The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-01 00:00:00

and obligations have been long ago broken up and
buried. The powers of Christian Europe looked on
in silence. The principle of modern nationalism,
after rending asunder the fair political order of the
Christian world, has reached at length to the order
of the Christian church. It has for three centuries
assailed its unity. It now assails its authority. It
rent nations from its body ; it now aims at its head.
Christendom must be silent because its centre is in
Italy. But its circumference traverses all nations ;
and all are equally near to their common centre.
Italian nationalism is more sacred to the statesmen
of to-day than the unity and authority of Christen-
dom, or the purity and freedom of the church. The
inspirations of the revolution have poisoned their
counsels and paralysed their action. The sacred
diplomacy of Christendom is effaced from the laws
of nations. Christian unity must give way before
national isolation ; and the decomposition of Chris-
tain Europe is to be accomplished. The work of
the revolution, that is of society without Christ and
without God, is to be supreme. "The kingdom of
this world" was the kingdom " of our Lord and His
Christ." (Apoc., xi., 15.) But the civil powers
of the world are now desecrating themselves one by
one ; and the temporal power of the Vicar of Jesus
Christ is, therefore, intolerable to them. It reminds
them whence they are fallen, and it must be de-
stroyed. And there is no human power to stay the
hand uplifted to destroy it. It remains then for us,
dear children in Jesus Christ, to turn to the only
power which never forsakes His vicar upon earth ;
the only Sovereign whose intervention never fails to
come when the time is full. He suffers the moment
to linger that our faith may be tried. God works
slowly, but He works surely. Eighteen hundred
years of Divine protection, and perpetual restora-
tion of justice, assures us that the end is not yet.
God is a jealous God. He will not work till men
have refused to serve Him, lest it should seem to be
their hand not His which has restored the rights of
His church and the order of the world. There is
nothing new in the conflict and peril of the Holy
Father. It is the inheritance of the Pontiffs to bear
in chief, and almost alone, the whole brunt of this
battle between God and the world. As the highest
tree draws the lightning to itself, so the spirit of
antichrist smites first and last the Vicar of Christ.
When Mahometanism almost surrounded Christen-
dom, and seemed to hold it in its grasp, the faithful
prayed to our divine Lord through the prayers of
His immaculate mother, and the hosts and the fleets
of the infidel were scattered to return no more. The
revolution now descends from the north, as Maho-
metamiam then came up from the south, and seems
to have the Holy See in its grasp. But God's
strength is made perfect in weakness. Prayer will
do again what prayer has done before. The rosary i
is stronger than weapons of war, and processions
of little children than legions of men. It was on a
Rosary Sunday that processions went about the
streets of Milan when the plague smote it. S. Charles
foretold that before Christmas the plague should be
stayed; and it was so. Pray then, dear children
in Jesus Christ, that before December runs out the
hand of God may deliver our beloved father and
Pontiff out of the hands of his enemies. Reverend
and dear brethren offer, each one of you, next Sun-
day, or as soon as may be, the holy sacrifice at least
once for this intention. Let the faithful offer their
communions and their prayers, their penances, their
mortifications, and all they suffer or do, to obtain
the same great grace. There is already a turn in
the hearts of men. They are beginning to see that
the Vicar of the Son of God, and the head of the
church of all nations, can be subject to no national
power ; that he who is the head of all can be the
subject of none. Men who believe in Christianity
begin to see that the very unity of Christian na-.
tions demands that they should be all equal before
their common head, and be superior to them all.
As teacher, judge, and guide, all must be less
than he ; and he greater than all. They begin ,
to see that the freedom and purity of their own
religion requires the full and free exercise of his
spiritual office, and that this demands his per-
sonal independence of all temporal powers ; and
that this personal independence can be peacefully
secured only by' the possession of a sphere within
which he may dwell alone, into which no other so-
vereign or superior may intrude. What is this but
the narrow patrimony of S. Peter, given by Divine
Providence before as yet a royal house which reigns
in Europe existed ? No empire, kingdom, or state,
of all which are now so mighty and so lordly, had
come into being when the Vicars of Christ reigned
in Rome. Their patriarchal sovereignty was the
source and exemplar of all Christian kingdoms.
What God has called into existence He will pre-
serve. Century after century the powers of the
world have passed by and gone their way ; and men,
from age to age, have been exulting over the 'ap-
proaching downfall of the Pontiff-King--and yet he
has reigned on in the midst of prophecies. The line
of Pontiff-Kings is not yet broken. It has endured
changeless and immovable. But where is the
Europe upon which S. Leo 111., S. Greg. VIII.,
or even Pius VI. and Pius VII. gazed ? Pass over
the mutations of centuries. In the last 70 years
alone more than 40 reigning families have been
driven out by their people ; at least thirty thrones
have been overturned. The example of insubor-
dination which princes set to their people fostered
and emboldened the revolution. The storm has
beaten hard upon the Pontiffs, but it has swept the
earthly thrones away. So will it be. again. It is
hard to kick against the goad, harder still to smite
themselves against the rock. " Whosoever shall
fall upon that stone shall be brusied ; and upon
whomsoever it shall fall it will dash him to pieces."
(Luke xx. 18.) We are assisting at a great judg-
ment of justice. Right and weakness against might
and wrong stand face to face. The pleadings have
been heard, and silence is made for the award. The
war
andof
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which any crowned head on earth holds the capital
of his kingdom. The pontiffs have there main-
tained themselves through the whole duration
of Christianity. For three hundred years they
held Rome as martyrs, for five hundred
years as the chief and only authority re-
siding within its walls, for a thousand years as
its sole and supreme rulers. It possession and pre-
scription can consecrate the right of sovereigdty the
Popes hold Rome and its provinces by a title which
surpasses all, and is the example of all the kingdoms
of the world. If such a possession and prescription
be not sacred, let those who invade, or slight it, look
to their own titles and rights. The violation of the
right of the Sovereign Pontiff is a dangerous prece-
dent. The Hebrews called the law of tithes " the
fence of property." The rights of the Sovereign
Pontiff are the fence of the laws of international
and political justice, which if violated will sooner or
later be avenged by the recoil of revolution. But
more than this, the rights of the Vicar of Christ are
not only human and political, they are under the
protection of a higher and diviner law. Rome and
its provinces are offerings sacred to God and His
church. The usurpation of them is not robbery
ithat
isofthooencfaeuresen
oneoawodbeforea judgment hg
alone, but sacrihleogr
e.
than b h
con-
gress. The Sovereign Pontiff is invited to abdicate,
or at least to cede his divine right of sovereignty,
that he may receive it back by human concession,
and on sufferance ; that is, to be no more master
but tenant at will. lie has answered, "We can-
not ;" the cause is heard, and sentence must be given.
But we shall not perhaps see the event. If Rome
were occupied to-morrow by armed bands, and the
Vicar of our Lord were in exile, this would not be
the award but the wrong upon which
judgment is
prayed.
It may tarry for awhile, but it will surely
come. Whether by the scourge of revolution, or
by the wasting of intestine strife, or by the con-
vulsion of European war, or by more direct and
visible intervention of God we know not ; but
that the spoliation will be followed by restitution
we surely know. The same flood has already swept,
again and again, over the Holy See. It has been
submerged even for years, but has always arisen
again, even more powerful than ever. The king-
doms and empires which now surround it will be a
page in history when the sway of the Pontiffs shall
yet be young. For this we may be derided as
dreamers; but so were cotemporaries of Clement vii
S. Gregory VII., S. 'Leo 111. ; and so were the
companions of the apostles, and so were the dis-