The enduring paradox of the papal throne: Splendor, poverty, and the will of the people

“ He called it the Queen, not only because it shone with splendor in JESUS CHRIST, the King of kings, and in His Blessed Mother, but because it is elevated above all earthly things, which it tramples under foot. "Know," he used to say to his brethren, "that poverty is the hidden treasure of the Gospel, the basis on which an order rests the special path to salvation, the support of humility, the mother of self-renunciation, the principle of obedience, the death of self-love, the destruction of vanity and cupidity, the rod of perfection, the fruits of which are abundant, though hidden. ”

“ The beauty and splendor of the modern city may be ascribed to the abuses of the government, to the influence of superstition. Each reign (the exceptions are rare) has been marked by the rapid elevation of a new family, enriched by the childless pontiff at the expense of the Church and country. The palaces of these fortunate nephews are the most costly monuments of elegance and servitude: the perfect arts of architecture, painting, and sculpture have been prostituted in their service ”

“ If there are Catholics who linger regretful amid glories that have vanished, there are also Catholics who in the midst of their work feel a confidence which leaves no place for regret; who well understand that the earthly environment in which the Church lives is subject to change and decay, and that new surroundings imply new tasks and impose new duties. The splendor of the medieval Church, [Pg 186] its worldly power, the pomp of its ceremonial, the glittering pageantry in which its pontiffs and prelates vied with kings and emperors in gorgeous display, are gone, or going ”

“ Who could throw over the frailties of fashion such a graceful cloak of meek forgiveness, that it seemed actually worth while to sin to be pardoned with such affection? All the pomp and circumstance of Romanism, as seen in its own capital, associated with rank, splendor, high dignity, and names illustrious in story, form a strong contrast to its vulgar pretensions in Ireland. It is so essentially allied to ceremonial and display, that when these degenerate into poverty and meanness, the effect produced is always bordering on the ludicrous. ”

“ Whatever we think of the wisdom or the reason of the papal protest against the occupation of the States of the Church by the Italian people, these windows have their pathos. The pope immures himself in the Vatican and takes his walks in the Vatican gardens, whose beauty I could have envied him, if he had not been a prisoner, when I caught a glimpse of them one morning, with the high walls of their privet and laurel alleys blackening in the sun. ”

“ Meantime in the Vatican sits a king calling himself a prisoner, though he is free to go where he will; and in the Quirinal, a king calling himself a good Catholic, though he is a rebel against the Vicar of God. If the wisdom of Italy in allowing to the Pope unlimited personal freedom has been great, the want of wisdom in professing to exalt his spiritual authority, and in giving in to [Pg 687] his sole hand the ancient powers of both the crown and the people in the election of bishops and clergy, amounts perhaps to the grossest political folly of our age. ”

“ Then will the monarchial demon, the God of slaves and aristocrats, seated on the people's throne, with his feet on the people's neck, quaff blood like water; and eye with scornful indifference the squalid millions whom he has doomed by an enormous taxation to huddle in hovels, without light or air, with clothing scarcely enough to hide their nakedness, with food scarcely enough to sustain life, or fire scarcely enough to keep them from freezing. ”

“ Kings, ministers, aristocrats, the rich in general, kept the people in poverty and subjection; they kept them as they kept dogs, to fight and hunt for their service. ”

“ Sapping the foundations of civilisation, of authority, of other people's altars, spattering them with filth, winking jocosely at them only to justify and conceal one's own rottenness and moral poverty is only possible for a very vain, base, and nasty creature." ”

“ From such vestiges of derivative grandeur, propagated to ages so remote from itself, and sustained by manners so different from the spirit of her own,—we may faintly measure the strength of the original impulse given to the feelings of men by the sacred majesty of the Roman throne. How potent must that splendor have been, whose mere reflection shot rays upon a distant crown, under another heaven, and across the wilderness of fourteen centuries! Splendor, thus transmitted, thus sustained, and thus imperishable, argues a transcendent in the basis of radical power. ”

“ Here is a sovereign privileged by destiny, handsome, powerful, victorious, surrounded by general admiration, possessor of the first throne of the universe, loved almost to idolatry by his people, having a tender and devoted wife, good and respectful children, soldiers who long to die bravely in his service to the cry of, “Long live the King!” He dwells in splendid palaces; when he pleases, he shakes off the yoke of etiquette and lives like a private gentleman in little residences which are masterpieces of grace and good taste; every one seeks to divine his wishes, his caprices ”

“ The empress was surrounded in the royal palace by a splendor which rivalled that of Persia. Oriental richness and luxury characterized all its appointments. We find exhibited in the court life of the day a blending of the voluptuousness of the East with the refinement of the Greeks and the luxury of the Romans. Thousands of eunuchs, parasites and slaves, carried out the wishes of the empress. ”

“ These quarters, some for labor, and others for the middle classes; some for the choice leisure of the literary classes, and others for the luxury of the aristocracy and for the splendor of the crown, not only attest the increase of that city which enlarges itself in proportion to its inhabitants, but they testify to the increase of luxury, of art, of riches, and of ease, of all which the characters are to be recognized in the disposition, in the architecture, in the ornaments, in the spaciousness, and in the comfort, sometimes splendid, sometimes modest, of the habitations of man. ”

“ The domestic crowd of the palace surpassed the expense of the legions; yet the smallest part of this costly multitude was subservient to the use, or even to the splendor, of the throne. The monarch was disgraced, and the people was injured, by the creation and sale of an infinite number of obscure, and even titular employments; and the most worthless of mankind might purchase the privilege of being maintained, without the necessity of labor, from the public revenue. ”

“ But while poverty and oppressive taxation ground down the masses of the people, the nobles abandoned themselves to the excesses of gluttony, drunkenness, and promiscuous concubinage, frequently not scrupling to consign the objects of their lust, and even their own offspring, to the miseries of slavery, for paltry sums of money to be squandered in wretched folly. ”

“ Between the luxury and splendor of the king's court and the poverty of the common people there is of course the greatest and most painful contrast. The palaces of the king are filled with whatever the wealth and power of their owner can procure. The hovels of the common peasants are bare and comfortless, the furniture consisting only of a few coarse vessels of earthenware or wicker-work, and a mat or two spread upon the floor. ”

“ Good God! the misery, and wretchedness, and grinding poverty, deadening to the heart, which exist in large cities, within ken of opulence, of luxury and of splendor! O! could the voice of these wretched throngs be heard, in its collected wailing, what a cry of despairful agony would go up to the throne of the Everlasting! Dead souls in living sepulchres, stalking their gloomy round of poverty, neglect and wo—uneducated, ungodly, famine-stricken—what hope is there for them in this world, and, word of horror, what in the next! ”

“ Nothing can part us, and your happy father will surround you with such splendor as you have never beheld before."
"Oh, my father!" exclaimed she, "what has splendor to do with happiness?"
"Everything," replied her father, with a careless laugh. "Misfortune is not near so ugly in a palace as in a cottage; and I do assure you that the tears which are shed in a softly-cushioned carriage are not half so bitter as those that fall from the eyes of the houseless beggar. Wealth takes the edge from affliction, and lends new lustre to happiness. ”

“ Such formidable servants are always necessary, but often fatal to the throne of despotism. By thus introducing the Prætorian guards as it were into the palace and the senate, the emperors taught them to perceive their own strength, and the weakness of the civil government; to view the vices of their masters with familiar contempt, and to lay aside that reverential awe, which distance only, and mystery, can preserve towards an imaginary power. In the luxurious idleness of an opulent city, their pride was nourished by the sense of their irresistible weight ”

“ And when the formal street, in all its pride of perfumery and confectionery, has successfully consumed its way through wrecks of historical monuments, and consummated its symmetry in the ruin of all that once prompted a reflection, or pleaded for regard, the whitened city is praised for its splendor, and the exulting inhabitants for their patriotism—patriotism which consists in insulting their fathers with forgetfulness, and surrounding their children with temptation. ”

“ And what licentious youth has insulted you for our sake with shameful writhings and contortions? O precious Throne, seat and rest of precious men, which hast been occupied by a succession of pious Priests, who from ancient times have taught the divine Mysteries, what heathen popular speaker and evil tongue hath mounted thee to inveigh against the Christian’s faith? ”

“ Brother Leo said nothing as he stood in front of the three great doorways that lead into the church. He stood quite still for a while, and then his eyes fell on a beggar beside the pink and cream of the new campanile, and I saw the wistfulness in his eyes suddenly grow as deep as pain.
"Have you money, Signore?" he asked me. That seemed to him the only question. I gave the man something, but I explained to Brother Leo that he was probably not so poor as he looked.
"They live in rags," I explained, "because they wish to arouse pity. Many of them need not beg at all." ”

“ I asked him as we stood once more in the hot sunshine outside, with the strutting pigeons at our feet and wheeling over our heads.
Brother Leo did not answer for a moment, then he said:
"I think Saint Mark would feel it a little strange. You see, I do not think he was a great man in the world, and the great in paradise—" He stooped and lifted a pigeon with a broken foot nearer to some corn a passer-by was throwing for the birds. "I cannot think," he finished gravely, "that they care very much for palaces in paradise; I should think every one had them there or else—nobody." ”

“ This, then, is the favor I have to ask of you, Signore. I should like to have you take Brother Leo to Venice to-morrow, and, if you have the time at your disposal, I should like you to show him the towers, the churches, the palaces, and the poor who are still so poor. I wish him to see how people spend money, both the good and the bad. I wish him to see the world. Perhaps then it will come to him as it came to me—that money is neither a curse nor a blessing in itself, but only one of God's mysteries, like the dust in a sunbeam. ”

“ It was useless for me to point out to him that in a world where there is so much health God has permitted sickness; where there is so much beauty, ugliness; where there is so much holiness, sin. It is not that there is any lack in the gifts of God; all are there, and in abundance, but He has left their distribution to the soul of man. It is easy for me to believe this. I have known what money can buy and what it cannot buy; but Brother Leo, who never has owned a penny, how should he know anything of the ways of pennies? ”

“ Only the man that wishes to deceive himself and others can in the time of danger and men's battle with necessity turn aside from aiding them, augment the necessity of men, and persuade himself and those that are perishing before his eyes, that he is occupied in devising for them means of salvation.
No genuine man who applies his life to the service of others will say this. And if he says this, never will he find in his conscience any support for his mistake; he will find it only in the crafty doctrine of the division of labor. ”

“ As for the rest, whatever is disagreeable let us hide it, for mercy's sake!"
"On the other hand," the priest continued, "I will cheerfully confess the great error of my book. The Italian Rome which I neglected and sacrificed to papal Rome not only exists but is already so powerful and triumphant that it is surely the other one which is bound to disappear in course of time. However much the Pope may strive to remain immutable within his Vatican, a steady evolution goes on around him, and the black world, by mingling with the white, has already become a grey world. ”

“ The Church, if she directs men to render obedience chiefly and above all to God the sovereign Lord, is wrongly and falsely believed either to be envious of the civil power or to arrogate to herself something of the rights of sovereigns. On the contrary, she teaches that what is rightly due to the civil power must be rendered to it with a conviction and consciousness of duty. In teaching that from God Himself comes the right of ruling, she adds a great dignity to civil authority, and on small help towards obtaining the obedience and good will of the citizens. ”

“ The despotism of the Caesars had imposed on the Spaniards a blind obedience to the kings as the representatives of God, and the clergy had educated them in this belief from the community of interests between the Church and the throne. Even the most illustrious poets corrupted the people, exalting servility to the monarchy in their plays. Calderon affirmed that the property and life of a citizen did not belong to himself but to the king. Besides, religion filled everything ”

“ The King of Prussia sends his wife to seek the great man’s mercy; the Emperor of Austria considers it a favor that this man receives a daughter of the Caesars into his bed; the Pope, the guardian of all that the nations hold sacred, utilizes religion for the aggrandizement of the great man. It is not Napoleon who prepares himself for the accomplishment of his role, so much as all those round him who prepare him to take on himself the whole responsibility for what is happening and has to happen. ”

“ Nature, in fact, has given us not only physical existence, but moral life hkewise. Hence, from the tranquillity of public order, whose immediate purpose is civil society, man expects that this may be able to secure all his needful well-being, and still more supply the sheltering care which perfects his moral life, which consists mainly in the knowledge and practice of virtue. He \
shes moreover at the same time, as in duty bound, to find in the Church the aids necessary to his rehgious perfection, which consists in the knowledge and practice of the true religion ”

“ You, the people, you are the crown prince of France, and if you, at last, in your righteous and noble indignation, tread the tyrant under your feet, then the young prince, the people, will rule over France, and the beautiful words of the Bible will be fulfilled: 'There shall be one fold and one shepherd.' I have taken this improvised throne on the shoulders of a noble citizen only to tell you of an impropriety which the Queen of France has committed, and of the new usurpation with which she treads our laws under her feet, not tired out with opera-house balls and promenades by night. ”

“ Bah! as soon as he landed at Frejus, it is as good as saying that he has set foot in Paris. Everybody there worships him; but he calls the Government together.
"What have you done to my children, the soldiers?" he says to the lawyers. "You are a set of good-for-nothings who make fools of other people, and feather your own nests at the expense of France. It will not do. I speak in the name of every one who is discontented." ”

“ Rome is the town of elections: since her foundation down to our own day—that is to say, in the course of nearly twenty-six centuries—she has constantly elected her kings, consuls, tribunes, emperors, and popes: thus Rome during the days of Conclave appears to be attacked by a strange fever which drives everyone to the Vatican or to Monte Cavallo, according as the scarlet-robed assembly is held in one or the other of these two palaces: it is, in fact, because the raising up of a new pontiff is a great event for everybody ”

“ The cardinals might hear from every quarter around them the cry: "A Roman pope! if not a Roman, an Italian!" The cardinals replied, that such aged and reverend men must know the rules of the conclave; that no election could be by requisition, favor, fear, or tumult, but by the interposition of the Holy Ghost. To reiterated persuasions and menaces they only said: "We are in your power; you may kill us, but we must act according to God's ordinance. To-morrow we celebrate the mass for the descent of the Holy Ghost ”

“ Principally from the moment when civilized Europe, from the old semi-feudal, semi-servile armies, passed to the standing armies organized on the principle of obligatory universal military service, armies everywhere became flesh of the flesh and blood of the blood of the people. And every people had the army it deserved to have. And in each army, as the sun is reflected in the tiniest drop of water, came to be reflected each country's political structure and social order. ”

“ The army carried out the politics of Stolypin and the land-owners, who, by all sorts of tricks and manipulations, schemed to remain masters of that army—who knew how to make peasants beat other peasants. A monstrous system of lies and violence was created in order to set part of the workers and peasants against the people, to make them act, lay hands on their own fathers and brothers, and beat the people of their own villages. ”

“ If you resolve, O Cæsar! to fly, you have treasures; behold the sea, you have ships; but tremble lest the desire of life should expose you to wretched exile and ignominious death. For my own part, I adhere to the maxim of antiquity, that the throne is a glorious sepulchre. ”