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The whole ground of the claim for temporal sovereignty is shifted, when instead of current popular impressions, the facts of modern legal theory are investigated.

The facts show that the Pontiff has not been in possession of an iota of temporal sovereignty since 1870. Whatever may have been the occasion and legal support of the Pope's secular territorial jurisdiction in former times, it has been abolished now for half a century. Down to September 20, 1870, the Pope ruled in a double capacity, but his temporal sovereignty was extinguished by the military decision of that date. A plebiscite on October 2, 1870, testifying to the desires of the inhabitants confirmed this decision, and a royal decree of October 9, in the same year, proclaimed a state of political control from which legal theory must spring, inasmuch as it was the mature choice of the parties immediately most concerned, and this settlement has the support by consent and act not only of these parties since that time but also of all foreign powers. This royal decree proclaimed that "Rome and the Roman provinces form an integral part of the Kingdom of Italy." Thus the Pope is not even the temporal sovereign of the parcel of territory in his possession. The Italian government assumed effective sovereignty of the entire papal territory.

On what basis does the Pope's present status rest? Is not his position, seeing that he enters into diplomatic relations, and his independence is pledged by the Italian government,—a matter of international law as well as of international interest? Here again the legal foundations compel us to deny the Pope secular sovereignty. His position is defined by the Italian Law of Guarantees, of May 13, 1871. In 1868 a scheme had been presented to the Pope by which he would have retained temporal control of that portion of Rome called the Leonine city. But even this arrangement, rejected by the Pontiff, was not submitted to any foreign Power by the Italian government. The existing Law of Guarantees was likewise not offered for the consideration of other Powers, and not only is it a unilateral contract, in return for which the Italian government receives no consideration, but it is therefore entirely a matter of internal

regulation on the part of Italy, the independence of the Pope is a concession granted him, and his position is wholly due to a municipal statute. In law, accordingly, the Pope is neither a temporal sovereign nor an international person. Since he is not an international person the Pope has no right to representation at the peace conference.

IV.

The question whether the Pope deserves to be considered an international person as the world's supreme moral authority borders on the theological domain, which I shall not trespass upon. However, it may here be observed that the claim for exclusive jurisdiction in this realm is a relatively recent one, unacknowledged by the early Church, the Fathers, or the Oecumenical Councils, and not consistently advanced by the Popes until an age when it was too late for the force of example to support such a proposition.

Furthermore, when we come to inquire into the means by which the Church's moral authority is enforced, it cannot truly be said that its sovereignty results from the coercive power of its command. The Church's possession of authority depends primarily on the beneficial consequences of its proved tradition. The Church is obeyed not because of the penalties attached to its mandates, for these are either clear warnings of spiritual suffering to be experienced here or pains to be inflicted hereafter. Thus the Austinian theory of sovereignty does not account for its actual exercise by the Church, and in any case, this power does not proceed solely or chiefly from the Pope. Again, a claim to exclusive and sole jurisdiction in the realm of morals inevitably implies equally transcendent authority in temporal sovereignty as I shall point out below.

The declarations of the Holy See during a war, among the first as it is the greatest for an issue primarily moral, have not strengthened its position as a teacher of morals, much less as the supreme judge of morals. The Vatican's acts of political interference have ignored the concrete moral questions and the Pope's peace notes have by their vagueness and futility been justly suspected of Teutonic inspiration, since their proposals

would obviously leave untouched the moral principles in defence of which the Allies have joined the battle. Not only this, but specific deeds of the Curia have largely undermined its immediate moral influence. Through criminal negligence, at least, Mgr. Gerlach, an alien enemy, was enabled to profit by the immunity accorded the Pontiff's household at the hands of the Italian government; using the Vatican diplomatic pouch, he carried on treasonable activities which resulted in the sinking of two Italian dreadnoughts. M. Caillaux has not yet cleared himself of the charge of intimacy with the Vatican in his treacherous propaganda. Cardinal Gasparri has not denied to everybody's satisfaction that his approval of socialistic endeavor as tending with his own toward peace, was free from responsibility for the defections in the Italian army which occasioned the catastrophe on that front.

The Pope is not the supreme teacher of morals, by authority either conceded or acquired, and the international aim of peace would not be served by allowing him such authority.

V.

Retreating, however, from the specific conclusion on such broad grounds as we reached in the above section, let us examine the concrete reasons presented by its exponents for the necessity and utility of the Pope's temporal power.

The substance of this line of reasoning is that freedom from physical compulsion or political interference by the States, adequate for the exercise of his spiritual functions, requires that the Pope himself be temporal sovereign of at least the territory where his See is fixed. As the State legislates on matters of property and person affecting the Church, so the Church should have a peculiar temporal possession from which it can freely legislate on matters affecting itself. The independence which demands the insulation of a temporal possession would in turn entitle the Pope to representation as an international person.

This claim is very strong, even with its manifest inconveniences, under a rigid absolutist theory of sovereignty. But we now see the Church successfully and uninterruptedly governing

its own concerns. A logical extension of this theory, indeed, shows its fallacious element. Where would the Church be free from the possibility of secular obstruction even in legislation affecting purely ecclesiastical affairs? The necessary tendency of this position was what made Gregory VII and Boniface VIII assert that State must be assimilated to Church, and the Pope must be Lord of the World. Absolute freedom from external compulsion is possible only through absolute power.

Practically, temporal freedom has thus been only an excuse for the intervention of foreign secular powers. Napoleon even carried off Pius VII a prisoner in order to protect him. Austria, France, and Spain at various times in the last century landed troops in Rome to make sure of the Pope's independence. From 1849 to 1870 the Pope existed as a temporal sovereign only by virtue of French guns. Such independence is only an exchange of the normal freedom of civilized order which depends on the confidence and consent of the community, for the freedom of a tyrant supported by alien force but constantly threatened by the community's suppressed distrust and opposition.

The whole justification for the temporal sovereignty has been stated by Archbishop Ireland. "It is believed, and rightly so, that a status quo whereby the Head of the Universal Church is the civil subject of any one potentate gives no stable guarantee of an unfettered spiritual sovereignty. Many are the supposable contingencies in which the subjects of one civil power are barred from the confidence of other civil powers. History has solved the problem by granting to the Papacy temporal kingship."

The Pope would be Head of the Universal Church if the Church universally acknowledged his headship. The present circumstances are about the most extreme of the supposable contingencies proposed by the Archbishop, and however slight the confidence he enjoys, the Pope continues to receive respectful veneration and exercises more than his legitimate functions. As for the invocation of history's testimony, the chief difficulty is that the problem has been solved in practice and by all except Ultramontane theory in the opposite way.

VI.

What is the future of the pretension to temporal power? An ex-prefect of the Vatican Library, the eminent Jesuit, Father Ehrle, from his exile in Austria has been agitating the question. He desires, even if the Pope is not represented at the Peace Conference, that the Law of the Guarantees should be made an international pledge. Obviously, on this ground, the Allies will not act contrary to Italy's wishes, and unless the Central Powers should achieve a victory so overwhelming that they would be able to impose every conceivable measure of humiliation on their victims, they would probably not attempt seriously to support this pretension.

Here, then, is the greatest danger: that if the Pope is admitted, the Central Powers will reward him with temporal sovereignty in return for his crowning assistance at the council. Clearly if the parties are in practical agreement on every other point, the Allies will yield this concession. It is thus to the highest interest of the Allies to exclude the Pope from the Peace Conference, and not be persuaded through considerations whose value may be artificially exaggerated, to disregard the facts of the Pope's position in law and political circumstance.

It should be noted that with the decay of Austrian power, the chief state where Roman Catholicism is the established religion will not aid the Vatican as it once did, and Spain is no longer a considerable factor in the Vatican's future. A most potent weapon, which the Vatican was able to use to such effect that the very Law of Guarantee was granted chiefly because of it, is the threat of emigration. A short time ago it was hinted that the Pope might betake himself to Spain. In the disordered condition chronic in that country a revolution fatal to both the Papacy and the monarchy would result. An emigration to the United States, while a subject for similar purposes of propaganda, will never be contemplated seriously by Italian prelates. They know only too well that the unfair Italian majority in the Sacred College, and the Sicilian monopoly of the bureaucratic congregations would be doomed. Liberal ideas and modern methods which would purify the Roman Church if its head

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