Prisoner of the Vatican

by David I. Kertzer

  Nardi informed the emperor that the pope had recently signed a secret pontifical bull ordering that his successor be elected within two hours of his death. But why, the emperor asked, would the pope send Nardi to tell him this? Because, the monsignor explained, there was still a way to avoid this unorthodox procedure. If Austria were to offer a place in its territory where the conclave could be held, it would not be necessary to abandon the traditional method of electing a new pope.

  The emperor was unmoved by the monsignor's plea. He refused the request, adding that he saw no reason that a free conclave could not be held in Rome.

  Nardi responded with a threat: "Well, since Austria is turning us down, we will have to turn to France."

  "Do as you like," the emperor replied, but he suggested that, before leaving Vienna, the monsignor speak with Count Andrassy, who had recently succeeded Beust as Austria's foreign minister.

  Like the emperor, Andrassy wondered whether Nardi had actually been sent by the pope, for he offered no direct proof, and it seemed possible that it was all part of a zelanti plot.

  A pope elected outside Rome in dubious circumstances, said Andrassy, would face grave difficulties, for many Catholics would question his legitimacy. In any case, he told Nardi, the Imperial Government would not host such a conclave, for the election of the new pope in Austria implied "the commitment to bring him back to Rome under the conditions that he himself determined and, as a final consequence, the necessity, should it be called for, of declaring war on Italy, something that the Imperial Government absolutely refuses to do."

  Nardi, his mission a failure, left straightaway for Rome.10

  In June 1875, Visconti outlined his concerns in a letter to his ambassador to Paris. He was worried about the papal candidate whom he thought France was pushing, Cardinal Sisto Riario-Sforza, the archbishop of Naples. From a noble Neapolitan family close to the Bourbon king of Naples and made a cardinal back in 1846, at the age of thirty-five, Riario-Sforza was one of the Church's leading conservatives. Visconti described him as "narrow-minded and of limited intelligence," but he was nonetheless viewed as honest and incorruptible. "In some circles of the prelature here in Rome," observed Visconti, "he is seen as likely to fall under the Jesuits' influence. For my part, I believe that his papacy would follow the same line of conduct as that of Pius IX. But it is for other reasons that I must confess that the likelihood of the election of Cardinal Riario repels me. As a Neapolitan he was always very devoted to the Bourbons, and his social origin gives him greater prestige, and it also makes one suppose that he would be very closely tied to the Bourbon aristocracy of the South, without having to add that this complex of networks has close ties to France."11

  In a remarkable document that Visconti sent to his ambassador to Portugal in January 1876, the Italian government offered its secret evaluation of each of Italy's thirty-three cardinals, to be shared with the Portuguese foreign minister and used in the secret negotiations then taking place in Europe's capitals. Visconti divided the cardinals into two categories. He explained that the first, List A, consisted of the names of those who, "in our view, should be excluded and whose election to the papacy seems dangerous to us both due to their fanatical and ultra-reactionary opinions and because their actions as pontiff are, for other reasons, to be feared." List B, on the other hand, "contains the names of those cardinals who, in our view, do not have against them any particular reason for the exercise of a veto." On both lists, Visconti had placed the names in the order of their probability of election, beginning with those having the greatest chances.

  Among those about whom Visconti was most concerned, Cardinal Riario-Sforza again drew special attention. The head of the Bourbon aristocracy in Naples, Visconti wrote, the cardinal was the candidate of those who would like to see the South of Italy separated from the rest of the country. He was the darling of those French Catholics who most hated Italy.

  By the name of each cardinal were brief—and often brutal—comments. Cardinal Costantino Patrizi had the dubious honor of being placed first on List A. "This is a poor, coarser facsimile of Pius IX. Without a heart and without a mind. He has a faction behind him, however, composed of all those who want to prolong the Vatican's current policy with even harsher and more bitter forms. To be excluded."12

  A position on the B list did not guarantee kind treatment. Carlo Sacconi, a former papal nuncio to France, for example, while making the B list, was described as "a man of small mind, uncertain and vacillating in his convictions, if in fact he has any." But this was better treatment than that received by Cardinal Fabio Asquini, who was described simply as "having always been a moron."

  In retrospect, the most notable feature of Visconti's secret list was its selection of Gioacchino Pecci as the candidate on the B list with the greatest chance of election. The archbishop of Perugia, Pecci was the man who would, in fact, in two years' time become Pope Leo XIII. "Sufficiently cultured, of rather gentle character, he was first a nuncio and then a bishop, never showing himself to be a passionate opponent of the national order, or at least he always kept a prudent reserve in order not to provoke disagreements with the Government. Having always lived outside Rome, he was not involved in the Curia's intrigues and conspiracies, and so he has no enemies in the Sacred College of Cardinals and will gather many votes for the papacy." This portrait was only slightly tarnished by its concluding comments: "While one cannot state with confidence that he has the positive qualities that would today make him an outstanding pope, the negative qualities that have marked his life make it the most suitable for the papacy, because these negative qualities are the most one can hope for in a future pope, chosen by these cardinals."13

  While trying to orchestrate a papal election campaign with Portugal and Austria, Visconti remained deeply suspicious of the French. In early August 1876, the Ministry of the Interior's surveillance of the Vatican produced a warning that the Holy See was engaged in detailed discussions with the French government about plans to hold the next conclave in Nice.14

  The French, knowing of the Italians' suspicions, were eager to put them on another scent. After earlier denying any knowledge of the Vatican's plans to hold the next conclave outside Rome, the French foreign minister shocked the Italian envoy in Paris by telling him that he had apparently been mistaken. "I assure you that I do not know what they want to do. I have not yet been able to discover it. I only know that various machinations are going on and that Cardinal Antonelli knows them." He directed the Italian envoy's attention to Cardinal Alessandro Franchi's recent, hastily arranged visit to Ireland, which seemed especially odd as it came at a time when Cardinal Antonelli was himself gravely ill. Franchi was one of the Vatican's major figures, a former nuncio to Spain and soon to become secretary of state with the election of a new pope. "It would not surprise me," the French foreign minister said, "if this had to do with making arrangements for holding the conclave in Malta." Franchi was scheduled to go from Ireland to London and then on to Paris. The French foreign minister reported that he was placing the cardinal under police surveillance in France, and he called on the Italians to have their ambassador in London try to find out what he was up to there.15

  The Italian foreign minister wasted no time in contacting his ambassador in Britain, urging him to speak to Lord Darby, the British foreign minister. Darby insisted that he knew nothing of plans for a conclave in Malta. But, he added, to the ambassador's dismay, if the cardinals did decide to hold their conclave on the island, there was nothing he could do to stop them.16

  A look at the confidential diplomatic correspondence then in progress between the French foreign minister and his ambassadors to Italy and to the Holy See makes it clear that the French government was in fact not then plotting with the Vatican to hold a conclave in France. In April 1877, the French ambassador to the Holy See met with Cardinal Simeoni to go over their understanding about the next conclave.

  "It is French policy," the ambassador reminded him, "to ensure that the Sacred Colleg
e of Cardinals has full freedom guaranteed in Rome, so that the traditional procedures for the election of a new pope can be followed."

  "Yes, this is all well and good," replied Simeoni, "but should the cardinals sense any threat to their safety or freedom, or any hint of pressure from the Italian government, the conclave will not be held in Rome."17

  This then was the situation when Pius IX died on February 7,1878. The conclave that convened later that month proved to be the first of a new epoch. Although Italians still dominated, now 40 percent of the cardinals were from abroad. Just as important, developments in transportation, especially the advent of the railway, made it possible for foreign cardinals to arrive in Rome in time for the election. And something else had changed: the cardinals were now no longer selecting the ruler of an earthly state but only a religious leader, albeit one with enormous political influence.18

  The crisis atmosphere that enveloped the Vatican after the taking of Rome affected all of the cardinals who gathered for the conclave. Many of the cardinals of the Curia—those most directly involved in running the Vatican—believed that the new pope should stick loyally to Pius IX's stance and condemn both the Italian state and all liberal ideology. But others thought it futile to continue to deny the existence of the Kingdom of Italy and believed as well that tying the Church's future to Europe's most reactionary political forces was a prescription for disaster. The lines seemed drawn for a bitter struggle.

  The mentality of the intransigent faction is reflected in an article in Civiltà Cattolica by Raffaele Ballerini, which appeared just days before Pius IX died. It linked the taking of Rome to liberalism, portrayed as the great evil of the time. "The goal of liberalism," Ballerini wrote, "is the destruction of the Catholic Church." Liberals had "seized Rome not so much in order to defeat the Pontiff's temporal power as to defeat his spiritual power." The pope, he argued, "forced to remain closed up in the Vatican, almost in prison ... under an enemy power ... is no longer his own master." The occupation of Rome had "robbed Catholicism of its capital and placed the Pontiff in a violent and absurd situation." Liberalism "would like to bring Protestantism's work to Italy, defeating the monarchy of the Church. In so doing it can only be motivated by the same spirit that motivated Luther, that is, hatred for the Church of Christ."19

  The dominance of this attitude in the Vatican was also evident in a communiqué that Cardinal Simeoni sent to all of the nuncios on the inauguration of Victor Emmanuel's successor, Umberto: "His Holiness has ordered the undersigned Cardinal Secretary of State to protest and to renew our claim to the Church's right to maintain its ancient domains intact and to protest its unjust usurpation."20

  After years of speculation about where the conclave would be held, the time for a decision had arrived. As soon as the French ambassador to Italy heard the news of the pope's death, he went to see Depretis. The prime minister assured him that the Italian government would do everything that the Sacred College of Cardinals requested to ensure the smooth functioning of the conclave. The Austrian and Spanish ambassadors were summoned by Depretis and given the same assurances. Mancini had, the evening of the pope's death, gotten word to Cardinal Pecci, the chamberlain, who by virtue of his office was in charge of the Vatican's affairs until a new pope was elected, telling him that the government guaranteed them all the freedom and security they needed.

  That same evening, the French ambassador to the Holy See went to see several of the senior cardinals in order to convey the Italian government's assurances. Among those present was Cardinal Pecci, who, on hearing the ambassador's news, "expressed neither surprise nor satisfaction." All these questions, the chamberlain said, would be dealt with the following day by the general meeting of those cardinals present in Rome.21

  It was not only the Italian cardinals of the Curia who were suspected of scheming to hold the conclave outside Italy. Among Europe's diplomats, a good deal of suspicion fell on the head of the Catholic Church in Britain, Cardinal Henry Manning. A champion of infallibility and a fierce opponent of Catholic liberals, Manning had all the zeal of a convert, having become a Catholic only as an adult, in 1851, leaving the Anglican Church and his position as an Anglican priest. Deeply indebted to Pius, who had made him archbishop of Westminster in 1865, Manning had been disappointed that the pronouncement of papal infallibility in 1870 had not been stronger. The German historian Gregorovius, with his typical lack of charity, described the British archbishop as "the fanatic, a little grey man, looking as if encompassed by cobwebs."22

  A month before Pius's death, the French ambassador to the Holy See told of a recent conversation he had had with Cardinal Manning, in which the British archbishop let on that he preferred holding the conclave outside Italy. Among the places the cardinals were considering, he said, were the French city of Nice, the Principality of Monaco, and one of the Catholic cantons of Switzerland. The continued existence of two powers in Rome, Manning said, was impossible. 23

  When the thirty-eight cardinals gathered the morning after Pius's death, they stood in front of the large crucifix in the Consistorial Hall and took an oath of secrecy. Cardinal Pecci then surprised many of them by taking out a packet of four documents that the pope had given him to use at this fateful moment. To be sure that his words were heard after his death, Pius had had three other copies made, each set given to a different cardinal. They consisted of the regulations governing the holding of conclaves and three documents that he himself had written to guide them, one in 1871, one in 1874, and the last just four months earlier, in October 1877. Each one was read aloud to the assembled cardinals, whose curiosity about Pius's instructions must have been great indeed.

  The first of the instructions, written less than a year after the taking of Rome, contained the provisions that the Italian government and the other Catholic states of Europe most dreaded. Given the parlous situation in which the Vatican now found itself, the pope wrote, he was re-leasing the cardinals from the rules governing previous conclaves. The cardinals in Rome at the time of his death were to decide if the conclave should be held outside Italy, and they were authorized to elect his successor immediately, without waiting for other cardinals to make their way to Rome, if they thought it best.

  Pius's second message simply affirmed his 1871 instructions. Finally came the latest document, which reflected an even greater reluctance to hold the conclave in Rome. In light of the ever-worsening situation of the Church there, the pope told them, even if they initially decided to meet in Rome, they should leave their options open. Should, in the process of organizing the conclave, any of the cardinals be subject to harassment or be prevented in any way from participating freely, the conclave should immediately be dissolved and moved, even if voting had already begun.

  The pope's opposition to the conclave's being held in Rome made a big impression on the cardinals. Cardinal Camillo Di Pietro, who chaired their discussion, found himself in the minority in urging his colleagues to remain in Rome. To support his view, he produced a message he had received the previous evening from Pasquale Mancini, the Italian minister of justice. Dated Rome, February 7,1878,10 P.M.— just hours after Pius's death—it assured the cardinals that the Italian government would "do its utmost to ensure the Conclave the fullest security, freedom and independence." Yet the cardinals were not won over. A straw poll produced 28 votes for abandoning Rome and only 8 in favor of remaining. Cardinal Di Pietro, alarmed at the fateful decision that the agitated cardinals appeared about to make, tried to slow things down. In doing so, he stopped the cardinals from making a choice that could well have had monumental ramifications for the Church. They could not decide to hold the conclave in another country, he argued, without first determining where to go. Since it would require long discussion, he advised, they had best put the final vote off until the next day, when the merits of various alternative sites could be discussed.24

  By then, many of the cardinals were clearly having second thoughts. When they gathered that morning, Cardinal Di Pietro began by read
ing the assurances he had received from the Austrian government, based on their discussions with top Italian officials, pledging that the cardinals would be entirely free to meet in Rome. The Austrians urged the cardinals not to abandon the Holy City. The French and the Spaniards were also doing what they could to discourage the cardinals from leaving Rome. A coded telegram from the French ambassador to the Vatican on February 9 reported that the Spanish cabinet had unanimously voted against allowing the conclave to be held on Spanish territory, and the French diplomatic correspondence makes it clear that the French offered no more encouragement for the idea of a conclave on French soil.25

  Given all these assurances from the Italian government, the cardinal told his colleagues, and the notable lack of enthusiasm by the Catholic powers for hosting them, it would be prudent to hold the conclave in Rome. Should there be the slightest sign of any interference from the Italian government, he added, they would leave Italy and in doing so would have the full support of all of Europe's Catholic powers. At this point, Cardinal Monaco and some of his colleagues objected, arguing that trouble would be averted if they simply proceeded directly to the election of the new pope, presente cadavere. But the tide of opinion was shifting. Di Pietro asked for a new vote on the question of holding a regular conclave in Rome. This time 31 voted in favor and only 6 against. 26

  The day after Pius's death, the French ambassador to the Holy See sent a telegram to Paris, asking that the French cardinals be told to come to his embassy on their arrival so that they could agree on a strategy. Two days later, the French foreign minister, the Protestant William Waddington, sent the ambassador copies of a long message to give to each of the French cardinals on their arrival in Rome.27