Prisoner of the Vatican (52 page)

7. Blakiston 1962, n. 309, Russell to Earl R., Rome, 17 January 1865.

8. Blakiston 1962, n. 337 and n. 336, Russell to Earl of C., Rome 26 March and 8 February 1866.

9. The English text of the 1868 call for the Council, with its Manichean language of the "vast evils" of modern times, can be found in Butler 1962, p. 69.

10. Quoted in Aubert 1990b, p. 492, Freppel to Larange, June 15,1869.

11. These letters are found in Hennesey 1963, pp. 82,175.

12. Quoted in Aubert 1990b, p. 487, Janus,
Der Papst und das Konzil,
Leipzig 1869, p. ix. On Dollinger, see Gadille 1968. On the origins of Quirinus, see Quirinus 1870.

13. Aubert 1990b, p. 492.

14. Opponents of infallibility, on the other hand, charged that the great overrepresentation of the Italians among those with voting rights at the Council was, in effect, disenfranchising the mass of Catholics elsewhere. While the German diocese of Breslau had but a single bishop for its 1.7 million Catholics, what was left of the Papal States, with only 700,000 inhabitants, was represented by 62 bishops. While Germany's 12 million Catholics had just 14 bishops, Naples and Sicily together had 62. As the Council was called to order, almost all of the Austrian, German, and Hungarian bishops stood against papal infallibility, as did many of the French. Yet there were many more Italian bishops than all of them put together (Martina 1995, p. 283; Quirinus 1870, pp. 140–41).

15. Aubert 1990b, p. 497; Martina 1986, p. 166; Hennesey 1963, pp. 36–37.

16. Gregorovius 1907, pp. 345, 347.

17. Blakiston 1962, n. 446, Russell to the Earl of C., Rome, 15 February 1870.

18. Blakiston 1962, n. 454, Earl of C. to O. R., 1 March 1870.

19. Gregorovius 1907, p. 366.

20. The English translation is mine. The Italian original reads:
Quando Eva morse, e morder fece il porno, Gesù per salvar I'uom, si fece uomo; Mil il Vicario di Cristo, il Nono Pio Per render schiavo I'uom, si vuol far Dio.
From
Pasquino,
cited by Gregorovius 1969, p. 359, in his diary on March 27, 1860.

21. Martina 1990a, pp. 173,175.

22. Martina 1990a, pp. 205–7, 555–57. The text of the conversation between Guidi and the pope comes from the account provided by Vincenzo Tizzani, who spoke with Cardinal Guidi immediately after the encounter.

23. Antonelli, who had no strong theological feelings on the question of infallibility—or on much else, for that matter—shared the minority's fears. In a June 3,1870, letter, an influential French bishop reported that Antonelli, despairing of the diplomatic damage that the impending pronouncement of infallibility would wreak, had said, "The Pope has already brought the Papal States to ruin, and now he wants to ruin the Church as well" (Martina 1990a, p. 210).

24. Even in this much milder form, the proposal continued to stir strong opposition among the bishops. As a result, when the infallibility doctrine was first put to a vote, on July 13,1870, the pope was doubly displeased. Not only was the version being voted on much weaker than he wanted, but a substantial number of bishops still refused to support it. With many bishops absenting themselves from St. Peter's rather than be forced either to break openly with the pope or to vote for a proposition they opposed, the infallibility doctrine obtained only 451 votes in favor, 62 in favor with reservations
(placet juxta modum),
and 88 against. It took courage for those 88 bishops to cast their votes against the wishes of the pope who had appointed virtually all of them. Curiously, among those who stayed away from the proceedings was Cardinal Antonelli himself (Martina 1990a, p. 212). Martina notes that roughly half of those voting in favor with reservations
(placet juxta modum)
did so because they thought the proposition was too weak. But he estimates that between the other half who voted
placet juxta modum,
due to opposition to declaring papal infallibility at all, and those who voted against and those who absented themselves out of opposition to the doctrine, at least a quarter of the episcopate were against even this mild form of papal infallibility.

25. Pflanze 1990, pp. 181–82.

26. DDI, series 1, vol. 13, n. 197, 212. Emerico Tkalac al Ministro degli Esteri Visconti Venosta, Roma, 18 and 19 luglio, 1870.

27. Gadille 1968, pp. 87,161; Otmar 1972, p. 297; Blakiston 1962, n. 535, Odo Russell to Earl G., Rome, 18 July 1870. Even before the first session of the Council, European governments were expressing alarm about the implications of a pronouncement of papal infallibility. In April 1869, for example, Bavaria's foreign minister expressed these concerns in a dispatch to Bavarian ambassadors abroad: "It is unlikely that the Council will occupy itself solely with doctrines of pure theology. The only dogmatic thesis that Rome would wish to be proclaimed at the Council is the papal infallibility. It is evident that this pretension raised to a dogma would pass beyond the purely spiritual domain, and would become a question eminently political, raising the power of the Pope, even on the temporal side, above all princes and peoples of Christendom. This doctrine is therefore of a nature to arouse the attention of all Governments with Catholic subjects" (Butler 1962, p. 77). Within months of the proclamation of papal infallibility, too, Dollinger would be excommunicated, and a splinter group of Old Catholics would form in Germany (Gallon 1971).

3. The Last Days of Papal Rome

1. DDI, series 1, vol. 13, n. 350, II conte Kulczycki al Segretario Generale degli Affari Esteri Blanc, Terni, 1 agosto 1870.

2. DDI, series 1, vol. 13, n. 341, II conte Kulczycki al Segretario Generale degli Affari Esteri Blanc, Terni, 30 luglio 1870.

3. Rothan 1885, vol. 2, p. 67.

4. Wetzel 2001, pp. 20–23.

5. English-language accounts of the Franco-Prussian War include Howard (1961) and Wawro (2003).

6. Duggan 2000, pp. 380–82.

7. Howard 1961, pp. 64–65.

8. Duggan 2000, pp. 383–85.

9. DDI, series 1, vol. 13, n. 212, Tkalac to Visconti Venosta, 19 luglio 1870.

10. DDI, series 1, vol. 13, n. 357, II conte Kulczycki al Segretario Generale degli Affari Esteri Blanc, Terni, 2 agosto 1870.

11. 
L'Osservatore Romano,
1 agosto 1870, p. 1; 2 agosto 1870, p. 3.

12. Mack Smith 1994b, pp. 204–11.

13. Cadorna 1889, pp. 28,35.

14. With the Holy See no longer protected by French troops, some in the Vatican turned to the Prussians, praying that they would take the place of their defeated foe. Rumors of promises by King Wilhelm to come to the pope's aid soon began to circulate in the Holy City. On August 16, the British envoy in Rome commented: "It is remarkable to hear how confidently support is expected to come to the papacy from the Protestant Powers, whose Catholic populations are supposed to be sufficiently powerful to exact for it from their governments more or less active protection against its enemies." (Halperin 1939, pp. 32–33.)

Two days later Count Kulczycki reported that the Jesuits, aware that the days of papal control of Rome were dwindling, were urging the pope to flee. He could either escape to Malta or to Germany, confident that he would soon be returned to power behind the Prussian army. The Jesuits, in the meantime, were frantically arranging fictitious sales of their considerable property holdings in Rome to cooperative nonclericals, certain that one of the first acts of the Italian government once its soldiers arrived would be to expropriate their property and send the Company of Jesus packing. As it turned out, their fears were fully justified. (DDI, series 1, vol. 13, n. 528, Il conte Kulczycki al Segretario Generale degli Affari Esteri Blanc, Terni, 18 agosto 1870.)

15. Martina 1972, p. 91.

16. "Ultime notizie,"
L'Osservatore Romano,
17 agosto 1870, p. 3.

17. DDI, series 1, vol. 13, n. 540, Il conte Kulczycki al Segretario Generale degli Affari Esteri Blanc, Terni, 20 agosto 1870. The count added that he could guarantee the accuracy of this account, as it came directly to him from someone in His Holiness's entourage.

18. Boiardi 1989, p. 3.

19. De Leonardis 1980, pp. 192–93, based on the British diplomatic correspondence.

20. ASV, SS, EM, a. 1870, r. 165, fasc. 2, f. 14V.

21.
L'Osservatore Romano,
20 agosto 1870, p. 2, quoting "La questione di Roma," in
L'Opinione.
The Church newspaper was also reporting that England would not allow the Italians to cross over the border into Roman lands ("Ultime notizie,"
L'Osservatore Romano,
29 agosto 1870, p. 3).

22. "Ultime notizie,"
L'Osservatore Romano,
22 agosto 1870, p. 3; ASV, SS, EM, a. 1870, r. 165, fasc. 2, ff. 17V–18V.

23. ASV, SS, EM, a. 1870, r. 165, fasc. 1, ff. 95V, 103v–106r.

24. Lanza 1938, n. 1864, Rapporto 25 agosto 1870.

25. Tivaroni 1897, pp. 303–5.

26. Rosi 1937, pp. 580–81.

27. Aliberti 1989, pp. 411–28; Chabod 1951, pp. 564–68.

28. DDI, series 1, vol. 13, n. 580, Il Ministro degli Esteri, Visconti Venosta, ai Rappresentanti Diplomatici all'Estero, 29 agosto 1870; DDI, series 1, vol. 13, n. 581. Ministro Degli Esteri, Visconti Venosta, al Ministro a Parigi, Nigra, 29 agosto 1870.

29. Lanza 1938, n. 1865, Colucci a Lanza, Caserta, 31 Agosto 1870.

30.
L'Osservatore Romano,
31 agosto 1870, p. 3.

31. DDI, series 1, vol. 13, n. 661, Il conte Kulczycki al Segretario Generale degli Affari Esteri, Blanc, 5 settembre 1870.

32. Tavallini 1887, vol. 2, pp. 40–41.

33. DDI, series 1, vol. 13, n. 681, Ministro Degli Esteri, Visconti Venosta, ai Rappresentanti Diplomatici Al'Estero, 7 settembre 1870.

34. DDI, series 1, vol. 13, n. 677, Ministro Degli Esteri, Visconti Venosta, al Ministro a Parigi, Nigra, 7 settembre 1870.

35. Lanza 1938, n. 1919, Lanza a Ponza di San Martino, 8 settembre 1870.

36. Pirri 1951, n. 113, Vittorio Emanuele II a Pio IX, Firenze, 8 settembre 1870, with annex of the same date from the Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri. It is worth noting that in the king's offer, the Leonine city was defined as including the Vatican palaces, the Castel Sant'Angelo, and the neighborhood between the Vatican and the Tiber, all of which were surrounded by the wall built by Pope Leo IV in the ninth century.

37. DDI, series l, vol. 13, n. 712, Il conte Kulczycki al Segretario Generale degli Affari Esteri, Blanc, 8 settembre 1870.

38. Ugolini 1989, p. 450.

39. Pirri 1951, n. 115, Relazione del Card. Antonelli dell'incontro col Conte Ponza di San Martino, 9 settembre 1870. Ponza's own report on his meeting to Lanza is much less detailed; it paints a picture of a secretary of state who, while not ceding an inch, was a sufficient realist to see the futility of papal resistance.

40. Lanza 1938, n. 1931, Ponza di San Martino a Lanza.

41. Reproduced in Cadorna 1889, p. 120.

42. Reproduced in Bardi 1970, p. 32.

43. Pirri 1951, n. 114, Pio IX al Re Vittorio Emanuele II, 11 settembre 1870.

4.
Conquering the Holy City

1.ASV, SS, EM, a. 1870, r. 165, fasc. 2, ff. 43 V–44V, undated but 11 settembre 1870.

2. ASV, SS, EM, a. 1870, r. 165, fasc. 2, ff. 44v–r, 12 settembre 1870, nunzio apostolico, Vienna, to Antonelli. Beust himself wrote a long letter to Cav. Palombo, in Rome, on September 13, setting out much the same reasoning for Austria's decision. See ASV, SS, EM, a. 1870, r. 165, fasc. 2, ff. 50V–55V. Palombo was serving as Antonelli's unofficial representative in making the Holy See's case to the Austrian government. Although Beust apparently did not tell the Austrian nuncio, he had, on September 13, sent a long letter to Visconti, in Florence, calling on the Italian government, in marching into the papal state, to show the greatest regard for the pope and do nothing to increase the anxiety already being felt in the Catholic world about the fate of the Holy See. In Bardi 1970, pp. 164–65.

3. The various quotes are from citations in Martina 1990a, pp. 234–38. Martina (1995, p. 311) credits this account of the pope's remarks to Ponza and believes Ponza left them out of his report due to his fear that they would displease Lanza.

4. These three documents are reproduced in Cadorna 1889, pp. 152–54.

5. Lanza 1938, n. 1995, Rapporto, 17 Settembre 1870.

6. These two documents are reproduced in Cadorna 1889, pp. 167 and 172–73. While Cardorna here appeared to define the boundaries of the Leonine city as extending all the way up the Gianicuium hill to the Porta San Pancrazio, the boundaries of what was generally viewed as the Leonine city—identified as the area within the ninth-century wall—were less extended.

7. This account is taken from the testimony at Pius IX's beatification proceedings: Pirri 1951, n. 116, Dal Processo Romano di beatificazione di Pio IX.

8. Discussed in two dispatches of Count Kulczycki: DDI, series i, vol. 13, n. 721 (8 settembre 1870) and n. 739 (10 settembre 1870). The day before the Italian attack, Pius issued new instructions. "Now that a great sacrilege is about to be committed," he wrote to General Kanzler on September 19, "and the greatest injustice, as the troops of a Catholic king, without any provocation, indeed without even the fig leaf of any pretext, have besieged the Capital of the Catholic world, I want first of all to thank you, Signor General, and all of your troops." He then gave his final orders. The goal of the defense "must only consist in an act of protest against the violence, and nothing more; that is, talks for a surrender should be undertaken as soon as the breach [in the walls] has been made." Pius continued: "At a time in which all of Europe deplores the large number of victims of a war taking place between two great nations [France and Prussia], it should never be said that the Vicar of Jesus Christ, however unjustly attacked, agreed to a large loss of life. Our Cause is that of God, and We put Our defense entirely in his hands." These instructions represented a slight, but important, change from those he had given the generals earlier. The pope had first told his generals to initiate talks for surrender "at the first sounds of cannon fire." Now he was telling them instead to keep fighting until the Italian army had breached the city's walls. The change was made against the advice of Antonelli, who feared that the pope would be blamed for needless bloodshed. Pius IX had been convinced to amend his orders at the last minute by Kanzler, who had come to see him earlier on the nineteenth and begged him to allow his soldiers to fight. Since these feelings meshed with the pope's own wish to make clear to the world that the Holy City was being taken by violence, he went along. As a result, scores of Italian and papal soldiers would die, and scores of others would carry wounds for life (Pirri 1951, n. 117, Pio IX al Generale Kanzler, Pro-Ministro delle Armi, 19 settembre 1870. On the change in orders, see Martina 1990a, pp. 239–43).