Curia of Rome

“ But the moment a question in any way affects the interests and rights of the Roman Curia, there is an end of their freedom. For every Bishop has sworn not only to maintain but constantly to increase all the rights of the Pope, and it is notorious that at Rome, and in regular intercourse with the Papal Congregations, one can take no step without being reminded, directly or indirectly—by courtly insinuation, or rudely and openly,—of this oath, and the enormous extent of the obligations incurred by it, which embrace the whole range of ecclesiastical life. ”

“ Although the Curia was not equal to its task, had Italy been still in a healthy state the nation and public opinion could have forced the Papacy into right courses. But here also corruption had long since set in. Strong moral force, such as proclaims itself in Dante, in Caterina of Siena, was gone from the people; they had but lately given its last prophet to the flames in the Piazza della Signoria at Florence. No nation can sin thus against its best men without punishment. ”

“ The plebeians had no connection whatever with the curiae. All the members of the different gentes belonging to one curia were called, in respect of one another, curiales. The division into curiae was of great political importance in the earliest times of Rome, for the curiae alone contained the citizens, and their assembly alone was the legitimate representative of the whole people. [Comitia curiata.] Each curia as a corporation had its peculiar sacra, and besides the gods of the state, they worshipped other divinities and with peculiar rites and ceremonies. ”

“ There are three powers who wish to gain by the Council, and who decide on its proceedings and destiny—the Pope, the Jesuits, and the Curia. Among the members of the Curia there are indeed very few who have not long since made their calculations, with that appreciation of the realities of life which is peculiar to the Italian nation, and who do not know as well what a dogma is worth for Rome as people know what a man is “worth” in England. Every assailant of the dogma is their personal enemy ”

“ The Grand Duke and most of the court were his admiring friends. He had every freedom for research if only he would leave the interpretation of scripture to theological experts. ‘Write freely, but keep outside the sacristy’ his friends advised. Why did he remain in Rome? To convert the Congregation of the Index to Copernicanism? This would have been a triumph for science, and a personal triumph as well. The Roman Curia had absolutely no interest in science as such. They were determined that religion should not suffer. Galileo's brilliant lectures were not conceived in the spirit that convinces. ”

“ Only at Rome and in Italy were sowed the seeds of violence. The other portions of the empire tranquilly lived under the old laws of the Divine Augustus. At Rome the Senate was deceived into believing that the emperor was no more than a figure-head.
The Curia was apparently respected. All freedom and forms of the old Roman republic seemed to be in force. But underneath this seeming tranquillity sinister ideas were working. The Praetorian soldiers were brought together in one building within the city. Intimidation fell upon the people. ”

“ The instructions of the Spanish delegates ordered them to labour especially for the reformation of the Curia; for the chief objection of the infidels to Christianity arose from the public and execrable wickedness of Rome, for which the Pope was accountable. It was apparently to forestall action that, in March, 1512, Julius appointed a commission of eight Cardinals to reform the Curia and its officials and, on March 30, he issued a bull reducing the heavy burden of fees and other exactions. ”

“ Rome was a rallying-point for place-hunters of every nation. In presence of the enormous mass of business-processes, graces, indulgences, absolutions, commands, and decisions, addressed to all parts of Europe and Asia, the functions of the local church sank into insignificance. Several hundred persons, whose home was the Curia, were required. ”

“ They do their part frankly enough in dispelling any illusion on the subject. If any complaint from the Bishops should be heard in Rome, such as was made by the Spanish and French Bishops at Trent, the Curia can reply that they were told all this beforehand. The Civiltà has the most direct sources of information, and may therefore be safely trusted when it says, in a recent number, “We are not the authors of the Papal thoughts, nor does Pius ix. speak and act under our inspiration, but we are certainly the faithful echo of the Holy See.” ”

“ They have the art so to blend their interests and that of Rome, seeking for themselves and the Papacy the empire of the world, that the Curia must needs support them, while it cowers before their inscrutable authority. They are the ruin of good literature and wholesome doctrine by their pitiful pretense of learning and their machinery of false teaching. On ignorance rests their power, and truth is mortal to {234} them. Every vice of which humanity is capable, every frailty to which it is subject, finds from them support and consolation. ”

“ If Rome will not unsay her false doctrine, the national Churches must repudiate her claim to lead them. She has built up a crazy superstructure on the true foundation; we must sweep it away, and get back to the life and words of Christ." To Rome, that meant death, and for the Roman Curia it was a simple act of self-preservation to crush Wyclif beneath its censures, and to do all that was possible to bury his record in obscurity. ”

“ On the marble plan of Rome, in the Capitoline Museum, a fragment shows Pompey's theatre, portico, and senate house. With the given remains of the theatre and the plan it is easy to find the site of the Curia, which is shown on the plan in the form of a basilica: this will bring the curve exactly at the apse of the Church of S. Andrew. Now, we are told that Cæsar was seated in the chair where in the morning Brutus dispensed justice, so he was, no doubt, seated on the tribunal; and as the tribunal of the church and curia exactly correspond,
HERE CÆSAR FELL! ”

“ It would reduce the Mendicants to the condition of the other religious orders and earn the gratitude of all the prelates and clergy by stripping them of the privileges which rendered them so dangerous. For this purpose it was necessary to win the favor of Rome, and the students enthusiastically assessed themselves, economizing in their expenses that they might contribute to the fund which was necessary if anything was to be done with the curia. ”

“ The reign of Nicholas II. (1059–1061) was distinguished by events which exercised a potent influence on the policy of the Curia during the next two decades—the rapprochement with the Normans in the south of Italy, and the alliance with the democratic and, subsequently, anti-German movement of the Patarenes in the north. It was also under his pontificate (1059) that the law was enacted which transferred the papal election to the College of Cardinals, thus withdrawing it from the nobility and populace of Rome and thrusting the German influence on one side. ”

“ We are quite aware that certain writers who have assumed the task of defending the action of the curia against Galileo, maintain that the ecclesiastical party objected to the new system because its accordance with the phenomena of nature had not been sufficiently proved. [216] But even were this granted, in view of the opposition raised on scientific grounds and the rooted attachment to old opinions, every unbiassed person must demur to the assumption that in the attitude of Rome towards the Copernican question the interests of science had any influence whatever. ”

“ For a few weeks the relations between the Curia and the Italian authorities were marked by a conciliatory Attitude of the Vatican. spirit. The secretary-general of the Italian foreign office, Baron Blanc, who had accompanied General Cadorna to Rome, was received almost daily by Cardinal Antonelli, papal secretary of state, in order to settle innumerable questions arising out of the Italian occupation. The royal commissioner for finance, Giacomelli, had, as a precautionary measure, seized the pontifical treasury ”

“ But there is sure to be a lively and protracted discussion on the primacy, which may easily exhaust the patience of the majority, for the continuance of the present situation is a deep humiliation for the Pope and Curia. The Opposition, whose existence at first was so boldly denied, and of which there was [pg 586] originally only a germ in the Episcopate, subsequently developed in Council through the clumsy tactics of Rome, places the Roman See in an unwonted and what is thought an intolerable light. What Pius ix. ”

“ Likewise all have the example of many other princes, whose lands and persons she squeezed under an interdict till she had reduced them to similar servitude. We pass over her simony, her unheard-of exactions, her open usury, and her new-fangled tricks, which infect the whole world. We pass over her speeches, sweeter than honey, smoother than oil,—insatiable bloodsuckers! They say that the Roman Curia is the Church, our mother and nurse, when that Curia is the root and origin of all evils. She does not act like a mother, but like a stepmother. ”

“ It wants but a few days of the calends of November, and if they find the interest unpaid, I shall be cast forth, shamed, and helpless, into the streets of Rome!"
"Be it so!" answered Curius, with an expression which she could not comprehend. "Be it so! Fulvia; and if it be, you shall have any house in Rome you will, for your abode. What say you to Cicero's, in the Carinæ? or the grand portico of Quintus Catulus, rich with the Cimbric spoils? or, better yet, that of Crassus, with its Hymettian columns, on the Palatine? Aye! aye! ”

“ It is difficult to say how far the religious organisation of the curiae was a natural or artificial development. But artifice was certainly at work in determining their important political character. The primitive popular assembly at Rome is the comitia curiata, composed wholly of Patricians. Here each member of a patrician clan above the legal age—probably the age of eighteen, at which military service commenced—had the right of giving a single vote ”

“ And while they doubted, one Marcus Curtius, a youth that had won great renown in war, rebuked them, saying, “Can ye doubt that Rome hath nothing better than arms and valor?”
Then all the people stood silent; and Curtius, first beholding the temples of the immortal Gods that hung over the market-place and the Capitol, and afterward stretching forth his hands both to heaven above and to this gulf that opened its mouth to the very pit, as it were, of hell, devoted himself for his country ”

“ As for these petty towns and petty tyrants, I care not how they fall, or by whom. But the Pope must not return to Rome. Rome must be mine. The city of a new empire, the conquest of a new Attila! There, every circumstance combines in my favour!—the absence of the Pope, the weakness of the middle class, the poverty of the populace, the imbecile though ferocious barbarism of the Barons, have long concurred to render Rome the most facile, while the most glorious conquest!”
“My brother, pray Heaven your ambition do not wreck you at last; you are ever losing sight of the land. ”

“ Will not our cheeks crimson with shame when we look upon those palaces, reared by his ancestors, when we pass the memorable spot, where the first Curtius devoted himself to his country? If we suffer this scion from such a glorious stock to perish thus? And, for what? Powers of heaven! Why has he not the same right to worship his God, as we have to bend before the shrine of Jupiter or Bacchus? He is a Roman citizen, and shielded by that name should be guarded by the laws of Rome, for he has committed no crime.” “No crime! Flavius, by the immortal Gods, you are beside yourself. ”

“ Though the great houses love us not, we own, to do them right, That the great houses, all save one, have borne them well in fight. Still Caius of Corioli, his triumphs and his wrongs, His vengeance and his mercy, live in our camp-fire songs. Beneath the yoke of Furius oft have Gaul and Tuscan bowed: And Rome may bear the pride of him of whom herself is proud. But evermore a Claudius shrinks from a stricken field, And changes color like a maid at sight of sword and shield. The Claudian triumphs all were won within the city towers; The Claudian yoke was never pressed on any necks but ours. ”

“ In that brilliant campaign Curio undoubtedly took an active part, for at the close of it Cæsar gave him an independent commission for the occupation of Sicily and northern Africa. No more important command could have been given him, for Sicily and Africa were the granaries of Rome, and if the Pompeians continued to hold them, the Cæsarians in Italy might be starved into submission. ”

“ His proposal was carried by a large majority, but a report having spread that Caesar was on the way to attack Rome, the consuls called upon Pompey to undertake the command of all the troops stationed in Italy. Curio’s appeal to the people to prevent the levying of an army by Pompey was disregarded; whereupon, feeling himself in danger, he fled to Ravenna to Caesar. He was commissioned by Caesar, who was still unwilling to proceed to extremities, to take a message to the senate. But Curio’s reception was so hostile that he hurriedly returned during the night to Caesar. ”

“ But my belief is, that the power of Rome is by no means in a falling state, nor would it be so even if the rule of some band of miscreants usurped for a little while the misgovernment of the Eternal City. The power of the Pope is now, at this moment, one of the greatest upon the earth; and as irreligion and dissent increase, so will the most wonderfully clever institution of the temporal power of the Roman Church increase. ”