OF

POPE PIUS IX.

BY THE

RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.,

AUTHOR OF "THE VATICAN DECRÉES IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE,"

IGA PIq YG 45

506099 FEB 21 1942

SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX.

[Republished from the QUARTERLY REVIEW for January, 1875.]

ART. VIII.-Discorsi del Sommo Pontefice Pio IX., pronunziati in Vaticano, ai Fedeli di Roma e dell' Orbe, dal principio della sua Prigionia fino al presente. Vol. I., Roma, Aurelj, 1872; Vol. II., Cuggiani, 1873. .

As a general rule, the spirit of a system can nowhere be more fairly, more authentically learned than from the language of its accredited authorities, especially of its acknowledged Head. The rule applies peculiarly to the case of the Papacy and of the present Pope, from considerations connected both with the system and with the man. The system aims at passing its operative utterances through the lips of the Supreme Pontiff; and as no holder of the high office has ever more completely thrown his personality into his function, so no lips have ever delivered from the Papal Throne such masses of matter. Pope all over, and from head to foot, he has fed for eight-and-twenty years upon the moral diet which a too sycophantic following supplies, till every fibre of his nature is charged with it, and the simple-minded Bishop and Archbishop Mastai is hardly to be recognized under the Papal mantle.

1 At the time when this Article was written and published I was unaware that the Rev. W. Arthur had published, in a small volume entitled 'The Modern Jove,' a searching review of the contents of the first volume of the 'Discorsi,' or I should not have omitted to notice it. In this work Mr. Arthur justly comments on the lack of disposition to estimate these subjects as they deserve (p. 117); an indisposition which I believe to be more characteristic of life and its organs in our metropolis than in the country at large. The Ultramontane party, in Rome,' says Mr. Arthur, are not accountable for the illusions of English politicians and clergy, for they have of late been very outspoken.' He also cites a remarkable exclamation of Mr. O'Connell's, who, on hearing it stated in public that his Church had an infallible head, cried aloud, 'No, an infallible body.'

It can hardly be policy, it must be a necessity of his nature, which prompts his incessant harangues. But they are evidently a true picture of the man; as the man is of the system, except in this that he, to use a homely phrase, blurts out, when he is left to himself, what it delivers in rather more comely phrases, overlaid with art.

Much interest therefore attaches to such a phenomenon as the published Speeches of the Pope; and, besides what it teaches in itself, other and singular lessons are to be learned from the strange juxtaposition in which, for more than four years, his action has now been exhibited. Probably in no place and at no period, through the whole history of the world, has there ever been presented to mankind, even in the agony of war or revolution, a more extraordinary spectacle than is now witnessed at Rome. In that city the Italian Government holds a perfectly peaceable, though originally forcible, possession of the residue of the States of the Church; and at the same time the Pope, remaining on his ground, by a perpetual blast of fiery words, appeals to other lands and to future days, and thus makes his wordy, yet not wholly futile, war upon the Italian Government.

The mere extracts and specimens which have from time to time appeared in the public journals have stirred a momentary thrill or sigh or shrug, according to the temperaments and tendencies of readers. But they have been totally insufficient to convey an idea of the vigor with which this peculiar warfare is carried on; of the absolute, apparently the contemptuous, tolerance with which it is regarded by the Government ruling on the spot; or of the picture which is presented to us by the words and actions of the Pope, taken as a whole, and considered in connection with their possible significance to the future peace of Europe.

Between the 20th of October, 1870, and the 18th of September, 1873, this octogenarian Pontiff (he is now aged at least eighty-two), besides bearing all the other cares of ecclesiastical government, and despite intervals of illness, pronounced two hundred and ninety Discourses, which are reported in the eleven hundred pages of the two volumes now to be introduced to the notice of the reader. They are collected and published for the first time by the Rev. Don Pasquale de Franciscis; and, though they may be deemed highly incendiary documents, they are sold at the bookshop of the Propaganda, and are to be had in

the ordinary way of trade by virtue of that freedom of the press which the Papacy abhors and condemns.

The first question which a judicious reader will put is whether we have reasonable assurance that this work really reports the Speeches of the Pontiff with accuracy. And on this point there appears to be no room for reasonable doubt. Some few of them are merely given as abstracts, or sunti; but by far the larger number in extenso, in the first person, with minutely careful notices of the incidents of the occasion, such as the smiles, the sobs, the tears' of the Pontiff on the auditory; the animated gestures of the one, the enthusiastic shoutings of the other, which cause the halls of the Vatican to ring again. In a detailed notice, which, instead of introducing the First Volume, is rather inconveniently appended to it at the close, the editor gives an account both of the opportunities he has enjoyed and of the loving pains he took in the execution of his task. On nearly every occasion he seems to have been present and employed as a reporter (raccoglitore); once his absence is noticed, as if an unusual no less than unfortunate circumstance (ii. 284). In a particular instance (ii. 299) he speaks of the Pope himself as personally giving judgment on what might or might not be published (sarebbe stato pubblicato, se così fosse piaciuto a CHI potea volere altrimenti). The whole assistance of the Papal press in Rome was freely given him (i. 505). Eyes and ears, he says, far superior to his own, had revised and approved the entire publication (i. 506). The Preface to the Second Volume refers to the enthusiastic reception accorded to the First, and announces the whole work as that which is alone authentic and the most complete (ii. 14, 15). So that our footing plainly is sure enough; and we may reject absolutely the supposition which portions of the book might very well suggest, namely, that we were reading a scandalous Protestant forgery.

Certainly, if the spirit of true adoration will make a good reporter, Don Pasquale ought to be the best in the world. The Speeches he gives to the world are 'a treasure,' and that treasure is sublime, in

1 In the estimation of Don Pasquale, all emotion, if within the walls of the Vatican and on the Papal side, is entitled to respect, and must awaken sympathy; but when he has to describe the tears and sobs which, as he states, accompanied the funeral procession of the ex-Minister Ratazzi (ii. 350), he asks, Might not this be a Congress of Crocodiles (non sembra questo un Congresso di Coccodrilli)?