THERE IS STILL A ROMAN QUESTION

New Zealand Tablet, 21 August 1919, Page 11

THERE IS STILL A ROMAN QUESTION

(By Archbishop-Redwood.)

% However much malignant men may .dispute and argue,' a great fact remains written in indelible ink across the pages of history, the temporal sovereignty of the Popes. How did it originate? That is a story both long and interesting. It had, first of all, its period of latent incubation and development, from the second half of the Bth century, till it gradually rose to full splendor under Gregory VII. in the 11th, and under Innocent 111. and Honorius IV. in the ■ 14th century. The reign of these Popes beheld its apogee. But the successors of these masterful rulers, long after the Middle Ages, retained the sovereignty of Rome and its surrounding territory, until the fatal day when, about 50 years ago, they were criminally despoiled of their rightful age-long possession. It is well to examine and scrutinise more closely the claims of 'the oldest dynasty in the world, founded as they are on the strictest titles of justice and right. That temporal sovereignty was not the sudden work of a day, like unforeseen revolutions that astound the world. It can be traced from a remote period, almost insensibly prepared and conducted to its issue by a continuation of circumstances wholly independent of the will of the Popescircumstances whose pressure they were powerless to counteract, without imperilling the welfare, nay, the life of Rome and Italy, and the vital interests of society and religion. Three stages mark its evolution The first stage was from Constantine’s edict of toleration (313) to Pope Gregory the Great (590-614). During this period, the Popes received from the munificence of the emperors and the faithful, donations of considerable estates in Rome and Italy, known as Patrimonium Petri, the Patrimony of Peter. The second stage comprised a century and a half reaching to the days of Pope St. Stephen 11. (752), during which the Papacy protected Rome and several of the Greek provinces of Italy, and thus exercised political functions which the civil government was either unwilling or unable to fulfil. Meanwhile the Popes were the de facto rulers of Rome and of parts of the Italian Peninsula. In the third stage this de facto government became, by one of the most just and legitimate acts recorded in history, a de jure supreme civil authority. And this power the Popes retained down to Pius IX., when they were despoiled of its outward functions and privileges, but not of its legal and constitutional right. . During the first stage the Popes were the world's benefactors, and the champions of law and civilisation, the guardians alike of the people’s rights and of the • principle of authority • and, accordingly, were rewarded by subject and prince with rich and extensive estates in Rome and Italy. They considered the revenues arising therefrom to be, not their own, but as a sacred trust given for the needs of the Church, the poor, the legates and envoys sent to the Councils of Christendom, the schools and hospitals, monasteries and churches, reerected upon the ruins left by Vandal, Alan, and Hun. The grant, while not making them temporal and independent rulers, gave them a position of honor and prestige, but yet legal'subjects of the Emperors. At times, no doubt, as in the case of Leo the Great, they had acts and prerogatives thrust upon them, in a material crisis during the invasion "of : the Huns, but that was a transient phase of their dramatic ; history. After the accession of Gregory the Great, events lifted the Popes to the position of the only. protectors of the Roman people. By a species of self-determina-tion the people quietly transferred to them the political, civil, and even military allegiance which they owed to Byzantium, when that power proved itself unable to shield and protect them. Then they became, in spite of themselves, administrators of Rome. They accordingly .rebuilt its ramparts, regulated its,.trade,. supplied it with - fresh. water; and provided Jit, with improved sanitary-; conditions and .a; better police. Trained bands

V/ V A*%'!? SSf. ••• - .. .V were formed,” a« civil militia or, “Home Guard,” which": at first obeyed chiefs commissioned" by the Emperors, on the Exarch. But when the Roman people; wearied 11 of the impotent and despotic: rule of the imperial officials, ..witnessed the attempt to carry off Pope Sirgius by force to Constantinople, and a similar attempt made; against -Pope; John VI. in- 701, these military bands" rose to defend the protectors of Rome, and drive out the petty tyrants. As a natural consequence the Roman people ! .regarded themselves as the subjects of Peter, and the Prince of the Apostles as the Prince and Lordof the Eternal City , Then first arose in diplomatic correspondence, in charters and documents, such terms as the “Roman Republic,” the Sane liepublica. The real sovereign of the State thus designated was none - other than St. , Peter himself. Thus Gregory 111. writes to Liutprand, King of the Lombards, in the name of St. Peter, : to demand the return of four strongholds wrested from him. Thus, again, when the King of ‘ Lombardy returned Sutri to the Holy See, the Liber Pontificalia informs us that he restored it to the Apostles Peter and Paul. Finally, when Pepin the Short made the “Donation” to the Holy See, which brought the temporal power from the status of a■ de facto government to the rank of an established de jure and by law, the Frankish monarch acknowledged that, in freeing the Pope from the intolerable tyranny of the Lombards, he had fought only “for St." Peter and for the forgiveness of his sins.” Under Pope Stephen 11. (752-757) the temporal power of . the Pontiff crystallised into definite shape. Aistulf was then King of the Lombards. Restless, daring, and unscrupulous, he had defeated the last Exarch of Ravenna; driven him to Naples, and advanced to the gates of Rome. Stephen, mindful of the fact that the Emperor of Constantinople was still his nominal liege-lord, sent repeatedly letters to Constantinople, to Constantine V., imploring him to come to his help. The wicked monarch was too busy “imagebreaking” and gave no aftswer. His refusal was tantamount to an abdication. Stephen, as in duty bound, sought protection in sturdier hands and a kinglier soul. He turned to the Prankish Prince, Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. Though not faultless, he was in many respects great. Fearless, of wise vision, statesman, soldier, lawgiver, he became the co-founder of the de jure sovereignty of the Holy See. The Pontiff took the momentous step which changed all future history. He met Pepin near Paris and besought him to help Rome now abandoned by her ruler. Failing by a peaceful embassy to induce Aistulf to leave Rome unharmed and -return to Lombardy, he appealed to arms, with the full sanction of the National Assembly of Quiercy (April, 754). Completely beaten and finally beleaguered in Pavia, the Lombard cried for mercy. Pepin curtly refused to listen to the tardy request of the Emperor of Constantinople that he should restore to Byzantium the- territories won from the Lombards. “The Franks”—he said“had not shed their blood for the Greeks, but for St. Peter and the salvation of their souls.” So he transferred to the Pope, the representative of St. Peter, nearly all the territory which his arms had won from the Lombard, the .Exarchate of Ravenna and the cities of the Pentafolis, in other words, the territory situated between the Apennines and the sea, from the Po to Ancona. Henceforth the new State existed in the international map of Europe. Pepin rightly called his “Donation” a restitution. For a century and a-half • the Popes had already been the real rulers of Rome, which they had repeatedly saved from ruin. Wherefore the people looked upon them as their real leaders and desired to have them ,as their sovereigns. The Emperors of Constantinople had practically abdicated . and given up their: imperial prerogatives. The Popes had to act. They did not grasp at powerit was thrust upon them. “The noblest title”—says Gibbon, little suspected of: partiality “is the free choice of a people whom they redeemed from slavery.” And . John von , Muller affirms that, if the question ; of the Pope’s sov- . ereignty is to be decided by natural justice, then he is

the rightful sovereign of Rome, for without i Him : Rome would - not exist. And Menzel, in his History of. the] German, People, to settle the matter-' in .-' one sentence, says that "no European king or "people can, advance claims to the possession of territory stronger than • those of Rome."

The Popes had held their rightful sovereignty in - Rome for 11 centuries, but what are 11 centuries com--pared with the immutability, the immortality, and the perpetuity of the Church? Italy has become a .worldpower, yet" she, unlike the other nations of Europe, is not altogether at home on her own soil. "Between the Alps and the northern, extremities of Sicily there is a palace surrounded by a garden: it is St. Peter's" patrimony, Peter's domain : no King of . Italy enters, there. Peter is a prisoner in his own home. But he nobly protests against his bondage. That protest disturbs and angers Ministers and Kings. What is the use of their being in Rome if, in spite of it all, there is still a Roman question? , Of that temporal power which is no more, Lecky, a Protestant writer, says, "no pen can write the epitaph, for no imagination can adequately realise its glories. In the eyes of those who estimate the greatness of sovereignty, not by the extent of its territory, or by the valor of its soldiers,, but by the influence it has exercised over mankind, the Papal Government has had no rival and can have no successor." The City of the Popes is now ruled by an intruder. To make Rome itself again, a great wrong hypocritically planned and cruelly and unjustly carried out, must be undone, and the Popes must come back into that kingdom which, by every title of justice and law, was undeniably theirs, and of which they were deprived without cause.