Pope of Rome

“ Here is the toleration which the Pope grants us in Rome. There are from six hundred to a thousand English subjects resident in Rome every winter; but they dare not meet within the walls to open the Bible, or to worship God as his Word enjoins. They must go out without the gate, as if they were evil-doers; they must climb the stairs of this granary, as if they meditated some deed of darkness; and only when they have got into this garret are they at liberty to worship God. ”

“ In former times, no Roman could have been found to speak to his pope with frankness. You have now found one who spares you not; who dares to present himself before you: not on his knees, to adore you, but erect, to speak to you with freedom, and to tell you what he thinks. And with him are thousands, nay millions, who partake his views. And who is this man? An Italian, a minister of an Italian Church;—a Church which assembles to pray to God in the Italian language, and to listen to the reading of His holy Word. ”

“ Leo XII. is forgotten; I have begun again to transact affairs with the new Secretary of State, Albani; everything is going on as though nothing had happened, and I do not even know whether you in Paris know that there is a new Pontiff! How beautiful that ceremony of the papal benediction is! The Sabine Range on the horizon, then the deserted Roman Campagna, then Rome itself, then the Piazza San Pietro and the whole people falling on its knees under an old man's hand: the Pope is the only prince who blesses his subjects. ”

“ Feudalism inculcated the idea that each man owed allegiance to some one above him, the vassal to his lord, the lord to the prince, the prince to the Emperor, and it was only natural to complete the system by deriving the power of the Emperor from the Pope, whose responsibility was to God. This conception of the Pope as the ultimate source of authority throughout the world with his seat in Rome continued the tradition of the unity of the Roman Empire, which, as we shall soon see, was one of the most potent influences at work throughout the Middle Ages. ”

“ Florry, the trite adage, 'Truth is the hardest of all to bear,' is applicable to these prelates of papacy; who, knowing their danger, are fully resolved to guard the avenues of light and knowledge. The Pope of imperial Rome, surrounded as he is with luxury, magnificence, and hosts of scarlet-liveried cardinals, who stand in readiness to convey his mandates to the remotest corners of the earth, has been made to tremble on his throne by the pen of feeble woman. ”

“ The next factor in the European political disorder was the resolve of the Church at Rome to make no temporal prince but the Pope of Rome himself emperor in effect. He was already pontifex maximus; for all practical purposes he held the decaying city; if he had no armies he had at least a vast propaganda organization in his priests throughout the whole Latin world; if he had little power over men’s bodies he held the keys of heaven and hell in their imaginations and could exercise much influence upon their souls. ”

“ Then came the first popes, mere heads of burial associations, the slow rise of the all-powerful papacy ever struggling to conquer the world, unremittingly seeking to realise its dream of universal domination. At the time of the great popes of the middle ages it thought for a moment that it had attained its goal, that it was the sovereign master of the nations. Would not absolute truth and right consist in the pope being both pontiff and ruler of the world, reigning over both the souls and the bodies of all men, even like the Deity whose vicar he is? ”

“ We may carry the idea farther; and as in the present state of mind, millions in Europe and America are attached to an idea of the superiority of the Church authorities at Rome, through ignorance and custom I grant, but not less attached,—I would, to humour that conceit and turn it to good, consent to make the Pope of Rome the centre of communication from all parts of the earth for discovered knowledge, as it would be desirable to have such a central recipient and fountain to give it forth again in the best possible manner. ”

“ Though many of the Roman codgers are more or less connected with the Vatican, there are scores who have no relations with it, Protestants, Greek Orthodox, Hebrews, and the like.
Rome must have been more picturesque when the Pope took his airing on the Pincio, instead of walking and driving inside the walls of the Vatican garden, as he does now. In those days the whole populace went down on their knees whenever he appeared. Then the cardinals wore their splendid vermilion robes every day: they must have made a joyful note of color in the landscape! ”

“ Here is the great reservoir whence the future will pour out and overflow the human race.... These days in Rome are a revelation of the state of the world, and the starting point of a renovation.... The pilgrimage of Catholic Europe to Rome in 1867 will have consequences of which the Moniteur [alluding to remarks in that journal] will be informed hereafter, and of which the world will become aware when the Moniteur would wish them to be unheard of.... For centuries Rome has not seen the Pope in such splendour, nor has he so manifestly appeared in his character as head of the human race. ”

“ The Pope daily has between two and three thousand monks loitering through the streets of Rome. Besides these, he has on his ecclesiastical staff twenty cardinals, four archbishops, ninety-eight bishops, and a clergy amounting to nearly five per cent of his population. With those two millstones round her neck, Italy must remain at the bottom. She may be shaken and tossed by the political surges which roll above her head, but she never can be buoyant. She must cast both away before she can rise. Italy priest-ridden, and noble-ridden, and prince-ridden, must be content with her fate. ”

“ All the time they shouted: "A Roman pope! we will have a Roman pope!" Those without echoed back the savage yell. Before long appeared two ecclesiastics, announcing themselves as delegated by the commonalty of Rome; they demanded to speak with the cardinals. The cardinals dared not refuse. The Romans represented, in firm but not disrespectful language, that for seventy years the holy Roman people had been without their pastor, the supreme head of Christendom. In Rome were many noble and wise ecclesiastics equal to govern the Church: if not in Rome, there were such men in Italy. ”

“ The fundamental reason for this growth in modern times of what is properly called Popery -- not the growth of Romanism in the world, for there is no such growth, but of the cult of the Pope in the Catholic Church -- is just that spread of democracy which Rome hates so much. The Pope is the figure-head of the Italian hierarchy, which shares the vast wealth and prestige that the new Popery brings to Rome. ”

“ There can be no truth among a people, where the pope is exalted into the place of God. From the earliest times he has been a liar, and his lies obtain credence even in other countries, because they emanate from Rome. If we, then, no longer admit them, let us be the first to denounce that popery by which Rome is oppressed and dishonoured. ”

“ Nor do I know what is become
Of him, more than the Pope of Rome. ”

“ Every pope aggrandized his own kindred and friends, and these were the natural and often open adversaries of the next pontiff and his favourites. Thus the Roman nobility was powerful, divided, restless and turbulent; it was continually plotting against the pope, threatening not only his power, but even his life; it continually appealed to the people for assistance, stirred the militia to revolt and rendered government an impossibility. ”

“ If Pius IX and Leo XIII had resolved to imprison themselves in the Vatican, it was because necessity bound them to Rome. A pope is not free to leave the city, to be the head of the Church elsewhere; and in the same way a pope, however well he may understand the modern world, has not the right to relinquish the temporal power. ”

“ The pope is grown to be a great temporal prince of late years, for the state of the church extends above three hundred miles in length, and two hundred miles in breadth; it contains Ferrara, Bologna, Romagnia, the Marquisate of Ancona, Umbria, Sabina, Perugia, with a part of Tuscany, the patrimony, Rome herself, and Latium. In these there are above fifty bishoprics; the pope hath also the duchy of Spoleto, and the exarchate of Ravenna; he hath the town of Benevento in the kingdom of Naples, and the [111] country of Venissa, called Avignon, in France. ”

“ And let the pope of Rome come to us with all his cardinals and bishops, and with all his priests, with his own person and power, to war with us, and let themselves deserve the absolution of sins, grace, and pardon, which they preach to you (for they have great need of forgiveness of sins, grace and pardon) , and, by the grace of God, we will give them pardon enough as they shall need. The pope's pretensed excuse detected.But their subtle excuse is this; they say, that it belongeth not to priests to fight with bodily weapons: and true it is, that belongeth not to them ”

“ This Pope was continually blaming the Prodigality of those who had bestowed such great riches upon the Church. In the year that this Pope liv’d, Rome was so afflicted and visited with Warre, Famine, and Plague, that it cannot be remembred without tears, and the people very unjustly laid all the fault upon the Pope, all mouths being open to clamour against him, and sing the Latin Verse:
Semper de Sextis diruta Roma fuit. ”

“ This had already begun under Leo I., and been further promoted by the pragmatic sanction. Not only the superintendence but often the nomination of public functionaries and judges was now in the hands of the popes. And the accession to St Peter's chair of a man of real genius in the person of Gregory I., surnamed the Great, marked the beginning of a new era. By force of individual character, as well as by historic necessity, this pope became the most potent personage in Rome. Power fell naturally into his hands; he was the true representative of the city, the born defender of church and state. ”

“ The power thus concentrating in the Roman papacy made the office one to attract eager ambition. It has a political history of its own. At first the Christian populace that continued to dwell in Rome despite the repeated spoliations, elected, from among themselves, their own pope or bishop, regarding him not only as their spiritual guide, but as their earthly leader and protector also. Naturally, in their distress, they chose the very ablest man they could, their wisest and their noblest. ”

“ Peter and St. Paul. Below, in the niches, stand the figures of the four cardinal virtues: Temperance holds a chain; Courage a branch of a tree, while a lion stands by her side; Justice has an ostrich by her side; Wisdom carries a mirror and a serpent. These figures are executed with great care. Lastly, under the sarcophagus is a large bas-relief representing the entry of the pope to Rome. He sits on horseback in the dress of a cardinal; behind him follow cardinals and monks; the senator of Rome renders homage on his knees, while from the gate the eternal Rome comes forth to meet him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hence it came, that the Popes kindred, that they might not receive affronts in Rome, did forbear to come at the City; and least the world should by their absence conclude of the meanness of their deserts, they would give it out, that they were in no wayes related to the Pope, whose kindred they were, saving thus their honour without honour.
In those times, the Popes did often resist the Emperours tyrannical proceedings, and withstood their injuries, not with Armies and Fleets, but with Zeal and Piety they did boldly oppose their vices and corruptions ”

“ Rome did not know that this represented the first move in the preparation of one of those world-representing displays which had some part in bringing on her ancient decay, and a greater one in gilding it over: displays which, while changing in the accidents of form, have retained the essential character of a sense-subduing pageant, and retained also the purpose of binding the city to an autocrat. The significance of the display now contemplated was to consist in showing both Quirites and Italians that the world bowed down to the tiara, and so to bind Rome to the Pope for ever. ”

“ Well, my dear Abbe, people commonly assert it. There are certainly days when he considers himself more menaced than anybody else. And are you not aware of the old Roman view that a pope ought never to live till too great an age, and that when he is so obstinate as not to die at the right time he ought to be assisted? As soon as a pope begins to fall into second childhood, and by reason of his senility becomes a source of embarrassment, and possibly even danger, to the Church, his right place is heaven. ”

“ His peers shine round him with reflected grace, New edge their dulness, and new bronze their face. 10 So from the sun's broad beam, in shallow urns Heaven's twinkling sparks draw light, and point their horns. Not with more glee, by hands Pontific crown'd, With scarlet hats wide-waving circled round, Rome in her Capitol saw Querno sit,295 Throned on seven hills, the Antichrist of wit. And now the queen, to glad her sons, proclaims By herald hawkers, high heroic games. They summon all her race: an endless band Pours forth, and leaves unpeopled half the land. ”