there is not a more significant sign of the times than the scantiness of the contributions forwarded by the faithful throughout the world to their Spiritual Chief in the hour of his need. This is a matter with which Protestants are not concerned. We are not expected to subscribe Peter’s-pence, or widows’-mites, for the benefit of the Pope; nor have we cast any obstacle in the way of such collections. We simply note the fact that now, when the necessities of the Papacy are the sorest, subscriptions do not flow in in any very lavish manner. If we adopt the pecuniary test, then, as a means of forming our judgment as to the degree of attachment felt by the Roman Catholic laity throughout Europe to the Holy See, the decision must be that the zeal of the faithful has grown cold. The French bishops send forth angry addresses, allocutions, or by whatever name such episcopal admonitions are aptly described. Dr. Cullen and his colleagues exhaust the vocabulary of abuse against the malignant and ungodly men who are endeavouring to save the Pope and his advisers from the temptations and anxieties of temporal sovereignty—but there are no assets forthcoming! It is calculated that by Christmas next Pio Nono will be absolutely bankrupt, and unable to pay his way. Then at last there must be an end of the undignified struggle which has been protracted too long for the true interests of the Church.
It is at this point when the last stiver in the Papal treasury has been paid away—and when there would appear to be so little solicitude on any side to replenish the empty coffers of the Vatican, that the French Emperor takes the matter in hand. He suggests that as the temporal sovereignty of the Pope has actually collapsed in Italy—nay, at Rome itself—despite of all his efforts to avert such a catastrophe, it would be well if the Church in France were placed upon a more stable footing. Here is the very suggestion as it has been set forth in the pamphlet of M. Cayla (the shuttlecock). “The Emperor, as head of the national religion, would have no need to break with Rome with respect to dogmas. The Pope, as simply a Spiritual Sovereign, would continue to exercise an influence over Catholicity, the greater as the Papacy would again approach the simplicity of the Primitive Church. As regards France especially, the Head of the State would direct the administration of public worship as a sovereign. Paris being the centre and the heart of France, the Archbishop of Paris would be named Grand Patriarch.” It is needless to enter into the details of M. Cayla’s scheme. These are of little importance in the presence of this one tremendous fact—the secession of France from obedience to the See of Rome.
Is this to be? Nothing, of course, is as yet decided, save that Louis Napoleon, who provides the intellectual food of the French people, has permitted—possibly, directed—that the subject shall be publicly discussed.
If we consider the probabilities of the case, it seems likely that the French Emperor is of opinion that he can now dispense with the ecclesiastical ladder which stood him in such stead when he first attempted to mount the Imperial throne of France. The day has gone by when he would condescend to humour the Breton peasantry by pilgrimages to the shrines which they held sacred, and by observances which they esteemed as necessary to salvation. He is the man who, of all others, is most deeply interested in arriving at the truth as to the convictions and wishes of the French nation; and who, of all others, has the best machinery at his disposal for the formation of a just opinion upon the point. Now, he has shown by overt acts that he will not tolerate any opposition to his will on the part of the French bishops and higher ecclesiastical dignitaries. With a few lines in the “Moniteur” he reduces them to silence.
Louis Napoleon would not venture upon so bold a policy if he did not feel that he had the support of the French nation at his back. It is true that his uncle, Napoleon Bonaparte, when he was considering some sixty years ago with his chosen councillors as to what steps would be the wisest for the restoration of religion in France, discussed with them this scheme for vesting in himself the Headship of the Church in France, and decided against it. He did so merely upon political grounds. It was important that France should remain one of the great Roman Catholic Powers. The common bond of union between these Powers was their obedience to the Holy See. If he had proclaimed himself Head of the Church in France, he considered that the inevitable result would have been that, even upon doctrinal matters, France would soon stand alone in Europe, or in other words, the bond of a common religion between France and other nations would be snapped asunder. Besides, if the Headship of the Church were nominally vested in the sovereign, it was certain that there must be some great ecclesiastical dignitary—call him Archbishop, Patriarch, what you will—to whom must be delegated the exercise of spiritual functions.
Might not such an one, if a Frenchman, resident at Paris, become very troublesome to the Government, if France should fall into a fit of fanaticism? Given a Napoleon upon the temporal throne, he would, no doubt, manage his archbishop well enough. Given a Napoleon upon the archiepiscopal throne, might it not happen in days to come that he might bring the temporal Emperor under his control? For these reasons, and certain others which we are precluded from setting forth here by consideration of space, Napoleon Bonaparte concluded that if Rome had not been in existence, it would have been incumbent upon him to invent Rome, for the graceful government of his people in spiritual matters. It was safest, he thought, to keep his High Priest at a distance from the seat of empire, and in a position in which he must, in a great degree, be at the mercy of the powerful chief of so mighty a nation as France.
It is certainly as yet too much to say that the views of the nephew differ from the views of the uncle upon this important point. When his head was turned, and he became intoxicated with success, even Napoleon Bonaparte did not adhere to his original idea, but made the Pope a State prisoner, and treated him in a manner which was certainly not calculated to promote respect for religion throughout Europe.