THE POPE AND ITALY.
THE letter of the Pope to the three Cardinals who are specially concerned with the Vatican Library is interest- ing, not only for itself, but for the manner in which it has been received by the Italian Press. Not very long ago, such a document would have excited nothing but merriment. The notion of a Pope recommending the study of documents and appealing to history in justification of the part played by the Papacy in Europe, would have been treated simply as a better joke than common. That time seenis already to have passed away. The attitude of Italian politicians towards the Pope has undergone a remarkable change. It no longer bespeaks either contempt or anger. The character and policy of Leo XIIL have had their natural influence on the Italian mind. It is seen that the Pope has a definite aim, and that he has pursued it with remarkable persistence, amidst very great discouragement. Pius LX. succeeded in making the Papacy equally hated by the Conservative and the Revolutionary forces in Europe. Neither of them knew where to have him. The Italian Liberal of the time before 1848 had merged in the Italian despot of the time that followed that year, but the Pope was never consistent, either as Liberal or as despot. He was ready to quarrel with established Governments, or to make terms with Revolutionary Governments, just as it suited his momentary purpose. No doubt, his object was always what he held to be the interests of Catholicism. But his reading of the interests of Catholicism summed them up in two things,— the maintenance of his temporal power, and the recognition of his spiritual infallibility. Whatever made or seemed to make for either of these ends, that was what the Pope fought for. He blessed the arms of Napoleon III., because he lent him the support of French bayonets ; he would have welcomed a Socialist Republic, provided that it had accepted the Syllabus. Intensity and caprice were the two main characteristics of his mind, and they necessarily led politicians to exclude him from their arrangements. He might come in to them at any moment as a disturbing force, but, as the action of that force would always be beyond cal- culation, it might for practical purposes be left out of the account. With the election of a new Pope began a new era. Leo XIII. found himself in presence of two almost equally hostile influences. On the one side were the regular Govern- ments of Europe ; on the other, the democratic passions that are now diffused throughout the whole of the Continent. With the former, Pius IX. had been at war for years. Russia, Germany, France, Italy were one and all hostile, and if Spain and Austria were disposed to be neutral or friendly, neither their neutrality nor their friendship was of a kind that could be depended upon at a crisis. To the latter Pius IX. was equally obnoxious. He was regarded as at once a rene- gade and a persecutor. The temptation to which a less. resolute man than Leo XIII. would have been exposed would have been to play one of these forces against the other. Alike in France and Germany, for example, the established Government was hostile to the Church ; but in France, the established Government WAS a Republic hold- ing its ground against a Monarchical propaganda, whereas in Germany the established Government was a Monarchy holding its ground against a Socialist propaganda. In both, therefore, the Pope's course seemed plain. In France, his friends were to a man fighting in the Monarchist ranks ; consequently, it was his business to do all he could to injure the Republic. In Germany the Catholics formed a third party, equally removed from the Government and the Democratic Opposition ; but the Government was for the moment the more active and the more formidable foe of the two ; consequently, it was his business to use the weaker adversary, and the one which could only in- jure him in the future, against the stronger and more present adversary. This was not Leo XIII.'s reading of the political situation. He saw that if the Pope were to have any influence in Europe, he must have a policy that was not determined afresh at every moment by the moment's most obvious needs. He must throw his weight deliberately and permanently into one scale or the other. Possibly, a younger man might have hesitated into which scale he should throw it. There is more to be said in favour of an alliance between the Church and the Democracy than may at first be seen. But Leo XIII. is at heart Left-Centre. Pius IX. was of the same political per- suasion as Lord Beaconsfield, a Democratic Tory ; Leo XIII. is a sober Whig. The feature that most impressed him in the contem- porary Democracy was its anarchical fury, its entire severance from all customary law, whether divine or human, its passionate glorification of an ideal evolved out of its own dreams. Orr the other hand, the Established Governments have a cotnmoe Conservative character. In so far as they are Established, they wish to maintain those elementary ideas of order and security against which Communism and Nihilism wage con- tinual war. They are the natural allies, therefore, of the Catholic Church, both because she, too, loves order and security, and because she has help to offer towards the attain- ment of these things which Established Governments cannot get from any other quarter. Order and security are not in themselves calculated—except, perhaps, at the fag-end of a great revolution—to evoke enthusiasm, and for this reason it very much concerns those whose business it is to preach them to associate them with religion. Leo XIII. was determined to make friends alike of Schismatic Russia, Protestant Germany, and Secularist France. He saw that they might all benefit by his friendship, because in their character of Established Governments they were all exposed to attacks which the Church could help them to resist. In all three countries, too, the Church had something to gain by an alliance with the powers that be. Whether she any longer de- sires political influence, or has come to see that political influence is no longer within her reach, does not much matter, since political influence is only to be obtained through the exercise of spiritual influence. Consequently, it is her spiritual influence that the Church seeks to extend and con- solidate, and temporal Governments have many ways at their command of furthering or hindering her in the pursuit of this aim. If they are hostile, they can come between Bishops and their flocks, as in Prussia, or between the Church and the children whom she wishes to teach, as in France. Favour is no longer to be had from temporal Governments, but it is still in their power to give or deny the Church a fair field. From the moment of his accession, therefore, Leo XTTT, had resolved not to be discouraged by the difficulty of the task he had set himself. He has been successful with Russia; he is seemingly on the eve of success with Germany ; and it is only the weak- ness of the French Government that stands in the way of success in France. All three Governments recognise that the Church is a great Conservative force, and that they cannot quarrel with her without losing a valuable ally in the conflict with anarchy, in which all three must expect to bear a part by-and-by.
This steady conquest over foes who five years ago seemed so resolute and resentful, has not been without its effect on the statesmen of the Italian Monarchy. That monarchy is marked 'out by circumstances to be a member of the Conservative Coalition, because outside that combination it is threatened by external and internal dangers of the first order. Yet it alone is prevented from profiting by the Pope's assistance, because to it alone the Pope is a permanent antagonist. The force that, if it was friendly, could do more than anything to consolidate Italy, spends its strength in consolidating other Governments, and leaves Italy alone. It is only natural, therefore, that Italian politicians of the graver sort should be asking themselves whether there is no possibility of coming to an understanding with the Pope ; and when the Pope himself invites historians to ransack the Vatican archives, in the conviction that the Papacy can only be the better for any light that may be thrown on its relations with Italy and the world, they naturally wel- come the indication thus afforded of the Pope's readiness to substitute argument for assertion, and of his willingness to enter upon a discussion which, if it fails to upset the convictions entertained on either side, may at least suggest a modes vivendi between them.
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