174 APPENDIX. 



municatcd. The old-stj'le politics tûok on, in its 03-0?, a character 

 of actual sanctil}' as being the only thing that gave an}^ promise 

 of maintaining the temporal power. This explains the fact that 

 after the Italian war in 1859, reactionar}^ principles found more 

 favor than ever at Eome, and that hatred of civil and religious 

 liberty were there carried to the point of actual fanaticism. Abso- 

 lutism of all sorts is the bulwark of the temporal power of the 

 Pope, which can be maintained on no other ground. 



It is easy now for us to understand in what way the Holy See 

 has been led to the Encyclical of December, 18G4, and the aj-ipended 

 " Syllabus." It certainl}^ would never have let itself be dragged 

 into these acts of unmitigated follj^, unless it had believed itself to 

 be in a state of permanent aggressive war. Every advance of 

 liberty seemed to it to knock one stone out of the wall behind 

 which it is defending its political sovereignty. Accordingly it 

 runs a-tilt against it, as a mortal enem}', even when liberalism 

 shows itself most careful not to hurt it, and halts before the tem- 

 poral power, as if it had come to a reserved region wdiicli must be 

 an exception to all the general principles of modern society. The 

 Correspondant has had some little experience of this. The Pope 

 is in the right about it. The logic of events will not always stop 

 short just where we would like to have it. With the best dispo- 

 sition in the world to stop half-wa}"- in the argument, we don't 

 more than half succeed. It is not possible to advocate the cause 

 of liberty at Paris and oppose it at Rome. We cannot go on sa}'- 

 ing " true this side the Alps, false the other side." Liberal 

 Catholicism, wiiether it will or no, is listed in the grand crusade 

 against pontifical absolutism, and in the long siege which will end 

 with throwing down the wall of this European China. These 

 considerations explain the internal conflicts of Catholicism, and 

 the condemnations which have been obtained against its most 

 illustrious champions. It is because, witli all their attempts to 

 disguise or defend the abuses of the temporal papacy, they are 

 doing it less good, than they are damaging it by their general ad- 

 vocacy of liberty. 



Nevertheless, the Catholics of the Correspondant do not spare 



