The Age of Enlightenment

Another event of the stormy pontificate of Clement was the condemnation of the work of Nicolaus Hontheim, Coadjutor Bishop of Treves (1764). This prelate, who wrote under the name of Febronius, was under the influence of Gallican ideas; he put forward the theory that the bishops acting collectively con stituted a higher authority than the pope, that the latter only enjoyed such powers as were necessary to maintain the unity of the Church, and that he must therefore renounce some of his rights of primacy either voluntarily or under pressure from the bishops. Clement strongly urged the combatants in the cruel struggle of the Seven Years' War to conclude peace.

Clement XIV., 1769-74: The Suppression of the Jesuits. —The conclave of i 769 received an unwonted visit from the young Emperor Joseph II., who told the cardinals that the principles of former days were no longer applicable, and urged that the person to be elected should possess the virtue of wise moderation. This quality was in fact possessed by the Franciscan Ganganelli, who became pope under the name of Clement XIV. The new pope followed the example of Benedict XIV., and tried to establish good relations with the "enlightened" Governments. He entered into personal correspondence with the various sovereigns, suspended the reading of the Bull In Coena Domini (a collection of sentences of excommunication), revoked the monitorium to Parma, and re established relations with Portugal at the cost of a number of concessions. He manifested his desire for reconciliation on all hands, hoping by this means to induce the Bourbon cabinets to drop their constant demands for the dissolution of the Order of Jesuits. His hopes were, however, doomed to disappointment. There was already beginning to be talk at the Bourbon Courts of a definite breach with Rome; and the diplomats succeeded in in timidating the pope, who was lacking in courage and who did not allow the cardinals to exercise their influence. He made many attempts at evasion, and suffered bitterly under the pressure exer cised on him. Finally, without preliminary canonical procedure, he issued the Brief of 1773, by which the Order was suppressed throughout Christendom in order that peace might be restored.

As ruler of the Papal States, Clement XIV. tried to restore the financial chaos to order and to encourage industry. He was not very successful in this. He was keenly interested in art and learn ing, and founded the Museum Pio-Clementinum, which was en larged by his successor. The story that he was poisoned by the Jesuits is an invention.

Pius VI., 1775-99.

The pontificate of Pius VI., whose former name was Braschi, was longer than that of any previous pope. He was a pious, gentle and highly cultivated man, and he regarded what had been done against the Jesuits as the work of irreligious ministers. He therefore secretly favoured the Jesuits, and planned to restore the Order as a bulwark against the rising tide of revolu tion. He did a great deal for Rome and the Papal States. He undertook the costly work of draining the.Pontine marshes, and

improved the harbour of Ancona. The Eternal City, which was at that time visited by many sovereigns, was constantly being adorned with new buildings and with treasures of antique art. The Emperor Joseph II. described Rome as "a city of unequalled splendour, where an impulse towards greatness was everywhere visible." The Appian Way was restored, and the sacristy of St. Peter's completed.

The philosophical revolution which preached the destruction of Christianity and the Papacy was now in full swing, and it looked as if Voltaire's cry against the Church, "Ecrasez l'infome !" would be translated into reality. Italy did not escape infection by the new ideas from France, and there were freemasons even among the clergy. The Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany, the brother of Joseph II., was the most active promoter of the new ideas, but hostile measures against the Church were also taken in Venice and Naples. Febronianism gained ground in the Courts of Germany, notwithstanding the fact that it had been con demned by Clement XIII. Pius VI. succeeded in inducing the initiator of the movement to recant, but his ideas were taken up by the archbishop electors and the archbishop of Salzburg in the Punctation of Ems (1786), which aimed at increasing their metropolitan rights at the expense of the pope's. Serious disorder seemed on the point of setting in, but the French Revolution broke the power of the three electors of the Rhineland, and the great secularization of ecclesiastical property ensued in 1803.

The Emperor Joseph

II.—In Austria the Josephist movement prevailed ; Maria Theresa and Joseph II. issued a number of decrees which aimed at bringing the Church under the control of the sovereign State. The movement contained some just and reasonable elements, mingled with much that was unjust and excessive. There was much talk of the secularization of the prop erty of the Church and the religious Orders, of the appointment of bishops without the intervention of the pope, and of the abolition of Church laws. Joseph II., "Brother Sacristan," as Frederick II. called him, dissolved hundreds of monasteries and relentlessly swept away festivals, processions, confraternities, old customs, and much that made for the splendour of worship. While these measures of intolerance were being taken against the Catholic Church, an edict was issued in 1781 proclaiming tolera tion for all recognized Christian creeds. Pius VI., the "holy traveller," undertook the difficult journey to Vienna in 1782 with the object of softening the obduracy of the autocratic emperor, but met with little sympathy either from him or from his minister Kaunitz.

In England the position of the Catholics during the 18th cen tury continued to be unfavourable. The spirit of indifference in religious matters which made it possible for Englishmen and Scots not to be members of the national Church brought no relief to the Catholics, while in Ireland they lived poor and despised.