Untitled article | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, October 22, 1867

The Fate of the Papacy.

THE FUTURE POLICY OF THE FRENCH AND ITALIAN GOVERNMENTS.

GENERAL GARIBALDI and M. Rattazzi have each said his last word. The former is determined to go to Rome at any cost. The latter will prevent him by all the means in his power. If we may attach serious meaning to Garibaldi's words, there ought to be no doubt that he has been long preparing for what he now openly announces. Indeed, if anything hitherto could have induced us to doubt the imminence of the catastrophe, it would have been the almost absolute certainty with which it was looked forward to. Garibaldi used not to be so outspoken when he was in real earnest, and however reckless some of his astounding successes may have made him, he has also had sufficient experience of reverses to teach him that much work is hardly compatible with much talk. As he seemed thus boldly to throw his cards on the table, it was natural to think either that he felt perfectly sure of his game, or that the venture was desperate. The Roman question may be stated in the simplest terms. The great ruler of Italian destinies, Napoleon III., has set limits to that national movement to which he gave the first impulse. If those lines are overstepped it can only be by his knowledge and consent, and his connivance may either be the result of policy or of necessity. The present position is not greatly dissimilar from that of 1860, when Cialdini was burning to cross the modern Rubicon at La Cattolica. The imperial veto, merely a moral, yet a most efficient barrier, checked Italian ardor on the frontiers of the Marches and Umbria. That barrier was overstepped, but only when Napoleon, stultifying his diplomatic and Consular agents at Rome and Ancona, had tapped Cialdini on the shoulder at Chambery, with his memorable advice, “Frappez fort et frappez vite.” In the same manner, if at the present moment the Emperor Napoleon were to give a hint to Rattazzi, and that Minister should transmit the signal to his commanding officers on the borders, Garibaldi might find the ground smoothed before him, and might appear before the Porta del Popolo at the head of a force, both of his own Red Shirts and of the King's Bersaglieri sufficient to persuade the native Papal troops to fraternize, and the foreign mercenaries to withdraw or surrender. But if, as seems more probable, the Emperor of the French looks upon the September convention as final and inviolable, and if M. Rattazzi, as he stoutly affirms, deems the honor of the nation bound to the observation of “international stipulations”—if “stick won't beat dog, and dog won't bite pig,” the hero of Marsala has no more chance of ousting the Pope than the old woman in the child's doggerel had of reaching home in the evening. Whether tacitly or explicitly, the word that would give Rome to Italy must come from the same quarter which gave her Bologna and Ancona; and on the other hand, the “so far and no further,” would be sufficient, were it only well-proved that it was spoken in earnest. It would, however, be by no means safe to argue the future course of the Imperial policy from its precedents. Napoleon was a born foe to the temporal power. He has been too long convinced that it is impossible to save it by reforms, not to look upon its final downfall as a mere question of time. And it is precisely because he is so thoroughly convinced of the approaching natural death of the Papacy, that he is loth to disturb it. By depriving it of the revenue accruing to it from the possession of the Legations and Marches, he has virtually signed its death warrant; by withdrawing its garrisons, he has left it for execution. He has thus performed his own part of the melancholy duty, and left the rest to the Roman people, to time, and to the “logic of events.” Had the matter depended on him alone, and had the Romans, with or without the help of their Italian brethren, broken through their bonds, and put an end to the Papal Sovereignty, he might have shrugged his shoulders and accepted the faits accomplis, as he did after every successive breach of the Treaty of Villafranca. But he had to reckon with France, and to at least affect to support the tottering Pontifical Throne, even while he removed one prop after another. He had little reason to treat very tenderly that priestly party which had made the court of the Vatican into a nest of legitimate conspiracy, and which, had its power been commensurate with its ill-will, would have turned against Paris that crusade which it preached against Turin or Florence. But his mind was made up, and he thought he had brought matters to a point which allowed him henceforth to limit his policy to an observant attitude. The Pope was old, and the Papacy bankrupt. Should the present precarious state of things only continue until the death of Pius IX., the next conclave could not fail to bring about the longed-for solution. Under the influence of such considerations, nothing would be more natural than that he should explain his policy to the Italian government, and that they should remind Garibaldi that “in a free State no citizen can rise above the law, or substitute himself in the place of the high powers of the nation.” If, then, both M. Rattazzi and Garibaldi are as good as their word, we may look for some sorrowful catastrophe before the present month comes to its close. Garibaldi lives under fatalist influences, and has a superstitious regard for dates. The most brilliant, no less than the most gloomy, reminiscences associated with his exploits in Southern Italy have been crowded into the few weeks which usher in the fall of the year. He is pledged to go to Rome on the first cooling of the weather. For the last three months he has been possessed by one thought, he has given utterance to but one word—“He must go to Rome.” And M. Rattazzi is pledged to prevent him.—London Times, Sept. 21.