ITALY AND THE POPE.

It is with a mixed feeling of sadness and hope that we witness the decline of a great institution of the past. While, on the one side, it seems as if the religion, the poetry, and the work of a long series of generations were fading away like the shadow of a dream, the undying voice of the soul awakes, on the other, new ideals of faith in the religious and social progress of mankind. Through the withering and falling off of external forms, rites, and temporal aspects of Church and State, the fundamental relations of man to God and to the world, the truly divine elements and purposes of life, both in the traditions of former creeds and in the fresh aspirations of human nature, attune themselves into a wider harmony of intellectual and moral truth. History, science, and conscience, all tend to prove the necessity of a change.

The Pope has had, in our century, to contend more and more with this concurrent testimony. He was unable to refute it; he could not turn the tide of human thought, the convictions of modern society. Still, he would not yield. Grasping more tenaciously than ever his most fragile and least holy support-namely, his political sovereignty-he was brought into constant antagonism with his subjects, and driven to the fatal alternative of being upheld by foreign intervention. The protests of the people, the verdicts of public opinion, and lastly the transformation of Italy into à united nation, failed to teach him the wisdom of timely concessions. The "sint ut sunt aut non sint," which proved the death-warrant of the Order of Jesus in the last century, has its equivalent in the "non possumus of the Ultramontane party in the present day. Hence the great schism between reason and authority which is the prominent feature of the age. This schism is not the result of individual pride and selfishness; it is not a mere striving for innovation, or for the implanting of unbelief and anarchy in the place of morality and order. Those who object on these grounds to the rising protest against the hierarchy of the Church, are altogether mistaken as to the true meaning of it. It is, both for Catholic and for Protestant conservatism, a preposterous position to consider the struggle of modern society against priestly rule and the connection of Church and State, as the result of infidelity and materialism. The negative opinions of some contemporary philosophers and men of science, concerning the foundations of the spiritual world, the futurity of the soul, the moral law of man, bear an inconsiderable proportion to the complexity of the causes, which have been at work, from generation

to generation, in bringing about the demolition of the old system. The heaviest blows dealt to the pretensions of Rome originated in the revival of a purer morality and religious conception within the pale of the Church itself. Thus, the earnest protest of Jansenius and his followers of Port Royal against the worldly casuistry of the Jesuits, furthered the emancipation of secular states from Papal supremacy. And, in our own days, the urgent want, felt by all serious minds, of restoring the harmony between the moral and the material world, between the inner yearning of man towards God, and his social mission on earth, is the deepest source of opposition to the Roman system.

Indeed, the strongest argument against the possibility of a clerical principality and of a Church system intimately blended with it, in the midst of modern civilisation, is the very progress of its decline. A decline which is clearly the effect of the passing away from the old institution of that very faith and living force of the spirit which, in former ages, had invested it with the supreme guidance of Christian nations. Since the Papacy, in its present form, claims, not only to teach and lead the conscience of man, but to govern his temporal interests, it must necessarily bear the consequence of the law of change and progress inherent in the elements by which it is surrounded. And, having no longer any actual link with their nature and development, it must, sooner or later, fall as a worn-out tree, that has borne its fruit and had its day.

The history of the Papal Government in the last two centuries, both in the administration of its own provinces, and in its relations with other Catholic States, respecting the jurisdiction and privileges of the Church, justifies this conviction. With the triumph of the Reformation in Germany, in the Netherlands, and in England, and the political balance between Catholic and Protestant Europe, consequent on the peace of Westphalia, the energy of Papal reaction began to give way. The ambitious schemes of the Church in the sixteenth century, the deadly power of the Inquisition, the asceticism of the Order of Jesus in its original form, were gradually succeeded by a milder and more peaceful tendency. The seventeenth century, with its longing after enlightenment, intellectual freedom, and scientific observation, was rapidly divesting itself, even in Catholic countries, of that wild religious fanaticism which had characterised the second half of the preceding century. A more tolerant spirit, called forth by the necessity of social and political intercourse between men and nations of different creeds, began to pervade secular society. And it was in that century that the Roman court, forced by the general condition of Europe to retrench its activity into a narrower sphere, gave up its aggressive designs of universal theocracy for the humbler aim of securing its local sway over

reluctant municipalities, and of preserving as much as possible its temporal privileges in Catholic countries. The great contest for spiritual dominion over all earthly powers was thus reduced to a question of local rule, on the one side, and of forensic litigation between the canon and the civil law, on the other.

It is unnecessary to dwell upon the relations of Papacy with Catholic Europe at this new period of its history. It suffices to remark that the Church of Rome, by making the question of its liberty dependent on the preservation of its temporal privileges, forced all the secular powers, not only to resist its encroachments, but to submit its jurisdiction, even in spiritual matters, to their political control.

In Italy, however, the question of Church and State was complicated by ecclesiastical misgovernment in the Roman provinces, and by the obstacles raised against national independence. I shall therefore briefly point out the consequences of this dualism. If the subjects of the Pope had been satisfied with his rule, it would have been far more difficult for the Italian nation, or for any Italian State, to accomplish the present revolution. The idea of the political unity of the country would probably have been supplanted by the federal tendency. Rome would have become the capital of a half secular, half ecclesiastical, association of States. The Utopia of Gioberti would have been the reality of the day. That such was not the case was entirely owing to the fact that the Roman populations unceasingly strove to overthrow a Government, which was in utter contradiction with all their requirements; while the Roman Court, being unable to stand on its rotten foundation, was constantly appealing to the Catholic interest in support of its internal abuses. Foreign interference naturally raised the local question of the Roman States to the importance of a national problem. The whole country made common cause with the subjects of the Pope, and the latter actually became the ringleaders of the movement towards unity. This state of things was the consequence of a long historical preparation. The inconsistency of priestly rule with the welfare of the people was clearly discerned and pointed out to public opinion in Italy, from the very time when it assumed the absolute form it has ever since retained. All the records of the seventeenth century bring their evidence to bear upon the disappearance of all industry and prosperity from the Roman provinces, when the direct administration of the Papal hierarchy had superseded municipal self-government. Guicciardini gives, in his history, a splendid description of the flourishing condition of those provinces in the first half of the sixteenth century, previous to the Papal reaction. The fertile plains. of Romagna, extending from the Apennines to the Po and the Adriatic, presented a luxuriant display of cornfields, vineyards, and

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orchards, interspersed with rows of trees and enlivened by industricus towns, villages, and numberless cottages. The country was inhabited by a wealthy middle-class and a laborious peasantry, both the offspring of democratic commonwealths. In the feudal Estates themselves the peasant enjoyed the benefit of the metayer system, the townsman the free exercise of his municipal franchises. The lordly courts of Ferrara and Urbino were seats of culture, of elegant manners, and chivalrous pursuits. Ancona carried on a vast commerce with the East. What a contrast with the state of those same provinces a century afterwards, when placed under the irresponsible sway of the Papal legates! The Relations of the Venetian Ambassadors abound in details of the wretched condition of the Pontifical States at that time. "During our journey from one place to another," writes one of them in 1621, "we perceived great poverty among the peasantry and the common people, and small comfort, not to say great privations, among all other classes. This is the result of the form of government, and more especially of the insignificant amount of their commerce. All the towns have fallen into utter decay." Another contemporary writer says: "It is our duty to be in favour of the Church: nevertheless we see that whatever is given up to it becomes a bane to the public good. Ferrara, Urbino, Nepi, Nettuno, and all the districts which have passed under its sway, show how its provinces ere long became depopulated."" "About the year 1650," Ranke observes, "the opinion universally gained ground that an ecclesiastical government was fatal to the interest of the people.” And naturally so. It was a Government, not of the people, but of an ecclesiastical aristocracy, which had interests and aims utterly at variance with those of its dependants. The resources of the country were drained to pay the interests of the enormous loans raised by the Popes, either to endow their families, or to defray the outlay of a diplomatic representation in all the Courts of Europe, or to rebuild, in the style of Bernini and Barozzi, the modern city at the expense of the classical monuments of ancient Rome. While, on the one hand, the taxation was excessive; on the other the economical blunders and the monopolies of the Curia were ruinous to the industry and commerce of the country.

The fatal agency of these causes was still at work at the time of the French revolution. The landed property had been concentrated into the hands of the Papal aristocracy and of the Convents. The Campagna Romana had become a desert. The malaria surrounded the Papal throne. Agriculture had fallen into decay even in the most fertile and industrious provinces. The middle-class was almost

(1) See "Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti" under Urban VIII. and Innocent X. : and the passages quoted by Ranke, book viii.

(2) Deone, "Diario di Roma." Ranke, "History of the Popes," vol. iii. sect. 10.

entirely excluded, through the law of entail and the privileges of mortmain, from the possession of land, and greatly reduced both in number and means by the decrease of industry and commerce. The influence of the French revolution effected a complete change in the condition of the people. The most important feature of the new order of things was the growth of a large class of proprietors, and of active merchants and working men in all those provinces, which were incorporated with the Cisalpine Republic, and subsequently with the kingdom of Italy. Partly owing to the confiscation and the sale of Church property on easy terms, partly through the enactment of the law of equal succession among children-a law which had its sanction in the civil tradition of ancient Rome, and its certainty of success in the democratic tendencies of the people-the social progress of this class was rapid and steady. A new nation had arisen out of the ruins of the past. The restoration of 1814, with all its obsolete pretensions to spiritual and feudal supremacy, came upon this entirely new state of society. The public administration returned into the hands of the hierarchy. The provinces were once more ruled by prelates and cardinals. Congregations of prelates and cardinals directed all the departments of the State. The universities and the schools were kept under strict clerical control. The opposition of the secular community, which had, under the Republic and the Empire, become used to a regular system of civil administration, grew stronger and more determined from year to year. From the Restoration down to the present day the history of the Papal Government has been one unceasing protest on the side of the people, and a succession of defeats on that of the hierarchy. The presence of a foreign army in Rome for the last seventeen years to maintain that government in power is the most irrefragable proof of its moral decease. It was from Rome in '49, that the national verdict against the temporal sovereignty of the Pope was solemnly issued. The unwarrantable interference of France materially prevented its fulfilment. Will Rome repeal the sentence, and foreswear the national cause, when the foreign pressure shall have been withdrawn? Will Italy passively look on, and thus renounce the accomplishment of her unity? I will endeavour to answer these questions in another article.

AURELIO SAFFI.