Littell's Living Age/Volume 126/Issue 1621/Italy and the Pope

From The Pall Mall Gazette.

ITALY AND THE POPE.

The rumours that are heard from time to time of a reconciliation between the Papal and the Italian governments seem to be premature rather than untrue. It is so plainly to the interest of both powers to dwell together in unity that the idea is not likely to be long absent from the thoughts of one or other of them. The revolution which laid the foundation of Italian unity was eminently conservative in its tendencies. Occasionally, no doubt, it suited the purpose of the king or his ministers to make common cause with the Radicals, but on the whole they saw clearly enough that if the monarchy was to be retained there must be no irreparable breach with the Church. An alliance with the sworn enemies of the clergy would have united them to a party in whose ultimate aims the monarchy had no place. Whenever a decisive step in the direction of extending or consolidating the Italian kingdom had to be taken, it was taken without any regard to the feelings or opinions of the pope; and as often as these occasions occurred the Radical party allowed themselves to hope that the government had made a reconciliation impossible. But common interests have a strange power of drawing people together, even when events seem to have separated them past hope, and though the king and his ministers have been excommunicated, they have still contrived to live in decent harmony with the Italian bishops and clergy. The government cannot afford to alienate that large section of the population which regards political irreligion as closely allied to Communism. These people do not object to many things which the pope denounces. They have probably a secret conviction that the Church will be all the better for losing a large part of its wealth, and they are quite content that the pope should enjoy no greater independence than is secured to him by the law of guarantees. They do not say this openly, because they do not want to quarrel with their priest, and they know that their priest, though he may in his heart hold similar opinions, would be bound to rebuke them in the laity on pain of quarrelling with his bishop. But they are glad when the government shows that it is still anxious to effect some kind of agreement between the spiritual and civil powers, and though they have probably not much hope of this being accomplished during the reign of Pius IX., they find satisfaction in the belief that the government is as much alive as they are to the importance of not irritating the bishops or clergy into making common cause with the pope. There are moments when under Radical pressure an Italian minister will seem to forget this class of persons altogether, and to be bent upon satisfying the class which hates the pope as cordially as the pope hates a Freemason or an Old Catholic, and would like, if it had the power, to deal with him in an equally summary fashion. But this disposition is never lasting; it has its root in the momentary needs of political strategy, and when these are satisfied the motives which permanently determine the ecclesiastical policy of the government regain their sway.

If the moderate section of the Italian laity is anxious to keep on good terms with the Church, we may be sure that the moderate section of the Italian priesthood is equally though less openly anxious to keep on good terms with the government. The points upon which the pope has quarrelled with the king of Italy are not really of a kind to interest the inferior clergy. The overthrow of the temporal power has made but little change in their worldly condition; the secularization of the property of the religious orders has gratified the concealed but immemorial dislike of the secular to the regular clergy; and, though those of them who have been in the habit of visiting Rome may regret the suspension of the ecclesiastical pomp which made the Church so glorious in the eyes even of unbelievers, they are probably aware that the pope's imprisonment is self-inflicted, and that if he were willing to show himself once more in St. Peter's, it is not the Italian government that would wish to prevent him. Nor is it among the inferior clergy only that the existence of these and similar views may be suspected. The Italian cardinals must have lost the traditional acuteness of their race and order if their opinions on the relations of the Catholic Church with the civil power have not been modified by the recent action of the Prussian government. When Cavour gave expression to the formula, "a free Church in a free State," the Roman court compared the state of things which it described with a state of things which they undoubtedly liked very much better. They were familiar with a free Church in an obedient State, with a Church which had everything her own way in a State which in ecclesiastical matters was willing — for a consideration — to do the Church's bidding. All their theories of the necessary and indissoluble union of Church and State were based upon this experience, and Cavour's maxim conveyed nothing to their minds but the emancipation of the State from the salutary control which they had previously exercised over it. Prince Bismarck has introduced them to the other side of the shield. He has proved by example that there is a form of union between Church and State which is infinitely more irksome to the Church than total separation — a union of which the outward and visible symbols are fines, imprisonment, and sequestrations. As compared with the state of things now existing in Prussia, the Italian modus vivendi must seem positively attractive. If Victor Emmanuel is not exactly a nursing-father to the Church, he is not the taskmaster that the Emperor William is. The fact that there is a strong anti-clerical minority in Italy may strengthen these dispositions among the higher clergy, because it may protect them against that temptation to grasp at too much which has involved them in so many disasters. If the Italian people were all of one mind in this matter, the cardinals might still dream of upsetting the political settlement of Italy. In the presence of a compact Radical section in the Chamber and in the country, to attempt this would be to court inevitable defeat, a defeat which might extend far beyond the points involved in the particular conflict.

There is no need to refer to those features in Victor Emmanuel's character which are likely more and more to dispose him to make his peace with the Church. His temper, even at the times when it has been most distinctively Italian and anti-Papal, has never been in the least Protestant or even anti-Ultramontane. If the pope would leave him in undisputed possession of his dominions, he would probably submit with perfect readiness to any purely spiritual claims which the Church might choose to put forward. He is not subject to intellectual doubts, and has never been in the least troubled by the Vatican or any other decrees. Putting politics aside, he would subscribe the Syllabus at a moment's notice. But, though these qualities would lead the king to welcome any improvement in the relations between himself and the Church, they are of less importance than might be supposed, because, whenever the reconciliation is accomplished, the king's and even the government's part in it will be only secondary. Italy can have but little to give to Rome that she has not already offered. The change of mind that will have the really decisive influence on the result must be a change of mind on the part of the Church. There is nothing to make this probable so long as Pius IX. lives; but, unless circumstances are greatly changed by the time that he dies, it may be looked for with some confidence from his successor.