the Fourth Week after Easter
Click here to join the effort!
Bible Encyclopedias
Roman Catholic Church
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or The name generally given to that great branch of the Christian Church which acknowledges the pope, or bishop of Rome, as its head, and holds as an article of faith that communion with and submission to the authority of the see of Rome is essential to effective membership of the Catholic Church as founded by Christ. This belief is based upon the commission given by Christ to Peter as " prince of the apostles," " Feed my sheep " (John xxi. 15-17); the saying, " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven " (Matt. xvi. 18, 19). The authority thus conferred upon St Peter is held by Roman Catholics to be permanently vested in the bishop of Rome, as successor to Peter, first bishop of the imperial see. As such, the pope is regarded as " vicar of Christ, head of the bishops, and supreme governor of the whole Catholic Church, of whom the whole world is the territory or diocese." His peculiar powers as pope he exercises immediately on election. Thus he may grant indulgences, issue censures, give dispensations, canonize saints, institute bishops, create cardinals - in short, perform all the acts of his jurisdiction, even though he be no more than a layman; but by custom certain of his more solemn acts are postponed till after the ceremony of his coronation, from which his pontificate is officially dated. To exercise the actus ordinis of a priest or bishop, however, he must, if not' already in orders, be specially ordained and consecrated. Hence his office is a dignity, not of order, but of jurisdiction (see Papacy and Pope).
The most distinctive characteristic of the Roman Catholic Church, at least as contrasted with the various Protestant communions, is its vigorous insistence on the principle of ecclesiastical authority. Of this authority the pope is regarded as the centre and source, so far as the interpretation of the Divine Will to the world is concerned in matters of faith and morals. His pronouncements are held to be infallible when he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals ex cathedra to be held by the universal church (see Infallibility and Vatican Council).
The government of the Roman Catholic Church being centred at Rome, an elaborate organization has been developed there for the administration of its affairs. At the head of this is the college of cardinals, who are the princes and senators of the Church, the counsellors of the pope, and his vicars in the functions of the pontificate. By those of them who are members of the various Congregations and other offices of the Curia the greater part of the government of the Church is directed. (For accounts of the organization of the Roman Curia the reader is referred to the articles Cardinal and Curia Romana.) The characteristic note of the Roman Curia is its intense conservatism and its slowness to move, whether in approving or condemning new developments of opinion or action. This is explained by the nature of its organization and by the tradition on which it is based. For, just as the Roman Church as a whole preserves in the spiritual sphere the spirit and much of the organization of the Roman Empire, so the administration of the Curia carries on the tradition of Roman government, with its reverence for precedent and its practice of deciding questions, not on their supposed abstract merits, but in accordance with the rules of law as defined in the codes or by previous decisions. Thus the genius of Rome remains, as it always has been, administrative rather than speculative. The great dogmas of the Christian Church were shaped by the interplay of the subtle wits of the theologians of the Oriental Churches. The new dogmas promulgated by the Holy See from time to time have been the outcome of the slow growth of ages, built up from precedent to precedent, and only defined at last when the accumulated weight of evidence in their favour, or the necessity for precise definition to meet the contradictions of heretics, seemed to demand a decision. This temper and the process in which it finds expression are well illustrated in the case of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and in the authorization given to the cult of the Sacred Heart.
This conservative spirit and extreme reverence for authority pervades the whole Roman Catholic Church in exact proportion to the degree of effective control which the see of Rome has succeeded in obtaining over its branches in various countries. To pretend to an independent judgment in questions of faith or morals is for a Roman Catholic to commit treason against his Church; and even in the wide sphere of questions lying beyond the dogmas defined as de fide a too curious discussion is discouraged, if not condemned. As opposed to the critical and analytical tendencies of the modern world, then, the Roman Catholic Church assumes the function of the champion of moral and intellectual discipline, an attitude defined, in its extremest expression, by Pius IX.'s Syllabus of 1864 (see Syllabus), and the famous encyclical Pascendi of Pius X. in 1907. The development of this attitude, known - in so far as it depends on the full pretensions of the Papacy - as Ultramontanism, since the definition of the Roman Catholic Church by the council of Trent in 1564, will be found sketched in the historical section attached to this article. The earlier history, which is that of the Latin Church of the West, will be found in the articles Papacy, Church History and Reformation.
Under the supreme authority of the pope the Roman Catholic Church is governed and served by an elaborate hierarchy. This, so far as its potestates ordinis are concerned, is divided into seven orders: the three " major orders " of bishops and priests, deacons, and subdeacons (bishops and priests forming two degrees of the ordo sacerdotium ), and the four " minor orders " of acolytes, exorcists, readers, and door-keepers. These various orders do not derive their potestas ordinis from the pope, but from God, in virtue of their direct ministerial succession from the apostles.' So far as jurisdiction is concerned, however, those ' Thus sacraments administered by validly ordained or consecrated priests and bishops are regarded as valid, even when those who administer them are heretics or schismatics.
members of the hierarchy known as prelates (praelati ), who possess this power (potestas jurisdictionis in foro externo ), whether bishops or priests, derive it from the pope.
These jurisdictions are of very varied character, and in most cases are not peculiar to the Roman Catholic Church. They include those of patriarchs, archbishops, metropolitans and bishops in the first rank of the hierarchy, with their subordinate officials, such as archdeacons, archpriests, deans and canons, &c., in the lower ranks. All of these will be found described under their proper headings (see also Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction). The basis of the organization of the Church is territorial, the world being mapped out into dioceses or, in countries where the Roman Church is not well developed - e.g. missions in nonChristian lands - into Apostolic Vicariates. The dioceses are grouped in various ways; some are immediately dependent upon the Holy See; some are grouped in ecclesiastical provinces or metropolitanates, which in their turn are sometimes grouped together to form a patriarchate.
According to the official Gerarchia Cattolica, published at Rome, there were in 1909 ten patriarchates, with fourteen patriarchal sees (including those of the Oriental rite, i.e. those Eastern communities which, though in communion with Rome, have been allowed to retain their peculiar ritual discipline). Of these the four greater patriarchates are those of Alexandria (with two patriarchs, Latin and Coptic); Anticch (with four, Latin, Graeco-Melchite, Maronite and Syriac); Constantinople (Latin) and Jerusalem (Latin). The lesser patriarchates are those of Babylon (Chaldaic), Cilicia (Armenian), the East Indies (Latin), Lisbon (Latin), Venice (Latin) and the West Indies (Latin). (See Patriarch.) The archiepiscopal sees number 204. Of these 21 are immediately subject to the Holy See, while those of the Latin rite having ecclesiastical provinces number 164. There are 19 of the Oriental rite: 3 with ecclesiastical provinces, viz. Armenian, Graeco-Rumanian and Graeco-Ruthenian respectively; the rest are subject to the patriarchates, viz. 2 Armenian, 3 Graeco-Melchite, 3 Syriac, 2 SyroChaldaic, 6 Syro-Maronite.
Of episcopal sees of the Latin rite 6 are suburbican sees of the cardinal bishops, 85 are immediately subject to the Holy See, and 662 are suffragan sees in ecclesiastical provinces. Of those of the Oriental rite one (Graeco-Ruthenian) is immediately subject to the Holy See; 9 are suffragan sees in ecclesiastical provinces, viz. 3 Graeco-Rumanian and 6 Graeco-Ruthenian; the rest are subject to the patriarchates, viz. 15 Armenian, 2 Coptic, 9 Graeco-Melchite, 5 Syriac, 9 Syro-Chaldaic, 2 Syro-Melchite.
The whole number of these residential sees, including the patriarchates, is 1023. Besides these there are 610 titular sees, formerly called sees in partibus infidelium, the archbishops and bishops of which are not bound to residence. These titles are generally assigned to bishops appointed to Apostolic Delegations, Vicariates and Prefectures, or to the office of coadjutor, auxiliary or administrator of a diocese. (See Archbishop and BIsHoP.) The dioceses are divided into parishes, variously grouped, the most usual organization being that of deaneries. In the parish the authority of the Church is brought into intimate touch with the daily life of the people. The main duties of the parish priest are to offer the sacrifice of the mass (q.v.), to hear confessions, to preach, to baptize and to administer extreme unction to the dying. It is true to say that in the " cure of souls " the confessional plays a larger part in the Church than the pulpit (see Confession and Absolution). For the official costume of the various orders of clergy see the article Vestments.
The clergy of the Roman Catholic Church are furthermore divided into regular and secular. The regular clergy are those attached to religious orders and to certain congregations (see Monasticism). Of these the former are outside the normal organization of the Church, being exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction of the diocesan bishops, while the more recently formed congregations are either wholly or largely subject to episcopal authority. By far the most powerful of the religious orders are the Jesuits. The secular clergy, on the other hand are bound by no vows beyond those proper to their orders. Both regular and secular clergy (those at least in major orders) are under the obligation of celibacy, which, by cutting them off from the most intimate common interests of the people, has proved a most powerful disciplinary force in the hands of the popes (see Celibacy). The more complete isolation of the regular clergy, however, together with their direct relation to the Holy See, has made them, not only the more effective instruments of papal authority, but more obnoxious to the peoples and governments of countries where they have gained any considerable power. Their privileged position, moreover, leads everywhere to a certain amount of friction between them and the secular clergy.
In doctrine the Roman Catholic Church is divided from the orthodox communions of the East mainly by the claims of the papacy, which the Orientals reject, and the question of the " Procession of the Holy Ghost " '(see' Church History). From the Protestant communities which were the outcome of the Reformation the divergence is more profound, though the central dogmas of the faith are common to Roman Catholics. and orthodox Protestants. The difference lies essentially in the belief held as to the means by which the truths defined in these dogmas are to be made effective for the salvation of the world. It was defined in the canons of the council of Trent, as promulgated by Pope Pius IV. in 1564, in which the main theses of the Reformers as to the character of the Church,. the sufficiency of Holy Scriptures, the nature of the sacraments, and the like were finally condemned (see Trent, Council Of) .
The Roman Catholic Church is by far the most widespread, numerous and powerful of all the Christian communions. It is the dominant Church in the majority of European states, in South and Central America and in Mexico; it is the largest single religious body in the United States of America, while in certain Protestant countries, e.g. Prussia and the United Kingdom, it has great religious and political influence. Any statistics of its membership, however, must necessarily be misleading. Those published are generally based on the principle of deducting the Protestant from the general population of " Catholic " countries and ascribing the rest to the Roman Church. This may be possible in Germany and other countries where there is a religious census; but it is, at best, a rough-and-ready method where, as in Italy or France, besides the class of " political " or " non-practising " Catholics, large numbers of the people are more or less actively hostile to Christianity itself. (For Roman Catholic missionary work see 1'IISSIONs.) The Uniat or United Oriental Churches. - The overwhelming majority of the adherents of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world belong to the Latin rite, i.e. follow the usages and traditions of the Western Church.' Ever since the schism of East and West, however, it has been an ambition of the papacy to submit the Oriental Churches to its jurisdiction, and successive popes have from time to time succeeded in detaching portions of those Churches and bringing them into the obedience of the Holy See. This has only been possible owing to the temper of the Oriental mind which, while clinging tenaciously to its rites, values dogma only in so far as it is expressed in rites. The popes, then, or at least the more politic of them, have been content to lay down as the condition of reunion no more than the acceptance of the distinctive dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church, especially the supremacy and infallibility of the pope; the ritus of the Uniat Oriental Churches - liturgies and liturgical languages, ecclesiastical law and discipline, marriage of priests, beards and costume, the monastic system of St Basil - they have been content for the most part to leave untouched. The attempts of Pius IX., who in 1862 established the Congregatio de propaganda fide pro negotiis ritus orientalis, to interfere in a Romanizing sense with the rites of the Armenians and Chaidaeans (by the bulls Reversurus of 1867 and Cum Ecclesiastica of 1869) led to a schism; and Leo XIII., who more than all his predecessors interested himself in the question of reunion, reverted to and developed the wiser 1 The Latin word ritus covers not only the ordinary meaning of the modern English word " rite," i.e. " a formal procedure or act in a religious or other solemn function," or any " custom or practice of a formal kind," but the sense in which it is now obsolete in England - except in the religious connotation here used - of " the general or usual custom, habit or practice of a country, people, class of persons, &c." (New English Dict. s.v.). For the liturgies of the Latin and Oriental Churches see Liturgy.
principle of not aiming at any assimilation of rites, but only at " the full and perfect union of faith " (Encyclical Praeclara gratulationis of June 1894). This principle has even been carried to the extent of recognizing several bishops having jurisdiction over the adherents of various rites in the same see; thus there are three uniat patriarchs of Antioch (GraecoMelchite, Maronite and Syrian).
Exact statistics of the membership of the Churches of the Oriental rite are almost impossible to obtain; the numbers of their adherents, moreover, are apt to vary suddenly with the shifting currents of political forces in the East, for political factors have always played a considerable part in these movements towards reunion or the reverse. In 1908 their numbers were estimated at approximately 5,500,000. The Churches of the Oriental rite fall under four main divisions: Greek, Armenian, Syrian, Coptic; and - with the exception of the Armenian - these are again subdivided according to nationality or to peculiarities of cult or language. The Churches may be further grouped according to the character of their constitution, i.e. (I) those having their own rite only in a restricted sense, since they have no hierarchy of their own but are subordinate to Latin bishops, i.e. the Greeks in Italy ( Italograeci ), the scattered Bulgarian Uniats, the Abyssinians, some of the Armenians and the " Christians of St Thomas "; (2)(2) those having their own bishops and sometimes their own metropolitans, as in Austria-Hungary; (3) the Eastern patriarchates.
Geographically, the Uniat Churches may be grouped as follows :- (A) Europe, where their association with the Roman Church is at once the oldest and the most intimate.
(I) The Italograeci. These are distributed in scattered groups throughout Italy, but are most compact in Apulia and Sicily, and number in all some 50,000. They are under the jurisdiction of the Latin diocesan bishops, but their priests are ordained by bishops of their own rite specially appointed by the pope.
(2) The Uniat Churches of Austria-Hungary. With the exception of the Armenian, these are all of the Greek rite, but are divided according to nationality and ritual language intothefollowinggroups: - (a) Ruthenian Church. - This, though still the most important numerically of all the Uniat Churches, is but a fragment of the Church which proclaimed its union with Rome at the synod of Brest in Lithuania in 1596, a union which, after long and bitter resistance, was completed by the submission of the dioceses of Lemberg and Luzk in 1700 and 1702. The Church was broken up by the successive partitions of Poland, and those parts of it which fell to Russia were, notably under Catherine II. and Nicholas I., forcibly absorbed into the Orthodox Church. The Church, however, still numbers some 3,000,000 adherents in Galicia, and 500,000 in Hungary. In Galicia it has an independent organization under the Greek-Catholic archbishop of Lemberg, with two suffragan sees: Przemysl, for West Galicia, and Stanislawov for East Galicia. In Hungary there are two bishoprics, Munkacz and Eperies, under the Latin primate of Hungary, the archbishop of Gran. The Serb bishopric of Kreutz in Croatia, under the Latin archbishop of Agram, may be also grouped with the Ruthenian Church, since the rite is identical. Its adherents number from 15,000 to 20,000. The liturgical language of the Uniat Slav Churches is Old Slavonic, and, so far as their rite is concerned, they differ from the Orthodox Slav Churches only in using the Glagolitic instead of the Cyrillic alphabet. ( b) Rumanian Church. - This numbers about 1,000,000 adherents and has its own organization under the metropolitan of Fogarasch or Alba Julia, with ` three suffragan sees: Lugos, GrossWardein and Szamos-Uvjar. It has had its own ritual language since the 17th century. ( c) Armenian Church. - This numbers in Austria-Hungary only some 4000 to 5000 members. It has an archbishopric at Lemberg, which has jurisdiction also over the Uniat Armenians at Venice.
(3) Uniat Churches in Russia and Turkey in Europe. (a) In Russia the Uniat Ruthenian Church (see above) ceased to exist with the incorporation of the little Polish diocese of Chlem in the Orthodox Russian Church under Alexander II. in 1875. The Holy See, however, has never withdrawn its claim to jurisdiction over it, nor have the Ruthenians ever been wholly reconciled to their absorption in the Russian Church. The ukaz of Nicholas II. (Easter, 1905), granting liberty of worship, produced a movement in the direction of Rome; but this appears to have been checked by the refusal of the government, even now, to recognize in Russia a Roman Catholic Church of the Greek rite. Converts to Rome have, therefore, to accept the Latin rite (see Prince Max of Saxony, Vorlesungen fiber die orientalischen Kirchenfragen, 1907). The scattered communities of the Uniat Armenian Church in Russia are subordinate to Latin vicars apostolic. The Uniat Armenian Church in the Caucasus, however, is under the jurisdiction of the patri archate of Cilicia. ( b ) In European Turkey the Uniat Churches are represented by tiny groups, scattered about the Balkan Peninsula, attached to Latin " missions." The movement in favour of the union of the Bulgarian Church with Rome, which grew up in 1860, was the outcome of the national opposition to the Greeks, and with the establishment of the Bulgarian exarchate in 1872 it died away. There are not more than 10,000 to 15,000 Uniat Bulgarians, who have been ruled since 1883 by three vicars apostolic. The Uniat Armenians and Melchites in Constantinople belong to the Eastern patriarchates.
(B) Asia And Af Ric A. - The Uniat Churches in Asia and Africa occupy a peculiar position in so far as Rome has recognized the traditional rights of the patriarchates (see, e.g., Leo XIII.'s encyclical Praeclara gratulationis of June 1894), and they therefore enjoy almost complete autonomy; thus the patriarchs nominate their own suffragans and have the right to summon synods for specific purposes (see Patriarch).
There are six Uniat Patriarchates: (I) The Patriarchatus Ciliciae Armenorum. The Armenian patriarch, whose jurisdiction embraces the Catholic Armenians in the Balkan Peninsula, in Russian Armenia and in Asiatic Turkey, formerly resided in Lebanon, but has had his seat since 1867 at Constantinople. Under him are 19 dioceses, including a small one in Persia. The number of Catholic Armenians under his jurisdiction is, roughly, 100,000 (see Armenian Church).
(2) The three patriarchates of Antioch. (a) The Melchite (Patriarchatus Antiochenus Graeco-Melchitarum). The patriarch resides in the monastery of Ain-Traz in the Lebanon and has jurisdiction over all the Uniats of Greek nationality in the Turkish Empire, who number about 120,000. Under him are 3 archbishops and 9 bishops (see Melchites). ( b ) The Maronites (Patriarchatus Antiochenus Syro-Maronitarum ), whose seat is in the Lebanon. The patriarch has jurisdiction over about 500,000 people (see Maronites). (c ) The Syrian (Patriarchatus Antiochenus Syrorum). The patriarch, who resides at Mardin near Diarbekr on the upper Tigris, is obeyed by from 15,000 to 20,000 people, who represent a secession from the Jacobite Church (see Jacobite Church). He has 3 archbishoprics and 5 bishoprics under his jurisdiction.
(3) The Chaldaeans (Patriarchatus Chaldaeorum Babylonensis). The patriarch has jurisdiction over the Uniat Nestorian Church, which numbers, roughly, about 50,000 adherents, and is divided, under the patriarch, into I I dioceses (see Nestorians).
(4) The Coptic (Patriarchatus Alexandrinus Coptorum). This was founded on the 26th of November 1895 by Pope Leo XIII. The patriarch, who was given two suffragan bishops, has his seat at Cairo. The number of Uniat Copts is nominal.
(5) The Uniat Abyssinian Church. This has scaracely any adherents. Such as there are are under the authority of a vicar apostolic residing at Keren.
(6) The Christians of St Thomas (Malabar coast). For these Leo XIII. established in 1887 three special vicariates apostolic (Vicariates apostolici Syro-Malabarorum); the vicars apostolic are Latins, but have the right to pontificate and to confirm according to the Syrian rite. The number of Christians of St Thomas in the obedience of Rome is said to be about 100,000.1. (W. A. P.) The Church in Europe since the Reformation. The term " Romish Catholique " is as old as the days of Queen Elizabeth. 2 It is not happily chosen, for catholic means universal, and what is universal cannot be peculiar to Rome. But the term is inoffensive to Roman Catholics, since it advertises their claim that communion with the see of Rome is of the essence of Catholicity, and to Protestants, since it serves to emphasize the fact that the religion of modern Rome differs widely in many important respects from that of the undivided medieval Church. The change has brought both good and evil. Protestant controversialists have some show of reason on their side when they argue that Luther saved the Roman Church by forcing it to put an end to many intolerable abuses. On the other hand, under stress of his revolt the papacy could not but develop in a strongly anti-Protestant direction, laying exaggerated emphasis on every point he challenged. The more fiercely he denounced infallibility, the confessional, the sacramental system, the larger these things bulked in the eyes of Rome.
Not that this consequence showed itself at once. The Reformation was well established before it attracted any serious 1 This account of the Uniat Churches is largely condensed from the excellent article " Unierte Orientalen," by F. Kattenbusch in Herzog-Hauck Realencyklopddie (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1908), where numerous authorities are given.
2 It was officially adopted in the Relief Act of 1791 in place of the designation " Protesting Catholic Dissenters," to which the vicars apostolic objected.
notice at Rome. The popes of the Renaissance were profoundly uninterested in theology; they were far more at home in an art gallery, or in fighting to recover their influence as temporal Italian princes, gravely shattered during the long residence of the papal court at Avignon in the 14th century. But these secular interests came to an end with the so-called sack of Rome in 1527, when Charles V. turned his arms against Clement VII., and made the pope a prisoner in his own capital. Thenceforward there was no more thought of territorial aggrandisement. The popes, as the phrase went, became Spanish chaplains, with a fixed territory guaranteed to them by Spanish arms; apart from the addition of Ferrara and one or two other petty principalities on the extinction of the reigning house, its boundaries remained unchanged till Napoleonic times. Under Clement's successor, Paul III., a new state of things began to dawn. Hitherto the way had been blocked by a horde of protonotaries, dataries and other officials - purveyors of indulgences, dispensations and such-like spiritual favours - to whom reform spelt ruin. Even the Reformation did not move them; if less money came in from Germany, that was all the more reason for leaving things unchanged in France and Spain. But among Paul's cardinals were three remarkable men, the Italians Contarini and Sadolet, and the Englishman Reginald Pole, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury under Mary. All three were disciples of Erasmus, the great apostle of a new, tolerant, scholarly religion very different from the grimy pedantry of the medieval doctors. It was better, he said, to be weak in Duns Scotus, but strong in St Paul - than to be crammed with all the learning of Durandus, and ignorant of the law of Christ. Men trained in this school were not likely to be tender towards vested interests in darkness, least of all when they stood in the way of a reconciliation with the Protestants: for the cardinals thought that the strength of the Reformation lay much less in the attractiveness of Luther's doctrines than in his vigorous denunciations of the vices of the clergy. Once root out abuses with a firm hand, and they believed that a few timely concessions on points of doctrine would tempt most Protestants back within the Roman pale. This belief was shared by The Charles V. Together they persuaded the unwilling council pope to call a general council. It met in December 1545, at the Tirolese city of Trent, with Pole as one of the three presidents (see Trent, Council or).
As a means of reconciliation the council was a signal failure. The Protestants refused to attend an assembly where even the most conciliatory prelate could hardly condescend to meet them on equal terms. Nor was Pole allowed to use the only possible means of overcoming their reluctance. He had wished to begin by reforming abuses before proceeding to sit in judgment on doctrinal errors. But this arrangement was cried down as a revolutionary departure from all established precedent; and he had much ado to secure the compromise that doctrines and practical reforms should be simultaneously discussed. But in the midst of its labours the council was prorogued (March 1547) in consequence of a quarrel between the pope and emperor. In 1551 it met again, only to be again prorogued in 1552. Ten years later it met again for a third and final session, lasting throughout 1562 and 1563. During those ten years great changes had taken place. Charles V. had followed Pole and his peace-loving colleagues to the grave; in his place stood his son, Philip II. of Spain, while the intellectual leadership of the council fell to Jaime Laynez, general of the newly founded Society of Jesus. There was no longer any question of reconciliation with the Protestants. North Germany, England, Scandinavia were irretrievably lost to Rome; wars of religion had broken out in France. Clearly the one hope was to enter into a desperate struggle for the possession of such countries as still hung in the balance; and that could best be done by striking at the heart of the Reformation. Protestantism centred - or was by Catholics supposed to centre - in a mysterious " right of private judgment "; the council accordingly retorted by hymning the praises of obedience, of submitting to authority and never thinking for oneself. To waverers it held up an absolutely sure and uniform Rule of Faith, contrasting impressively with the already multitudinous variations of the Protestant Churches. Moreover, thanks to Laynez, it accomplished this task without running the obvious danger of tying itself hand and foot to the past. When old-fashioned theologians talked about the canons and councils of antiquity, Laynez answered that the Church was not more infallible at one time than another; the Holy Ghost spoke through the decrees of Trent quite as plainly and directly as through the primitive Fathers. Thus the council's authority became at once peremptory and elastic. But the real gainer was the pope. Hitherto infallibility had been thought of as the supreme weapon of the Church's armoury, destined only for use at some extraordinary crisis; hence it was naturally conceived of as residing only in the extraordinary authority of a general council presided over by the pope. Since the outbreak of the Reformation, however, extraordinary crises, calling for immediate decision, might arise at any moment. It was no longer possible to wait for the assembling of a general council; stronger and stronger grew the tendency to ascribe infallibility to the pope alone, as being always on the spot.
Doctrine and discipline once settled at Trent, the work of counter-reformation could begin. Rebels were won back by force wherever force could be applied. In Spain The the Inquisition soon snuffed out the few Reformers. Counter - In Italy, though declared Protestants were few, there was widespread sympathy with some of Luther's ideas; a committee of cardinals at Rome was accordingly organized into an Inquisition, with branches at the chief Italian towns. For half a century trials were many at Venice and elsewhere, but actual executions were only common at Rome; the most illustrious victim was the philosopher Giordano Biuno, burnt in 1600. In the imperial dominions, however, there could be no recourse to the stake. The peace of Augsburg (1555) forbade the German princes to persecute, though it recognized their right to determine to what religion their subjects should belong, and to banish nonconformists. At first this compromise had worked in favour of the Reformation, but presently the Catholic princes began to turn it against their Protestant subjects. " Governments learned to oppress them wisely, depriving them of church and school, of pastor and schoolmaster; and by those nameless arts with which the rich used to coerce the poor in the good old days. Fervent preachers came amongst them, widely differing in morality, education, earnestness and eloquence from the parish clergy, whose deficiencies gave such succour to Luther. Most of those who, having no taste for controversy, were repelled by scandals were easily reconciled. Others, who were conscious of disagreement with the theology of the last thousand years, had now to meet disputants of a more serious type than the adversaries of Luther, and to meet them unsupported by experts of their own. Therefore it was by honest conviction, as well as by calculated but not illegal coercion, that the Reformation was driven back " (Acton, Lectures on Modern History, p. 123).
This system was not an unmixed success; for its extension to Bohemia early in the 17th century brought about the Thirty Years' War. But it obliged the authorities to pay anew attention to the training of the clergy. The " seminary system " came into being - that is, the custom of obliging candidates for ordination to spend several years in a theological college, whence lay influences were carefully excluded. But ecclesiastical learning of a wider type was also promoted. Gregory XIII. (1572-85) and Sixtus V. (1585-90) dreamed of making Rome once more the capital of European culture. Gregory reformed the Calendar, and founded the university that bears his name. Five years of power were enough for Sixtus to reform the central government of the Church and the administration of the Papal States, to set on foot the Vatican press and issue an official edition of the Vulgate. Their efforts bore fruit in many quarters. In Rome arose Cardinal Baronius, first of XXIII. 16a modern Church historians; Spain produced Suarez, most philosophical of divines. A generation later the French Oratory became the home of Malebranche and of Richard Simon, father of Biblical criticism. Mabillon and his Benedictines of SaintMaur paved the way for the systematic investigation of historical records. The Flemish Jesuit Bolland brought the light of criticism to bear on the legends of the saints (see Bollandists). His French colleague, Petau, better known under his latinized surname of Petavius, opened still wider floodgates when he taught that theological dogmas, like everything else, have a history. Lastly, the Jansenist " hermitage " a.t Port Royal contributed the historian Tillemont, whose bigotry Edward Gibbon declares to be overbalanced by his erudition, veracity and scrupulous minuteness. Other such communities and " congregations " - semi-monastic bodies standing in closer touch with the world than did the medieval orders - undertook the diffusion of knowledge. Wherever they went the Jesuits opened grammar-schools, which had the double advantage of being excellent and cheap. An Italian sisterhood, the Ursulines, was founded for the higher instruction of girls; late in the 17th century a French priest started the Christian Brothers, pioneers of elementary education. Other communities again devoted themselves to parochial work. Such were the Oratorians of St Philip Neri, founded to evangelize the middle classes of Rome. Such, again, were the Lazarists of St Vincent de Paul, whose duty was to preach in neglected country districts. But the most interesting of all these new foundations was the Sisters of Charity, also founded by St Vincent de Paul. This admirable body represents a significant departure from medieval ideals. The old-fashioned nun had spent her time behind high walls in prayerful contemplation; the one object of the Sister of Charity was the service of her neighbour.
Not that medieval ideals were by any means dead; they never burned more brightly than in the Spain of St Teresa (1515-82). Her first idea had been to combat alike the heresies and the worldliness of her time by a return to the austerities of a more heroic age. With this object she founded her order, of " Discalced " or barefooted Carmelites; it presently became the refuge of Louise de la Valliere and many another penitent *of rank. But mere bodily rigours were not enough for Teresa; she felt the need of rising to a state of complete detachment from all earthly interests and ties. Her whole theology centres in the lines " The love of God flows just as much As that of ebbing self subsides; Our hearts, their scantiness is such, Bear not the conflict of these rival tides." How, then, subdue the rivalry? Teresa turned to the mystical writers, and learnt from them how to root out the last relics of self-love from the mind by a long discipline of mystical trance and " contemplation." These ideas, in a very modified form, were introduced into France by the great devotional writer, St Francis of Sales; in the latter half of the 17th century they were pushed to the extravagant length known as Quietism by Fenelon, and especially by Madame Guyon and Michel de Molinos. Meanwhile, the leading conception from which St Teresa started had developed along characteristically different lines in the mind of her compatriot and contemporary, Ignatius Loyola. He quite agreed that self-will was the enemy; The was there no quicker way of checkmating it than T an interminable course of ecstasies and austerities? Jesuits. The thoughts of the converted soldier flew back to the military virtue of obedience. In the long-run no selfimposed hardships could prove quite as disagreeable as always being under the orders of some one else. Obedience accordingly became the typical virtue of Ignatius's society (see Jesuits). The individual Jesuit obeyed his superior, who obeyed the rector, who obeyed the provincial, who obeyed the general, Who obeyed the pope, who took his orders straight from God Almighty. Such a theory was of untold practical value to the Church of Rome, more especially during the era of the Reforma Lion. Laynez at the council of Trent has given one signal instance of its working, but its operations were by no means confined to the abstract field of dogma. If men were really to be made obedient, it could only be by stopping them from thinking for themselves about the everyday problems of conduct; and the best way to do this was to furnish them beforehand with a ready-made code of answers to such problems, warranted to meet all needs. Hence casuistry and the confessional casuistry. loomed large on the Jesuit horizon. The casuist's duty was to apply the general precepts of the Church to particular cases. He explained, for instance, when a man was strictly bound to tell the truth; when he might avail himself of the mild licence of an equivocation; and when the Church placed at his service the greater indulgence of a mental reservation. The confessor brought the casuist's principles to bear on the conscience of his penitents, and thus saved them from the danger of acting on their own responsibility (see Casuistry).
In its origin this system was a perfectly honest attempt to widen the sphere of obedience by making morality wholly objective and independent of the vagaries of the individual conscience. But what was begun in the interest of obedience was carried on in those of laxity. Experts proverbially differ, and the casuists were no exceptions to the rule. But when great authorities were at variance, it ill became an average priest or penitent to decide. Whatever a grave doctor said must have some solid reasons behind it - aliqua niti probabilitate - and humble lay-folk could act upon it without a twinge of conscience. Thus arose lax casuists of the type of Antonio Escobar (1589-1669), the central figure of Pascal's Provincial Letters. Their whole business was to hunt through the older authorities in search of " benign " decisions. Their temptation is easy to understand. Half Europe was full of waverers between Protestantism and Catholicism tolerably certain to decide for the Church that offered them the cheapest terms of salvation; and even in wholly Catholic countries many, especially of the upper class, might easily be scared away from the confessional by severity. Thereby their money and influence would be lost to the Church, and their souls robbed of the priceless benefit of priestly absolution. On the other hand, these " Escobarine morals " by no means passed unchallenged; ever since the foundation of the society the aims and methods of the Jesuits had called forth lively opposition in many parts of Catholic Europe, and not least in Loyola's native land of Spain. But the most effective protest against them was a movement which began when Michel de Bay, a professor at the Flemish university of Louvain, put forward certain theories on grace and free-will in the latter part of the 16th century. In 1640 a much more elaborate statement of the same ideas appeared in a posthumous treatise on the theology of St Augustine from the pen of Cornelius Jansen, also a Louvain professor (see JAN- ' 'Senism). Into the technical detail of the controversy there is no need to enter. It is enough to say that two rival doctrines of grace and free-will were struggling for mastery in the Roman Church. One theory emphasized the necessity of grace; having been put together by St Thomas Aquinas, it was known as Thomism, and was especially championed by the Dominicans. The other laid the chief stress on free-will; it was known as Molinism from its inventor, the Jesuit Louis de Molina, and was in great favour with the society. The two orders came into violent collision at Rome between 1588 and 1606. But the quarrel, known as the controversy de auxiliis gratiae, was brought to an end by Pope Paul V., who closed the debates and adjourned his decision sine die. At first sight this abstract question seemed endlessly remote from the practical policy of Escobar; really there is a close connexion between the two. The whole system of the Jesuits rested on a basis of free-will. Their quarry was the average man; and the best way of impressing the average man is to set before him duties that he feels himself fully capable of performing. Then he will really feel morally responsible if he leaves them undone, hence the necessity of free-will. On ism. the other hand, as Jansen pointed out, free-will tends to make the average man's estimate of his own powers into the supreme criterion of all that is good and right. God must perforce be satisfied with whatever common sense thinks it fair and reasonable that He should expect. Jansen accordingly denounced free-will as dishonouring to God, and destructive of the higher interests of morality. But, if men threw over common sense, what was to be their guide in life? Jansen answered with his doctrine of Irresistible Grace. This was simply a cumbrous way of saying that God awakens in the righteous heart an intuitive faculty of discerning right from wrong. " This holy taste or relish, " says a follower of Jansen, " distinguishes between good and evil without being at the trouble of a train of reasoning; just as the nature and tendency of a heavy body, let fall from a height, shows the way to the centre of the earth more exactly in a moment than the ablest mathematician could determine by his most accurate observations in a whole day." That being so, the Jansenist obeyed his Inner Light, and paid little heed to the earth-bound standards of unregenerate common sense. Nor was he much more respectful towards the official standards of the Church. Why should he consult a casuist rather than his Inner Light? Thus the Jesuits saw themselves menaced by a grave revolt. What would become of the confessional if penitents were allowed to act on what they fondly took to be a heaven-sent inspiration? In a twinkling they would be off to some spiritual Wonderland, where no confessor could bring them to book. On the other hand, only preach to them a strong doctrine of free-will, and all these dangers vanished. They would feel bound to disregard their sporadic intuitions, and act only for reasons that would be clearly set out in black and white. Their past performances could then be checked, and their future actions forecast by the priest; and there was small danger of their straying beyond the limits marked out by authority.
Thus within the spiritual sphere free-will led up to Jesuit obedience. But in the secular world this paradox failed to obtain; there free-will was only too ready to come into conflict with the Church. The 15th and 16th centuries had seen the final break-up of the medieval system of reverence for authority and tradition. In art and learning, morals and government, the old walls came crashing down; in the general bankruptcy of authority men were forced to depend on themselves. And the contemporaries of Machiavelli soon learned to take the fullest advantage of this liberty to pursue their. own best interests in the way that pleased them best. But if individuals might be guided by self-interest, why should that privilege be denied to associations of men? On the ruins of a medieval Christendom, hierarchically organized under the pope, grew up the " new mon archy, " or modern state, owning no law but its New own will. Yet the popes laid aside none of their medieval claims, or even their traditional weapons.
In 1606 Paul V. laid Venice under an interdict, on the ground that the republic had infringed the immunities of the clergy; the doge replied by threatening with death any one who took any notice of the papal thunders. Thenceforward the thunders continued chiefly on paper. In 1625 Catholic Europe was scandalized by the De Schismate of the Jesuit Santarelli, in which he claimed for the pope an absolute right to interfere in the concerns of secular princes, whenever he chose to declare that the interests of religion were in any way concerned. He could dictate their policy at home and abroad, revise their statute-book, upset the decisions of their law-courts. If they refused to listen he could punish them in any manner he thought fit; in the last resort he could release their subjects from allegiance and head a crusade of Catholic powers against them. These pretensions roused a special burst of indignation in France. There, on the divisions of the wars of religion, had followed an irresistible reaction towards patriotism and national unity. France had suddenly grown to her full stature; like the contemporary England of John Milton, she was become a " noble and puissant nation, rousing herself like a strong man after sleep." Even the clergy were swept away by the current, and meant to be patriots like every one else. " Before my ordination, " said the eminent theologian Edmond Richer, " I was a subject of the king of France: why should that ceremony make me a subject of the pope? " Subjection to the pope implied an Italianization of French religion; and most Frenchmen looked on the Italians as an inferior race. Why, then, should the right to decide ecclesiastical disputes be taken away from their own highly competent fellow-countrymen, and reserved for a set of incapable judges in a foreign land? Germany and Spain might let themselves be bitted and bridled if they chose, but for centuries France had prided herself that, thanks to her Gallican liberties, she stood on a different footing towards Rome.
The Liberties in question were certain ancient rights, whose origin was lost in the mists of time. One forbade papal bulls to be published in France without the consent of the crown. Another exempted French subjects from Gallicaa= p subjects the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and other Roman tribunals - such as the Index of Prohibited Books. In the 17th century such immunities were all the more valuable since French statesmen found themselves in an awkward position. The great aim of Henry IV. and Richelieu was to exalt France at the expense of Vienna and Madrid. But Madrid and Vienna were the official champions of the papacy; hence to make war on them was indirectly to make war on the pope. This was enough to trouble the consciences of many excellent men; and it became necessary to devise a compromise that should set their minds at rest, by showing them that
they could be at once good citizens and good Catholics. This compromise is known as Gallicanism. In the hands of Bossuet and other eminent divines it was developed along both theological and political lines. Theological Gallicanism refused to recognize papal decisions on questions of doctrine, until they had been ratified by the bishops of France. Political Gallicanism maintained that lawful sovereigns held their power directly of God,. and not mediately through the pope. Hence no amount of: misgovernment, or neglect of Catholic interests, could justify Rome in interfering with them. In other words, Bossuet only answered Santarelli by setting up the divine right of kings, However, this dogma by no means scandalized the subjects of Louis XIV., for the worship of the sovereign was one of their most cherished instincts. And Louis's ecclesiastical policy flattered their national pride. He introduced no theological novelties; all he did was to insist that, in matters of administration, he would be master in his own house. He supported pope and bishops so long as they took their marching orders from him. If they refused he was perfectly ready to make war on the one and send the others to the Bastille. It is eminently characteristic of his methods that, just at the same time as he was turning loose dragoons on his Protestant subjects after the revocation of the edict of Nantes (1685), he was employing other dragoons to invade the papal territory at Avignon, to punish Innocent XI. for having refused institution to some of his nominees to bishoprics.
The revocation of the edict of Nantes owes quite as much to the dream of political absolutism, inherited from Richelieu, as to religious bigotry. In the words of Saint-Simon, the Huguenots were " a sect that had become a state within the state, dependent on the king no more than it chose, and ready on the slightest pretext to embroil the whole country by an appeal to arms." So long as they were powerful, the crown had treated with them; but when once their power began to dwindle, it was certain that the crown would crush them. But during Louis's latter years, when the War of the Spanish Succession had brought a rain of disasters thickly upon him, bigotry got the upper hand. The broken old man became feverishly anxious to propitiate offended Heaven, and save himself another Blenheim or Malplaquet, by exterminating the enemies of the Church. And his Jesuit confessors had no doubt.
that the first and foremost of those enemies were the Jansenists. Not only did their doctrine of grace defy the favourite Jesuit principle of obedience to authority, but it bade fair to set aside the whole Catholic machinery of infallibility and sacraments. If God spoke directly to the individual conscience, what was the use of intermediaries ? Led by his Jesuits, Louis wrung from the unwilling Clement XI. the Bull Unigenitus Unigeni- (1713), which was intended to deprive believers in individual inspiration of all possible foothold within the Roman Church. The bull caused a violent uproar. Fenelon, although personally an admirer, admits that public opinion credited it with " condemning St Augustine, St Paul, and even Jesus Christ "; and the few Jansenist bishops appealed and " re-appealed " against it. But the government was inexorable; in 1730 the Unigenitus became part and parcel of the law of the land. Still, to make a law is one thing; to get it administered is quite another. The parlement of Paris was a strongly Gallican body, and had many grievances to avenge on Louis XV. and his ministers. To annoy them, it put every possible difficulty in the way of an execution of the bull. Under the fostering care of the judges, a belief sprang up that to call oneself a " Jansenist, " and oppose the Unigenitus, was to show oneself a lover of civil and religious liberty. This feeling was intensified by the conviction that every blow struck against the bull was a blow against the Jesuits, its authors. For the Society, as befitted the great exponent of authority and the keeper of the consciences of many kings, had always been on the side of political autocracy; and therefore it became increasingly unpopular, when once the tide of French intelligence began to set in the direction of revolutionary reform. Nor were the Jesuits in much better odour among other nations. Their perpetual meddling in politics, and even in speculation and finance, stank in the nostrils of every government in Europe; while their high-handedness and corporate greed in the matter of ecclesiastical privileges and patronage alienated the clergy. Their reform was more than once discussed; and death alone prevented Benedict XIV. (1740-58), the most remarkable of the 18th-century popes, from taking some very stringent measures. A year after Benedict's death the first blow fell. Pombal, the great reforming minister of in Portugal, expelled them from that country on a charge of having conspired against the life of the king. Two years later the Paris parlement had its chance. La Valette, superior of the Jesuit missions in Martinique, had set up as a West-India merchant on a large scale. His enterprises were unsuccessful; in 1761 he became insolvent, and the Society refused to be responsible for his debts. The French courts made the consequent bankruptcy proceedings the excuse for a general inquiry into the Society's constitution, and ended by declaring its existence illegal in France, on the ground that its members were pledged to absolute obedience to a foreigner in Rome. Louis XV. now proposed that the French Jesuits should be placed under some special organization, less obnoxious to his parlement. The general only made the famous reply: " Sint ut sunt, aut non sint." Thereupon Louis let the judges have their way. In 1762 the Society was suppressed in France; in 1767 it was also declared illegal by Spain, Naples and other Italian powers. Pressure was now put on Clement XIII. to dissolve the Society altogether. He refused; but his successor, Clement XIV., was more pliable, and in 1773 the Jesuits ceased to be.
In France the philosophes and the quarrels over the Unigenitus had effectually killed the spirit of religion; nor was the Christianity of other countries at a much higher ebb. Spain was utterly dumb; Italian fervour could only boast the foundation of two small orders of popular preachers - the Passionists (1737), and the Redemptorists, instituted in 1732 by St Alfonso Liguori, who also won for himself a dubious reputation on the unsavoury field of casuistry. German Catholicism was still in a very raw, unsophisticated state. It is characteristic that, while Paris had its Bossuets and Bourdaloues, Vienna was listening to Abraham a Sancta Clara, the punning Capuchin whom Schiller, regardless of dates, introduces into the opening scene of his Wallenstein. However, from Germany was to come a serious attempt at reform. There the vision of a reunion with the Protestants had haunted many Catholic brains ever since Bossuet and Leibniz had corresponded on the subject. Faithful to the ancient tradition of Contarini and Pole at Trent, these good men persisted in supposing that the Reformation was nothing more than a protest against practical abuses: remove the abuses, and the rest would follow of itself. And, inasmuch as they held that most abuses were due to the slippery and procrastinating greed of Roman officials, the first step should be ruthlessly to curtail the power of Rome and extend that of local Churches. Such was the theme of a book, De state Ecclesiae, ad reuniendos dissidentes in religione Christianos compositus, published by one Justinus Febronius in 1763. The author was Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim, suffragan in partibus to the electorarchbishop of Treves. Hontheim's theories could not but prove attractive to the local Churches, more especially when they were governed by bishops who were also temporal great lords. The three ecclesiastical electors and the prince-archbishop of Salzburg met in congress at Ems in 1786, and embodied Hontheim's proposals, though in a very modified form, in a document known as the " punctuation of Ems " (see Febronianism). Meanwhile, their overlord, the emperor Joseph II. (1780-90), was dealing with the question of a much more radical spirit, and actually abolishing abuses wholesale. The reign of " Brother Sacristan, " the nickname given to Joseph by Frederick the Great, was one continual suppression of superfluous abbeys, feast-days, pilgrimages. More dignified were his attempts to broaden the minds of the clergy. Instead of being brought up in diocesan seminaries, centres of provincial narrowness, candidates for ordination were to be collected into a few large colleges set up in university towns. Still, Joseph only touched the surface; his brother, the grand-duke Leopold of Tuscany, aspired to cut deeper, and provoke a religious revival on the lines of Jansenism. His plans, which made a great stir at the time, were outlined at a synod held at Pistoia in 1786 (see Pistoia, Synod Of).
Three years later, however, the world had more important things to think of than Leopold's ecclesiastical reforms. At first the French Revolution was by no means antiCatholic - though the Constituent Assembly remem- French bered too much of the quarrels about the Unigenitus not to be bitterly hostile to Rome - and its great aim ti"' was to turn the French Church into a purely national body. Hence it decreed the " civil constitution of the clergy. " Bishops and rectors were made elective, with salaries paid by the state; and all priests were required to take an oath of fidelity to the government: those who refused the oath rendered themselves liable to banishment. Three years later the triumph of the Jacobins brought with it the " abolition of Christianity," and a spell of violent persecution, which gradually slackened under the Directory (1795-99)
In 1799 Napoleon became First Consul, and at once set himself to deal with the ecclesiastical problem. There must clearly be a Church, and the small success of the Civil Constitution made clear that public opinion would not put up with a Church practically detached from Rome. On the other hand, Napoleon quite agreed with Louis XIV. in wishing to be master in his own house, and to turn the clergy into a supplementary police. Accordingly, in 180t he negotiated with Pius VII. a Concordat, which remained in force till 1905 (see Concordat). The state undertook to pay the bishops and parochial clergy; it was directly to appoint the one, and to have a veto on the appointment of the other. But for the religious orders no Papacy. provision was made; and Napoleon refused to tolerate the presence of unsalaried clerics on whom the government had no hold. When his fall brought about the restoration of Louis XVIII. (1815), this restriction was relaxed, and the " congregations " returned in large numbers to France. But the Bourbon government had no intention of encouraging them too much; it clung as closely as Napoleon himself to the idea of a State Church, taking its orders from the government. In this way Gallicanism, which had once stood for all that was national and progressive, now came to mean subservience to a feeble autocracy already tottering to its fall. "A free Church in a free State " became the motto of the group of brilliant men, led by Lamennais, Montalembert and Lacordaire, who started up as soon as the July Revolution of 1830 replaced Charles X. by Louis Philippe. They felt that Catholicism was strong enough to stand alone, without artificial support. For the Revolution had not " abolished Christianity," even among the educated classes, quite so thoroughly as it imagined. Many were only kept back from going to church ` by the fear that their neighbours would think them superstitious or narrow-minded. But in 1802 Chateaubriand had published his epoch-making Genie du Christianisme, in which he declared that of all religions Christianity was " the most poetical, the most human, the most favourable to freedom, art and letters." If that were so, no one need be ashamed to profess it; and the younger generation of Frenchmen began to gravitate back to the Church. Meanwhile, Germany was being profoundly influenced by the great aesthetic revival known as the Romantic Movement, which began with the worship of medieval art and literature, and ended with the worship of medieval religion. And even Italy and Spain presently began to play their part in the Christian reaction. Rosmini in one country, and Balmes the other, " brought piety to the learned, and learning to the pious." These writers, however, only touched the few; and the great aim of Lamennais and his friends was to reach the mass of the people. Immediately after the accession of Louis Philippe they started their famous newspaper, L' Avenir, hoping thereby to reconcile the Church with democracy, and make the pope the leader of the party of progress. The enterprise was hazardous, since democracy had hitherto brought nothing but ill to Rome. In 1798 French troops had entered the papal states, proclaimed a republic in Rome, and kept Pius VI. a prisoner till his death (1799). In 1808 Napoleon arrested his successor, Pius VII., threw the papal states into his new Italian kingdom, and dragged Pius about from prison to prison till the eve of his own fall in 1814. When the congress of Vienna gave the pope back his dominions, the one thought of the broken old man was to restore, as far as possible, the ancient order of things. But the traditional methods of Roman administration were deplorably ineffective; on the accession of Gregory XVI. (1831-46), the powers presented a memorandum strongly urging reform. Some reforms of detail were introduced; but Gregory declared that to grant a constitution to the States of the Church would be incompatible with the prin-. ciple of the papacy. Such a man was hardly likely to listen to the plans of Lamennais. In 1832 the Avenir was condemned, and the disgusted Lamennais left the Roman Church. Lacordaire and Montalembert, however, continued their democratic campaign, by no means without success; for the revolution of 1848, which drove Louis Philippe from the throne, was far less hostile to Catholicism than that of 1830. Under the short-lived Second Republic (1848-52) the position of the Church grew even stronger, for the introduction of universal suffrage brought to the polls great masses of new voters strongly clerical in sympathies. In 1850 was passed the Loi Falloux, which broke down the Napoleonic idea of a state-monopoly of teaching, and allowed the opening of voluntary schools. Of this concession the religious orders took full advantage.
Meanwhile in Rome things had gone from bad to worse. Gregory XVI.'s refusal to grant a constitution called forth a series of sporadic outbursts, inspired by Mazzini and the " Young Italian " party, between 1832 and 1838. These were put down by French and Austrian arms, with the result of focusing the hatred of Young Italy on the pope. One last attempt was made to save him. In 1843 the Piedmontese -priest Gioberti brought out a remarkable book, in which he urged his countrymen to combine into an Italian confederation with the pope at its head. For a moment it seemed as though Gioberti's dream were about to translate itself into reality. In 1846 Gregory died, and was succeeded by Pius IX., one of the youngest of the cardinals, and well known for his popular sympathies. He at once granted an amnesty to political prisoners, of whom the Roman gaols were full; two years later (March 1848) he issued a constitution to the papal states, and seemed about to throw in his lot with the forces making for Italian independence. But the first step thereto was deliverance from the Austrian yoke; and Pius, the
These files are public domain.
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Roman Catholic Church'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/r/roman-catholic-church.html. 1910.
