Chapter XX: Letter I

HOWEVER known my sentiments may already be to you, from several letters, which I have recently written to your two Cardinals, Polidori and Lambruschini, I still regard it as desirable to make a more ample declaration to yourself, so as to throw greater light on my faith, and to leave no longer in doubt the form of religion which I follow and profess.

Believe not, Holy Father, that I am urged to this step by any feeling of resentment in consequence of the injuries done me in Rome by certain of your ministers; or that I wish to avenge myself thus, for the hundred days during which I was shut up, last year, in the Inquisition without any just cause. May God pardon you your offences as entirely as I pardon you that act, though it brought upon me heavy sufferings! I have been enabled to derive benefit from it; and that which by you was designed for my injury, the all-wise God has turned to my advantage. So that now, on reckoning up my account, I find that my gain has been far greater than my loss; that my sorrow has been turned into joy; that the plot has turned against the plotters, to whom nothing has remained but remorse for the attempt, and the shame of a miserable defeat.

Holy Father, if you really fear God, you know sufficiently that He is not to be trifled with--we cannot lie to Him, nor purpose one thing and say another. Allow me, then, now to summon you into His presence, to discuss your faith and my own; for we are both equal before Him; the Decalogue and the Gospel are equally imposed upon us both. Excepting these, I know no other law to direct me in my belief and in my actions; and I am convinced that there should be no other for any one who calls himself a Christian.

Tell me, I pray you, whence you derive those of your dogmas which exist not in the Gospel, and those numerous doctrines which are not to be found in any book of the Scriptures? I am entitled to ask you; for, after examining your lauded fountains of tradition, your theologians, and the Fathers, so dishonestly edited,--I have found superabundant fraud, both in interpretation, assertion, supposition, and inference; for all seem to be concentrated in the object of making the Pope universal sovereign; establishing him as head and lord of the entire Church, with full and absolute power of loosing and binding--that is, of destroying and building up,--declaring his Church, as a spiritual kingdom, superior to every state, to every people, to every dynasty; so that, according to this theory, the power of the pope is made to absorb every other power; from that of God Himself, who alone, in other times, judged men to life or to perdition, down to that of the lowest baron, who can only have from the pope the legitimate power over his vassals.

Such fables might be told in the vaunted days of Gregory VII.; when they were coined with the design of extending the papal mantle over the whole world; subjecting to him, as far as possible, the kingdoms of Europe and Asia. Such was the object of the Crusades. Such was the object of the foundation of the numerous Orders,--enrolled, under various devices, for the purposes of the popes, and sent to the most remote countries, to preach, together with the Gospel, the primacy, the sovereignty, the infallible, irresistible, fearful omnipotence of the Most Holy Bishop of Rome; under pain, if they did not, of being severely punished, and with the promise, if they did, of being rewarded, after death, with the honours of the altar.

History, Holy Father, teaches us this, whenever we read it with the necessary discernment. These Orders, however, increased, spread, and were laden by Rome with privileges, exemptions, and even riches; for the monks, yet more than the priests, played the papal game, and related to the nations the holiness of the popes, how they were chosen by the Holy Spirit, and how Christ and the Virgin conversed with them familiarly. Happy, then, did those consider themselves, who could obtain an _Agnus Dei_, or other favour; whilst for an indulgence, silver and gold were spent without restraint. Hence the immense riches which, from every quarter showered upon Rome, and rendered the popes proud, their courts insolent, their city the most beautiful in the world.

But times changed; that is to say, many well-informed persons amongst the faithful, perceived the imposture of these sellers of Christ; and first with words, afterwards by acts, revolted against the disorder which not only blinded them with error, but despoiled and oppressed them.

And now came the epoch of the Reformation--of that religious rising which, excited by God, and guided by the Spirit of the Lord, succeeded in enlightening and persuading half Europe to separate from the theories of popery, without fear of offending religion,--nay, rendering justice, by so doing, to that Gospel which the popes had adulterated, which Rome had profaned, which had been made an instrument of extortion and falsehood, by the aid of priests and monks. But this lesson, honestly given to them by nations, was not enough to correct the popes; even the half of their proselytes who remained to them, were sufficient to maintain their courts in all their luxury; and one hope comforted them, that by the use of skilful artifices, they might destroy the work of Luther and of Henry VIII., as they had done that of many others.

Holy Father, how has this hope for three centuries failed your predecessors! Nay, you yourself have had the grief of losing several districts, in the north and in the south, which called themselves yours, without any hope that they will ever return to you again.

If you wish to know the reason, I can tell it you. It is because our times are no longer in accordance with the impostures that you sell by your monks, who, full of ignorance, superstition, and knavery, still hawk about the fables of Rome. The world will no longer listen to your universal primacy, because every one knows that it does not extend beyond the two millions and a half of people, which, by the deference of the sovereigns of Europe, it is still permitted you to govern by force of arms.

Your indulgences, your relics, are specifics which are gone out of use. The excise upon sins, which you enforce once a-year, to be paid through your privileged exactors, is, be assured, paid by the generality in false money; inasmuch as now nearly every one comprehends that, however great may be the authority you possess, that power assuredly is wanting to you which belongs to God alone. Still it is to be bitterly lamented, that a great part of Europe yet tolerates that trickery of yours--a spectacle revolting to the good sense, not to say to the religion, of mankind--that a priestly juggler should boast of being able to transform, by virtue of certain words, a portion of bread and wine into Deity. Too great, O Holy Father, too great is the abuse attempted to be practised on your adherents; placing them in the very condition of those who were once taught that gods might be born in a garden. Why so far outrage your friends as to make them afterwards ashamed of themselves, when they come to reflect upon the fraud? It makes them hate and curse you when this happens. In these our days, when even children are angry at being deceived, men have sufficient self-respect rather to bear blows than to be treated with fraud and delusion.

And do you know what follows? The gravest of all evils--the total loss of religion. Roman Catholics, if not quick in taking refuge in some reform or other, become Atheists, the first moment that having their eyes open, they perceive they have been drawn into such gross errors. They feel an indignation which makes them discredit everything; believing that there can be nothing good where so many evil things are presented to them to swallow. Just as when in a most exquisite dish we find foreign substances which offend our senses, we do not endeavour to separate them, but rather reject the whole; so it happens to Papists, when they perceive the falsity and fraud which lie hidden under the Roman faith.

What now will you say, Holy Father, if I prove to you that by means of popery men become more wicked, and are so speculatively? The power that you claim of granting absolution of sins,--to whom does it secure pardon? Who is there that, having fulfilled the condition you lay down of confession, does not feel persuaded that he has settled his accounts, to open them again with equal extravagance? Where are the greatest numbers of robbers, traitors, adulterers, if not in the midst of your Roman Catholics? And why? Because it costs them nothing but to cast themselves at the feet of one of your plenipotentiaries, to cancel every iniquity. If you have been at Naples, you know of whom it is that the churches are full; who it is that beat their breasts before the altar, who are those that weep all day at the confessionals! And such as Naples is, such are all the other countries more or less papistical.

But there is still more to observe. Who are generally the most wicked persons in every locality? (I speak only of Italy, indeed only of Southern Italy--a country emphatically Roman Catholic.) Forgive me, Holy Father; but it is a matter of fact,--priests and monks; whatever iniquity, wickedness, and abomination has ever existed upon the earth, you will find among them. Haughtiness, luxury, ambition, pride,--where do they most abound? In your temples. There the excessive love of money, falsehood, fraud, duplicity, cover themselves with a sacred veil, and are almost in security from profane censures. And oh! how great are the horrors of the cloisters (_sepulchra dealbata_), where ignorance and superstition, laziness, indolence, calumny, quarrels, immorality of every description, not only live, but reign. The most abominable vices, long banished from all society, have there taken refuge; and there will they continue miserably to dwell, until God, outraged by them, shall rain down upon them the curse of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Am I exaggerating? or do not you yourself, while reading this paragraph, utter the sigh of sorrowing conviction? But who are to be blamed for such evils? Mankind, you will tell me, evasively. But I reply: Are not the immense mass of Protestants also a part of mankind? and do not they live quite differently? Worshipping the same Deity, followers of the same gospel, their temples are truly the house of prayer; their Sundays the Lord's-day, their ministers patterns of probity and morality. Can this be denied concerning the Protestant clergy in general? But against the Roman Catholic clergy thousands of accusations can be most justly made. Will you venture to deny it? You must first hide the episcopal prisons of your State, and numerous other places of punishment for ecclesiastics;--you must prevent the world from knowing of the Ergastolo of Corneto, full to overflowing with priests and monks, whom you send there yourself, when they become intolerable to you. Find me anything like this in Germany or in England--countries eminently Protestant. Can you deny, then, that your popery renders men more wicked?

It follows, from what has been said, that such a religion is the pest of society; insomuch as it conceals the truth, disfigures the gospel, promotes error, favours ignorance and bigotry. Hence comes the ruin of poor Italy, which, owing to this system of belief, is in many parts desert, the country uncultivated, the commerce in a deplorable condition. Italy, once the queen of the world, is now the servant and slave of other nations. Kings consulting with their confessors how best to oppress their people! Jesuits restored to the ascendant! Monks continually enriching themselves! While all the rest of the world is progressing, Italy alone is going back, on account of her popery, which degrades, debases, and renders her contemptible in the sight of God and man.

Holy Father, are you grieved by what I say? I rejoice not in your grief, but in the hope that it may be for your benefit. It rests with you, if you will, to change the system. Be not ashamed of having erred till now. You will be _the man_ of the age; a man glorious in all history: you will be the true apostle of Jesus Christ, if, renouncing the vanity of your primacy, which can last to you but little longer, you lay down the titles and the dignities which do not belong to you. You, better than any other, can bring back to Italy the religion of Christ in its purity; taking away all that has been maliciously invented, to defraud the faithful for the profit of the clergy. The imposture is now thoroughly seen into; there are no longer persons who believe in Confession, in the Mass; in the sufferings of Purgatory, in the patronage of Saints. Your indulgences have lost all their credit; your excommunications are totally valueless: your bulls and canons only raise a smile.

How is the world changed in regard to you! Once all Catholics, even the least earnest, spoke of the pope with respect. Now even your own court speaks ill of you. Accusations against yourself personally, which circulate through the world, and state things in the highest degree disgraceful, originate with Romans. You will call this the work of Satan, but I must, with more suitable language, call it the hand of God; that terrible hand which is preparing your punishment.

It will happen to you as it happened three centuries since, to Pope Clement VII. Germany and England then separated from Rome under his eyes: Poland and Spain are about to do the same under yours. Hasten, Holy Father, to accept the call which Heaven makes to you. Despise not the voice of God, as your ill-advised predecessors despised it. Your measure is now full. In the first days of your pontificate you saw the most violent revolution that ever happened in your States,--the sincere expression of the opinion and wishes of every one. It was echoed and applauded by all Italy. Italy wishes for you no longer; Italy no longer believes, respects, or loves you. It was requisite, at that time, for the Austrians to interfere. Will they do so again? Or, if they do, will they be able to extinguish the flame?

Regard not who it is who gives you these suggestions. I am less hostile to you than you imagine. Nay, I protest to you that I have no hostility in my heart, except towards your doctrine and policy; I have none towards yourself, whom I regard with religious affection, and for whom I desire the holy light of God, to promote your repentance and that of your brethren.

CORFU, January 15, 1843.

_To_ GREGORY XVI. _Bishop and Sovereign of Rome_, GIACINTO ACHILLI, _Minister of the Italian Catholic Church_.