For the Italians who have the artistic in stinct and a taste for external display, cere monials arc living and substantial things, and not mere superficialities, as the Catholic Church knows well.
The difficulties created by this state of af fairs is also felt by the Church itself. The Italian government has never shown by its ac tions that it understands the benefit that modern Italy would derive from having the support of the inferior clergy, particularly the clergy of the rural parishes.
Against the inflexible hostility of the higher ranks of the priesthood the government would have found a powerful ally among the inferior clergy for the reason that they arc closer to the people and could attract them to their side in a thousand ways, thus resolving in a simple and practical manner the problem of elementary instruction — at least in the rural districts. The country parish priests and the curates in small cities are in a painful position as regards the civil authority, and more than one "Don Ab bondio" would consider it a blessing to see the king and the Pope at peace, and the throne and the altar reconciled.
As the separation of the two authorities may explain, if it does not justify the indifference of the Italian government to all questions pertain ing to religious and ecclesiastical polity, so the heated political discord after the occupation of Rome, confounding politics with a question of faith, gave a seeming excuse to the irreligion of Many political men, and under the guise of a kind of patriotism condoned their frequent attacks on the interests of the Church, and at the same time constrained the great majority of Catholics, even to this day, to refrain from par ticipation in political life, thus robbing parlia mentary life of that rich interchange of ideas which would doubtless have restored its pres tige which had sunk so low in the estimation of the public.
There was in truth a party widely diffused throughout Italy who sought to adjust the pain ful breach; and at one time — in 1887— it ap peared as if a reconciliation would take place through the action of a number of persons whose representative was Father Tosti, and who believed it possible to be good citizens as well as good Catholics, to love and serve their country and yet to be devoted to the Church. But although there was no doubt of the advan tages that the Italian government would derive from the new order of things, especially as civil liberty and the unity of Italy had always been an intangible possession, it wasjust as manifest that the Vatican could never officially withdraw its solemn and repeated declarations. Never
theless experience has shown that a modus vi vendi is not only possible, but that a silent re nunciation has already taken place. It was so manifest that the fall of the temporal power had no evil effect on the spiritual power of the Church; and the impossibility of a restitutio in integrum was so evident that the younger and more cultured clergy felt that there was a re nunciation, and an implied understanding. The fact that the younger Catholic party, in accord with the encyclical of Leo XIII Rerum No varum, had entered into economic and social action as the Christian-Democratic party, sig nifies that a larger field was open to their activity, and that the policy of revenge was abandoned.
It is true that Pius X hastened to restrain the impetuosity and curb the ardor of the young Christian Democracy; but while not revoking the it non expedit he himself agreed that the Italian Catholics should take part, wherever it seemed advisable to the local ecclesiastical authorities, in all political elections, and should sit in the Parliament at Rome. 'This attitude was a tacit recognition of Rome as the capital.
Thus it is that to-day the political question cannot excuse indifference on the part of sin cere Italian patriots to the Church and to re ligion, as it could 36 years ago when the Roman question arose, and continued and violent pro tests were heard from the Vatican. With the deprivation of its temporal power, the pontifi cate, even in the eyes of Protestants and Free thinkers, has gained in spiritual authority and acquired a certain dignity. For that reason to day the conditions are more propitious for a religious revival than 10 years ago. The aBank Scandals," the corruption in some branches of Italian public life, and occasional acts of violence, induced a feeling in the minds of many that Italy needed, if not religion, at least a moral regeneration. Many public men of the new generation believe that it is not incompatible with their patriotism to give a religious education to their sons, and feel that the worship of patriotism and of liberty alone cannot satisfy all the needs of the soul and of modern life.