Henry Edward Manning

“ The Christian world is not yet of their opinion. Neither were these noble hearts who gave their life-blood, as millions in all nations are likewise willing at this hour to do, in order to forbid this great sacrilege. In that little band were men of noble blood, of time-honoured memory, of high culture, fighting side by side with simple, hard-handed, broad-hearted peasants, who, full of devotion, left their hamlets and their homes to defend the Vicar of our Lord, and with striplings of seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen years of age, mature in faith, and the manhood of Christian chivalry. ”

“ Every act to seduce or to compel the peaceful population to rise has been used. Provisional Governments, revolutionary committees, petitions signed by imaginary thousands, plebiscites, proclamations, conspiracies in Rome, shells thrown among the loyal inhabitants, gunpowder plots, mines under the walls—all has been tried, but all in vain. In the end, moved by a just indignation, delayed, through Christian endurance, only too long, the soldiers and protectors of the Holy See crushed and scattered the lawless bands of the revolution. ”

“ For this end, therefore, all the spirits of anti-Christian revolution have united against Rome. They have poisoned the public opinion of Europe against it by lying, or by truths perverted, which are the worst of lies. They have misled and influenced Governments, stirred up popular bigotry, painted the Government of Rome in the darkest and falsest colours, organised in secret a propaganda of sedition to disgust, alienate, and goad on the subjects of the Holy See to discontent and to rebellion. ”

“ Italy has no more claim on Rome than on Dresden or Paris. Rome is protected by as sacred a right of sovereignty against the usurpation and ambition of Italy as Vienna or Madrid. Sovereigns do not lose their rights because they are in the neighbourhood of stronger powers. If proximity and geography and the unity of language constitute a right for the greater powers to absorb the weaker, then Brussels may be lawfully annexed by France, and Amsterdam by Germany. We have loudly aided and encouraged Italy in this usurping policy. ”

“ Rome is not the capital of Italy. It is the capital of Christendom. God has so made it, and man cannot unmake it. All Christian nations have a right in it. Italy has its share in Rome as France has, and all other Catholic people; and neither less nor more. But Rome is in Italy, and Italians speak one tongue. Geography and language create no rights. If it were so, Canada would justly be annexed to the United States. North America, 'one and united,' would not be 'made' till it had incorporated Canada in its national unity of language and geography. ”

“ We are told that the highest and ultimate unity on earth is the unity of a nation; that each nation may isolate itself both in religion and politics at will; and that non-intervention is a reciprocal and universal duty of all nations to each other. Against this system of national supremacy, anti-Christian and immoral, we protest in the name of Christendom. There is a unity higher than the unity of any nation, in which the welfare of all nations is bound up: the unity of the Christian world. ”

“ But she has won to herself the confidence and the sympathy of every man among the two hundred millions in all lands, who refuse to offer up the supernatural unity, order, and purity of the Christian world as a homage to the tyranny of modern Nationalism, the deification of the civil power, the anti-Christian hatred against the Church of God. Let France stand firm, and she may stay the plague which is devouring Christian Europe. The prayers of all good men will ascend for her. ”

“ As Christians, and as Catholics, we refuse to break up the unity of Christendom for the unity of Italy, and to sacrifice the Christian and supernatural order of the world to the 'national aspirations' of any people.
For the last thirty years the doctrine of nationalities and non-intervention has been preached with a subtlety and a confidence which has seduced many and stunned more. Men have been afraid of raising their heads against the claim of a nation's right to make revolutions. ”

“ By this act, which is only one more in the traditional office of France in protecting the Centre and Head of Christendom, she has placed herself in the lead of the Christian order, the Christian justice, the Christian chivalry of the world. May God maintain her firm and inflexible in this noblest mission upon earth! The Catholic world will confirm her acts by the sympathy and assent of its heart and conscience. France has thereby invoked upon herself the enmity, scorn, and railing of anti-Catholic and anti-Christian factions. ”

“ And yet no Catholic power is foreign in Rome. Every Catholic has a right in the Holy See, and in the city where God has placed it. The theory of non-intervention has no application in this case. Non-intervention may be a policy of the natural order; but it must be confined to the sphere of politics, and to the mutual respect of civil Governments. When applied to Rome, it is a mere deceit, in order to mask the question. No Catholic Power can proclaim the policy of non-intervention when the Vicar of Christ and the Head of the Catholic Church is threatened. ”

“ The intervention of the French people to defend the person and authority of Pius IX. against external violence, from whatsoever nation, race, or Government it may come, would be, by all the prescriptions of Christian international law, an honourable, just, and noble act. How much more, when France has intervened against a lawless and immoral band of invaders, rebels to their own Government, and disturbers of the peace of the Christian world! ”

“ England isolated itself from the Christian world in religion three hundred years ago, and its present attitude of political isolation is the inevitable result. Russia in like manner is cut off from Europe by its schism, and its schism dictates its policy. Prussia is still half united to the Catholic world. The other nations of Europe are, for the most part, or altogether, members of the Catholic unity. It is not possible for any one of them to claim the Russian or English exemption from national responsibility to a higher unity, without renouncing their Catholic character. ”

“ The mad in this world will be the heirs of a better. It is no wonder to us that, day after day, base, craven, hireling names should be showered upon the noble-hearted men who have joyfully laid down their lives for the Vicar of Jesus Christ. ”

“ Paul for the protection of the City; the head of the revolution, with its leader in all his prestige, was crushed and swept off the Patrimony of the Church by a blow so sudden and so complete that not a vestige, except the dead, wounded, and arms of the invaders remained on the field. Men will read this event differently. Some will see in it no more than a battle and a victory. ”

“ In the days of Pius IX. it is France alone which has executed the will of Christendom; in the days of his successor it may be a league of Catholic Powers, or the force of two hundred millions concentrated and brought to bear by some future organisation which shall give expression and effect to their will.
For twenty years the anti-Christian seditions of all the world have aimed at the overthrow of Rome, at the destruction of the Temporal Power first, of the Spiritual Power afterwards. They hate the Temporal Power much, but they hate the Spiritual Power more. ”

“ If the unbelievers of other countries, banded in secret societies, have a right to plot the overthrow of the Sovereign Pontiff, the faithful of other nations have likewise a just and perfect right, in open and lawful array, to defend his person and his throne. If the revolution invade his State, the Catholic world has a right to turn it out. ”

“ There is a day to come which will reverse the confident judgments of men. In that day 'the first shall be last and the last first.' The wise in this world will be fools, and the fools in this world wise. ”

“ And we may trust that their places here will be filled up tenfold—a hundredfold—that the manhood and chivalry of Catholics in all nations will spring forward with a new energy of devotion and close around the person of Pius IX. and of those who shall come after him, as an impenetrable wall of living strength, against which, if revolutionary violence or ambitious nationalism shall hereafter dash itself again, it may be for ever broken. ”

“ Such a course would not be ignoble because Great Britain is strong, nor is it noble because the Pope is weak. Neither are the 'national aspirations' of Italy for Rome more legitimate than the national aspirations of the Union for Quebec. ”

“ He has taken no man's goods, not so much as a shoe's latchet. He has never harassed the poor of his people, nor driven them from the humble homes of their fathers, nor wounded their conscience in that which is dearest to a Catholic people. ”

“ The late events have detected and exposed with a terrible but just retribution the hollowness, the imposture, the falsehood, the vainglory, the impotence of the Revolution. Grandiloquence, mystery, pretended ubiquity, for a long time terrified or distracted the friends of order. ”

“ The line of Pontiffs stands alone for justice and mercy in the history and the assembly of kings. One accusation against him can alone be proved. He is a Priest of Jesus Christ. Some men are to be found who think this enough to justify his dethronement. ”

“ I have no doubt that they who counsel to Italy moderation 'for the present,' and hold out the hope of Rome in reversion when Pius IX. goes to his rest, sincerely believe themselves to be wise and equitable men. ”

“ These were the men who, forsaking home and all that life holds best and dearest, went to bear arms as private soldiers, without hire and without hope, except that of defending the person and authority of the Vicar of Christ, and of shedding their blood, if need be, in the justest warfare and for the holiest cause. ”

“ They think that if it were possible to destroy the Temporal Power, the Pontiffs would be either persecuted or subject. A Pope subject to a Royal Supremacy would reduce the Spiritual Supremacy to absurdity; and derision would be a keener and more deadly weapon against Christianity than persecution. ”

“ Against him can be found no accusation. Many have borne witness against him, but their testimonies do not agree together. No man can convict him of injustice, of cruelty, of oppression, of even lawful severity. ”

“ That all European nations take security against the renewal of these dangers to both their external and internal peace. The Catholic nations have a vital and all-pervading interest in the safety and independence of the Head of their Religion. ”