The War Upon Religion Part 13

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAZZINI.]

From his retreat in London Mazzini sent out his messages of hate and revolt. In 1842 he founded a revolutionary sheet called the "Popular Apostolate," a weekly which propagated his doctrines and sent them as a ferment of disorder into Italy.

At the same time, in France, Michelet, Sue and Quinet were attacking the Jesuits; books with the same object were printed in London; and even in Italy, Gioberti was publishing his _Modern Jesuit_, wherein he ventilated for the benefit of revolutionaries and sectaries the idea of a lay pontificate.

_HOSTILE CONGRESSES._

Among the many means employed to attack the Pope were certain Congresses which were held successively at Turin, Florence, Naples, Milan, Genoa and Venice. These Congresses were called _scientific_, and did actually treat of the natural sciences and economic studies; but their true purpose was to afford a forum for the expression of the views of Young Italy, and of hatred to the Holy See. Gregory XVI. perceived the real intent of these a.s.semblies and forbade their holding in Rome, a refusal which excited the protestations of the conspirators who did not hesitate to proclaim him an enemy of progress and enlightenment.

_ACCESSION OF PIUS IX._

Gregory XVI. died in 1846 and was succeeded by Cardinal Giovanni Mastai-Ferretti, Archbishop of Spoleto who took the name of Pius IX. The proclamation of the election was marked in Rome by indescribable enthusiasm. He was hailed as a savior from the severe rule of this predecessor, and even Young Italy pretended to see in him a fosterer of their republican intentions. The future indeed looked inviting to the young Pope, who nevertheless, could not but see the darkness that hid the horizon from view. The Revolution continued its work. Despite the ovations of his people, despite the plaudits of the nations and their governments, Pius IX. was made to feel that the storm was at hand. At the same time while he felt the obligation of defending the rights of the Church with courage, he determined to make all reasonable concessions, and to accord as much liberty as his conscience might permit. For a month he debated with himself and his councillors upon the advisability of granting an amnesty to prisoners confined during the reign of Gregory XVI. The cardinals with certain personal experiences to guide them refused to accede to the demand for such amnesty, but the Holy Father in his solicitude for peace, granted the request actuated by the revolutionaries. All the political prisoners and exiles were amnestied on the condition of recognizing the Supreme Pontiff as their legitimate king, and of serving him as loyal subjects. All signed the contract, some going so far in their protestations of affection and loyalty as to arouse suspicion in the minds of some very practical ecclesiastics. Popular satisfaction manifested itself in enthusiastic fetes and dithyrambic felicitations.

_GENEROUS DISPOSITIONS OF THE HOLY FATHER._

The amnesty was followed by other marks of generosity on the part of the new Pope. On April 19, 1847, the Holy Father gave to Rome a strong munic.i.p.al organization; the State had its two chambers, its civic guard, an electoral law, a juris-consult, and a council of ministers. According to the new order of things laymen were permitted to enter the Council of His Holiness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GREGORY XVI.]

The whole world applauded; but the revolutionists were disappointed and prepared for a decisive blow. It looked for only one thing--the overthrow of the Papacy. Pius IX. had done much in reforming the administration, in laicising it to a reasonable degree, in providing for all the popular needs, in creating asylums for the afflicted, schools for the children, and retreats for the poor; but the fall of the Pope was decreed, and Rome began to fill up with members of the secret societies, evangelical societies, Bible societies, all of whom worked together with implacable perseverance. Inspired by the perfidious and meddlesome English agents, they clamored for a larger liberty of the press, and for a greater national representation. Full liberty of the press was accorded, March 15, 1847, and journalism began immediately its work of destruction.

_EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-EIGHT._

The year 1848 came. The situation throughout all Southern Europe wore a foreboding aspect. The king of Naples was menaced by a revolution; Venice was in the midst of an insurrection; Piedmont was at war with Austria; Hungary had arisen and driven the Emperor Ferdinand from his capital; and the July Revolution was just beginning in Paris. It was then that Rome re-echoed with the sound of revolution. Demagogues besieged the Vatican, and mobs yelled for impossible demands, to all of which Pius IX. was forced to answer: "Non possumus." His minister Rossi was a.s.sa.s.sinated on the steps of the a.s.sembly, and the gentle Mgr. Palma was shot as he stood near a window of the Quirinal Palace. The next day, November 16, the Quirinal was invaded; Rome was in the hands of the mob.

Even the Holy Father yielded for the sake of peace, and signed the list of a new cabinet.

When Europe learned of this, it concluded that the Pope, deprived of his liberty had signed a doc.u.ment which was null. The Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly at Paris reproached in severe terms the actions of the Roman mob.

_FLIGHT OF THE POPE._

Finally on November 24, 1848, the Holy Father, realizing that he was a prisoner of an infuriated revolutionary crowd, determined to escape as soon as possible from Rome and seek asylum elsewhere. His release was effected through the strategy of the Duke of Harcourt. In company with Count de Spaur, the Bavarian amba.s.sador, he contrived to ride incognito through the lines of sentinels around the Quirinal and about the city walls, and set out for Gaeta, where he arrived after some days. Here he was received with cordial welcome by the King of Naples, under whose filial care the Holy Father pa.s.sed two years of exile.

In the meantime Mazzini had fastened his yoke upon the City of the Popes. Clubs were formed here and there. The Circolo Populare directed by Bonaparte Canino named a governmental junta, a sort of provisional government. Mazzini himself hid behind the scenes and directed the movements of the figures.

_GARIBALDI._

At that time there arrived from South America a personage who was to play a serious part in the final spoliation of the Holy See. This was the infamous Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was born at Nice, July 4, 1807. He was a conspirator from the beginning. As a young man he had conducted a practice of piracy with the Moroccan savages, after which he went to South America. The European insurrections of 1848 awakened the old pa.s.sion for turbulence and disorder in his brain, and he hastened back to Italy. He came to Rome in the very moment of republican triumph.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GARIBALDI.]

On February 5, 1849, the Roman Parliament held a session in the Capitol.

After a discourse p.r.o.nounced by Armelini, the Prince de Canino arose and cried out "Viva la Republica!" In a moment Garibaldi was on his feet and added: "We are losing time in vain ceremonies. Let us hasten our work." His words were repeated everywhere. By a decree of February 9, it was declared that the Papacy had actually and legally lost the government of the Roman States; that the Roman Pontiff, however, would have all the guarantees necessary for independence in the exercise of his spiritual power, that the form of government of the Roman State would be democratic pure and simple, and would be known as the Roman Republic.

Mazzini, the soul of the conspiracy, remained its dictator despite the nomination of a triumvirate. Garibaldi was charged by him to guard the Roman frontier against the operations of the Neapolitans. Rome itself was delivered up to all the horrors of anarchy. The European Powers intervened, and France sent under the walls of Rome, General Oudinot with a corps of the army.

During the first days of the siege Garibaldi gained over the French a slight advantage which gained for him the t.i.tle of General.

One of the first acts of the exiled Pope at Gaeta was to issue a proclamation addressed to his subjects. Therein he expressed the hope that his misguided subjects would repent of their conduct toward him.

But seeing that they were every day proceeding from one excess to another, he felt constrained to appeal against them to that supreme power of which he was the depository, and to arm himself with the spiritual sword which Jesus Christ had placed in the hand of His earthly Vicar. Therefore, he p.r.o.nounced the decree of excommunication against all those who had taken an active part in the Revolution. Then, as if in sorrow for the righteous severity, to which he was obliged to have recourse, and of the just defence which he had to make for the rights of the Church, he promised mercy and pardon to all who should give evidence of repentance.

His words, however, fell upon deaf ears. Mazzini was still in power.

Atrocities of the most horrible type disgraced the streets of Rome, Imola, Ancona and Loretto. The clergy were persecuted and some of them strangled. Indeed, the triumvirs made use of fallen priests to celebrate the sacred ceremonies. It was then that the Catholic nations began to attest their veneration for the exile of Gaeta. France sent pressing offers of hospitality. Spain, Portugal, Austria, Bavaria, even Prussia and Russia offered their aid towards his restoration.

_ROME IS TAKEN BY PAPAL ALLIES._

It was finally to France that he owed the glory of his return. While the Austrians were advancing through the Legations, the French army under Oudinot, Duke of Reggio, entered Rome after a siege of twenty-six days.

At the end of June, 1849, the city finally capitulated, and General Oudinot proclaimed the restoration of the Pontifical sovereignty. On April 12, 1850, the Holy Father took possession of the City. An amnesty was granted, but with certain exclusions, among them being the triumvirs, the military chiefs and the members of the provisional government.

On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which was received in all Catholic lands with a concert of acclamations. But this triumph of Mary was only like a symbol of hope before the approaching storm whose mutterings could already be heard in the distance.

When Pius IX had returned from Gaeta, the secret societies made a solemn oath that they would yet obtain possession of Rome. Not content with wishing to deliver Italy from foreign domination, they held up before the Italian people the illusory hope of becoming, through the defeat of the Papacy, the first nation of Europe. To attain this end it was necessary not only that the States should unite in one solid confederation, but that they should const.i.tute one kingdom the government of which should be confided to the princes of the House of Savoy, to be held at the discretion of the sectaries. Their method consisted in spreading broadcast calumnies against the Holy See, in discrediting in Austria the House of Hapsburg which had been the last in Europe to shield the Papacy with the sword of the Holy Roman Empire, and in a.s.suring the hypocritical neutrality of Napoleon III., who had ascended the throne only to be their supple instrument. Then they would place the King of Piedmont and Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel, upon the conquered throne of United Italy, first in the North and South, and finally in the Eternal City itself.

_CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HOLY SEE._

In fact, the first attacks upon the temporal power of the Pope came from the sectaries abroad. In the Congress of Paris, just after the Crimean War, the ministers of France, Sardinia and England formulated against the Papal States certain accusations, which they hastened to make public. Therein they declared the government of the Pope to be the most retrograde and perverse of the age. The Minister of Piedmont, Cavour, already dreaming of the unification of Italy, placed in the hands of the French and English ministers a verbal note in which he outlined a scheme for the expropriation of the Papal States. The note had no immediate effect, but combining with other hostile expressions against the Holy See, it was the signal of the storm which was about to burst upon the Church.

[Ill.u.s.tration: POPE PIUS IX.]

Piedmont had become a veritable hot-bed of liberalism and irreligion.

The government had ceased to respect its concordats with the Holy See.

It had violated the rights of the churches, and had established itself as absolute judge in matters purely religious. The Archbishop of Turin was banished and died in exile for having spoken in reproof of these unwarranted usurpations. The Bishop of Cagliari was obliged to leave his diocese. The encroachments of the civil government went from bad to worse; the property of the churches was confiscated, the religious orders persecuted, and a general reign of iniquity inaugurated.

In thus abandoning itself to the spirit of revolution, Piedmont went far in the way of iniquity. Under the pretext of working for the independence of Italy, its real design was to subjugate the whole land and make all its princes tributary. In fact, the history of the formation of the Kingdom of Italy is the history of all the treasons, corruptions, and turpitudes that one can imagine. The records of Europe contain nothing more high-handed or shameful. The Piedmontese Government, at once astute and brutal, secretly arousing the people by its paid emissaries, and then invading territories with violence; shamefully dissimulating the manoeuvres of its ambition, and their unmasking its projects with cynical audacity; scorning equally the rights of the people and the anathemas of the Church; recoiling before no means of corruption, and purchasing everything even military honor; insulting after its victories those whom it had surprised and defeated, not by the superiority of courage or skill, but by the aid of lying, treason, and the force of numbers; boasting of having yielded to the will of the peoples whose territory it was invading, and whose will it was forcing by the most odious of martial laws. It was the Piedmontese, Cialdini, who gave orders to shoot without mercy those peasants who were faithful to their King, the Pope, to religion and to country. It was Pinelli who said: "We must crush the sacerdotal Vampire, the vicar, not of Christ, but of Satan." It was he who called for fire and sword, an inexorable revenge against the Papacy and the Church. Other like savages were Fantoni and Fumel, an Italian deputy speaking of them from the tribune said: "The proclamations of Cialdini and the other Piedmontese leaders are worthy of Tamerlane, Ghengeskhan and Attila."

In consequence of these barbarous orders, butchery was the order of the day. Priests, magistrates, women, mothers, were imprisoned and shot. On one occasion thirteen citizens were burned alive. Fourteen towns were set on fire and their inhabitants pursued and shot down. At Pontelandolfo thirty unhappy women who had taken refuge under the shelter of a cross were savagely ma.s.sacred. Ancona was bombarded, and then Capua, and then Gaeta.

In that unholy war France hitherto the protectrix of the Church forgot her past. It is true she redeemed herself at Castelfidardo and at Mentana, giving to Pius IX her most generous blood; but she was powerless to prevent the consummation of the most perfidious and iniquitous acts of the nineteenth century.

Cavour recognized in Napoleon III., the French Emperor, a worthy accomplice. The two statesmen met at Plombieres and there decided to declare war against Austria. In the treaty of Zurich, concluded November 10, 1859, it was decided that Italy should be formed into one confederation under the honorary presidency of the Pope.

But hardly had the treaty been signed than Piedmont disregarded it by commencing a series of invasions, thanks to the silence of France and the influence of England. Pius IX protested in an allocution, reproving those acts of rebellion accomplished against the power and sovereignty of the Holy See.

_HYPOCRISY OF NAPOLEON III._

In the midst of these events there appeared a pamphlet ent.i.tled: "The Pope and the Congress," which public opinion attributed to Napoleon III. Therein, the author, posing as a pious and sincere Catholic, gave his adhesion to what had been done and counselled the separation of the province of Romagna. Napoleon finding that his trick was discovered wrote a hypocritical letter to the Holy Father.

At the same time Victor Emmanuel pursued his projects of annexation.

After a vote manipulated by Cavour, Tuscany, Modena, Parma and the Romagnas were confiscated to the Piedmontese government. On March 26, 1860, Pius IX issued a Bull of excommunication against the usurpers and against all who had partic.i.p.ated therein whether by counsel or by action. Without being named directly the King of Piedmont and Napoleon III. were the objects of the censure. The two accomplices thereupon threw aside all reserve and hastened to direct operations.

As the price of his complicity Napoleon III. obtained Nice and Savoy, in March, 1860. Only two States of Italy remained to be conquered, those of Naples (Italy) and the Holy See. The Revolution intoxicated with success, set to work to gain these two prizes. A revolt in Sicily served as a pretext. An Italian bandit, Garibaldi, favored by England, obtained control of Sicily; then Naples was delivered to the cause of Victor Emmanuel by treason and sacrilege. Francis II., its King, was forced to shut himself up in Gaeta. At the same time Cialdini, a creature of Victor Emmanuel, invaded the Papal territory, and brought his Piedmontese army against the forces of the Pontifical troupes, commanded by the gallant Lamoriciere. This brutal aggression aroused such indignation in France and in Europe, that the French government felt itself bound to remonstrate with Piedmont. The latter government, however, paid no attention to the remonstrance, but continued its invasion. All the Catholic countries of Europe sent to the Holy Father the elite of their young men, and a gallant army of Papal Zouaves was soon under arms, ready to shed its blood for the cause of the Church.