ROME AND THE PAPACY by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 23, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 12.

ROME AND THE PAPACY.

By Editor

THE following, which we clip from the Patriotic American, no doubt presents the situation in Italy about as it is:—

ROME, September 28.—The presence in Rome of Monsignor Ferrata and the happy auguries of the republican policy of the pope in France, have raised anew the question of a republican government in Italy, from the point of view of Catholic interests, and the position of the pope.

Since 1870 a little group of Catholics have turned with some degree of hope toward a republican régime. Old prejudices have been arrested, and the torrent of aspiration tended less to monarchism. But since the pope has raised the banner of republican democracy, the change has rallied all sympathies in that direction, has caused a fruitful alteration in the feelings of Catholics in France, and has notably modified Catholic opinion in Italy. The idea of a republic grows among the masses. Several prominent conservative journals have pronounced clearly for this change. In Rome itself several well-known journals make no secret of their marked preference for the American system. In ecclesiastispheres people look without fear upon the possible advent of a democratic republic.

This change in sentiment has produced a sensation and a sensible disquietude at the Quirinal and also in the great European courts. Their views on the matter have been communicated to the Vatican and their demands for a modification of policy supported by influential personages, but their interested representations have rather accelerated than modified the movement.

The alteration of sentiment in Italy is due to various causes. First, there are certain groups alarmed at the tendency of the king to sacrifice the country to the interests of the dynasty by doubtful alliances. Italian royalty has become synonymous with a ruinous, or at least an infertile, institution. Further, Catholics consider that the monarchy has contracted exorbitant engagements in order to prevent the loyal and pacific solution of the Roman question. Add to this the general movement which is felt throughout Europe, the spread of the American idea over the old continent, the persuasion becoming more universal that the republican form of government constitutes the best under which a strong nation can be mistress of itself.

Finally, there is the initiative of the pope in France. The Vatican nowhere discourages republican aspirations, seeing that the advent of a federal republic on the American type would give a place to Rome as a free city, the patrimony of Christianity and of the holy see. It is for these reasons that personages in high places hostile to the Vatican are now much preoccupied with the dangers menacing them. The Quirinal accuses the Vatican at the courts of Europe with lending a hand to the movement which aims at the triumph of republicanism in Europe.

But the Vatican stands firm, declaring that the religious interests in France are in unison with those of the democracy, and that as to Italy, the pope has no reason to consolidate the monarchy, which openly works to diminish the influence of the Papacy in Italy and throughout the world.

The Italian Government is especially concerned over what may happen when the Catholic groups will declare for the Republicans at the elections. In view of this combination the Austrian and German Governments recommend that the Quirinal should show less hostility to the pope, and so try to counteract the movement. This policy may be adopted for a time, but it is believed that when the general election takes place, the ministry will resume a policy of combat, in order to try to make the pope withdraw from his position.

The pope will not allow himself to be intimidated. If the Italian Government pushes matters to extremity, the Vatican can have recourse to extraordinary measures, such as have been discussed and prepared for since June, 1889. The situation thus tends to an important historic solution, despite the efforts of Vienna and Berlin to moderate the action of the Quirinal and pacify the ecclesiastic party in Rome.