ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



679 



This, then, venerable brethren, is how, not only 

 so many asylums and institutions which ages have 

 built up, which revolutions have not been able to 

 destroy, and which are so necessary to the adminis- 

 tration of the Church, have been destroyed among 

 us, by the violence and spirit of destruction of our 

 enemies, but how, too, they have succeeded by the 

 most criminal means in making it impossible for 

 the Church to perform that subli me mission of teach- 

 ing and watching over the salvation of the souls she 

 received from lier Divine Founder, by decreeing the 

 most severe penalties whereby to close the mouths 

 of her ministers, who, in teaching the people to 

 observe all that Jesus Christ has ordained, and in 

 insisting, in season and out of season, in reminding, 

 supplicating, and reproving in all patience and wis- 

 dom, are simply, doing what they are commanded 

 to do by divine and ecclesiastical authority. For 

 now we pass over in silence other dark machinations 

 on the part of the assailants of the Church, from 

 which, as we know, some of the public ministers 

 themselves withheld neither their counsels nor their 

 encouragement : machinations which tend to pre- 

 pare for the Church days of tribulation still more 

 severe, or to create occasions of schisms on the occa- 

 sion when the election of a new Pontiff will take 

 place, or to impair the exercise of spiritual authority 

 by the bishops directing the churches of Italy. 

 Hence it is that we have been led to declare recently 

 that it should be tolerated to exhibit to the laio 

 power the acts of the Canonical Institution of these 

 very bishops, so as to remedy, as far as in our power, 

 a most sad and fatal state of things in which it was 

 no longer a question of the possession of temporal 

 goods, out rather of the grave and manifest peril to 

 which was exposed that which constitutes our su- 

 preme law ; that is to say, the very consciences of 

 the faithful, their peace, and the direction and salva- 

 tion of souls. But in acting in this way, to ward off 

 still graver dangers, we wish it to be again publicly 

 known that we disapprove and utterly detest this 

 unjust statute, which, is called the Royal Placet, 

 opanly proclaiming that it strikes at the divine au- 

 thority of the Church, and violates her freedom. 

 Now, after all we have exposed up to this, and al- 

 though we have omitted many other attempts, to 

 which we could refer only to deplore them, we ask 

 the question: How is it possible for us to govern 

 the Church so long as we are under the domina- 

 tion of such a power as is continually depriving us 

 of every assistance and of every way in which to 

 exercise our apostolate, which closes every avenue 

 against us, which daily raises new obstacles in our 

 way, which is going so far as to set new traps and 

 lay new ambushes along our path? Most assuredly 

 we cannot wonder sufficiently that there can be found 

 men in whom we cannot distinguish whether their 

 thoughtlessness is greater than their wickedness, 

 and who, either in public journals or in private docu- 

 ments, or in imprudent speeches delivered at divers 

 assemblies, endeavor to force the conviction upon 

 the people that the present condition of the sove- 

 reign Pontiff in Rome is such that, although place! 

 under the dominion of another power, he enjoys 

 full liberty, and can quietly and fully perform all the 

 duties of its supreme spiritual primacy. Now, these 

 men allow no opportunity to escape publicly to con- 

 firm this opinion ; when the bisnops and faithful 

 from foreign lands come to visit us ; when we ad- 

 mit their pious assemblies to our presence; again, 

 when, in the addresses we deliver to them, we de- 

 plore tho enterprises of these impious men against 

 the Church : on occasions like these they seriously 

 and with guile insinuate to the unwary that we are, 

 by these very acts, enjoying a plenitude of power 

 and the fullest liberty to speak, to receive the faith- 

 ful, or to govern the whole Church. Indeed, we are 

 much surprised that such assertions can bo no im- 

 pudently maintained, as if the exercises of the acts 

 mentioned were entirely free to us ; and as If the 



sum total of the government of the Church, which 

 devolves upon us, were bound up in those acts. 

 Who does not know, in effect, that the acts of this 

 liberty they boast so much about are not under our 

 control, but under the control of those who rule, to 

 such an extent that we can only perform these acts 

 so far, and only so far, as we are not hindered from 

 performing them? To know really what the free- 

 dom of our acts consists in, while it i under their 

 control, without giving other proof*, the recent law 

 we have just complained of indicates and reveal* it 

 sufficiently ; that law, by which the free exercise of 

 our spiritual power, as well as that of the ministry, 

 and of the ecclesiastical order, is subjected to a new 

 and intolerable oppression. That if those who rula 

 have permitted us to do certain things because the/ 

 understand how much it is to their interest to create 

 the impression that we are free under their domina- 

 tion, how many things, and very grave ones, too, 

 are vet necessary, and of high import, which belong 

 to the awful duties of our ministry, for the full ana 

 correct performance of which we are without tho 

 entire necessary means and freedom, while subject 

 to the yoke of tne oppressors. 



We would be pleased, indeed, if those who write, 

 or who utter by word of mouth, the assertion* we 

 have referred to, would only cast their eye* at what 

 is happening to us, and would decide, with a little 

 more impartial spirit, whether it i* possible to saj 

 that the power or governing the Church, committed 

 to us by God, can accommodate itself to the condi- 

 tion to which we have been reduced by the invaders. 

 Would that they knew the offensive cries, the in- 

 sults and outrages, which are continually sent up 

 against our humbleness, even in tho Chamber or 

 the representatives of the people outcries that we 

 pay no attention to as coming from tho unfortunates 

 who utter them, but that constitute a great offense 

 for the faithful, whose common Father is thus out- 

 raged, and that aim at the belittling of the regard, 

 the authority, and the veneration, which the su- 

 preme dignity and sanctity of the vicariate of Christ, 

 which we, unworthy of it, sustain, demands. Would 

 that they could witness the reproaches and calum- 

 nies heaped on your most reverend order, and on 

 the hierarchy of the Church, in every form, to the 

 harm of its administration. That they could b 

 witnesses of the mocks and jests with which the 

 august rites and institutions of the Catholic Church 

 are outraged; the effrontery with which the most 

 holy mysteries of religion are profaned ; and that 

 they could behold how impiety and atheistic men 

 have become the objects of pomp and of puMio 

 demonstrations in their honor, while, on the othr 

 hand, a ban is placed upon religious ceremonies and 

 the processions which the former piety of the Italian 

 people was wont to celebrate freely on solemn festi- 

 valH. Would, also, that they took cognisance of ihe 

 blasphemies which are hurled upon the Church with 

 impunity (while public authority feigns not to hear 

 them) in the Chamber of Deputies, where was pre- 

 sented the criminal project of attacking the very 

 Church herself, where her freedom has boen de- 

 nominated "an abominable and pernicious princi- 

 ple ;" where it was maintained that her lootrinri 

 are perverse and contrary to society and roorahu ; 

 where, finally, it has been openly declared that bar 

 power and authority are fatal to civil society. , 

 very heralds of our pr.'tended freedom cannot 

 all 'these many, continued, and rravo occasion*, 

 brought about with the object of corrupting impru- 



HUB VI Ly j W aJIV. llf l/WVWV ,-. - 



to rx> the centre and head of nllfMO, they c 

 soon see whether the tomplcn orvot*<l In lh 

 days to dissenting worships, whether ( 

 of corruption scatter.-.! broadcast, Wj 

 houses of perdition established crerywhsre, wi 



