It is not the
Italian people who ask for a Pope,--it is Heaven that chooses him, the
Sacred College that nominates him, diplomacy that maintains him, and
the French army that imposes him upon the nation. The Sovereign
Pontiff and his staff constitute a foreign body, introduced into Italy
like a thorn into a woodcutter's foot.
What is the mission of the Pontifical Government? To what end did
Europe bring Pius IX. from Gaeta to re-establish him at the Vatican?
Was it for the sake of giving three millions of men an active and
vigorous overseer? The merest brigadier of gendarmerie would have done
the work better. No; it was in order that the Head of the Church might
preside over the interests of religion from the elevation of a throne,
and that the Vicar of Jesus Christ might be surrounded with royal
splendour. The three millions of men who dwell in his States are
appointed by Europe to defray the expenses of his court. In point of
fact, we have given them to the Pope, not the Pope to them.
On this understanding, the Pope's first duty is to say Mass at St.
Peter's for 139,000,000 of Roman Catholics; his second is to make a
dignified appearance, to receive company, to wear a crown, and to take
care it does not fall off his head. But it is a matter of perfect
indifference to him that his subjects brawl, rob, or murder one
another, so long as they don't attack either his Church or his
government.
If we examine the question of the distribution of punishments in the
Papal States from this point of view, we shall see that papal justice
never strikes at random.
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