Waning of the Pope's Power.
They shall take away his power, says the prophet, to consume and destroy it unto the end. The following sets forth a singular movement that is on foot even in Italy itself, which must be as humbling to the papacy as anything that has ever happened. We look for this man of sin soon to plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain, Jerusalem, and come to his end with none to help him. Dan. xi, 45. He is asked to resign the patrimony of St. Peter as follows: “The petition which has for many months been circulating among the Roman Catholic priests of Italy, asking the Pope, as spiritual head of the church on earth, to resign his temporal power, has been sent to Pius IX, signed by 8,943 Italian priests, or about a fourth of the whole number, 2,000 of whom are of the highest clergy and dignitaries. Though the object of the petition was not opposition to the Papacy, to which many of the signers are still bigotedly attached, but rather a patriotic desire for the union of the different States of Italy under one king, the Pope regards it as a serious and wicked insult, and has directed the bishops of the different dioceses to suspend all the signers from their priestly functions. Many of the bishops hesitate to execute this order of the Pope in the present state of the popular mind.”