The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-08 00:00:00

THE POPE'S ALLOCUTION.

The Pope's Allocution, which we lay before our
readers this morning, is a prolonged shriek. It is
with heartfelt compassion that we offer the follow-
ing observations for the consideration of the Holy
Father, in the hope that they may tend to reconcile
him to the altered position of the Papacy. When
Lamennais 30 years ago called upon the Pope to
cast off his temporalities, and throw himself into
the arms of the Democracy of Europe, that was a
challenge which it was perfectly open to the Pope,
in consistency with the whole theory of the Roman
Church, to decline. The Church of Christ is not a
partisan. She does not concern herself with forms
of government ; she does not favour this or that
faction ; she knows no difference between democrat
and aristocrat ; she has no political prejudices, and
looks on men only as Christians and spiritual beings.
To accept Lamenuais' challenge would have been to
adopt a new and gratuitous policy, by which the
Church would have handed herself over to one
side, instead of embracing and comprehending
all sides ; because Lamennais' idea was not simply
that of the Pope giving up his temporalities, but
giving up his alliance with crowned heads.
That was the sin of the temporal Crown of
the Papacy, that it gave its wearer monarchical
and aristocratical sympathies, whereas he ought
to have only democratical sympathies, and there-
fore the abandonment of that course on such a ground
as this would have been a political act—a party
act. The event has shown that it would not have
succeeded. This or something like it was once the
dream of Pio Nono himself. He did not give up
his crown, indeed, but he announced himself a
democrat, and was the momentary idol of the Ita-
lian democracy. Sanguine hearts even in this coun-
try were swelling at the prospect, and we were told
that we should see what we should see—something
that would astonish us soon—a new order of things,
a new combination of parties and principles that
the world had not yet witnessed. Tnat was the
talk of the day. But the combination was tried, and
it would not work. The bubble burst, and the old
regime returned. And so ended the democratical
era of tie Papacy, because such an idea was a flash
idea, and nothing more. There was a swagger about
it, an intellectual bravado, a defiance of old heads.
It was one of those combinations which people
create simply because they wish for it ; it had a
grand new look about it, surprising everybody and
making everybody stare—old dogma modernising
itself into a nineteenth century discovery, the very
last invention of the age, and the newest pheno-
menon of the intellect. It was a glorious hit, a
magnificent stroke of speculation, to effect this
identity of the old and new, and to put the Papacy
at the head of the intellect of the day as the repre-
sentative of march of mind. It came to nothing,
however, because it was, in reality, a piece of fop-
pish, empty flash and speculative coxcombry,
knocked off by the selfsprung inspiration of con-
ceited brains, and that transcendental kind of
genius which, from the foundation of the world,
has never thought for one moment of what was
true, but only of what was " fine," and has there-
fore never been without some gaudy bubble.
But the present call upon the Papacy, the chal-
lenge which lies in the present course of -events, is
a totally different one from that which was given
it by the enthusiasts of thirty years ago. The call
upon the Papacy now is not to throw up its tempo-
ralities, because they connect it with one political
party instead of with another, and therefore to
throw them up as a party act, but to give them up
in plain obedience to a course of events ; nor does
any one tell the Pope to throw himself upon the
European democracy as a substitute for his temporal
crown, but to throw himself upon his spiritual
supremacy in exchange for it. The ideas of the
two plans and lines of action are'entirely different,
and must not be confounded. The question now
is, what is the Pope to do when it is quite clear
that he is going to be deprived of one ground of
his authority and left only another to go upon ?
The answer is, that if the one which is still about
to be left him is the early and original ground of
the Papacy, whereas the other is of later growth
and the creature of events—if the one is its essen-
tial ground, all that, according to its own theory,
it wants, the other a mere accident, which it pro-
fesses itself quite able to do without,—its natural
and manly course is to give up the accidental ap-
pendage which its own communion grudges it, and
throw itself at once upon its spiritualities. Nobody
wishes the Papacy to try a new ground, and make
a grand experiment, as Lamennais did, but only to
go back to an old ground, and assume the position
which it professes to have had antecedently to all
accession of temporal power. The Roman Church
is only undergoing the trial of a recall to first prin-
ciples. If she cannot govern all the Christian world
which belongs to her upon that anterior basis and
by that original theory, all that can be said is
that the is an impostor and her theory a lie, not
by any proof from opponents, but by her own
confession. To cling, then, with the desperation
with which she is now doing to a confessedly merely
accidental appendage to her spiritual power, as if
all were going with it, is to betray a practical dis-
trust in her own theory.
The Church had neither crown nor sceptre, not
a foot of land under her rule, not the corner of
a
place in the politics of Europe; she did notabpepoosint
a senator or a magistrate or a constable, w
Ambrose met Theodosius at the porch of the Cathe-
draleted
t.
of Milan, and sent him away excomtniint:laow
and repelled from the altar. Can the Roman
with her triple crown on her head, doChurch,
that
If she cannot, the loss of the triple crown will not,
at any rate, deprive her of the power, and that she
cannot the very events of this movement show. The
Pope denounces Victor Emmanuel abs
robber as a a robber
(1
a parricide, but he dares not deny t
parricide the sacraments. That robber and parri-
cide enters the Pope's own territories as one of the
Christian by all the omnipotence faithful; he cannot be prevented from being a
things to contend
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Can she be much worse off when she has lost her
temporalities ? It is plain, at all events, that she is
not to have the option, that the first son of the
Church, the monarch who by position is such, is
quite determined to show that if the Pope would not
set a crown on him he can take one off the Pope.
Jerusalem is even talked of as the field on which the
revival of a spiritual Papacy is to be tried. This is,
indeed, a rather too primitive prospect ; it is not
plessant to he reminded so pointedly of early be-
ginnings, and to have to face the perpetual memen-
toes of a genius loci, reminding us of times, when
neither Cardinals nor temporal Popes nor even
spiritual Popes existed. This is for the Papacy to
know itself. This return to such very first rudi-
ments is discourteous ; it is a lesson of humility
given at the most inopportune moment. We do not
like this examination into our emblazoned pedigree.
There is, however, but one way of taking this chal-
lenge, and that is to come forward in the first
instance, and accept it boldly. One must not, at
any rate, fall by one's own confession, Rome has
put out a theory, and she must not shrink from
being thrown back upon it. The theory of her
spiritual power ought to be strong enough' for any-
thing, to ready to respond to all trials, to =wet all
events, and carry her triumphant over all obstacles ;
and therefore why has she any repugnance to fall
back upon it ?—rimes.