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throne into the hands of the people. Can it reasonably be asked of the Pope that he should repeat that experiment, after the results of 1848, and with the knowledge that the disaffection of his subjects is now tenfold deeper and more angry than when these reports were written? What minister would advise such a step? or what sovereign living would attempt it under similar conditions? And if reform were attempted,-if any share of power were given to the people,-who doubts how it would be used?

"There are, as Mr. Lyons affirms, but two descriptions of men in the country; the first are unflinching, active, and irreconcilable enemies of the government, whose watchword is, 'No more government by priests! These can never be won by reforms in particular matters; all that they would do with every concession made to them would be to employ it as a weapon against the government. It is not reform, but the overthrow of the government, that they aim at. The others are indifferent, tepid, unreliable, and in a moment of danger the government would not find in them the slightest support. They would not lift a finger in aid of the assailed ruler. The supposition thus made by the English envoy was in the year 1859 but too accurately verified and too fully justified. Even the lower classes of the papal employés were, as Mr. Lyons declares, notoriously disaffected to the papal sovereignty, and they were also described by him as being lazy and corrupt."

Dr. Döllinger thinks, nevertheless, that the papal administration cannot endure without reforms; he even insists that it must be, if not secularised in the strictest sense of the word, yet deprived of its distinctively ecclesiastical character. He would not exclude clergymen from the service of the State; but he would throw open all offices, high and low, to the laity. He avows that the papal government can never become, in the true sense of the word, "constitutional," because it would be impossible to allow to any legislative assembly the right to coerce the Pope by constitutional means into secular action inconsistent with his dignity and his duty as head of the Church; for instance, into an aggressive war. Yet he evidently thinks it necessary that electoral colleges should be convened, municipal and provincial councils allowed to meet, religion separated from police, the censorship of the press relaxed, and a certain amount of legislative power permitted to the people. This, after his frank and full admission that no reforms will now conciliate the people-an admission on which rests his defence of the past conduct of Pius IX.,-appears not a little inconsistent. He is anxious to maintain the temporal power; he knows that all reforms will be used as weapons for its overthrow; and yet he pronounces large measures of reform to be indispensable! The key to this apparent inconsistency is not difficult to find.

He would have the safety of the papal government reconciled with the demands of the age, by making the protection of the Papal See the condition precedent of the reform. So at least we gather from such passages as the following:

"At an early period the Pope had declared that he was ready to introduce the reforms proposed by the Great Powers; but under the stipulation, as well as an unavoidable condition (sic), that the integrity of the Papal States should be guaranteed. This was refused in Paris; and by that refusal may be measured the candour, sincerity, and fairdealing involved in the proposed (?) demand made for reforms."

Dr. Döllinger seems somewhat unreasonable in his views of French policy. The Emperor is in no way bound to defend the Papacy, reformed or unreformed, and may very reasonably object to take upon himself any such obligation. Is it not enough that his troops are, at this moment, the only basis of the papal power? does not this single fact entitle him to offer advice concerning the administration which he alone renders possible? It is difficult to see any proof of bad faith in his refusal to undertake new liabilities as the price of compliance with his counsels. At the same time it would be unjust to blame the Pope for refusing to proceed without a guarantee. However desirable the extermination of a government may be, no man of practical sense will think of reviling it for declining to commit suicide.

It is shown, then, on the authority of our author himself— who writes not merely as a devout Catholic, but as an apologist of the temporal power-first, that the papal rule is utterly and inveterately hateful to its subjects; secondly, that it is intolerably bad; thirdly, that though nothing in its nature renders reform impossible to it, yet that no reforms would reconcile it to its subjects, and that every step towards self-improvement would on its part be a step towards self-destruction, and that therefore its continued existence is possible on no condition except the continuance of a foreign occupation. It is shown also that the Pope may be independent without the temporal power; nay, that at present the temporal power is fatal to his independence. It is shown that the maintenance of the pontifical sovereignty is not necessary to the Church; it is not denied that, in its actual condition, it is a curse to its subjects; it is not shown that it can ever cease to be so. We do not mean to say that Dr. Döllinger admits every one of these conclusions in express terms; but we believe that they may all be established on his own evidence, and that the last is the only one to which he would take exception. He believes that the papal rule might become the best of all earthly governments: the only answer is,

that it is about the worst, and that neither its head nor his subjects see their way to its amelioration. And such being the state of the question between Italy and Catholic Christendomthat which is fatal to the former not being necessary, and at present not even beneficial, to the latter-may we not hope that justice and common sense will at length prevail over prejudice and obstinacy, and that the Catholic Church will not much longer remain the one great obstacle to the unity, peace, and prosperity of a Catholic nation?

Perhaps it is as much the difficulty of knowing how to reconcile the dignity of the Papacy with the overthrow of its secular authority, and how fitly to dispose of a Pope deposed from his kingdom, but still "as much as ever the Pope," as the natural reluctance of a party, religious or political, to allow a triumph to its adversaries, which makes thinking Catholics like Dr. Döllinger cling so obstinately to the temporal power. It is so natural that they should hate the Italians, and look at every act of the king and his ministers en noir, that we cannot think it strange that their pages should be soiled with very abusive language when they encounter "the Piedmontese beast of prey." But it is probable that they would be willing to endure even the triumph of these detested foes, if they could really discern a means of extricating the Head of the Church from his present position of degradation and dependence, and restoring to him all the dignity that should surround his spiritual office, even though shorn of the adventitious splendours of earthly royalty. Such, at least, seems to be the spirit in which Dr. Döllinger regards the situation. But it is plain that he, like all practical thinkers and responsible statesmen who have pondered the question, fails to see his way. He differs, however, from the majority of speculators on two important points. He foresees a gloomy and chaotic succession of disturbances and revolutions for Italy, during which, as he remarks, it will be well for the Pope to be free from the perplexing incumbrance of territorial dominion; and he has an implicit and fervent faith in the security of the Church and of the Papacy.

"Who will pronounce on the immediate future? Do we know what is coming in Germany? Are we in Central Europe not approaching some mighty convulsion? Is not the Mazzini party lurking behind Piedmont to hurl Italy into the throes and tortures of a social (socialist?) and anti-Christian revolution? One thing, however, is certain. Amid all wrecks, one institution will remain erect, will constantly emerge from the flood of revolution; for it is indestructible, immortal -it is the Chair of St. Peter. If I am asked whence I draw this assurance, I may point to the Bible as my answer: 'Thou art the Rock, &c.' But I will give another answer, derived from the very nature of the

thing itself. The Papal See will not be destroyed, because it is reachable by no human power; because no one on earth is strong and powerful enough to destroy it. If all the Powers of Europe were to unite for its destruction, they could not effect it. All that human power can do is to compel it to make a pilgrimage, and for a longer or shorter time to keep its seat away from Rome. And lastly, this Chair will not be destroyed, because it is indispensable and irreplaceable; for it forms the keystone of the whole building of the Church. On ne détruit que ce qu'on remplace. That the Papacy can ever be replaced by any thing else, no one will seriously maintain. It is the keystone that holds the whole edifice of the Church together, that makes the Church what it is and what it ought to be-a world-church, the only society that has in earnest fulfilled the given purpose of God; that is, to embrace all humanity, and find room for all nations."

If such ardent faith be general among Catholics, they need hardly look with alarm at the dissolution of the temporal power, however indignantly they may denounce the "spoliation" of the Pope. If, indeed, we could hope that the two questions of the territorial sovereignty and the ecclesiastical permanence of the Papacy were thus entirely separated from each other in the apprehension of Catholic Europe, the former might be considered as being already settled; and all that would remain to be determined would be the moment and the manner of the liberation of the Roman States from the pontifical rule and its foreign defenders. But it is clear that two convictions are gradually gaining ground: the first, that the temporal power is in imminent peril; the second, that that peril does not touch the spiritual dignity of the Pope or the security of the Church. And thus the mind of Catholic Europe becomes gradually reconciled to that inevitable solution of the Roman problem to which events are obviously tending.

We agree with Dr. Döllinger in regarding as impossible the maintenance of the status quo, and in deprecating the idea of the restoration of a similar state of things by the triumph of the Austrian cause-a triumph which few men in Germany, and none outside, can conceive to be possible. We differ with him in his recommendation of a congress of the Catholic Powers, as the best means of contriving a settlement satisfactory to Catholic feeling. To such a course there are several obvious objections, which it is rather surprising that he should altogether overlook. First, the two great Catholic Powers are on the worst of terms with one another, and are very unlikely to agree in any common action. Secondly, three of the five Powers are non-Catholic; and these would not submit to be excluded from a congress to which such a question was submitted. No matter of European interest can be settled without consulting the wishes of England,

Russia, and Prussia. Thirdly, the congress would, as Dr. Döllinger says, determine to maintain the Pope's authority, with certain essential reforms. But, as has been shown, reformed or not, the papal rule is intolerable to the people, and can only be maintained by foreign bayonets; so that, so far as the condition of the country is concerned, it would not be ameliorated by the interposition of the congress, and the question would still remain where it is-a perplexity and a peril to Europe. Finally, there is not the least chance that France will consent to resign her exclusive guardianship of the Papacy into the hands of a sort of joint commission of the Catholic Powers, or allow Austrian and Spanish troops to share with her own the occupation of the Eternal City. She will desire, and probably will be able, to keep the determination of the course to be pursued in her own hands; not uninfluenced by "the public conscience of Catholic Europe," but free from any actual interposition from any quarter. The destiny of the Papacy will, in all likelihood, be settled between the Pope, the Emperor, and the King of Italy. What that settlement will be, we will not pretend to say; but it is possible to indicate generally the directions that it may take, and the various methods in which it is still possible that this most embarrassing question may be

solved.

It is to be presumed that we may treat M. About's wellremembered proposal," the city of Rome and a garden," with a guaranteed income sufficient to the wants of the papal court, as no longer open. If it were ever intended by M. About's sovereign as a "feeler," to be converted in certain events into a bona fide offer, it has been rejected, and must probably be considered as withdrawn. It would, in point of fact, have been not a solution, but simply a reduction of the problem. The Papal State would have been minimised; but its condition would have been as bad as ever. Rome would have sunk lower and lower in discontent and degradation; the garden would have been a desert, and the little territory a festering thorn in the side of Italy.

No plan which would leave the Pope even the nominal ruler of the Roman States, no constitutional government in his name, is now within the limits of practical policy. The case with him, as with the Austrians, is past the point at which a remedy of this kind could be of service. The Italians do not want the Pope to govern well-they want to be rid of his government. The nation, within and without the diminished papal dominion, is determined on unity under the sway of Victor Emanuel; and no scheme which leaves this demand unsatisfied offers any real prospect of success. It remains, then, that the Pope should

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