ITALY AND THE POPE. T HE foreign correspondents who deal with
affairs at the Vatican commonly begin by saying that nothing can be known of the Pope's intentions, and then go on to tell us all about them. The exercise of a little common-sense will usually enable the reader to distrust a great deal of this information. That nothing is known of the Pope's intentions is likely enough, not so much from any special mystery in which they are shrouded, as from the not unimportant circumstance that the Pope probably does not know them himself. Thus, when we hear that the Pope has waived his objection to the Emperor of Austria visiting the King of Italy at Rome, or that "the ice has now been broken" between the Vatican and the Quirinal, and that negotiations for a modus vivendi between the two Powers may shortly be opened, it is permissible to remember how unlikely it is, a priori, that either bit of news should be true. The Pope, though in one sense the most con- servative of Sovereigns, is in another the most revo- lutionary. Revolutions are commonly made by men who have a great deal to gain and very little to lose, and this is exactly the position of Leo XTTT. A European war might give him back some part of the territory he has lost, and it could hardly take any more away. What reason, therefore, can the Vatican, which is naturally a slow-moving Power, have for surrendering in advance the possible fruits of a reconstruction of the map of Europe ? None whatever that we can see, unless it be that the Italian Government are prepared to offer at once all that the Pope can hope to gain from a European con- vulsion. It is conceivable, no doubt, that they are so prepared, that the anarchical forces which are ever working underground are nearer the surface in Italy than is supposed, and that the Marquis di Rudini has by this means been brought to realise the urgent need of a union between the Conservative elements in Italy, and is ready to make almost any sacrifices to obtain it. This, we say, is conceivable. But it is in the highest degree unlikely. There is nothing to show that order and internal peace are exposed to any special danger at this moment in Italy ; while as regards external dangers, they are sufficiently guarded against by the Triple Alliance. Indeed, as things stand, to make any considerable concessions to the Papal demands would to all appearance rather provoke than avert internal confusion. It would give a handle to the Extreme Left, and make the continuance of the present Ministry in office extremely doubtful. However much a reconciliation be- tween the Pope and the Italian Government may be desired by reasonable and moderate men in both camps, the difficulties that stand in the way of it are so considerable, that we may well doubt whether they are likely to be surmounted until both sides have come to realise, far more clearly than they do at present, the benefits that each would derive from it. The phrase, " A compromise which would yield full satisfaction to the Papacy while safe- guarding the indefeasible rights of the Crown," runs glibly enough along the telegraph-wires ; but we should not envy the task of the diplomatists who had to embody it in a working agreement. It is not, indeed, that such an agreement is in itself very hard to frame. Undoubtedly the Pope wants and ought to have something which he has not got. But then, we know of no reason why the Italian Government should not, without any surrender either of principle or dignity, concede this something. What the Pope wants and ought to have, is a solid guarantee for his spiritual independence,—a guarantee, that is to say, for freedom of intercourse with his flock throughout the world, and for freedom to frame and promulgate his decisions in spiritual matters undisturbed by pressure, other than diplo- matic, from the temporal Powers of the world. This was the raison, d'être, such as it was, of his old sovereignty. While he was a territorial Prince, he enjoyed the technical independence which belongs in theory to all sovereign States. It is important, however, to observe that during the larger part of the Pontificate of Pius IX., this inde- pendence was of the most shadowy description. For twenty years or so before 1870, the Pope reigned in Rome because the French Government willed him to reign there. Had the French troops been withdrawn, and had it been intimated to the Italian Government that there was no in- tention under any circumstances of sending theniback, the events of 1870 would have been anticipated, and the Italians would have entered Rome. A temporal sovereignty of this kind—except so far as it is a mere provisional arrangement—cannot be regarded as conferring any real independence on the Sovereign. All that the Pope gained by the French occupation was the substitution of a dis- tant and friendly master for one less friendly and nearer at hand. Nor is it at all apparent how the restoration of the Patrimony of St. Peter would put future Popes in a much better position than Pius IX. held while be held Rome by the will of the French Emperor. Dependence is almost inevitably the lot of small Powers, now that the great Powers have Europe so much to themselves. The Pope, as an Italian Prince, might choose his protector; but there his freedom would end. He would have to shape his policy in things spiritual to meet the views of the Power that happened to be best disposed towards him ; or if he refused to do this, he would have to stand the con- sequences in the shape of dangerous enmities. There is a long interval, however, between the opinion that the Pope would be no better off if he had some por- tion of his former territory restored to him and the opinion that he is sufficiently well off at present. True, there is only one flaw in his present position, but it is a fatal flaw. The Law of Guarantees secures him the dignity of a sovereign Prince ; he is not a subject of the King of Italy ; his per- son and his palace are inviolable ; he has a large income offered him out of the Italian revenue. But on what founda- tion do all these promises rest ? On nothing more permanent than the will of a Parliamentary majority. The Law of the Guarantees is simply an Italian statute. It was passed in the same way as other statutes, and it can be repealed in the same way as other statutes. A section of the Italian Chamber would like to repeal it even now, and though those who wish to get rid of the law altogether are now in a minority, a hundred things may happen which would turn them from a minority into a majority. Looked at in the light of an arrangement which secures to the Pope all the dignity and independence which every Catholic Sovereign—we may go further, and say every Sovereign who has Catholic subjects—must wish that he should enjoy, the Law of Guarantees is altogether illusory. The fault
is not so much in the law itself as in the authority on which
it rests. The Pope is really a tenant at will of the Vatican, because at any moment Parliament could repeal the statute under which he holds it, and leave it to the operation of the general laws which have brought about in so many instances the confiscation of ecclesiastical property.
There is a very easy method of remedying this defect. All that is wanted to give the Pope the security he desires, is to make the Law of Guarantees an inter- national instead of a merely municipal instrument,—a treaty instead of a statute. This change would give him more advantages than he could hope to derive from terri- torial sovereignty. It would make it impossible for the Italian Government to repudiate the arrange- ment except by risking a war. However strongly the majority in the Chamber might wish to reduce the Pope to the level of an Italian subject, they could only do so by putting themselves wrong in the face of Europe, or by bringing Europe round to their opinion. But this amount of insecurity would equally exist if the Pope were once more a temporal Sovereign, with the City of Rome as his territory. The Italian people would be as anxious to regain their capital as they were to gain it, and whenever the atti- tude of the Great Powers seemed to promise them impunity, they would once more seize the Pope's possessions. His only protection in this case would be the unwillingness of the Italian Government to run the risk of invading his territory, and in the unwillingness of the Italian Government to run the risk of violating a treaty he would have a protection in all respects as effectual. On the other hand, though Italy would have given the Pope a valid instead of an illusory security, she would still have given him nothing that she has not again and again declared herself ready and anxious to give. His position would be just what it is under the Law of Guarantees, the difference being that it would be secure, and not, as now, insecure. He would hold it under the highest attainable sanction, the sanction-of a solemn treaty between the Catholic, if not the European Powers. There is something absurd in regulating the rights of a foreign Sovereign by a municipal statute. In so far as the Pope is independent of the Italian Government, he is not a proper subject of Italian legislation.' Why, then, if the solution is so simple as this, are our expectations that it will be adopted so slight ? For this simple reason,—that we have not observed the slightest disposition on either side to accept it. The Pope's advisers and the Pope himself are old men who have grown up under a system with the fall of which is associated a whole series of changes which have deprived life in Rome of its charm. Naturally they have never ceased to regret the past, or to look to a restoration as the only means by which they can get back what they have lost. This is not a temper which makes for compromise. On the other hand, the Italians have always shown an extraordinary indignation at every proposal to treat the Pope's position as an international question. Even while they protest that he is independent and sovereign, they deny that any Power but Italy has the right to ask whether he really is what they declare him to be. It is a perfectly illogical attitude ; but nations have the power of being illogical very largely developed, and so long as this is the case with the Italians, the proposal of a modus vivendi seems as little likely to come from the Quirinal as from the Vatican.
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