THE VATICAN AND THE JESUITS.
[TO THE EDITOR 07 THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—At the risk of "saying ditto to Mr. Burke," I should be glad to have space in the columns of the Spectator to con- firm the views expressed in the article on " The ' Black' Pope and the ` White' Pope" in the Spectator of December 31st. As you know, I have had exceptional opportunities for a non-Catholic of studying the Roman question, opportunities not only exceptional in the chance of residence in Rome at critical conjunctures, but of having been in the possession of details of official information on matters never officially made known, but perfectly well known in the proper quarters. And if my echo of your ideas is somewhat louder than your utterance, it is no more than sometimes happens to echoes, to reverberate from nearer reflecting surfaces. The Times' correspondent in Vienna is known in the journalistic world, as well as in the diplomatic, to be one of the best-informed men in Europe on the questions that regard the politics of Central Europe, and what he says of the effects of the Vatican policy in Austria needs not my confirmation, though from sources of information different from his I could give it. That the " Black " Pope—i.e., the Society of Jesus—is doing what it can to destroy the political strength of the only two Powers in Europe that could ever be of any real strength to a pure and religious Catholicism is not only strange but true. Having done all it can to throw the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the feet of orthodox Russia, and barbarise it by returning to mediwval conditions of religions fanaticism and warfare, it is doing its best to push Italy into Socialism and complete religious indifference by its war on the Italian Government. Cavour, who knew his Italy, was willing to give the Church such conditions as it enjoys in no country in Europe, on condition of its accepting the unity of the State and its control over temporal matters. He would have admitted the College of Cardinals to the
Senate, which when we consider the composition of the College seems like putting Italy at the disposition of the Church, con- sidered internationally. But the Church of his day had less care for the essentials of religion than for the pomp of the Church. I may go further, and say that the Church of the period prior to the occupation of Rome by Italy had less care for common morality in its temporal realm than for the privileges and authority of the Papa-Re, as to-day it prefers associating politically with its Radical enemies and Socialists, if so it may weaken the kingdom, to employing its influence to the confirmation of social order and political progress, if that course would strengthen the kingdom. It is supposed that the non.expedit in Italian politics prevents the Catholics from voting in the national elections. This is a hypothesis without foundation. Two facts will show it to be so. In the munici- pal elections the Catholics are urged to vote, as they are openly ordered not to vote in the national; but in the city of Rome, where the authority of the Church is strongest and the political organisation most complete, the Committee receiving its orders from the Pope, the difference between the vote in the political and municipal election was never during my residence greater than six thousand votes, which would indicate that that is the number of Catholics in Rome! In the General Election consequent on Urispi's return to office in 1893, I had an opportunity to ascertain the true character of the voting in the district of the Vatican, where reside the greater part of the employes of the Church who are entitled to vote. As their names were all known to the authorities, and the politics of the whole district had been by careful canvassing ascertained, it was easy to "spot" the colour of that vote under the influence of the Vatican. It was cast solid for Barzilai, a Radical-Republican Jew, although Prince Colonna, an unquestionable Catholic, was the official candidate.
Testimony on this subject is generally disposed of by the adherents of the political Church by the allegation of religious bias, and a man is accepted as witness, not accord- ing to what he knows, but to what he believes, or what prejudices he may hold. He must make his declaration of faith before his evidence can be weighed, and though I admit the right of no man to ask a question on this subject of another, I am ready to qualify as, what I really am, and must always remain, an indifferent to all questions of creed or ecclesiastical forme. I deplore more than most Catholics of my acquaintance the growing infidelity of the Italians, and I even deprecate the loss of authority of the parish clergy all over Italy over their flocks, which is visible to all who wish to see. A leading Deputy from Piedmont of a family noted for its devotion to the Church, and from a parish devoted to its priest, said to me that if the priest should attempt to preach from the pulpit the restoration of Rome to the Pope he would be deserted by his congrega- tion. And more than this, he assured me that if it should be known that he confessed, the constituency would never re- turn him again as Deputy. And this condition of things, which is growing, is largely due to the immixtion in politics of the Vatican. In another class of Catholics, equally devoted children of the Church, there is the same alienation from its authority in spiritual matters, owing to its alliance with Socialism, Radicalism, &c., to the detriment of order and conservative interests. Rationalist myself, and profoundly indifferent personally to the Tweedlednm and Tweedledee of ecclesiastical controversies, while a sincere believer in the necessity of religion, I deplore the degrada- tion of the Roman Catholic form of it in Italy, where there is no soil for any other form. Yet this is the work the Society of Jesus has set itself to.
In 1888 Leo XIII., influenced no doubt by the party in the Sacred College friendly to Criepi, made the advance to a re- conciliation known as the work of the confidant of the Pope, Padre Tosti. Crispi met the advance cordially, whereupon the Jesuits put on their utmost pressure to avert the conciliatory scheme, and the French Embassy menaced withdrawal if it went any farther. The Pope after that ceased to oppose the policy of the Society of Jesus, and ever since the implacable war on Italy has gone on. This war, which is not the warfare, nor in the interest, of the Roman Catholic Church, but of temporalism, is carried into every field where intolerant Catholicism has any power, and it is hoped to make it an international question. Therefore the Vatican attacks Italy through Austria, Germany, Belgium, and especially through France. Its strength lies in a blind fanaticism which believes in the restoration of the power of the Roman Pontiff over the affairs of the world ; an empty, absurd dream, but on the hope of the realisation of it the Vatican is hounding Italy into anarchy, the Austrian Empire into dissolution before the advance of orthodoxy, France into the frenzy of the present horrible Anti-Semitism, and all Europe into the horrors of a war of which no one can foresee the result, though one may be foreseen by any sane mind,—viz., the greatest diminution in authority and fellowship the Roman Church has ever seen. The hope of the Jesuits is that the tem- poral power will be made a dogma. This hope is not the offspring of a zeal for the purity or power of religious sentiment—it is not even in the interest of the Papacy, for a Pope who opposed it or accepted a reconciliation with Italy would be opposed by the Society—bat in that of the domination of the Society over, not alone the Papacy, but modern society. It is the perception of this fact which has more than once led the Popes to dissolve the Society of Jesus. The best interests of Roman Catholicism, so far as it is Christianity, are being put to the gravest hazard by this war of the Jesuits, wh9 dream that they can turn the world back five hundred years, and the inevitable, if I may believe the most devoted English Catholics I know, consequence of the war and the dogma together will be the gravest schism of modern times.
The inanity of the Jesuit dream may be seen by its juxta- position with one of the most probable of political events. The French Government supports the pretensions of the Pope to the restoration of the temporal power, solely on account of its hostility to a kingdom of Italy from which the influence of France is excluded. If, to-morrow, as is certain to be the case if the discords of Europe can be composed, Italy and France should enter into a firm alliance, the dream of the restoration vanishes into thin air, for with- out the co-operation of France there is no possibility of the Pope ever becoming again the Papa-Re.
Europe owes to the " Black " Pope the menace of the dis- solution of the Austrian Empire with a general war, the anarchical tendencies in Italy, the Dreyfus disgrace in France, and a grave suspension of the spiritual activity of the Roman Catholic Church in all countries where the " Black " Pope rules.—is it conceivable that earnest Roman Catholics should not understand the danger that menaces their Church ? In view of this question, the American Bishops will hardly find the ground for a valid resistance to the movement for independence of their Church from the dictation of the Old World, compromised in its dogma by the folly of a question which to them has no reality and no relation to Christianity. American Catholics "mean busi- ness," like their fellow-countrymen, and business does not mean the submission of their spiritual interests to the government of a party of intriguants who are only thinking of their reaffirmation of a tenet of the Middle Ages. I say nothing about the certainty that if the Pope were left to his own resources as a Papa-Re be would be blown up with dynamite in the Vatican in less than a month by his present allies, the Radicals. The "Black" Pope has at his service discipline, learning, talent, and unlimited devotion, but not one grain of common-sense.--I am, Sir, &c., W. J. STILLMAN. Condercum, West Bournemouth, January 4th.
[We cannot but think that Mr. Stillman makes a great deal too much of the Jesuit bogey. At the same time, we entirely agree with Mr. Stillman as to the folly of the Roman Church in devoting its energies to regaining the temporal power,— neglecting thereby its spiritual functions, and inflicting incalculable injury on the interests of true religion.—ED. Spectator.]
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