The Sun.
London, England, 1850-10-08 00:00:00

ITALY.

We find the following resume of the facts relating
to the condemnation of Archbishop FRABIZONI in the
Paris Journal des Debate :
" We have received by express an extraordinary sup-
plement of the Piedinontese Gazette of the 30th ult.,
which contains the sentence of the court and the requi-
sitory of the Advocate-General in the affair of the Arch-
bishop of Turin, This requisitory, which is of great
length, enters info the fullest development of the ques-
tion, pending for several ages, relative to the rights of
the temporal and of the spirtual power; it seeks to estab-
lish the line of demarcation between the Church and
the State, it particularly points out the right of
the laical tribunals to try the depositaries of religious
authority for acts of abuse of power, and seeks to
prove by reference to history and to the most
accredited author!, that this right bus never ceased
to be in vigour in Piedmont. The Govern-
ment, in the first place, reflected whether the Arch-
bishop Franzoni should be tried as any other citizen
who disobeyed the law, or as an ecclesiastical dignitary
abusing his powers. The proceeding by way of appeal
was preferred, from the consideration that the actsim-
puted to M. Franzoni were not the offences of a citizen
in the State, but those of a bishop in his diocese, ema-
nating from an abusive exercise of his religious power.
The Advocate-General brings forward precedents, and
quotes several cases, in which the Superior Courts of
Justice Piedmont in the 17th and 18th centuries pro-
nounced sentence against the ecclesiastical authority, in
virtue of a Pontificial Bull of Clement XL An ancient
royal edict positively orders the law officers of the
Crown to bring to justice abuses of ecclesiastical jurisdic-
tion, and• on all acts which might be an attack on the
sovereign authority, and the laws of the State, or dis-
turb the public peace. The institution of the constitu-
tional regime could not but give fresh strength to liber-
ties and to rights in vigour under the absolute govern-
ment, and several cues are brought forward, in which,
during the last two years, the Piedmontese Parliament,
in accordance with the Government, has bad occasion to
act in consequence of these principles. The acts of
abuse which concern M. Franaoni are notorious. He
opposed himself to the law in prohibiting the ecclesi-
astics to appear before the tribunals when summoned,
as other citizens. His pastoral letter formally enjoins
on them this disobedience, and he himself set an example
of it when summoned before the magistrates on account
of that circular. The abuse was also more crying
and more scandalous in the affair of the Minister
Santa Rosa, that worthy and pious man who with faith
implored for the sacraments of the Church between the
arms of his confessor from whom he had received abso-
lution. Certainly no motive could be found in a reli-
gious point of view to refuse the last consolations ; but
the Archbishop, in refusing these rites, and even those
of burial,. sought for a political scandale; he dared to
impose as_a condition on the dying man a retractation of
what he had done as Minister in one of the laws. It
may be remembered that a commencement of sedition
broke out at Turin against the Prelate, in consequence
of the public indignation, and that the Government was
compelled to have him immediately arrested in order to
prevent great disturbance. The Archbishop showed
himself unjust, tyrannical, and pitiless; the abuse of
authority was flagrant, and it was for that flagrant act
that he was arrested and transported to Fenestrella. M.
Franaoni has for a long time shown himself opposed to the
new institutions ; the longanimity of the civil power
was not able to calm his hostility; he manifested it on
5111 occasions, either by violating the laws, or by oppos-
ing himself to measures of the Government, or in send-
ing pastoral letters fall of bitter censures' against the
Government, or in expressing his contempt far, the ad-
monitions which the supreme court of jUstice more than
once addressed to him. The two Acts, which form the
special object of the recent proceedings, have tilled up
the measure of the factious conduct of this Prelate, It
was propoEya to him, for the sake of peace, to renounce
his see, in giving him the hope of being recalled to the
exercise of his duties in more quiet times, and when he
should himself have become imbued with more moderate
sentiments; but he refused all the compromises offered
to him. Such is the summary of the facts and arguments
brought forward by the Advocate-General."