Prisoner of the Vatican

by David I. Kertzer

  Clearly, the best outcome of a war for the Holy See would be, not only Italy's defeat, but also the seizure of Rome by foreign forces in the course of the fighting. In such a case, he concluded, the restoration of the Papal States, at least in the area around Rome, was "very probable." 7

  When the cardinals began discussing this report, the politically savvy, aristocratic Wlodzimierz Czacki, whose aunt had married one of Rome's foremost noblemen and who had recently served as papal nuncio to Paris—a Pole surrounded by Italians—was the chief opponent of any departure from Rome. Picking up on Graniello's own hesitations, he asked where Leo would go. No one was eager to take him in, he said. All were urging him to stay in Rome, and all feared that having him in another country would undermine Europe's balance of power. "Any power that took him in for long would ruin its relations with other powers and with Italy. It would have to do a great deal at home to rein in the enthusiasms of the one side while repressing the sectarian hatreds of the other. No power would want to give the pope extraterritorial rights, nor allow a foreign diplomatic corps accredited to him, a precious legacy of temporal power." It appears that what most worried Czacki, one of the foremost champions of French Catholic interests in the Vatican, was the chance that the pope might end up in Germany. Such an exile, as some had suggested, Czacki warned, "would place us in the worst light in the eyes of all the Catholic powers, who would accuse us of having put ourselves at the service of a Protestant Power." And, he added, if the pope were to flee, the Italians would likely seize all of the Vatican's treasures, claiming them as part of the national patrimony.

  Cardinal Monaco, the commission's imposing president, said that the critical question was whether, if the pope were to leave Rome, he would be able to return fairly soon, and to return with honor. Even if Czacki's fears about the Vatican palaces were exaggerated, Cardinal Monaco warned, "it is nonetheless certain that the Powers would not lift a finger if the Holy See were robbed of its property, and nothing suggests any improvement in their behavior in the future. Now, given the current state of things, there would be no certainty of any sufficiently rapid return, much less a return with honor." And so, he concluded, "the Pope should stay, except in the case of extreme violence."

  But not all of Cardinal Monaco's colleagues agreed with him. To await the outbreak of war before taking action would be reckless, said one cardinal, for it would expose the pope and the members of the Curia to great danger. Once war began, departure might well become impossible, and so, he urged, the pope should leave immediately. History held many examples of such departures from Rome, the cardinal pointed out, and they had all ended well, with the pope back in Rome and the Papal States restored.

  Although most cardinals shared the more cautious views of Czacki and Monaco, they dutifully turned to the pope's question of where he might go. The principality of Monaco was dismissed as being defenseless and lacking suitable quarters. One cardinal proposed Malta, but it was deemed too isolated by the others. Gradually the cardinals converged on the choice of Spain. True, it had a liberal government that was not sufficiently respectful of the Church, and some of its political parties were hostile. But in Spain, they were sure, the people would venerate the pope and feel honored to have him in their midst. If a proper agreement on conditions could be reached with the Spanish government, they concluded, the pope and his Curia could feel safe there.8

  16. Hopes Dashed

  ALTHOUGH LEO XIII SAW HIMSELF as strong-willed, he was painfully torn. Something, he thought, had to be done to save the Church. Simply hewing to Pius IX's uncompromising stance, he realized, risked isolating the Church further. Surrounded by intransigents urging him to reject all compromise with the Italian state, the pope was tempted to try to find a way of making peace.

  He was encouraged, not only by a number of churchmen whose advice he valued, but also by some signs of an opening on the part of the Italian government itself. The visceral anticlericalism of its leaders—men like Depretis and Crispi—had not changed, but they were increasingly coming to appreciate how much could be gained by reaching an agreement with the Church. The Vatican's opposition meant that Italian diplomats were constantly on the defensive. And the rift with the Church was exacting new costs in the 1880s, for Italy's rulers were beginning to dream of a colonial empire, something they thought no self-respecting European power could do without. With Catholic missions scattered throughout many of the lands the Europeans sought to colonize, the Italians realized that Church support could be tremendously helpful.

  On the Vatican's side, too, were those who believed it was time—more than a quarter of a century after the founding of the Kingdom of Italy—for the Church to find a way to recognize the state. Most notable of these champions of reconciliation was Monsignor Luigi Galimberti, by 1886 the secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs and the man who in 1887 would go to Berlin and successfully negotiate an end to the anti-Church Kulturkampf. Born in Rome to a modest family in 1836, as a young priest he became professor of Church history at the college attached to Propaganda Fide, the congregation in the Vatican that oversees the Church outside Europe—thus explaining the derisory characterization given him by the noble Cardinal Czacki, who called him "that little teacher of Negroes." Galimberti came to the attention of the pope soon after his elevation to the papacy and quickly rose to influence.1

  Galimberti distrusted the republican French government, believing that the two central empires of Germany and Austria offered the Church greater protection in the long run. He also distrusted the French Catholics, whose strident opposition to the Vatican's reconciliation with Italy he thought posed a great danger. These feelings were fully reciprocated by France's conservative Catholics. One of the more acerbic of them characterized Galimberti in the darkest of terms: "There is also in the Vatican a spy of the [German] chancellor, masquerading as priest, who has as his mission that of playing on the pontiff's pride. This ecclesiastic is named Galimberti ... It is he who works to make of the present [papal] reign one of the most inauspicious ever." Several years later, one of France's correspondents in the Vatican described Galimberti—by then a cardinal—more charitably:

  Cardinal Galimberti has a fox's brain in an artist's head. He offers a contrast with Cardinal Rampolla, his rival. A historian, he has read Machiavelli and Gioberti [a liberal Italian priest and political philosopher of the 1830s and 1840s] above all. A diplomat, he has frequented the courts of Vienna and Berlin. A philosopher and a man of the Church, he has the soul of an old-fashioned liberal and idolizes the Italian and Roman traditions. A lucid mind ... lover of all that is beautiful and elegant; a tactician of the highest order, Cardinal Galimberti is not the skeptical opportunist that his enemies would like to paint him as. He has a clear, precise, particular view ... He is an 1830s liberal in the body of a sixteenth-century prelate.2

  Galimberti was not alone in pushing the pope toward reconciliation. Geremia Bonomelli, the highly respected bishop of Cremona, sent Leo a note of Christmas greetings in 1886. "In the brief span of little more than eight years," he told the pope, "you have accomplished many great things ... above all finding a way to end so many serious conflicts that had arisen between other States and the Holy See." Following this effusive preface, he got to his point: "Holy Father, in this most propitious year of Your Jubilee, you can crown your achievements with the most arduous yet most necessary of all work, the pacification of our Country, offering relief to all people of good faith." Time was short, said the bishop: "Let us not delude ourselves, today's educated youth, who one day will be the leaders of Society, are slowly growing ever more distant from the Church, setting the stage inevitably for the apostasy of the entire nation. What then will become of the Holy See, in the midst of a society made up not only of unbelievers but of those who are fiercely hostile?"

  The pope replied in a letter that, together with the bishop's note, was widely circulated in the Italian press: "That you pray for help from the Father so that peace can al
so be procured for our own lands from the war [against the Church] that has afflicted us, corresponds perfectly to Our own wishes, for seeing the harsh condition of things, we can only put our faith in God's help." This typically ambiguous papal reply was viewed by some as suggesting that Leo might in fact be contemplating a new approach to the Italian state.

  Hopes of conciliation sprang from another source in late January 1887 as a result of events in Ethiopia, connected to Italy's early (and characteristically disastrous) colonial exploits. Five hundred Italian soldiers, on their way to relieve their comrades in Eritrea, were massacred. At scores of funerals and commemorations for the victims back home, the mixture of Catholic clergy, Catholic rites with patriotic themes, and government officials led to a growing belief that a way would be found to end the church-state divide. Among the most widely reprinted patriotic remarks were those given at one such ceremony by Bishop Bonomelli in Cremona.3

  The intransigent forces in the Vatican were growing increasingly alarmed, blaming Galimberti for the pope's vacillation. Meeting on March 4, the cardinals complained that Leo seemed to be entrusting the Church's affairs to Galimberti and in so doing was insulting the Sacred College of Cardinals. They were all the more concerned because Cardinal Jacobini, the secretary of state, had died a few days earlier, and there was widespread speculation that Galimberti would take his place.

  On the Italian side, those favoring conciliation were convinced that it was now time for a new government initiative. On April 10, Giuseppe Toscanelli, a member of parliament known for favoring the Church, wrote to the prime minister, Depretis. His letter soon appeared in the press.

  Arguing that the current law of guarantees was inadequate, Toscanelli proposed a solution: "I believe that, if one recognizes that the supreme Head of the Catholic Church is both the sovereign by right and the de facto sovereign of the Vatican, and if he were given land stretching out toward the countryside, sufficiently large to construct the buildings that form part of the universal Church, as for example those for Propaganda Fide and the headquarters of the religious orders, then one would have a profane Rome and a sacred Rome. Foreign rulers, coming to Rome, would visit both of the sovereigns." Toscanelli went on to assure Depretis that he was not proposing a return to the old temporal power of the pope but something much more modest: "In this way, which would change the current situation of our government very little and would greatly improve that of the universal Catholic Church, there would be, in addition to the Republic of San Marino, a Catholic republic with its elected sovereign, and peace would return between State and Church." Later, Toscanelli recalled telling Depretis that "the whole question came down to a strip of land that gave the Vatican access to the sea, it being understood that the strip remained Italian territory, although Vatican immunities would be extended to it."4

  Other signs of a possible breakthrough also appeared in April. When the government discovered that the new equestrian statue of Victor Emmanuel II, scheduled to be unveiled in Venice, had a decidedly anticlerical cast—the papal tiara and Saint Peter's keys were shown being trampled beneath one of the horse's hoofs—the dedication ceremonies were postponed and the papal symbols ordered removed.5 That same month, the king and his ministers participated in the unveiling of the restored façade of the cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore, standing alongside the archbishop of Florence and many of Tuscany's bishops. The day before the ceremonies, the archbishop went to greet King Umberto, who, in gratitude, gave him five thousand lire for one of the archbishop's charities. During the singing of the Te Deum, King Umberto and the archbishop publicly shook hands, and the queen and the prince kissed the archbishop's ring. Word of the encounter quickly spread, with the handshake between king and archbishop transformed by popular imagination into a hearty embrace. A colorful image of the king and the pope, arm in arm, chatting affably, soon became one of the most popular prints sold on street corners throughout Italy. 6

  Other evidence of reconciliation comes from Germany. The grand duke of Baden, writing to Galimberti several years later, asked if he recalled a conversation they had had in Berlin in March 1887: "Among the questions that we discussed there was one that, at the time, assumed great importance. It was the question of a neutral territory joining the Leonine City with the sea! Do you think that the time was right then for the realization of that project?"7

  The major Catholic newspapers were, meanwhile, showing their uneasiness at any such talk. On May 19, the Vatican's Osservatore Romano disputed the rumors, adding that all the proposals being discussed had come from the "liberal" party, their true purpose being "to destroy the Catholic Church in Italy in general and in Rome in particular."8

  Events soon came to a head. On May 23,1887, the pope addressed the cardinals gathered for the naming of new members of the Sacred College. After expressing his pleasure at the recently concluded agreement with the German government, he turned his attention to Italy: "As We have indicated on various other occasions, We have long fervently desired security and tranquility for all Italian souls, and wanted the ruinous discord with the Roman Pontiff finally ended, but always remembering that this can only be done in keeping with justice and dignity for the Apostolic See ... the only path to harmony is by ensuring that the Roman Pontiff is not subject to anyone else's power and enjoys full and true freedom." Such an arrangement, Leo XIII argued, "would not only not damage Italy's interests in any way, but, on the contrary, would increase its safety and well-being." That the pope would speak of possible reconciliation without explicitly demanding the return of temporal power came as a surprise. As one of those present later recalled, the pope's words "shocked all of the cardinals there." L'Osservatore Romano quickly tried to reassure the intransigents of the Church: the pope had been clear, conciliation could only come about if the state dealt justly with the Church. "Justice demands one thing and is inflexible ... it requires the reestablishment of the temporal power, especially over the city of Rome."9

  Seven days after the pope's ambiguous remarks caused such an uproar, another event took place, which was widely viewed as part of his unfolding plan to strike a deal with the government. A Benedictine abbot, Luigi Tosti, known to be close to the pope, published a booklet, "Conciliation," which urged Leo to mark his fiftieth anniversary as a priest in 1888 by ending the hostility between the Holy See and the Italian state. Tosti, born in Naples in 1811 to a noble family, had first met Gioacchino Pecci in 1839, decades before he became pope. They quickly became friends. At that time, before the revolutions of 1848, Tosti had enthusiastically supported the idea that Italian unification could best come about by creating a confederation of small states under the presidency of the pope himself. After the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, Tosti was eager to find a way to bring about conciliation between the papacy and the monarchy.

  Pius IX had also been fond of the aristocratic abbot, referring to him affectionately as "that good nut Tosti." But given the gulf between Pius's politics and Tosti's, the abbot's earlier hopes of becoming a cardinal were crushed, and he would remain a simple priest. His political inclinations and his connections with men high in the government were, nonetheless, exploited by both Pius IX and later Leo XIII. A useful intermediary, he is credited with saving numerous Church institutions in Rome from government expropriation. At one point, the Italian government even named him as the superintendent of sacred monuments in the Holy City. At the time "Conciliation" was published, Tosti worked in the Vatican as vice-archivist of the Holy See.10

  When the booklet came out on May 31, it was widely believed that the pope had already read a copy and given his tacit approval, using Tosti to launch a trial balloon. Just four days earlier, the pope had sent Tosti to see Francesco Crispi, the minister of the interior, on a mission similar to many he had performed in the past: he was to convince the government to reverse a decision to take control of one of Rome's Church properties. The unofficial nature of the encounter is reflected by their meeting in Crispi's home. But Tosti did
not limit himself to this request, as later recalled by Crispi himself:

  "The abbot had advised Leo XIII to enter St. Peter's and once again perform his ecclesiastical duties in public. His Holiness was not [said Tosti] opposed. He however first wanted to be sure that the Government would guarantee the peaceful exercise of his duties. The pope would take advantage of his upcoming jubilee to present himself to the public. That occasion seemed most propitious to the abbot for the pope and the king to meet. Just as had happened at the cathedral of Florence, where the king was received by the archbishop, the king would be received by the pope. If this proposal were accepted in principle, one could later work out the exact conditions and terms."

  "I replied," wrote Crispi, "that I would guarantee public safety. The pope would have nothing to fear in the exercise of his ecclesiastical duties ... But I cannot say the same regarding the appearance of the king and queen in St. Peter's. It is a subject that must be discussed with the prime minister and perhaps by the whole cabinet. I would also have to talk to the king. After I have done so, we can speak of it again."11

  Two days later, Crispi did speak to the king, and Umberto expressed his interest in the abbot's proposal. Crispi then sent Tosti a note encouraging him to go ahead, writing that he looked forward to "a favorable solution." On June 4 the men met again for two hours. There was reason to believe that a historic agreement between the Holy See and the Italian state might finally be at hand.12