The Sun.
London, England, 1853-12-19 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sis,—ln my former letter, published in The Times of
the 3d, I concluded by asserting that, in Italy, it was no-
torious that all the power which the priesthood possesses
over the conscience, as ministers of religion, is exerted for
a political purpose. As far as the Papal States are con-
cerned, this may be said to be no more than the inevitable
result of the union of spiritual and temporal dominion in
the same person, or in a privileged caste. Resistance to
the temporal power of the Sovereign Pontiff becomes a
crime against the Church—against religion ; and religion
uses her power to prevent or punish it. It may well be
doubted if the great influence of the Roman Church, which
professes to be invested with a divine and infallible autho-
rity, which requires that faith should be an absolute and
servile submission to that authority, forbidding liberty of
investigation and of conscience, can be reconciled in any
country with the development of free institutions and the
progress of civilisation, and it is certainly impossible in the
country where all political. as well as spiritual power is
wielded by those who claim this divine authority—this in-
fallibility. One great cause of the success of the Refor-
mation was, undoubtedly, the need which began to be felt
in Europe in the 16th century of a religion which could be
reconciled with liberty of reason and of the mind, with the
dawn of modern civilisation, which is no return to a civi-
lisation of past ages, but is marked by the progress of
science, by intellectual activity, and by a general spirit of
investigation and research.

Those who have thought it possible to limit the tem-
poral authority of the Sovereign Pontiff, leaving him as
representative of Christ in his spiritual character, and
with limited and controlled authority as a temporal Sove-
reign, have aimed at uniting two characters inconsistent
with each other—the one, in its immense pretension of
Vicegerent of the Deity, having power superior to aught
in this world ; the other subject to the humiliation of con-
trol ; and it seems to me, they little comprehend or appre-
ciate the nature and character of the Roman Church. It
is unchangeable ; it represents on this earth the very prin-
ciple of divine right and absolute authority ; it claims to
be infallible in all it does, and its temporal sovereignty is
defended by the same decrees which have declared its reli-
gious doctrines. Temporal power might bo wrested from
the Sovereign Pontiff, but he could not relinquish his claim
to it. The Pope who really consented to an act in such
violent opposition to the sacred traditions and decrees of
the Church would be another Luther. I remember, dur-
ing the time of the greatest popularity of the present Pope,
when he yielded some show of free institutions to his sub-
jects, there were many at Rome who prophesied that he
must soon prove himself either a traitor to his Church or
a traitor to his country.
I am far from denying the obligation which the cause of
civilisation owes to the Roman Church in the middle ages,
as the depository of learning, and in opposing its softening
influence to the ferocious and warlike barbarism of the
times ; and Italy, perhaps, owed her independence to the
existence of a power which could serve as a balance to that
of the German Emperors. But, while Europe has pro-
gressed in civilisation, the Roman Church has remained
the same. When great intellectual superiority exists in a
privileged caste, its authority is easily regarded as legiti-
mate by the masses • it may be really beneficial, and, could
Europe go back a thousand years, the influence of the Ro-
man Church might be again advantageous to mankind, and
its temporal power in Italy legitimate and beneficial.
In the consciousness of this fact is to be found the source
of the s etrograde spirit of the Roman Government. The
Church, unchangeable in itself, can regain a legitimate in-
fluence only by the return of Italy to barbarism. This
conviction, and a system of government founded upon it,
were considered, after the fall of Napoleon, to be tho doc-
trines and principles of a strong party in the Church,
known by the name of the " Sanfedisti ;" but the very
name of this party is now lost, as its opinions and principles
have become those of the Church itself.
Let us now see the system that the Church adopts to carry
out these principles. In its persecution of the middling
class it wages war against intelligence and education—the
war of barbarism against modern civilisation ; and, though
it may neither hope for nor aim at the extermination of this
class, it evidently purposes to lesson its influence by a posi-
tive and palpable diminution of its numbers, and this prin-
cipally by the immense extent of compulsory or voluntary
exile. This is the system as regards the present generation ;
for the future it trusts to the severe laws which place edu-
cation completely in the hands of the clergy. No other
moans of education are permitted to exist • had a father
time or ability to instruct his children himself, the fact of
his doing so would render him an object of persecution.
Even if ho attempts to counteract the growing impressions
instilled into them by their instructors, he must teach
them at the same time concealment and deceit, lest they
should unintentionally betray his doing so. With the
lower orders a different policy is adopted, and it is here
that the influence of religion is used to confirm and extend
the political power of the Church. Hence we find, during
the last three years an increased pomp and frequency of
religious ceremonies and processions, while miracle MC-,
ceeds miracle with unheard of rapidity, and these are gene-
rally absurd and palpable in their imposture, in proportion
to the remoteness and obscurity of their scene. The mi-
racle of the picture of the Madonna at Rimini is known to
most of your readers. I happen to have kept, as a e,u-
riosity, a description of it, extracted from the Osservatore
Romano, and from the account of it given by the Bishop
of Rimini. After describing the nature of the miracle,
viz.— the movement of the eyes, it says how the church
was thronged with an immense concourse of people, the
peasantry from the surrounding country ; it speaks of the
groans, the tears, and sighs,—one dignitary of the Church
wept, while another swooned ; an Austrian general and
two other officers came from Bologna, and the two officers
(such is the account given) took the orders from their
breasts to lay at the foot of the Madonna ; the peasant
women stripped themselves of their earrings and the golden
ornaments they are accustomed to wear, to offer them upon
the altar. Towards evening, when some of the peasantry
had retired to their houses and the church was less
crowded, a number of the citizens of Rimini, and among
them all the artists of the city, entered the church—and
imagine for what purpose ! (The following I quote):—" Oh,
unheard of wickedness ! These children of Beelzebub—
these regenerators of Italy—these satellites of hell—these
disciples of Mazzini— these Protestants came into the
church positively to laugh at what they termed the cre-
dulity of the lower orders (basso popolo). The Blessed
Virgin then condescended to let fall one tear from her
right eye. She weeps for them,—and they insult her !"
The account then goes.on to state bow one of these " re-
generators of Italy" cried aloud, " Oh ! the bells machi-
netta ;" and another, " a wretch worse than the devil,"
laid his sacrilegious hand upon the picture and tried to
look behind it. During the night the citizens fixed
writings on the walls of the city, endeavouring to per-
suade the lower orders not to believe in the miracle, and
trying to explain in what way it was done. The account
then quotes St. Augustin, Signs dantur infidelibus,"
and gives the people to understand that these frequent
miracles are warnings of great calamities hanging over
Italy on account of the spread of liberal opinions and the
neglected worship of the Madonna, I quote this, not to
amuse your readers, but to show who are the believers
ie these things, and the intention and spirit of their
authors.
The Roman Church in Italy has for a long time found
its firmest partisans among the very lowest of the people,
earl has availed itself without scruple of their aid. In the
year 1831 there was an insurrection which extended almost
throughout the Roman states, except in Rome itself. It
encountered neither opposition nor resistance. The insur-
gents behaved with moderation ; they created a national
guard of citizens, and their principal demands were a cer-
tain limitation of the authority of the priesthood, and the
continuance of this national guard as a guarantee against
the oppression and abuses from which they had suffered.
An Austrian army thoroughly subdued this insurrection,
and the people were disarmed. But this did not suffice for
priestly vengeance. Under the name of " Centurions," or
"Papal Volunteers," certain corps were raised by Cardinal.
Albani, composed of brigands from the mountains, assas-
sins, and culprits of all kinds from the prisons, the very
refuse of the people ; oaths were administered them by
prelates of the Church, that they would pursue the Liberals
to extermination. Now, as nearly all the subjects of the
Pops were liberal except these wretches and the clergy,
there was a wide field for massacre. Town after town
was taken possession of as by a besieging army, while
the victims were selected and the work of plunder and
massacre was pursued, hundreds of persons were assassi-
nated, sometimes whole families destroyed, and those vile
and wretched instruments of the Papal Government were
taught to believe, and did believe, that these crimes served
the cause of religion and of God. The first violence of
these excesses gradually abated, but the Centurions were
not entirely put down until the accession of Pius IX., and,
so strong is the recollection of their atrocities and of the
class of men who composed these bands, that to the pre-
sent day, in some parts of the Roman States, the term
" brigand" is indiscriminately used for a siipporter of the
Papal authority, or for a robber and assassin. I have
heard these things related in the country where they hap-
pened, but they are well known to those who are familiar
with modern Italian history, and I refer to them only to
show who are the Liberals or Revolutionists of Italy, and
who are their opponents.
During the existence of the Roman Republic, emissaries
from Gaeta went about the provinces endeavouring to in-
fluence the superstition of the lower orders, and again ex-
cite a Jacquerie against the Liberals ; such documents as
the following were ,circulated among the peasantry :
" Republicans or Liberals mean only men who would de-
stroy oar religion itself and all its ministers. Gather your-
selves together, and plunge your weapons into the hearts
of those enemies of God, and pray to Him that He will de-
stroy them utterly, even their very infants—exterminate
their race." These emissaries did not succeed in their ob-
ject, or but very partially; yet, is it to be wondered at,
when these things are considered, that the Liberal cause
was sometimes stained, as at Imola and Ancona, by the
assassination of persons who were known as supporters or
spies of the fallen Government ? Saffi, who was Minister
of the Interior under the Republic, in enjoining upon the
authorities of Ancona the most severe measures for the
punishment and repression of these assassinations, wrote
thus :—" The perpetrators of these crimes are traitors to
the Republic, and ruin the work of an entire people in the
cause of their redemption ; every act of illegality or of
violence which bears the stamp of political revenge is an
execrable relic of past times, and an imitation of the crimes
off priestly Government."
If the Italians must remain enslaved until they have ar-
rived generally at that state of moral greatness and magna-
nimity that, in casting off their oppressors and tyrants,
they shall commit no act of unnecessary violence, stoop to
no deed of revenge, then may they despair of liberty.
There is no instance in history of a whole people rising at
once, pure and great, from a long anti degrading oppres-
sion. Must all remain passive victims, lest among them
there should prove to be some who have been rendered un-
fit for liberty by the very wrongs, injustice, and degrada-
tion they have suffered ? Can it be said that the very
crimes of a Goveynment shall render it a crime in its
subjects to rebel? Shall that beautiful country, shall
those born beneath its bright sky—in whom a natural in-
telligence, a sense of the beautiful, a poetical element,
may be traced even beneath the grossest ignorance, remain
for ever as they are ? Nature would have them great,—
shall priestly despotism and foreign domination degrade
them into a nation of priests, brigands, and beggars ?
Among those Italians who have most been the victims of
calumny and misrepresentation is Garibaldi. During the
siege of Rome he was represented in the French papers,
and sometimes in the English, as a leader of Condottieri,
a brigand, a pirate, a chief of assassins. Listen for a mo-
ment to his history. Born in the middling rank of life, he
was obliged to fly, when still young, from his native city,
Genoa, during a persecution of the sect of Carbonell, of
which he was a member. He afterwards went to the
Brazils with the object of engaging in some commercial
undertaking, but, devoted to the cause of liberty, he soon
joined a small band of Italian refugees who wore serving
as volunteers in Montevideo, defending the cause of liberty
and the Republic. His desperate courage, his personal
prowess as a soldier, and his heroism, never stained by any
act of cruelty, made him the theme and admiration of the
country ; he quickly rose to the rank of general. But
Garibaldi was more than a warrior. If he took away life,
it was from devotion, to a cause which he believed, to be