Pius Ix

Loss of the Temporal Power.

On April 12, 1850 Pius re turned to Rome, supported by foreign arms, embittered, and hostile henceforward to every form of political liberalism or national sentiment. In Gaeta he had mentally cut himself loose from all ideas of progress, and had thrown himself into the arms of the Jesuits. His subsequent policy was stamped by reaction. Whether it might have been possible to avoid the catastrophe of 187o, in which the remnant of the Papal States was lost, is a difficult question. But undoubtedly the policy which Pius now inaugurated, of restoring the old pre-revolutionary conditions, sealed the fate of the temporal dominion of the papacy. He made no attempt to regain the estranged affections of the populace, and took no measures to liberate himself and his subjects from the incubus of the last few years. The system of precautionary arrest, as it was termed, rendered it possible for any man to be thrown into prison, without trial and without verdict, simply on the ground that he lay under suspicion of plotting against the Government. The priests, who usurped the judicial function, dis played such cruelty on several occasions that officers of the Aus trian army were compelled to record a protest. The consequence of these methods was that every victim—innocent or guilty— ranked as a martyr in the estimation of his fellow-citizens. Brig andage revived, corruption was rampant, and the financial ad ministration under Cardinal Antonelli (q.v.) was disastrous.

The mismanagement which obtained in the papal dominions could not escape the observation of the other powers. As early as the Congress of Paris in 1856 the English ambassador, Lord Clarendon, had directed an annihilating criticism against the government of the pontiff ; and a convincing proof of the justice of his verdict was given by Pius himself, in his treatment of the famous Mortara case (see MORTARA, EDGAR), which gave rise to diplomatic representations from France and England. The sequel to this mode of government was that the growing embitterment of the subjects of the Church came to be sympathized with outside the bounds of Italy, and the question whether the secular author ity of the papacy could be allowed to continue became a much debated problem. The continued existence of the Papal States as such, depended in fact on the maintenance of the under standing between the two powers protecting the papal state— France and Austria.

But Napoleon came to an agreement with Cavour against Austria, and one of the results of the war of 1859 was that the pope forfeited two-thirds of his dominions. After the war of 1866 (see ITALY : History), the States of the Church formed the last remaining obstacle to complete national unity. The news of the fall of the French empire in 187o produced an electrical effect in Italy. The French troops had evacuated Rome in 1869, and the Italian parliament now called on the king to occupy Rome; on Sept. 8 Victor Emmanuel crossed the borders; and on Sept.

20 the green-white-and-red of the tricolour floated over the Capitol. The protests of Pius IX. remained unheeded, and his attempts to secure another foreign intervention met with no success. On Oct. 2 Victor Emmanuel instituted a plebiscite in Rome and the possessions of the Church to decide the question of annexation. The result of the suffrage was that 153,681 votes were given in favour of union with Italy, and 1,507 against the proposed incorporation : that is to say only the direct dependants of the Vatican were opposed to the change. The papal state was now merged in the kingdom of Italy, which proceeded to define its diplomatic relations with the Holy See by the law of May 13, I 87 I . (See ITALY : History.) Ultramontanism.—In his capacity as head of the Church, Pius IX. adhered to the principles of the Ultramontanist party, and contributed materially to the victory of that cause. The political reaction which followed the revolutionary era in most quarters of Europe offered a favourite soil for his efforts; and in several countries he found it possible to regulate the relations between Church and state from the standpoint of the curia. In 1851 he concluded a concordat with Queen Isabella II. of Spain, proclaiming Roman Catholicism the sole religion of the Spanish people, to the exclusion of every other creed (art. I) ; and we find the same provision in another concordat with the South American republic of Ecuador (1862). A third concordat, nego tiated with the emperor Francis Joseph I. of Austria (1855), entrusted the supervision of schools and the censorship of litera ture to the clergy, recognized the canon law, and repealed all secular legislation conflicting with it. France came into line with the wishes of the pope in every respect, as Napoleon needed clerical support in his political designs. Even in Germany he found no resistance; on the contrary, he was able to secure advantageous compacts from individual states (Hesse, 1854; Wurttemberg, 1857).

Among the most important acts of Pius IX. must be counted his proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, by the bull Ineffabilis Deus, on Dec. 8, In this bull the preservation of Mary from every stain of hereditary sin, in the first moment of her conception, was declared to be a divinely revealed truth, which consequently demanded universal acceptance. (See IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.) By this means a view, which till then had been no more than a pious belief, was elevated into a dogma to be held de fide; though grave doubts on the subject had always been entertained, even in the midst of the Church itself. For the inner life of that Church this solution of the controversy was of great significance, and created a desire for further dogmatic decisions on the Virgin Mary--her resurrection and ascension.