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 Modernism and the Religious 
 Crisis in Italy. 
 
 Reprinted from The Churchman,,July 22 , ign. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 
 AMERICAN WALDENSIAN AID SOCIETY, 
 213 West 76th Street, 
 
 New York City. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/modernismreligioOOIuzz 
 
Modernism and the Religious 
 Crisis in Italy. 
 
 By GIOVANNI LUZZI, D. D., 
 Professor in the Waldensian Seminary, Florence. 
 
 THESE MODERNISTS, WHO ARE THEY? 
 
 I do not know if at the present time there 
 can be a subject more interesting and more 
 important than that of Modernism and the 
 religious crisis in Italy; and I am sure our 
 brethren and our friends beyond the ocean 
 will be glad to get some information about 
 it, coming directly from the field where the 
 conflict is raging, and from one who is living 
 in immediate contact with the insurgents. 
 
 War has been declared. On one side stands 
 the Vatican, with its traditions, with its fossi¬ 
 lized formulas and institutions, with its intol¬ 
 erance, with its political preoccupations ; on 
 the other side stand the whole, or nearly the 
 whole, of the young clergy, the seminaries 
 which are preparing the clergy of the future, 
 and the laity, which begins to awaken from its 
 religious torpor ; and on this side, and every¬ 
 where and in everyone, is a new thirst for 
 spirituality, a feeling of weariness of the old 
 traditions, a longing for formulas and insti¬ 
 tutions vivified by the Spirit of God, an up 
 to the present, unfelt desire for larger and 
 deeper Christian love, an ardent aspiration 
 to see their great and beloved Church re¬ 
 formed, renewed, and brought back from 
 death unto life. All those who stand in such 
 opposition to the Vatican are called Modern¬ 
 ists. What is their ideal ? 4 4 The ideal which 
 we have in view,” they say themselves in 
 their 44 Programme,” 44 is that of a Church 
 
once more the spiritual director of souls in 
 their laborious pilgrimage toward the distant 
 goal to which the Spirit of God, which is a 
 spirit of brotherhood and peace, is leading 
 them ; and our efforts are directed to instil 
 into minds this new consciousness of the 
 everlasting destinies of Catholicism in the 
 world.” This Church is, for them, “the 
 Church of their fathers, ” “ which, how - 
 ever,” says Romolo Murri in his book, “La 
 Politica Liberate e la Democrazia," “ must 
 be internally reinvigorated, and externally 
 reduced to right proportions; all extraneous 
 and hurtful elements must be removed from 
 our religious profession, and religion must 
 be presented and made to live as the religion 
 of the spirit and of liberty ; in short, cler¬ 
 icalism must be fought against for the benefit 
 of religion, which must, above all, be de¬ 
 tached from the survival of the political and 
 parasitical elements, which are so multi¬ 
 form and tenacious.” To the episcopal form 
 of the * ‘ Church of their fathers ’ ’ the 
 Modernists tenaciously hold, for historical 
 reasons, from inherited tendencies, and from 
 racial inclination. 
 
 Now, I am convinced that not all Mod¬ 
 ernists have realized what transformation 
 Romanism would have to undergo to become 
 a truly Christian Church. I am more than 
 persuaded that experience has much to teach 
 them, which at present they do not suspect 
 they need to learn. But, granted that in 
 the Providence of God their dream should 
 become a historical fact, I cannot conceive 
 what harm there would be in having, in our 
 Latin countries, a strong Episcopal Christian 
 Church, which, accentuating what is essen¬ 
 tial with the same energy with which, in the 
 past, it accentuated what is accessory, should 
 work in full communion of spirit and love 
 
 4 
 
alongside our Presbyterian, Methodist and 
 Congregational Churches, for the glory of 
 Christ and the triumph of His Kingdom. 
 “We are not rebels,” they say in an “Open 
 Letter to Pius X,” “but sincere Catholics; 
 and, as such, we desire to stand up for the 
 salvation of Christianity. ’ ’ And in the 
 pamphlet, “A Crisis of Souls in Catho¬ 
 licism,” after having spoken of the reforms 
 they dream of, they conclude by saying: 
 “These changes will come by the inexor¬ 
 able force of things; and even if men are 
 able but slowly to accustom themselves to 
 them, still these changes will be so vast and 
 so deep as to astonish, if they live some ten 
 years more or so, many of those timid fol¬ 
 lowers who now do their best to retard 
 Catholicism in its forward march.” 
 
 WHAT SHADE OUR ATTITUDE BE? 
 
 Now, our attitude toward this modern 
 tendency in Roman Catholicism cannot be 
 but one : We must seek to understand these 
 Modernists ; we must .sympathize with them, 
 without forcing them to come out from the 
 Church of Rome. Those who are born in 
 Protestant lands and of Protestant parents 
 can have but little idea of the point of view 
 of those whose ancestral religion is Roman 
 Catholicism, or of the working of a con¬ 
 science which has been formed and educated 
 in a Roman Catholic atmosphere. They who 
 live in Christ and have Christ living in them 
 cannot always understand the tenacity with 
 which those priests, who have not entirely 
 learned Christ, cling to the principle of an 
 external authority, as a drowning man clings 
 to the plank which supports him. Per¬ 
 haps we take too little into account the 
 benefits that the Papacy rendered to human¬ 
 ity in her darkest and most critical days, 
 
 5 
 
and therefore do not appreciate enough how 
 fascinating for those priests is the dream of 
 seeing, some time or other, the historic 
 organization of Romanism reconciled with 
 the spirituality of primitive Christianity. 
 In my opinion it is a grave error to urge 
 the Modernist to leave the Church of Rome. 
 It is wise to advise them to remain, as long 
 as their conscience allows them to do so; 
 wise to exhort them to persevere in their 
 protests, to shake the foundations of the 
 already tottering Colossus, to complete the 
 ruin of that tyrannical authority which for so 
 many centuries has dominated the con¬ 
 sciences of the clergy and the laity. They 
 must remain and complete with all their 
 strength, from within, that work of destruc¬ 
 tion and renovation which we Protestants 
 have for long sought to accomplish from 
 without. 
 
 Truly, in the whole history of the Church 
 of Rome there has never been a period to 
 be compared with the present one. History 
 records in every period sporadic cases of 
 rebellion, easily hushed up by violence ; but 
 now the rebellion is growing fast, is gain¬ 
 ing the enthusiasm of the best, is beginning 
 to rouse the interest of the laity. When 
 the old generation of the clergy still up¬ 
 holding the Curia has passed away and the 
 field is in the hands of the insurgents, 
 when the minority of to-day will to-morrow 
 have become majority, what then is to 
 become of the Vatican ? It will have either 
 to Christianize itself or die. 
 
 I know there are not a few who think that 
 all this is nothing but a huge exaggeration; 
 that all this movement may be summed up 
 in the efforts of a handful of priests who, 
 yielding to the temptations of higher criti¬ 
 cism, have left the Church and abandoned 
 
 6 
 
the faith. It is a gross mistake. lyisten to 
 this statement, made by a priest in high 
 position in the Church : ‘ ‘ Do not make any 
 mistake; in spite of all the means taken 
 to check it, Modernism is more alive than 
 ever. The Vatican is in possession of hun¬ 
 dreds of documents proving that a strong 
 Modernist organization has been formed 
 within the Church ; that in order to foster 
 the cause of Modernism a kind of freema¬ 
 sonry has been found in the Church. The 
 Vatican has found out that between several 
 churches and even between several semi¬ 
 naries a secret correspondence is kept up 
 with a view to spreading Modernism.” 
 
 No wonder, then, if the Pope has felt the 
 necessity of issuing a decisive, 
 
 A CRUSHING “MOTU PROPRIO.” 
 
 It crashed like a thunderbolt on Sept. 8, of 
 last year. The “ Osservatore Romano ,” 
 the official paper of the Vatican, published 
 it first; all the Italian press reported it, and 
 in a flash the startling document in its 
 general lines was spread all over the country. 
 It was as clear as daylight that by his ‘ ‘ Motu 
 proprio ’ ’ the Pope had meant to give the 
 last blow to Modernism. 
 
 What is the difference between an ‘ ‘ En- 
 cyclical ” and a “ Motu proprio The 
 difference between the two documents is this : 
 The “ Encyclical ” deals with doctrine ; the 
 “ Motu proprio ” deals only with practical 
 and disciplinary matters. The contents of 
 the papal document may be summed up as 
 follows: After an exordium in which the 
 Pope states that the Modernist Movement 
 has taken in the Church the secret form of a 
 propaganda and of a secret association, the 
 “Motu proprio , ” quotes the part of the En¬ 
 cyclical ‘ ‘ Pascendi , ’ ’ which refers to theolog- 
 
 7 
 
ical studies in the seminaries, choice of 
 principals and professors in seminaries and 
 universities, conferring of degress, vigilance 
 and censure against Modernist literature, 
 conventions of priests, etc. This, the first 
 part of the document. The second part 
 follows, which contains new provisions 
 against Modernism ; that is to say : 
 
 (1) A “Memorandum” to the bishops 
 to impress on them the necessity of their 
 taking the greatest care in preparing a 
 young clergy well equipped to fight against 
 error ( error is here synonymous with 
 Modernism) . In order to prevent the young 
 divinity students from being distracted by 
 other preoccupations, the “ Motu proprio''' 
 forbids them altogether the reading of all 
 newspapers and periodicals, even of the 
 Roman Catholic ones, including those known 
 as being strictly orthodox. 
 
 (2) The injunction to a whole class of 
 people to take an oath of orthodoxy and 
 loyalty to the true doctrine and Roman 
 Catholic discipline. The oath to be taken 
 by all professors at the beginning of their 
 yearly courses; by clerics of an inferior 
 order before their promotion to a higher 
 order ; by all new confessors, by all parish 
 priests, canons, beneficed clergymen before 
 coming into possession of their benefices, 
 and by all officials in ecclesiastical courts. 
 
 (3) The formula of the oath, by which a 
 declaration is made to accept and profess all 
 the articles of belief defined by the infallable 
 Church, concerning: (a) God and the knowl¬ 
 edge of God ; ( b ) Revelation made evident 
 through miracles and prophecy; (c) The 
 Church and the Roman hierarchy, with 
 Peter as its fundamental rock ; ( d ) The 
 Christian doctrine as handed down by the 
 
 8 
 
apostles and as interpreted by the Fathers ; 
 (e) Faith, according to the orthodox defini¬ 
 tion (an adherence of the intellect to the 
 doctrine of the Church). Besides all this, 
 the formula includes a complete approval of 
 everything said in the Fncyclical Pascendi , 
 in the decree Lamentabili , called the 
 Syllabus of Pius X, and a complete rejec¬ 
 tion of all new Modernist theories, which 
 are with great care specified and with great 
 force condemned in the latter part of the 
 document. 
 
 WAS IT A SUCCESS OR A FAILURE ? 
 
 It was a failure—an utter failure. I shall 
 not recall to you the bold declarations of the 
 Roman Catholic professors at Munster, nor 
 the strong letter of the French Modernist 
 priests to the archbishops and bishops of 
 France, nor the way in which the Russian 
 censure called the Vatican to order; I wish 
 here to call your attention to another series 
 of facts. 
 
 The first impression of the ‘ ‘ Motu 
 proprio ’ ’ on our Italian clergy was far 
 from being what the Pope had expected it 
 to be. Our clergy knew already too well 
 the ways of the Curia. The seminary at 
 Perugia, where, under the intelligent prin- 
 cipalship of the learned Monsignor Umberto 
 Fracassini, exegetical studies were carefully 
 and scientifically cultivated, had been 
 already suppressed ; Bishop Gentili, sus¬ 
 pected to be a protector of Monsignor 
 Fracassini, had been deposed ; from two 
 great preachers, Padre Gazzola, of Milan, 
 and Padre Semeria, of Genoa, the license to 
 preach had been withdrawn; several other 
 priests and friars of note, thought to be 
 dangerous, had been sent far away to 
 Fngland or to South America ; what else 
 
 9 
 
was there, therefore, to be expected, if not 
 new and terrible suppressive measures ? 
 
 Some members of the clergy, when or¬ 
 dered to take the oath, refused energetically, 
 and left the Church. Others grouped them¬ 
 selves together, and, following the example 
 of their fellow priests of France, before 
 taking the oath, wrote an anonymous letter 
 to their bishops and archbishops, in which, 
 after having expressed their motives for 
 their taking such a tremendous step as 
 writing this letter, they concluded by 
 saying: ‘ ‘ Before undergoing this act of 
 
 violence, we protest in the sight of God, of 
 the Church and of your Lordship, that such 
 an oath does not in any way pledge our 
 conscience, nor does it in any way modify 
 our ideas. We shall remain after, what we 
 were before the oath.” The largest number 
 of those bound to take the oath took it 
 against their conscience; and the Curia 
 seemed to triumph. 
 
 All those who took the oath in that spirit 
 ought to have stood up as one man ; they 
 ought to have been led by their bishops 
 against those who had ordered that, with 
 their hand on the Gospel; they should de¬ 
 liberately dishonor the Gospel. But if such 
 behavior has no justification, has it at least 
 some extenuation ? Let us hear the answer 
 of an ex-priest who, when a short time be¬ 
 fore the injunction of the oath he left the 
 Church, had nothing else in this world ex¬ 
 cept $7, which a poor woman had given him 
 in payment of twenty masses, and which 
 the good soul made a present of to him, 
 when he offered to return them to her. 
 ‘ ‘ With nothing else than these few dollars 
 did I leave the Church and face the uncer¬ 
 tainty of my future. But how many priests 
 and friars are there from whom such an act 
 
 10 
 
of courage might be expected ? To speak of 
 martyrdom when there is no peril impend¬ 
 ing, and to speak of hunger when sitting at 
 a well-spread table, are easy things to do ; 
 but when the wolf is already at the door of 
 the poor parish priest, who has nothing else 
 on earth but the scanty income of a daily 
 meagre mass to count upon, who has besides 
 himself perhaps an old father and an old 
 mother to support, who knows that if he 
 leaves the Church all ways will be barred 
 against him and not a soul will he find to 
 give him a job, the question becomes very 
 serious indeed ; and if the Curia takes him 
 by the throat, and under those circumstances 
 forces him to take an oath which is against 
 his conscience, the priest will probably com¬ 
 mit an immoral act, but the Curia will have 
 killed a man.” No, the ex-priest is wrong; 
 the Curia will not have killed a man ; it will 
 have made and secured for itself an enemy 
 who, on the great day of reckoning, will 
 fight with the fury of one who has been 
 wounded in what he held most dear and 
 sacred. 
 
 And let us not forget the most important 
 thing. Those who have taken the oath are 
 not the whole army ; behind them is a large 
 reserve corps, which has not yet appeared 
 on the field ; there are thousands, ten thou¬ 
 sands of priests, who have not yet been 
 called to take the oath ; there is the whole 
 of the laity, which up to the present has been 
 slumbering, but is now aw T akening fast, and 
 fully sympathizes with the movement against 
 the tyrannical power of the Vatican. What 
 will happen to-morrow? Who knows if to¬ 
 morrow we shall not witness what could not 
 happen to-day—a resistance of the mass? 
 
 Meanwhile, a strange fact is happening. 
 Whilst the “Motu proprio' , ' > seems to 
 
 11 
 
triumph in a way, in another way it proves 
 to be an altogether dead failure. You all 
 know what has happened in Germany and 
 elsewhere ; you know how the Pope has had 
 to come to a kind of compromise with the 
 enemy; but very likely you do not know 
 what has happened and is happening in Italy. 
 We have in Italy a whole class of priests who 
 are at the same time professors in different 
 schools. A great many of these professors 
 have not yet been ordered to take the oath. 
 Why? Because the Curia knows that the 
 larger number of them would rebel against 
 the order and leave the Church. They are all 
 men of independent means, with university 
 degrees, having the doors of all Government 
 schools open to them, and the loss of the 
 meagre income derived from saying mass 
 would be to them an insignificant loss. Do 
 you care to know what is the spirit that ani¬ 
 mates these noble souls, these cultured men, 
 who have given to the Church the best years 
 of their lives but are not ready to sacrifice 
 for her their liberty, their dignity, their con¬ 
 science? Listen to these few lines one of 
 them wrote me on the morrow of the issuing 
 of the “ Motu proprio : “My dear friend, 
 before closing my letter, let me unbosom 
 myself and tell you one thing more. What 
 happens in my Church is more than I am 
 able to bear. I feel that I have had quite 
 enough of this Catholic Church of ours. 
 Every day she becomes more and more a 
 barefaced negation of Christandof His Word. 
 I feel that to continue to wear the garb I am 
 now wearing and to remain in the society I 
 belong to is not only a lie, but a sort of denial 
 of what the Gospel has of most noble and 
 holy. And since we have to give an account 
 of ourselves to God, I believe it to be my 
 right and my duty to throw away this garb 
 
 12 
 
and to escape from this Roman prison. As 
 soon as the oath will be required of me, I 
 and my friends, whom you know, shall leave 
 the Church. You know what I mean ; when 
 I say we shall leave the Church , I am only 
 using the current phrase; the real fact is 
 that we are forced to leave the Church of the 
 Vatican in order to remain in and to be 
 faithful to the Church of Christ. Romolo 
 Murri is perfectly right when he says in his 
 ‘Commento’: ‘To leave the Church of 
 Rome is, for us priests, the only way to save 
 the ideal condition of our true priesthood.’ ” 
 
 AUDACIOUS WITH THE} WEAK, COWARDLY 
 WITH THE STRONG. 
 
 The Curia, at a certain moment, thought 
 it wise to show its authority and to give an 
 example which, through the impression it 
 was sure to make, was expected to prepare 
 the way to wider results. There lives at 
 Genoa a friar, a Barnabite, Father Giovanni 
 Semeria. He is one of the cleverest men, 
 one of the best writers, and one of the most 
 eloquent preachers the Roman Catholic 
 Church possesses in Italy. This man is a 
 Modernist; a fine type of a Modernist. In 
 his books, which treat generally of ecclesias¬ 
 tical subjects from a historical point of view, 
 you find the echo of our best Protestant 
 literature. This man, with his strong liking 
 for Biblical criticism, might have been 
 launched, as many others, into the sea of 
 rationalism ; what has saved him has been his 
 love for Christ, his good heart, his charity 
 toward all sufferers who best represent on 
 earth the suffering Christ. For this reason 
 especially, Semeria is the most popular friar 
 in Genoa ; he has practically the heart of 
 Genoa in his hand, and is not a man easily 
 to be touched by the Curia, without running 
 
 13 
 
the risk of losing not the man only, but the 
 larger part of the city. This is the reason 
 why the Curia has limited the power of the 
 man by limiting his preaching, but has 
 never dared to attack him in a decisive way. 
 A short time ago, though, the Curia, as I 
 have said, thought of giving a striking ex¬ 
 ample of its power to the rest of the clergy, 
 and chose as its butt Father Semeria. 
 Orders were sent to the general of the Bar- 
 nabites to exact from him the anti-modern¬ 
 istic oath. Father Semeria answered that 
 he could not take an oath that went against 
 his conscience. The general did his best to 
 persuade him to obey, and when he saw that 
 it was useless, gave him twenty-four hours 
 to think over the matter. When the given 
 time had elapsed, Father Semeria went back 
 to the general, saying : “To that formula, 
 as it has come from Rome, I cannot put my 
 signature ; but here is a formula I have pre¬ 
 pared, which I am ready to sign; it fully 
 expresses my disapproval of all the Modern¬ 
 istic theories I am persuaded are erroneous, 
 and my positive Christian belief. Are you 
 willing to accept this formula of mine in¬ 
 stead of the other one? ” 
 
 The general answered that he would send 
 it to Rome and wait for orders. 
 
 The answer came, and was clear enough : 
 “ Fither sign our formula as given, or go.” 
 
 Father Semeria began to make all his 
 preparations to start for Germany; ordered 
 a suit of civilian clothes, packed his boxes, 
 and decided to stop for a while with friends 
 at Munich. Whilst doing all this, in order 
 to perfectly quiet his conscience and to be 
 able afterwards to say that he had really 
 tried every possible means before leaving 
 the Church, the idea struck him that he 
 might write directly to the Pope himself. 
 
 14 
 
He did so; he opened his heart, his con¬ 
 science, his soul to him ; he sent him his 
 own formula, and asked him if he really in¬ 
 sisted on forcing him to make such violence 
 to his own conscience by taking the oath 
 of the “Motnpropriol ” 
 
 Father Semeria never expected to get an 
 answer. Fie had made up his mind to wait 
 for the necessary time for a letter to reach 
 him from Rome, and then leave. But a 
 letter came—a letter in the Pope’s own 
 handwriting. In it the Pope allowed him 
 to sign the formula he liked best, and be¬ 
 sides gave him his apostolic benediction. 
 Father Semeria unpacked his boxes, put 
 away his civilian clothes for another occa¬ 
 sion, and resumed his work. 
 
 The psychology of modern papacy may 
 be summed up in a few words: Audacious 
 with the weak, cowardly with the strong. 
 But in so behaving, the Vatican undermines 
 itself in public estimation. Everybody sees 
 and feels that the “ Motu proprio which 
 was intended to be the final blow to Mod¬ 
 ernism, has been instead a means of show¬ 
 ing the miserable condition into which the 
 Curia has fallen. Modern papacy is like 
 an old aristocrat, clad in his gorgeous 
 mediaeval costume, trying to order about 
 everybody whilst the most do not pay any 
 attention to him, and the few make pretense 
 of obeying, but at the same time laugh at 
 him in their sleeve. 
 
 A few days ago I was speaking of all 
 these things to a well-known Roman Cath¬ 
 olic priest, a leading man, and well known 
 for his advanced ideas in fact of Modern¬ 
 ism. I was deploring the last papal utter¬ 
 ances, when he said to me : “No, my dear 
 friend, this is for us all a providential Pope ; 
 by such utterances as these last ones, he 
 
 15 
 
will embitter more and more the clergy, 
 will daily reduce the number of those who 
 are still faithful to him, will get dis¬ 
 credited among the laity, and will thus 
 bring the Church to the crisis which we are 
 all longing for. Ret us pray to God that 
 he may have a long pontificate ! ’ ’ 
 
 THE NON-PATRIOTISM OE THE VATICAN. 
 
 Italy is rejoicing. All over the country 
 the enthusiasm for the commemoration of 
 the fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation 
 of the United Kingdom is great. Turin, 
 Florence, the two previous capitals, and 
 Rome, with their splendid exhibitions, are 
 the focus of all these national rejoicings. 
 In this general and wonderful concert to 
 which nature adds its mysterious song and 
 its heavenly smile, only one note of discord 
 is heard; and that note comes from the 
 Vatican. The Vatican papers are full of 
 lamentations ; word has come from the Curia 
 to say that for the Church and for all true 
 Roman Catholic believers this must be a year 
 of mourning and retirement. Meanwhile, 
 especially in country parts and in the 
 remotest corners of Italy, a legion of priests, 
 either ignorant or hoping to get some 
 material advantage from the Curia, do their 
 best to persuade the poor folk entrusted to 
 their care that in this year the atheists, who 
 stole Rome from the Pope, are trying their 
 best to complete their Satanic work by ruining 
 the Church. 
 
 You have no idea of how far the hatred of 
 the Curia for United Italy may go. When 
 the Vatican speaks of the King, the mildest 
 expression it uses is that of 2 Thess. ii. 7 : 
 He who now letteth. . . . For twenty-four 
 years running, beginning with 1870 (the 
 year of the “spoliation,” as they call it), 
 
 16 
 
the Unitd Cattolica , one of the most rabid 
 papers of the Curia, was issued with a border 
 of black round it, as a protest against the 
 annexation of Rome to the Kingdom ; and 
 the ugly farce was only put a stop to when at 
 last the Italian authorities had had quite 
 enough of it. Here is another incident, a 
 ridiculous one, you may think, but still some¬ 
 thing like another straw that shows the 
 direction of the current. A few years ago 
 the “ Academia Pontificia ” offered a prize 
 to the man who wrote the best essay on an 
 archseological subject. The time given for 
 the sending of the essay had elapsed, and 
 the appointed commission read the several 
 manuscripts. One of them was judged to 
 be far the best of them all, and to it was 
 awarded the prize. All the manuscripts, 
 naturally, were not signed with the name 
 of the writer, but had a motto, to which 
 corresponded a closed envelope containing 
 the full name of the author. The opened 
 envelope, corresponding to the winning 
 motto, revealed the name of a Protestant, 
 not only, but of the son of a Baptist min¬ 
 ister, and a young minister himself. The 
 revelation did not please the Pope at all; 
 but the prize had been awarded, the essay 
 was really a superior work, and the money 
 {$200) had to be given. My friend received 
 in fact a nice velvet box, containing fifty 
 French pieces of gold of 20 francs each. 
 He was struck by the fact that not one of 
 the gold pieces was of Italian coin ; and 
 having made some inquiries about it, was 
 told that all payments at the Vatican are 
 made in foreign money. Italian coin, there, 
 is not recognized ! The thing in itself 
 sounds [silly, but looked upon as a symp¬ 
 tom it is sadly important; it shows that 
 the lust for worldly power has suffocated 
 
 17 
 
in the bosom of the Curia all sacred love 
 for its mother country as well as for the 
 Kingdom of God. The effect of all this 
 on the nation is disastrous for the Vatican. 
 All these facts alienate more and more from 
 it the heart of the patriots, who well know 
 what the unity of Italy has cost their fathers, 
 and cannot forget that through all the cen¬ 
 turies the Popes have too often filled Italy 
 with foreign armies in order to uphold their 
 egoistic pretensions. 
 
 “a cause dead and buried.” 
 
 A few days ago I was in Turin, and could 
 not help going to visit the historic House, 
 where, for the first time, on March 25, 1861, 
 the unity of Italy, with Rome as capital, 
 was unanimously proclaimed, and where 
 Camillo Cavour delivered that wonderful 
 speech which will remain in the heart of 
 Italy as a sacred remembrance of a true pro¬ 
 phetic utterance. Naturally, in 1861, Rome 
 as capital could only be proclaimed in theory. 
 The Vatican held its Roman States tight, 
 and France was supporting the rights of the 
 Pope with her armies. But Cavour was 
 inspired; he saw what the future ought to 
 be and finally would be : A united Italy 
 with Rome as its capital, and with the Pope 
 in it in a position to be able to exercise his 
 spiritual power with perfect freedom. And 
 whilst I was reading on the different seats 
 of the House the names of the great patriots 
 who had occupied them on the memorable 
 day, I seemed to hear the echo of the strik¬ 
 ing words of Cavour: “Gentlemen, I can¬ 
 not imagine a greater misfortune for a cul¬ 
 tured people than that which consists in the 
 accumulation in one hand, in the hand of its 
 ruler, of the civil and the religious power. 
 The history of all centuries and of all coun- 
 
 18 
 
tries shows that wherever that accumulation 
 or that confusion has taken place, almost 
 immediately civilization has stopped pro¬ 
 gressing, has gone backwards, and the most 
 horrid despotism has been established. All 
 this has happened either when a sacerdotal 
 caste usurped the temporal pow r er, or when 
 a Caliph or a Sultan seized the spiritual 
 power.” Nine years after this never to be 
 forgotten sitting of the House at Turin, 
 Rome was taken and proclaimed Capital de 
 facto; and now, after more than forty years, 
 during which the King and the Pope have 
 dwelt together in the same city, facts have 
 eloquently proved that the Pope can exercise 
 his spiritual ministry with perfect freedom, 
 and that he has all his spiritual rights re¬ 
 spected by the State, much more than he 
 shows himself inclined to respect the rights 
 of the State. The true Roman Catholic 
 Church, which is no longer represented by 
 the Vatican, but by the large believing mass 
 of Modernists who wait and pray in the tents 
 of the clergy and in the tents of the laity, 
 wisely expresses herself as one reads, for 
 instance, in an impressive series of letters 
 called Lettere Ghibelline: ‘‘There is no 
 doubt; it was a great blessing that God con¬ 
 ferred on His Church when, through the 
 force of events, He liberated her from that 
 earthly power which subjected the great 
 lordship of the Church to the small interests 
 of a Kingdom. The ultramontanes of Italy 
 fight for a cause which is dead and buried.” 
 
 [2392a] 
 

 
 
 
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