The Sun.
London, England, 1862-06-12 00:00:00

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+_i;~ii~

THE SUN.
LONDON, THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1862.

The POPE is now playing his last innings for the
stake of the temporalities. While the Japanese
Ambassadors are starring it over Europe, Rome is
busied in canonising her Japanese martyrs. Of the
merits of these martyrs it is not for us to judge.
Rome has her own process for ascertaining them ;
but if the Japanese be right, and we cannot doubt
that they are so substantially, the merits for which
they are canonised are specially appropriate to the
present position of his Holiness. They were mar-
tyrs to the extension of the political power of
Rome ; for, acting on the policy which has brought
down the wrath of most European States, Catholic
no less than Protestant, on their order, these Jesuit
missionaries sought, by association with political
parties, to secure for the Holy See political ascen-
dancy in Japan. They fell, therefore, martyrs to
the temporalities of the Church, not indeed in
defending, but in acquiring them.
Hence we find the assembled cardinals naturally
using the occasion on behalf of the earthly prince-
dom of their spiritual lord, Not fewer than 21
cardinals and 244 bishops sign an address, of which
as the telegraph brings it to us, the burden is the
" temporalities" of the Church. They declare the
necessity of temporal power to spiritual indepen-
dence ; they, modestly of course, approve all the
old gentleman and ANTONELLI have done ; they
exhort him to continue firm in his resistance, and
finally condemn the errors which their infallible
head had condemned before—the errors, we sup-
pose, of VICTOR EM3IANI.TEL and of CATOUR,
RICASOLI and RATTAZZI; we may add those of
Father PASSAGLIA also. The bishops and cardi-
nals ought to know their own business best; but
bystanders will have their opinions, and to us this
splendid affair, and this out-and-out address, seem
like the precursors of an impending fall. When eccle-
siastics counsel the Pope to " resistance," English-
men are apt to recollect Mrs. PARTINGTON and the
Atlantic. Hitherto, no doubt, Rome has done much
by obstinacy, but Rome was never in exactly her
present situation before. She has now for the first
time 8. free and united Italy around her—an Italy
quite
willing to leave her all the spiritual honour
she desires, but impatient to possess the temporali-
ties which they justly enough assert belong to
themselves. Indeed, the Italians desire to augment
the honours of the
city by accepting it as their
capital, while they would leave those of the POPE
intact, for they rightly regard his temporal power
u
es his disgrace, a mere usurpation, temporarily
upheld by foreign bayonets.
But what can the longer heads amongst this large
assembly expect to gain by this grand
show and
their pretentious address ? Can they hope to
im-
pose on the common sense of even Roman eatholiopowers by getting up a kind of religious Aeattrs,
in which, as a correspondent informs us, the
tawdry taste went so low as to drape the real beau-
ties of St. PETER'S architecture and statuary with
yellow, and crimson, and velvet, and to complete
the theatrical character of the exhibition by lighting
up 10,000 or 15,000 candles ? Of course a vast
multitude was got together to witness such a
gorgeous spectacle; but, how significant is it, that
the troops had to receive special directions as to the
degree of tumult which would call for their inter-
vention ! The fear of cries for VICTOR EXIMANCEL
and for a United Italy were, even amidst all the
splendour, before their eyes. It reminds us of
BELSHAZZAR'S feast. If Pope, Cardinal, and
Bishops could not read the handwriting on the
Wall, there were those who could, and they had
the prudence to respond to it by military arrange-
ments, to keep quiet the gazing and wondering
crowd.

As to ale effect on those on whom the fate of
Papal temporalities depends, there can be little
doubt. A vulgar display and show, intended to
appeal to the imaginatious of women and illite-
rate country priests and peasants—a display at
wl7,ich the intelligent actors in it must have in-
wardly, and now and then with averted faces
have laughed heartily—such an exhibition before
Europe can only have been regarded as a defiance
of intelligence by an appeal to illiteracy. How
the EMPEROR responds to it is seen by two sig.
ANIOXELLI's Ira. I
nificant facts. M. LAVAL4TE)