POPE 



321 



the one side the bishops nominated by the king 

 insisted, as in duty bound, upon the acceptation of 

 the bull Unigenitus issued by Clement XI. in 1713, 

 whilst on the other a large body of the clergy and 

 a not less large body of the laity resisted a bull in- 

 volving assent to a lengthy series of abstract theo- 

 logical propositions. Of the violence of these theo- 

 logical quarrels it is now almost impossible to 

 form an idea, and more than one cool observer 

 believed schism in France to be imminent. Thus, 

 whilst the papacy needed every aid to stem the 

 rising tide of infidelity, it found those on whose 

 help it should have been able to depend involved in 

 internecine conflict. The second half of the 18th 

 century was for the papacy a slow agony, the suc- 

 cessive stages of which do not call for notice here. 

 By the suppression of the Jesuits the papacy not 

 merely deprive:! itself of an able body of strenuous 

 defenders, but cast by the very act dismay among 

 the ranks of many devoted to the church. More- 

 over, the manner of the fall of the Society of Jesns 

 was not calculated to lessen the weight of responsi- 

 bility, or it uiiiv be said the odium, attaching to so 

 grave an act. It fell with dignity, and the cruelties 

 inflicted upon many of its members called forth 

 in unlikely quarters sympathy for the victims. It 

 was natural that onlookers should be more impressed 

 by these more recent occurrences than by the long 

 chain of events which had brought the holy see to 

 view the suppression of the Order as inevitable. 



Even the faithful House of Austria now fell 

 away, and the Emperor Joseph II. assumed to him- 

 self and exercised functions which the popes had 

 ever claimed as pertaining to the supreme ecclesi- 

 astical power. The fruitless journey of Pius VI. 

 (1775-99) to confer with Joseph II. at Vienna in 

 1782 is the outward evidence of the humiliation 

 of the papacy. Before long the Revolution which 

 broke forth !n France swept away king and priest 

 and all established institutions in church and state, 

 involving Catholic Europe in disorder. An out- 

 break in Rome, fomented by the agents of the 

 French ambassador, forced the pope from Rome as 

 a prisoner ( 1798) ; and, after his removal from one 

 place of confinement to another, Pius VI. died at 

 Valence on 29th August 1799, Napoleon having, 

 two years before, in anticipation of his death, given 

 orders that no successor should be elected, and that 

 the papacy should be abolished. 



A few words must still be given to the present 

 and fourth period of the modern age of the papacy. 

 Through the instrumentality of schismatic Russia 

 the conclave of cardinals met in the monastery 

 <if St Giorgio Maggiore at Venice on the 1st of 

 December 1799. The conclave lasted for nearly 

 four months. Just as the conclave of 1700 was 

 decisive as regards the fortunes of the papacy in 

 the 18th century, so was this of 1800 as regards 

 the 19th century. The possible candidates were 

 numerous ; the choice finally rested on the Bene- 

 dictine cardinal, Chiaramonti. Nothing better 

 illustrates the confusion of ecclesiastical ideas in 

 the 18th century, or a chief source of the weakness 

 of the church, induced by universal suspicion, than 

 an accidental expression used by a member of the 

 conclave, Cardinal Langini, in his private diary. 

 Explaining the objections felt by some in the con- 

 clave to Chiaramonti, he notes under 12th March 

 1800, only two days before the election, ' Chiara- 

 monti, as a Benedictine, being suspected of Jan- 

 senism.' 



No one who reviews the history of the 19th 

 century can doubt that events have justified the 

 choice of the cardinals. After enduring shocks 

 which to human eyes seemed to threaten its very 

 xwtence, the papacy has become once more a factor 

 ' the greatest potency in the civilised world. 

 At this is so is largely the result of the 

 38o 



personal character of Chiaramonti, the new pope, 

 who as Pius VII. (1800-23) combined a concilia- 

 tory temper with an unconquerable inflexibility 

 when vital principles were involved. The history 

 of his relations with Napoleon I. is sufficient of 

 itself to explain how he, destitute apparently 

 of all human help, won for himself the respect 

 of those who would naturally have been the 

 first to contest his spiritual authority. In the 

 space of his pontificate he was able to restore the 

 papacy to the position which it had held a hundred 

 years before. Under him began that restoration 

 of Catholic life and Catholic aim which has 

 attracted some of the ablest intellects and most 

 statesmanlike minds of the century to the service 

 of the church ; and under him and his successors 

 was accumulated a reserve of Catholic strength 

 which is one of the most interesting and remarkable 

 features of the 19th century. 



The successors of Pius VII. by the personal purity 

 of their lives contributed greatly to advance this 

 Catholic revival. The reigns of Leo XII. (1823- 

 29 ), Pius VIII. ( 1829-30), and Gregory XVI. ( 1831- 

 46 ) witnessed an increase of zeal on the part of the 

 Roman Catholic clergy everywhere, and a marked 

 development of the spirit of loyalty to the holy 

 see both in them and in the ranks of the Catholic 

 laity. In France the exertions of Montalembert, 

 Lamennais, and others firmly established a new 

 school, which, whilst professing enlightened liberal 

 doctrines, was founded on the principle that com- 

 plete and loyal submission to the teachings and 

 direction of Rome was the first duty of every 

 Catholic. In England the passing of the act for 

 Catholic emancipation in 1829 gave liberty, and 

 with it new life, to Roman Catholics. 



Pius IX. ( 1846-78 ) was chosen to succeed Gregory 

 XVI. He hod generally been credited with advanced 

 liberal views, and had exerted himself during the 

 civil disturbances under his predecessor to secure 

 some mitigation of the punishments meted out to 

 the political prisoners. He began his rule with a 

 proclamation of general amnesty for such offenders, 

 and for the first two years he maintained a policy 

 of liberal political reform. At the end of that time 

 lie had practically become a prisoner in the hands 

 of the revolutionary party, and on November 24, 

 1848, he escaped in disguise from Rome to Gaeta. 

 Here he remained till in April 1850 he was brought 

 back to Rome by the French troops. On September 

 29, 1850, he took the important step, as regards the 

 English Catholics, of establishing a hierarchy of 

 bishops in communion with the Roman see. On 

 December 8, 1854, he issued the bull Infffabilis 

 Deus, by which the doctrine of the Immaculate 

 Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was declared 

 to be a dogma of the Christian faith. Ten years 

 later (December 1864) he published the famous 

 encyclical Quanta cura, together with the Syllabus, 

 or catalogue of errors of the day which called for 

 special condemnation. Romagna, a portion of the 

 pontifical states, was occupied by the Sardinian 

 troops in 1860, and in September of the same year, 

 after a stubborn resistance made by the pope's 

 troops at Ancona, most of the States of the Church 

 were annexed to the kingdom of Victor Emmanuel. 

 From that time till 1870 Pius IX. was maintained 

 in Rome by a French garrison. On the 18th of 

 July of that year (1870) the Vatican Council, which 

 the pope had assembled at Rome, decreed the dogma 

 of Papal Infallibility part of the faith of the church. 

 Upon the outbreak of the war between France and 

 Prussia the French garrison was withdrawn from 

 Rome, and on the news of the defeat of the French 

 the Sardinian troops moved upon Rome. After a 

 .slight show of resistance Victor Emmanuel's army 

 entered the city on the 21st September 1870, and 

 from that time the temporal power of the pope has 



