pope to adopt a conciliatory policy—crushed the Roman Republic, and re-opened the gates to the Pope, Pius did not hasten to return. On September 4th he left Gaeta for Portici, and it was not until April 12, 1850, that he returned to the Quirinal. The crowd ironically applaudedPio Nono Secondo.

The Pope had replied to the French appeals for a promise of reform that it was not consistent with his dignity to make promises under apparent pressure, but he had consented to the creation of new political institutions. From Portici he promised a new Consiglio di Stato, a Consiglio dei Ministri, and a Consulta di Stato. These were wholly under clerical control, and the elections for the District Councils, the only bodies which were to have free popular representatives, were soon suppressed. But there is little need to dwell on the second phase of Papal government under Pius IX. Cardinal Antonelli and the Jesuits had a paramount influence, and the dream of enlightenment and self-government was roughly dissipated. Between 1850 and 1855 the Roman Council alone passed ninety sentences of death, and the prisons were again thickly populated; while the disorders of finance and administration, and the appalling illiteracy of the people in an age of advancing education, were scrupulously maintained. The scandal which in later years followed the death of Antonelli—the spectacle of his natural daughter struggling for his vast fortune, though he was a son of the people—sufficiently disclosed the character of that able and indelicate minister, while the Jesuits were not unmindful that the first act of the revolution had been to expel them. They had sent some of their abler representatives to Gaeta, and from that time they had a deep influence on the ecclesiastical policy of the Pope, while Antonelli ruled the Papal States and offered what Lord Clarendon called a "scandal to Europe." Within little over a year of the Pope's return there were more than 8000 political prisoners in the Papal jails, while the ignorant people were oppressed by heavy taxes and an army of clerical officials.

It is probable that Pius IX. had no clearer perception of the state of Europe and Italy after the revolution of 1849 than he had had in the earlier years. He devoted his attention to spiritual matters and listened, in temporal concerns, to the suave assurances of Antonelli. This pacified Europe was to be weaned from its bad dreams by a cult of the Sacred Heart, devotion to the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and so on. His first important act (September 29, 1850) was to re-establish the hierarchy in England, to the great alarm and anger of the English Protestants. England had quickly lost its passing sympathy with the Papacy, and English travellers took home dreadful accounts of the condition of the Papal States. The Pope does not seem to have been acquainted either with the disgust of the English at the state of his dominion or with the fact that the apparent restoration of the old faith in England meant little more than a vast immigration from famine-stricken Ireland.

He then applied himself to securing the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. From Gaeta in 1849, while Mazzini and his colleagues ruled Rome and Antonelli struggled with the representatives of the rival Catholic Powers for his restoration, Pius had sent out some five hundred letters to the bishops of the world, inviting their opinion on the doctrine. It had long passed the stage of being a disputed academic thesis, and most of the replies were favourable. The Jesuits, who had become the special protagonists of the doctrine, fostered the native piety of the Pope, and on December 8, 1854, it became a dogma of the Church.[356]

In 1857 made a tour of the Italian provinces. His chief purpose was to visit the Holy House of Loretto, but the intriguers of the Quirinal used the opportunity to enhance the Pope's illusion that only a few negligible fanatics quarrelled with the Papal government. In the previous year the diplomatists assembled at the Congress of Paris had censured that government in the most violent terms and demanded reform. It is hardly likely that their comments were put before the Pope, and care was taken that his reception in the provinces should flatter his genial love of popularity. Inconvenient petitioners were refused access to him, and the clergy and more devout laity greeted him with applause. Gregorovius, who was then in Rome, notes in hisDiarythat Pius returned to the Quirinal full of joy; and a few years later the inhabitants of these provinces would vote, by an overwhelming majority, for the abolition of the Papal government.

In the following year the graver development ofItalian politics began. Napoleon III., whose protection of the corrupt Papal system had infuriated the Liberals, met Cavour secretly at Plombières and agreed, in case of attack by Austria, to help the King of Sardinia in his ambition; his reward would be the provinces of Nice and Savoy. The attempt by Orsini in the following January to assassinate Napoleon did not help the diplomatists of the Vatican, as Cavour plausibly urged that the tyranny of the Papal States was responsible for the rebels who were scattered over Europe, and the struggle for the unity of Italy went on from year to year. The war between Sardinia and Austria broke out in the spring of 1859, and Austria was defeated at Magenta and retired from the Legations. These provinces were resolutely opposed to a return of clerical government, and Cavour, whose monarch was not yet prepared for war on the Papacy, sent one representative after another to persuade the Pope to permit the appointment of lay rulers of Parma, Modena, Tuscany, and Romagna, under his suzerainty. Antonelli and Pius refused to make the least concession to the rebels, nor were the provincials disposed to assent to such a settlement. After some months of insurgence and bloody repression, a plebiscite was organized in the Legations (March 11, 1860) and an overwhelming majority voted for incorporation in the kingdom of Sardinia. In spite of the Pope's fulminations, Sardinia accepted the vote, and Napoleon received Nice and Savoy as the price of his acquiescence.

Dismayed and perplexed by the futility of his appeals to the Catholic Powers and of the spiritual censures at his disposal, the Pope now invited volunteers, and crowds of undisciplined Irish and French Catholics came to swell the little Papal army and fall with truculent piety on the rebellious districts. Garibaldi, on the otherhand, forced the halting designs of Cavour, and, with the cry of "Rome or Death," flung his irregular troops into the struggle. After a vain effort at peaceful settlement, Cavour, "in the interest of humanity," sent the Sardinian regulars into the Papal States, and the Pope's forces were destroyed in September at Castel Fidardo (in sight of the Holy House of Loretto) and Ancona. A plebiscite was organized in Umbria and the Marches, and there is no serious ground to question that the figures published express the sentiment of the provinces. In Umbria 99,075 voted for Victor Emmanuel and 380 for the Pope: in the Marches 133,783 voted for Sardinia and 1212 for Rome. A large allowance for abstentions does not alter the significance of these figures.

Pius still protected, by a conviction that the plebiscite had been fraudulent, his illusion that only a disreputable minority resented his beneficent government, and the diplomacy of the Quirinal during the next ten years was the least enlightened that could have been devised for securing the slender remaining territory. Many cardinals, and even Antonelli, came to see that a recognition of Victor Emmanuel as King of Italy would be the wiser course, but Pius, supported by the Jesuits (who had founded theirCiviltà Cattolica, as an organ of Papal sentiment, in 1850), obstinately refused to temporize. He would have no negotiation with "the robbers," the excommunicated rebels against God. He retained—or the French troops still retained for him—only Rome and the Roman district, and proclaimed that he relied on Catholic Europe to restore his full rights. Years were spent in vain efforts to induce him to surrender his temporal power, or to recognize Victor Emmanuel as his "Vicar" in the kingdom of Italy, andin the meantime the Italian aspiration for Rome as a capital grew stronger, and the Pope's obstinate retention of his temporal possessions was easily represented in an unfavourable light throughout Europe. The cardinals were not indifferent to the offer of 10,000 scudi a year and seats in the Italian Senate; and Antonelli was won by a promise of 3,000,000 scudi and rich gifts for his family. There can be little doubt that the rapid development of anti-clericalism in Italy during the sixties, and the growing disdain of Rome in England and France, would have been materially checked if the Pope had been more sagacious. He dreamed that the Catholic world still shared the crusading fervour of the Middle Ages, and he was insensible of the selfish motives of France, Naples, and Austria.

In the midst of the negotiations he committed the grave blunder of issuing his EncyclicalQuanta Cura(December 8, 1864) with the famous accompanying Syllabus, or list of eighty condemned propositions. There is no need to analyze here that mediæval indictment of the modern spirit. Many of the propositions are now commonplaces in the mind of every educated Catholic, and it is precisely their boast that—to use some of the condemned words—the Catholic Church may be reconciled with "progress, liberty, and the new civilization." The pages of theCiviltà Cattolicasufficiently indicate who were the Pope's unhappy inspirers. In brief, the document convinced Europe that Rome insisted on being driven off the path of progress at the point of the bayonet, and in 1866 the French evacuated Rome, leaving the Pope only 2000 mercenary soldiers, who were to don his uniform. When Garibaldi made his third impulsive inroad—the second, in 1862, had been arrested by the Piedmontese—in October, 1867, the French arrested him, but the war of 1870 gave Italy its opportunity. On September 20, 1870, the Italian troops entered the breach in the Roman walls, and the long and romantic story of the temporal power of the Popes was over. By the Law of Guarantees (May 15, 1871) Italy granted the Pope sovereign rights, with an annual income of 3,250,000 lire and an extension of extraterritorial rights to certain Roman palaces. By a final error Pius refused to acknowledge his position, set up the melodramatic fiction of "the Prisoner of the Vatican," and, by forbidding Catholics to take part in the elections of the new kingdom, allowed Italy to drift farther and farther away from his spiritual control.[357]

Meantime the famous Vatican Council had crowned his more purely ecclesiastical work. The idea of summoning the whole Christian world to a second and greater Trent, of healing religious dissensions and uniting religious forces against modernism, had dazzled the imagination of the Pope at Gaeta. His advisers encouraged him, and in 1865 he appointed a commission to discuss the subject. In 1867, when his heart was uplifted by the great gathering at Rome for the celebration of the (supposed) eighteenth centenary of the martyrdom of St. Peter, he announced the council, and in the following year (June 28, 1868) the BullÆterni Patrisinvited all Christians—heretic and schismatic, as well as orthodox—to the Vatican Council of 1869. It was opened on December 8th, when 719 members assembled from the Catholic world.

The great issue—the one issue that may be discussed here—was the question of defining the infallibility of the Pope. Here again the Jesuits ardently supported the wish of Pius IX., and a struggle had taken place in the Catholic world for some years. It was known that such devout and influential priests as Newman in England, Bishop Dupanloup and Archbishop Darboy in France, and Bishop Ketteler and Cardinal Schwarzenberg and Döllinger in Germany, opposed the definition, and the greatest care was taken in selecting members of the council whose position did not make them entitled to sit in it. When Newman was proposed from England, Manning (an enthusiastic supporter of the Papal policy) and the Jesuits defeated the project, as Purcell has since established in his life of Manning. When, however, the seven hundred members of the council had assembled, it was realized that between one hundred and fifty and two hundred voters regarded a definition of infallibility as inopportune, and the procedure and control of the council were diplomatically arranged. What Newman called "the aggressive, insolent faction" of the Infallibilists strained every nerve to destroy the opposition. They drew up a petition to the Pope, and Pius was deeply annoyed to find that little over four hundred names appeared at its foot; and of the signatories the majority were prelates who lived at Rome in dependence on the Quirinal.

But the familiar story need not be told again in detail. The debates were prolonged into the broiling summer, in spite of the remonstrances of the northerners, and the Pope's indignation at the minority was freely expressed. When, on July 13th, the vote was taken, 451 voted "Aye," 62 voted a qualified "Aye" (Placet juxta modum), and 88 voted in opposition. Pius wavered, and was disposed to listen to counsels of compromise, but the majority pressed, and the stormy debate continued. The Inopportunists were reduced to silence, and at the final vote, on July 18th, only two voted against the project; though many abstained from voting. Time has thrown a strange light on that historic struggle. On the one hand, it has transpired that the definition was drawn up in such terms that the controversialist could plausibly accommodate it with the known blunders of earlier Popes, and few followed the spirited revolt of Döllinger: on the other hand, the Papacy has from that day to this made no use of its infallibility, in an age of perplexing doubts, and the ardour of the Infallibilists has cooled.

During the following years the Pope sank once more into depression as the situation in Italy engendered grave troubles. Bible Societies and Protestant churches appeared in Italy, even in Rome, and Pius vainly denounced the monstrosity. Bishops dare not apply to the Italian government for their appointments, and had to remain without incomes and palaces. The Jesuits were expelled, and in 1872 a law of dissolution menaced the 8151 members of religious houses in Rome and the provinces. Bavaria refused to publish the BullPastor Æternus, and its struggle with the Church extended to Prussia and culminated in the long and bitter Kulturkampf (1872-1887). In France the anti-clerical Liberals gained from year to year on the Catholic reaction which had followed the Commune of 1871, and Gambetta's battle-cry rallied the old forces in alarming numbers. In 1876 (November 6th) Antonelli died, and the grave scandal which disclosed his irregularities gave joy to the enemies of the Papacy. A last gleam of consolation came to the Pope in 1877,when the Catholic world held a magnificent celebration, on June 3d, of his episcopal jubilee. But the aged Pope saw no retreat of the disastrous forces he had encountered, and, after the longest and most calamitous rule in Papal history, he died on February 7, 1878.

Little need be added in regard to his relations with other countries than France and Italy. The record is one of both successes and failures which were misunderstood at Rome: to the modern historian it is the record of the lapse of millions from the Roman allegiance. In the United States forty-four new dioceses were established between 1847 and 1877, yet the American prelates of the time bitterly lament the loss of hundreds of thousands of scattered Catholic immigrants. In England the Romeward movement within the English Church came to an end long before the death of Pius, and the Church made no numerical progress in excess of births and immigration. In Holland the hierarchy was peacefully restored, but in Switzerland there was such tension that the Internuncio was expelled in 1874. Russia severed relations with Rome in 1860: Württemberg (1861) and Baden (1859) signed Concordats with Rome, but found it impossible to maintain them: and the new German Empire was, as I said previously, involved by Bismarck and Falk in a bitter struggle with Rome.

The relations with Catholic countries were little more satisfactory. Sardinia had mortally offended the Quirinal long before the struggle for Italian unity began: by a long series of anti-clerical measures it abolished tithes, laicised education and marriage, expelled the religious orders and confiscated their property, gave freedom of worship to Protestants, and dealt summarily with hostile bishops. Austria had signed in 1855(August 18th) a Concordat which was favourable to the Church, but the young Francis Joseph, whose education had been carefully directed in the clerical interest, was forced by the storm of opposition to deviate from it. It was abolished in 1870, and four years later laws were passed which the Vatican regarded as anti-clerical. Spain maintained, through its various revolutions, a consistent docility, and was the only country on which the dying eyes of the Pope could dwell with satisfaction. It contracted a favourable Concordat on March 16, 1851, which was supplemented in 1859. Portugal signed a favourable Concordat in 1857. In Latin America on the other hand, the Church suffered grave reverses. Costa Rica and Guatemala (1852), Haiti (1860), Nicaragua (1861), and San Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela, and Ecuador (1862) signed satisfactory Concordats, but Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina entered upon anti-clerical ways, and the spirit of revolt against the clergy was spreading throughout Southern and Central America. Not since the days of Leo X. had the Church suffered such grave and widespread defection.

In estimating the character of Pius IX. and his relation to these losses the modern historian has little difficulty. The exaggerations of both his critics and his panegyrists are patent. He was a sincerely religious and zealous man, but the hope once entertained of his canonization (or, at least, beatification) was as absurd as the malevolent attacks on his character from the other side. His intellectual quality must be similarly judged: he had little penetration, no breadth of mind, no power to read aright the symptoms of his age. In considering the fatal obstinacy with which he refused all accommodation in regard to his temporal power, wemust carefully bear in mind his religious views, and not merely dwell on his slight capacity for diplomacy or statesmanship. So grave a surrender could not be commended by a few years of revolution except to a man of greater insight and foresight than Pius IX. In sum, he would in years of peace and piety have made an excellent and undistinguished steward of the Papal heritage, but he was very far from having the greatness of mind which the circumstances of the Church required, and the vast organization over which he so long presided emerged still further weakened from its second historical crisis. It had fought Protestantism and lost: it had fought Democracy and Progress and lost. It remained for a wiser Pope to initiate the policy of accommodation.

Back to Index Next