"IS THE POPE FREE AT ROME?"

New Zealand Tablet, Volume X, Issue 494, 29 September 1882, Page 19

"IS THE POPE FREE AT ROME?"

(Special Rome correspondence of the Pilot.) The pamphlet of M Emile Ollivier, ex-Minister of the Emperor of C /i\ CTea * ed 5 ? Teat Bensation *n France and Italy esprS a *l a pro S ond from the nature of its subject, for S. # " t ? e^ ldo T er - able author puts forward several «w-« » "terfenng in what Italian politicians term •• a home question.' He says: "I have always passionately loved Italy" Too many indestructible memories bind him to her. «At an early it) oif° f roT 5£ c * employed all my efforts towardsthe enfranchisement ,■, ■ T^ ntT^ tb ® n <*f *»*"•« ogfetto, the asylum of sorrow, following in v: .the example of my father, the friend of Mazzini, of my nncle° at £?' ' orn ;J D efnendof Guerrazzi." Such a man as this is not likely to „or the Church too highly. What he may say about her will be tue judgment of a cool politician, and not the expression of a warm partisan. His word* have thus more weight with the indifferent and the "tiemieH of Catholicity. Ml Ollivier begins his pamphlet of 70 pages by asking, « Is the Pope free at Borne ?" and then continues • - «« v JJ 6 d °7.v°Vc e npnn straw and with manacles on his hands at .He bottom of the Marnertine prisons ; he dwells in the most beautiful palace in the universe, a radiant palace, where Braraante, Michael P™f-fl°' W*! a ? d . Be . mini liTe »n their glory. If this is all the rontmoal li berty, he is free. "In this palace there is a little chambrr in which, after having by meditation and prayer, invoked as«.ißt-ince from on high, he distributes instructions to the believers united to his communion, in holding his eyes fixed on the past, on the present, and on the future, in order thatnodiseonance should breakforth between these three terms the harmonious unity of which it is his mission to maintain. If this is all the Pontifical liberty, he is free. "Around him there moves a little ecclesiastical court, silent and docile, and some soldiers charged with protecting him against a sudden attack. If all this is Pontifical liberty, he is free ,1 w w hina J? wella • Cardinal, his Secretary of State, intermediary between the world and him, through whom he learns what the powerful ones of the earth do to his Church, and who replies to them in tis name by approval or by the von posmmvs, which sometimes shakes nations. If this is all the Pontifical liberty, he is free aii 1 c \} 7> rlivided in old palaces, sit other Cardinals commendable by character, talent, knowledge, experience, pious elevation of soul, such as Cardinals Bart .lini, Nina, Zigliara, Bilio, Bonaparte, etc. In more modest dwellings, labor prelates, such as the Tenemble and learned Mgr. Tkzani, the celebrated historian of the Councils, indefatigable inrtead of his blindness, a Bishop with antique mariners that would have done honor to the purple ; Religious such as Father Raffaele de Martinis, watching in the shade that no error shakes the mysterious strata on which traditional principles rest. These Cardinals, those prelates, these Religious, are the eyes and naiids of the Pope in his spiritual government ; he consults them or he directs them, and he surrounds himself with them a crown of sagos. If this is all the Pontifical liberty, he is free. " They have not yet put a carabineer at his door charged with tolerating or preventing access to him ; he is allowed to admit to h.s audience whom he pleases, and also to refuse it to the proud-like Hainan and to grant it to the humble, like Mardochai. If this is all tbe Pontifical liberty, he is free. "After hie days of fatiguing labor he can sit d»wn to a table which has never been furnished with the twenty-seven plates of the royal table of Caraffa ; be may walk about in long galleries, at the foot of the busts or statues of the Emperors whom Christ has con, quered, and who are there, sleeping in stone, as the triumph borne away by the victor to his dwelling. He can also, even in the month* of July and August, when a fiery showflr falls from the heavens when their royal majesties repose under the shadows of Monza, and their Excellencies, and the little commercial travellers go to breathe the fresh air tf the hills, he may, at all hours of the day and night go without opposition to breathe the miasmas of fever in the Vatican Gardens. If this is all tbe Pontifical liberty, he is fr-e. ''They have not. yet forbidden him. since he will riot, Judas-like sell bis Master and his brethren for some piroes of money, to gain his daily bread like St. Paul ; as he is constrained to live upon alms, like bt. Francis of As-nßsi, they have not yet forbidden him to receive the obolits of the faithful. If this is all the Pontifical liberty, he is free. Such is the first chapter of M. Oliivier's r«markable pamphlet in reply to tbe question, Is it not the office of the Pope to live inclosed m the Vatican, there to write encyclicals, be surrounded by a small court and some Swiss guards, not to die of hunger, to walk along his galleries, to take the fever in his gardens, and to receive St. Peters Pence? he answers :— "No, he is Pope to celebrate publicly the great mysteries and the august feasts m the temple raised by the Papacy with the money of all nations and in the four basilicas of which he i« as it were, Cardinal. He is Pope to send forth from the tegaia on consecrated dates, in the brightness of the sunlight and before prostrate multitudes, the benediction nrbi et orbi. "Now, can he fulfil these duties of his charge ? Can he come down to St. Peter s and ascend to the altar of the Confession 1 Can f £ pen t. 1° 3gia cloßed Bince the cutl 7 of Piedmont bj the breach of rorta Pia f "Leo XIII. would hare wished it. His first thought after his exaltation was to show himself to the people. " Let him take care •f himself I faid tbe Italian police ; "we will not answer for the consequences. ' Other examples of such conduct are quoted by the author. He askfl also, " what would happen if a living Pope ehould suddenly show himself in the midst of the readers of the Capital* " —the most violent free-thinking journal of Rome. Speaking of crime committed in the name of Garibaldi, and of the letters of the latter. ! M. Olhvier asserts that it is impossible the Pope could be other than prisoner in Borne.

hands anrfft ' eßayß 8&81n « " tbat tbe Po ? eis fr « e ** **»** chofce i B&21f tt J °. conte9t dail y to him 'the liberty of the nn wM h ? hop Au he maßt im Po»ta»t of »11 Christian liberties, th»t *■*'■•*•■«•* - «-*-£ '"oohSenoy"^ conscience. This passes the bounds of •twT^nu^ffi'^S"' ?' '.c. c Pope '" in M - O'li-'ler 1 " test a iTdes % ?Ti° r - ° f S 'l icitlKles Wl " ch P«« «P° n hira from *'7' d fl Hls look IQ spire of the vivacity and splendor, which it Lcles and T™ W< T 7 ° f '"* ■" many sorrowful spectacles, and the sweetness of his mouth, the corners of which are gently curved, » lightly veiled by a saddened smile ,w «. slng5 lng a P™° ner « BCoff «d at, espasrtd to p-rils is certainly nrl>nme m f' *"? this melaacholy. What is there terrifying iu?mFhTSSffiT » "i ' -° r 4^ fc - h v° r aa old raaa who dail y «iec7 a before £™{' A^ a « ' f nobody seems feeble, his word is firm; it officS serfh reduada ? t . emphasis aad the obscure declamations of KSS/f^^r"" 81 "" 111 wellaa 'amentations, ofK 2nX J° It If.ts1 f. t s o ?s hfc i derivin S its ch aro, from the nobility thekL™ ££ e nt? which it reflects and its light from the lucidity of tne laens which it expresses. ♦v,««"i n my .°P inson ' th e suffering of Leo XIIL has a higher cause than the sentiment of purely earthly afflictions could give it. He hS the two qualities of men born for action, cl«arness of view an-i dcciZJ £ hara , ctel : : He eßa "d he wills. He proved it well by the ™,b, b ?"V lg °,r, r wlth ,, whicD . iQ his quality O f Camerlengo, he organised the Conclave. But the situation which weighs upon MoT e^n C n, U t\! ig ; V*** rOUte P®*™ BUch di ffical«es, raises up such obmmnhmtl w6w 6 he^ reß ? lute B^ irifc ' " condemned to undecided SSw I 7' i Ce v the tomenfc . th « secret of which cannot be wholly concealed by his expressive physiognomy. In fact, what resolution ca.n he take 1 I' Some say to him : Quit Rome in cursiao- Italy. I aly « Say : Kemam afc Borne reconciling youraelf with P. L. CONNELLAN,