Part 798

"The pope protested in vain against such violence. Napoleon paid no attention. … He confiscated the wealth of the cardinals who did not return to the place of their birth. He disarmed nearly all the guards of the Holy Father—the nobles of this guard were imprisoned. Finally, Miollis [the French commander] had Cardinal Gabrielle, pro-Secretary of State, carried off, and put seals upon his papers. On May 17, 1809, a decree was issued by Napoleon, dated from Vienna, proclaiming the union (in his quality of successor to Charlemagne) of the States of the pope with the French Empire, ordaining that the city of Rome should be a free and imperial city; that the pope should continue to have his seat there, and that he should enjoy a revenue of 2,000,000 francs. On June 10, he had this decree promulgated at Rome. On this same June 10, the pope protested against all these spoliations, refused all pensions, and recapitulating all the outrages of which he had cause to complain, issued the famous and imprudent bull of excommunication against the authors, favourers, and executors of the acts of violence against him and the Holy See, but without naming anyone. Napoleon was incensed at it, and on the first impulse he wrote to the bishops of France a letter in which he spoke in almost revolutionary terms 'of him who wished,' said he, 'to make dependent upon a perishable temporal power the eternal interest of consciences, and that of all spiritual affairs.' On the 6th of July, 1809, Pius VII., taken from Rome, after he had been asked if he would renounce the temporal sovereignty of Rome and of the States of the Church, was conducted by General Radet as far as Savone, where he arrived alone, August 10, the cardinals having all been previously transported to Paris. And to complete the spoliation of the pope, Napoleon issued on the 17th of February, 1810, a senatus-consultum which bestowed upon the eldest son of the emperor the title of King of Rome, and even ordained that the emperor should be consecrated a second time at Rome, in the first ten years of his reign. It was while oppressed, captive and deprived of all council, that the pope refused the bulls to all the bishops named by the emperor, and then it was that all the discussions relative to the proper measures to put an end to the viduity of the churches were commenced. … The year 1810, far from bringing any alleviation to the situation of the pope and giving him, according to the wishes and prayers of the ecclesiastic commission, a little more liberty, aggravated, on the contrary, this situation, and rendered his captivity harder. In effect, on February 17, 1810, appeared the senatus-consultum pronouncing the union of the Roman States with the French Empire; the independence of the imperial throne of all authority on earth, and annulling the temporal existence of the popes. This senatus-consultum assured a pension to the pope, but it ordained also that the pope should take oath to do nothing in opposition to the four articles of 1682. … The pope must have consoled himself, … even to rejoicing, that they made the insulting pension they offered him depend upon the taking of such an oath, and it is that which furnished him with a reply so nobly apostolic: that he had no need of this pension, and that he would live on the charity of the faithful. … The rigorous treatment to which the Holy Father was subjected at Savona was continued during the winter of 1811-1812, and in the following spring. At this time, it seems there was some fear, on the appearance of an English squadron, that it might carry off the pope; and the emperor gave the order to transfer him to Fontainebleau. This unhappy old man left Savona, June 10, and was forced to travel day and night. He fell quite ill at the hospice of Mont Cenis; but they forced him none the less to continue his journey. They had compelled him to wear such clothes … as not to betray who he was on the way they had to follow. They took great care also to conceal his journey from the public, and the secret was so profoundly kept, that on arriving at Fontainebleau, June 19, the concierge, who had not been, advised of his arrival, and who had made no preparation, was obliged to receive him in his own lodgings. The Holy Father was a long time before recovering from the fatigue of this painful journey, and from the needlessly rigorous treatment to which they had subjected him. The cardinals not disgraced by Napoleon, who were in Paris, as well as the Archbishop of Tours, the Bishop of Nantes, the Bishop of Evreux, and the Bishop of Treves, were ordered to go and see the pope. … The Russian campaign, marked by so many disasters, was getting to a close. The emperor on his return to Paris, December 18, 1812, still cherished chimerical hopes, and was meditating without doubt, more gigantic projects. Before carrying them out, he wished to take up again the affairs of the Church, either because he repented not having finished with them at Savona, or because he had the fancy to prove that he could do more in a two hours' tête-à–tête with the pope, than had been done by the council, its commissions, and its most able negotiators. He had beforehand, however, taken measures which were to facilitate his personal negotiation. The Holy Father had been surrounded for several months by cardinals and prelates, who, either from conviction or from submission to the emperor, depicted the Church as having arrived at a state of anarchy which put its existence in peril. They repeated incessantly to the pope, that if he did not get reconciled with the emperor and secure the aid of his power to arrest the evil, schism would be inevitable. Finally, the Sovereign pontiff overwhelmed by age, by infirmities, by the anxiety and cares with which his mind was worried, found himself well prepared for the scene Napoleon had planned to play, and which was to assure him what he believed to be a success. {2466} On January 19, 1813, the emperor, accompanied by the Empress Marie Louise, entered the apartment of the Holy Father unexpectedly, rushed to him and embraced him with effusion. Pius VII., surprised and affected, allowed himself to be induced, after a few explanations, to give his approbation to the propositions that were imposed, rather than submitted to him. They were drawn up in eleven articles, which were not yet a compact, but which were to serve as the basis of a new act. On January 24, the emperor and the pope affixed their signatures to this strange paper, which was lacking in the usual diplomatic forms, since they were two sovereigns who had treated directly together. It was said in these articles, that the pope would exercise the pontificate in France, and in Italy;—that his ambassadors and those in authority near him, should enjoy all diplomatic privileges;—that such of his domains which were not disposed of should be free from taxes, and that those which were transferred should be replaced by an income of 2,000,000 francs;—that the pope should nominate, whether in France or in Italy, to episcopal sees which should be subsequently fixed; that the suburban sees should be re-established, and depend on the nomination of the pope, and that the unsold lands of these sees should be restored; that the pope should give bishoprics 'in partibus' to the Roman bishops absent from their diocese by force of circumstances, and that he should serve them a pension equal to their former revenue, until such time as they should be appointed to vacant sees; that the emperor and the pope should agree in opportune time as to the reduction to be made if it took place, in the bishoprics of Tuscany and of the country about Geneva, as well as to the institution of bishoprics in Holland, and in the Hanseatic departments; that the propaganda, the confessional, and the archives should be established in the place of sojourn of the Holy Father; finally, that His Imperial Majesty bestowed his good graces upon the cardinals, bishops, priests, and laymen, who had incurred his displeasure in connection with actual events. … The news of the signing of the treaty occasioned great joy among the people, but it appears that that of the pope was of short duration. The sacrifices he had been led to make were hardly consummated, than he experienced bitter grief; this could but be increased in proportion as the exiled and imprisoned cardinals, Consalvi, Pacca, di Pietro, on obtaining their liberty, received also the authorization to repair to Fontainebleau. What passed then between the Holy Father and these cardinals I do not pretend to know; but it must be that Napoleon had been warned by some symptoms of what was about to happen; for, in spite of the agreement he had made with the pope to consider the eleven articles only as preliminaries which were not to be published, he decided nevertheless to make them the object of a message that the arch-chancellor was charged to submit to the senate. This premature publicity given to an act which the pope so strongly regretted having signed must have hastened his retractation which he addressed to the emperor by a brief, on March 24, 1813. … This time, the emperor, although greatly irritated by the retractation, believed it was to his interest not to make any noise about it, and decided to take outwardly no notice of it. He had two decrees published: one of February 13, and the other of March 25, 1813. By the first, the new Concordat of January 25 was declared state law; by the second, he declared it obligatory upon archbishops, bishops, and chapters, and ordered, according to Article IV. of this Concordat that the archbishops should confirm the nominated bishops, and in case of refusal, ordained that they should be summoned before the tribunals. He restricted anew the liberty that had been given momentarily to the Holy Father, and Cardinal di Pietro returned to exile. Thereupon, Napoleon started, soon after, for that campaign of 1813 in Germany, the prelude to that which was to lead to his downfall. The decrees issued 'ab irato' were not executed, and during the vicissitudes of the campaign of 1813, the imperial government attempted several times to renew with the pope negotiations which failed. Matters dragged along thus, and no one could foresee any issue when, on January 23, 1814, it was suddenly learned that the pope had left Fontainebleau that very day, and returned to Rome. … Murat, who had abandoned the cause of the emperor, and who … had treated with the coalition, was then occupying the States of the Church, and it is evident that Napoleon in his indignation against Murat, preferred to allow the pope to re-enter his States, to seeing them in the hands of his brother-in-law. While Pius VII. was en route and the emperor was fighting in Champagne, a decree of March 10, 1814, announced that the pope was taking possession again of the part of his States which formed the departments of Rome and Trasmania. The lion, although vanquished, would not yet let go all the prey he hoped surely to retake. … The pope arrived on April 30, at Cesena, on May 12, at Ancona, and made his solemn entry into Rome on May 24, 1814."

_Talleyrand, Memoirs, part 6 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN: _D. Silvagni, Rome: its Princes, Priests and People, chapters 35-39 (volume 2)._

_C. Botta, Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon, chapters 5-8._

_M. de Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon, volume 4, chapters 6 and 11-12._

_Selections from the Letters and Despatches of Napoleon, Captain Bingham, volumes 2-3._

_Memoirs of Napoleon dictated at St. Helena, volume 5 (History Miscellany, volume l)._

_P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon, volume 3, chapters 13 and 16._

PAPACY: A. D. 1814. Restoration of the Jesuits.

See JESUITS: A. D. 1761)-1871.

PAPACY: A. D. 1815. Restoration of the Papal States.

See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.

PAPACY: A. D. 1823. Election of Leo XII.

PAPACY: A. D. 1829. Election of Pius VIII.

PAPACY: A. D. 1831. Election of Gregory XVI.

PAPACY: A. D. 1831-1832. Revolt of the Papal States, suppressed by Austrian troops.

See ITALY: A. D. 1830-1832.

PAPACY: A. D. 1846-1849. Election of Pius IX. His liberal reforms. Revolution at Rome. The Pope's flight. His restoration by the French.

See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.

{2467}

PAPACY: A. D. 1850. Restoration of the Roman Episcopate in England.

"The Reformation had deprived the Church of Rome of an official home on English soil. … But a few people had remained faithful to the Church of their forefathers, and a handful of priests had braved the risks attendant on the discharge of their duties to it. Rome, moreover, succeeded in maintaining some sort of organisation in England. In the first instance her Church was placed under an arch-priest. From 1623 to 1688 it was placed under a Vicar Apostolic, that is a Bishop, nominally appointed to some foreign see, with a brief enabling him to discharge episcopal duties in Great Britain. This policy was not very successful. Smith, the second Vicar Apostolic, was banished in 1629, and, though he lived till 1655, never returned to England. The Pope did not venture on appointing a successor to him for thirty years. … On the eve of the Revolution [in 1688] he divided England into four Vicariates. This arrangement endured till 1840. In that year Gregory XVI. doubled the vicariates, and appointed eight Vicars Apostolic. The Roman Church is a cautious but persistent suitor. She had made a fresh advance; she was awaiting a fresh opportunity. The eight Vicars Apostolic asked the Pope to promote the efficiency of their Church by restoring the hierarchy. The time seemed ripe for the change. … The Pope prepared Apostolic letters, distributing the eight vicariates into eight bishoprics. … The Revolution, occurring immediately afterwards, gave the Pope other things to think about than the re-establishment of the English hierarchy. For two years nothing more was heard of the conversion of vicariates into bishoprics. But the scheme had not been abandoned; and, in the autumn of 1850, the Pope, restored to the Vatican by French bayonets, issued a brief for re–establishing and extending the Catholic faith in England.' England and Wales were divided into twelve sees. One of them, Westminster, was made into an archbishopric; and Wiseman, an Irishman by extraction, who had been Vicar Apostolic of the London District, and Bishop of Melipotamus, was promoted to it. Shortly afterwards a new distinction was conferred upon him, and the new archbishop was made a cardinal. The publication of the brief created a ferment in England. The effect of the Pope's language was increased by a pastoral from the new archbishop, in which he talked of governing, and continuing to govern, his see with episcopal jurisdiction; and by the declaration of an eminent convert that the people of England, who for so many years have been separated from the see of Rome, are about of their own free will to be added to the Holy Church. For the moment, High Churchmen and Low Churchmen forgot their differences in their eagerness to punish a usurpation of what was called the Queen's prerogative. The Prime Minister, instead of attempting to moderate the tempest, added violence to the storm by denouncing, in a letter to the Bishop of Durham, the late aggression of the Pope as 'insolent and insidious, … inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, with the rights of our bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation.' … Amidst the excitement which was thus occasioned, Parliament met. The Speech from the Throne alluded to the strong feelings excited by 'the recent assumption of ecclesiastical titles conferred by a foreign Power.' … It declared that a measure would be introduced into Parliament to maintain 'under God's blessing, the religious liberty which is so justly prized by the people.' It hardly required such words as these to fan the spreading flame. In the debate on the Address, hardly any notice was taken of any subject except the 'triple tyrant's insolent pretension.' On the first Friday in the session, Russell introduced a measure forbidding the assumption of territorial titles by the priests and prelates of the Roman Catholic Church; declaring all gifts made to them, and all acts done by them, under those titles null and void; and forfeiting to the Crown all property bequeathed to them." Action on the Bill was interrupted in the House by a Ministerial crisis, which ended, however, in the return of Lord John Russell and his colleagues to the administration; but the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, when it was again brought forward, was greatly changed. In its amended shape the bill merely made it illegal for Roman Catholic prelates to assume territorial titles. According to the criticism of one of the Conservatives, "the original bill … was milk and water; by some chemical process the Government had extracted all the milk." After much debate the emasculated bill became a law, but it was never put into execution.

_S. Walpole, History of England from 1815, chapter 23 (volume 5)._

ALSO IN.: _J. McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, chapter 20 (volume 2)._

_J. Stoughton, Religion in England, 1800-1850, volume 2, chapter 13._

PAPACY: A. D. 1854. Promulgation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.

"The thought of defining dogmatically the belief of all ages and all Catholic nations in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin dated back to the beginning of his [Pius IX.'s] pontificate. By an encyclical letter dated from his exile at Gaeta, he had asked the opinion of all the patriarchs, primates, archbishops and bishops of the universe as to the seasonableness of this definition. The holding of a general council is attended with many embarrassments, and cannot be freed from the intrigues and intervention of the so-called Catholic powers. Pius IX. has initiated a new course. All, even the most Gallican in ideas, acknowledge that a definition in matters of faith by the pope, sustained by the episcopate, is infallible. The rapid means of communication and correspondence in modern times, the more direct intercourse of the bishops with Rome, makes it easy now for the pope to hear the well-considered, deliberate opinion of a great majority of the bishops throughout the world. In this case the replies of the bishops coming from all parts of the world show that the universal Church, which has one God, one baptism, has also one faith. As to the dogma there was no dissension, a few doubted the expediency of making it an article of faith. These replies determined the Holy Father to proceed to the great act, so long demanded by [the] Catholic heart. … A number of bishops were convoked to Rome for the 8th of December, 1854; a still greater number hastened to the Eternal City. … That day the bishops assembled in the Vatican to the number of 170, and robed in white cape and mitre proceeded to the Sixtine Chapel, where the Holy Father soon appeared in their midst." There, after befitting ceremonies, the pontiff made formal proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, in the following words: "By the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, and our own, we declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the first instant of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and therefore should firmly and constantly be believed by all the faithful. {2468} Wherefore, if any shall dare—which God avert—to think otherwise than as it has been defined by us, let them know and understand that they are condemned by their own judgment, that they have suffered shipwreck of the faith, and have revolted from the unity of the Church; and besides, by their own act, they subject themselves to the penalties justly established, if what they think they should dare to signify by word, writing, or any other outward means.' … The next day the sovereign pontiff assembled the sacred college and the bishops in the great consistorial hall of the Vatican, and pronounced the allocution which, subsequently published by all the bishops, announced to the Catholic world the act of December 8th."

_A. de Montor, The Lives and Times of the Roman Pontiffs, volume 2, pages 924-926._

PAPACY: A. D. 1860-1861. First consequences of the Austro-Italian war. Absorption of Papal States in the new Kingdom of Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1859-1861.

PAPACY: A. D. 1864. The Encyclical and the Syllabus.

"On the 8th of December 1864, Pius IX. issued his Encyclical [a circular letter addressed by the Pope to all the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops and Bishops of the Church throughout the world] 'Quanta cura', accompanied by the Syllabus, or systematically arranged collection of errors, condemned from time to time, by himself and his predecessors. The Syllabus comprises 80 erroneous propositions. These are set forth under 10 distinct heads: viz. 1. Pantheism, Naturalism, and Absolute Rationalism; 2. Moderated Rationalism; 3. Indifferentism, Latitudinarianism; 4. Socialism, Communism, Secret Societies, Biblical Societies, Clerico-Liberal Societies; 5. Errors concerning the Church and her rights; 6. Errors concerning Civil Society, as well in itself as in its relations with the Church; 7. Errors concerning Natural and Christian Ethics; 8. Errors concerning Christian marriage; 9. Errors concerning the Civil Princedom of the Roman Pontiff; 10. Errors in relation with Modern Liberalism.

Immediately under each, error are given the two initial words, and the date, of the particular Papal Allocution, Encyclical, Letter Apostolic, or Epistle, in which it is condemned. Whilst, on the one hand, the publication of the Encyclical and Syllabus was hailed by many as the greatest act of the pontificate of Pius IX., on the other hand, their appearance excited the angry feelings, and intensified the hostility, of the enemies of the Church."

_J. N. Murphy, The Chair of Peter, chapter 33._

The following is a translation of the text of the Encyclical, followed by that of the Syllabus or Catalogue of Errors:

To our venerable brethren all the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and Bishops in communion with the Apostolic See, we, Pius IX., Pope, send greeting, and our apostolic blessing: