Were the Popes to accept the present regime, they would
in practice almost assuredly fall into the same questionable de- pendence on the Italian State as in early times happened in the relations of the Papacy to the Byzantine Empire. At best the Popes would be able to maintain their position, as I said in my letter last week, only by constant friction with the civil power. Human nature being what it is, it is almost impossible for two sovereign Administrations to work amicably together on the same territory. This fact was recognised in the United States when the Federal Administration was located in territory belonging to no particular State of the Union. If the various States of the same nation could not feel confidence in a Federal Administra- tion located in any particular State, can we be surprised that the confidence of the various peoples of Christendom in the im- partiality and freedom of the Pontifical Government would be shaken were the Pope to accept a position of temporal dependence on the Italian State ?
At present, as you rightly say, the Pope occupies a "position of privilege given him by Italian law.' But, in the first place, this position of privilege does not secure the Pon- tifical Administration against the interference of the Italian State, as witness the case of the revenues of the Pro- paganda, a most important section of Papal administra- tion. And further, the Pope cannot accept a "position of privilege given him by Italian law." His political inde- pendence must be part of the constitution of Christendom, secured by the consent of the Christian nations, and not a privilege liable to be curtailed or modified by an Italian Par- liament. As I said in my former letter, it is impossible to say The present attitude of the Vatican is not due to a hankering after .civil domination, but to the necessity imposed upon it by its unique relations with Catholic Christendom to secure its political independence. Independence of temporal power, rather than temporal power itself, is what the Pope demands; though it is difficult to see how this independence can be secured without a certain amount of territorial sovereignty. Certainly the Vatican can accept no solution which hampers Pontifical administration by the exigencies of merely Italian administration. It is not a question to be settled in a day. The recent meeting of Cardinal Svampa and the King of Italy at Bologna may be taken as an indication of the Vatican's desire to meet the wishes of the Italians for national unity, whilst pre- serving intact its own essential rights. Meanwhile perhaps the Press might do something to help forward the solution of this vexed question if it did justice to the true "inwardness" of the Papal position, and did not reserve all its enthusiasm for the cause of Italian unity.
am, Sir, &c., Fr. CUTHBERT, 0.S.F., C.
Franciscan Monastery, Crawley.
[Our correspondent writes so courteously that we feel it almost rude to point out that he is in reality only repeating his former argument in another form, and that therefore our comment of last week must also be repeated. The position accorded to the Pope by Italian law is amply sufficient to secure him the spiritual independence he requires. If, instead of simulating an imprisonment which does not exist in reality, the Pope were to accept the situation, and were to refuse to waste the energies of the Papacy in political strategy, his spiritual power and influence would be enormously increased. —En. Spectator.]
THE POPE AND THE TEMPORAL POWER.
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