The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1870-08-07

French troops the King of Italy is to take
care of Rome. The Holy Father will doubt
less consider this the admission Of the wolf
into the fold for the Italian State within the
last five years has appropriated, Sophisticated,
taken and absorbed in monasteries, converts,
&C., millions Of the property ofthe Church, and
in recent supplemental act of the Italian
Parliament, called by the indignant clergy the
Ecclesiastical Spoliation bill, pretty much
all that was left of their Church property and
incomes has been swept away. The law
makes great reduction in the number OF &C.
clesastics of all degrees in all parts OF the
kingdom, and reduces the pay of the reserved
force to the smallest possible allowance. In
this business the revolution in Italy has
been more sweeping even than that under
Juarez in Mexico, aud it has been carried out
professedly in obedience to the injunction of
the New Testament, ''Lay not up for your
selves treasures upon earth, where moth and
rust do corrupt and where thieves break
through and steal; but lay up for yourselves
treasures in the king lom of heaven, where
neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where
thieves do not break through and steal.' Hard
as it may be, however, for the Holy Father to
accept the protection of Victor Emanuel as a
State necessity with France in the shape of
concession to Italy, we fear that the good Pho
Mono will have to submit His only alterna-
tive will be to protest and thus become a
Protestant and leave the Holy City to the
spoiler.
1t has been in,imated, too, from Rome that
the prosecuted Pope contemplates this course,
and temporary refuge under the protection
of Protestant England in the island OF Malta.
This, too, may possibly come to pass; for if
turned over by Napoleon to the tender care of
Garibaldi, the Holy Father, in leaving Rome,
will hardly fly to the soil o. France; nor,
after the abrogation by Austria of her Con-
cordat, will he seek for protection in that
quarter; while Spain, which, under the late
Queen Isabella and her Bourbon predecessors,
was the model of loyalty and pious devotion to
the head of the Church, has hardly now a
corner in which he could rest in contentment.
the protection of Italy, as the lamb flies from
the protection of the wolf, such Is the condition
,a- things in the Catholic States around him
that he may go to the protection of Protestant
England at Malta, or to Protestant Prussia
as an exile or, peradventure he come to the
free land of America, where there will be none
to modest him or make him afraid.
We rather incline to the opinion, however,
that, reduced to the choice of the protection
of Italy or a fight from Rome, the Holy Father,
fortified with his infallbility, and strong in
the faith of st. Peter will stick to the Vatican
and bide his time. We rather think that he
will do this from considerations Of policy and Of
duty, and patiently as possible await the issues
Of this Franco-Prussan war. In sore distress
he is doubtless now meditating upon the
alarming aspect Of European affairs and over
the sorrowful difference in the power of the
Holy See when Ferdinand and Isabella !. of
Spain appraised the Pope of the discovery of
new world and asked the temporal jurisdiction
over il from the temporal king of kings, and
compared with this epoch of unbeef when
Isabella Ill. and the most devoted daughter of
the Church is an exile in foreign lands. There
remains sui, however, lplS SiS"u anu Picoioao
consolation to the faithful Pope in the Church
of Christ that he is the successor and repre-
sentative of st. Peter that st. Peter is the
rock upon which the Church is built that "the
gates Of hell SHALL not prevail against it, and
that from the blessed Peter his living sue
cessor in Office holds on earth the keys Of the
kingdom Of heaven, which neither Victor
Emanuel, nor Gariba!ai or Mazzini, nor Fran
els Joseph, Prim, Bismarck nor Napoleon can
take away. Lastly, let the Holy Father forget
not that as the head of the Church he is infal-.
lible, and therefore has nothing to fear,
whether as ruler or guest in Rome or as an
exile in Malta, the United States or the
remotest corner of the globe.