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Carlo Passaglia and Pius IX: An Ecclesiological Conflict

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2020

VALFREDO MARIA ROSSI
VALFREDO MARIA ROSSI*
Affiliation:
Pontifical Gregorian University, Piazza della Pilotta 4, 00187Rome, Italy
*
E-mail: valfredo.rossi@unigre.it
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Abstract

This article presents a case of conflict and resistance within the Catholic Church: that of Carlo Passaglia (1812–87). It aims to show that although the conflict is usually attributed to Passaglia's liberal political ideas, it was actually rooted in his innovative ecclesiological model. In turn the article presents the origin of the conflict, an account of Passaglia's theological point of view and, finally, how Passaglia lived this conflict and the particular form of resistance that he elaborated.

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Research Article
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 71 , Issue 3 , July 2020 , pp. 579 - 595
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

The purpose of this article is to shed new light on a famous Italian case of conflict and resistance within the Catholic Church that inflamed public opinion in the second half of the nineteenth century. Its main protagonist was Carlo Passaglia (1812–87), a Jesuit and professor in dogmatic theology at the Roman College in Rome (now the Pontifical Gregorian University). He was an influential theologian of his time,Footnote 1 much valued by Pope Pius ix. In 1854 Passaglia played a crucial role in the formulation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception,Footnote 2 and Pius ii always owed Passaglia a debt of gratitude for his theological work.Footnote 3 In 1859 Passaglia left the Jesuits and two years later was excommunicated on account of his ideas about the temporal power of the Church. In a time of profound change and challenges for the Church Passaglia elaborated an anti-temporal theology, an argument against the temporal power of the pope. For this reason he fled Rome and from 1861 until his death he lived in Turin, teaching moral philosophy at the university there and sitting as a deputy in parliament (1863–4).Footnote 4

This article aims to revisit the traditional interpretation of the conflict between Passaglia and the Roman Catholic Church, which has been ascribed to his involvement in the Italian Risorgimento. According to this view, Passaglia betrayed the values of the Church after falling in love with the revolutionary ideas of the liberals and, at the same time, the ideals of the Risorgimento. Footnote 5 Instead it will be argued that his conflict with the Roman Catholic Church was based on his innovative ecclesiological model: Passaglia's political stance, radical for its time, originated in this. Beginning with a discussion of the origins of the conflict between Passaglia and the Church and the development of Pius ix’s idea of the Church, the article will go on to detail Passaglia's point of view and, finally, how he lived out this conflict, and the particular form of resistance that he elaborated.

The origin of the conflict

Passaglia's affaire needs to be set in the context of the troubled Europe of the mid-nineteenth century, which forced the Church to face tough challenges. Indeed, Passaglia could be regarded as an exponent of so-called liberal Catholicism. ‘This general movement, comprising some very different tendencies’,Footnote 6 was based on the libertarian principles that had arisen from the French revolution and sought to find a new way to establish a constructive dialogue between the modern changing society and the Church.Footnote 7 In Europe, prominent figures devoted themselves to modernising the Church and Catholicism: Lamenais or Montalembert in France, Ignaz von Döllinger in Germany and Lord Acton in England.Footnote 8 However, the Catholic Church, or better the Church viewed in its hierarchical dimension, reacted against and rejected this movement, favouring and sustaining ultramontane positions.Footnote 9 According to Thomas Howard, ‘from this standpoint [namely the standpoint of the Church, or rather the papacy], the nineteenth century was anything but one of progress: it was the tragic, confusing twilight of Christendom; the sometimes sudden, sometimes gradual fraying of a way of ordering society that had endured for over a millennium’.Footnote 10 The opposition was fierce. In 1832 Gregory xvi promulgated the encyclical Mirari Vos Footnote 11 in which he reaffirmed the legitimacy and the indirect power of the Church (i.e. the typical principles of the ancien régime), condemning, at the same time, all kinds of freedom (freedom of conscience, religious freedom and press freedom) as a consequence of indifferentism.Footnote 12 The trauma caused by social and political change, and the fear of modernity, also characterised the pontificate of Pius ix. Although its first two years (1846–8) were marked by some concessions to liberal ideas,Footnote 13 all changed with the revolution of 1848. Shock at this event meant that Pius ii radically opposed liberalism and new social orders.Footnote 14 He tried to restore a society that was thoroughly Christian, i.e. to establish some sort of new Christendom.Footnote 15 According to John W. O'Malley, echoing Giacomo Martina, the most significant magisterial acts of Pius ix’s pontificate – namely the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception (8 December 1854), the Syllabus (8 December 1864) and the First Vatican Council (8 December 1869) – together ‘constituted different aspects of the same program for eliminating current evils and creating a Christian society’.Footnote 16 Pius ix’s view of the relationship between the Church and modern European society is encapsulated in the 80th proposition of the Syllabus errorum: it is wrong to believe that ‘the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization’.Footnote 17 According to Owen Chadwick, ‘no sentence ever did more to dig a chasm between the Pope and modern European Society’.Footnote 18

Carlo Passaglia lived and worked in a context of fierce controversy. He tried to find a different way whereby Catholicism might be opened to modernity. The origins of the conflict between the Roman Church and Passaglia lies in the Risorgimento and, in particular, in the harsh contention between the pope and the newly-born kingdom of Italy over the Papal State and the temporal power of the pope. In the mid-nineteenth century, during the events that led to national unification, the Papal State, and Rome in particular, were at the centre of a fierce conflict.Footnote 19 The question of the temporal power and the unification of Italy posed a thorny problem for Catholics not only in Italy but also in Europe. In France, for instance, Lacordaire wrote that ‘I stand for the Holy See against its oppressors, I believe in the moral necessity of its temporal dominion, but at the same time I desire the liberation of Italy and serious reforms in the government of the Roman states.’Footnote 20 In Germany, Döllinger gave two very famous lectures in Munich in 1861 on the Roman Question and the fate of the temporal power of the pope. He showed, by means of strong historical-critical arguments, that the Papal State ‘had arisen because of contingent historical conditions’Footnote 21 and, therefore, it was not necessary at the present time either for the Church or for the pope.Footnote 22 In Italy, many Catholics were sincere patriots and found themselves torn between a genuine desire for national unification and a sense of loyalty and devotion to the pope.Footnote 23 They therefore hoped for a peaceful reconciliation between Turin and Rome.Footnote 24 One of the most significant attempts at agreement between the kingdom of Italy and the Papal State was the so-called Missione Pantaleoni-Passaglia (1860–1), strongly endorsed by the Italian prime minister, P. M. Cavour. This, headed by Diomede Pantaleoni, an influent doctor very close to the Roman liberal environment, together with Passaglia, consisted in sounding out the possibility of a spontaneous renunciation by the pope of his temporal powers and the consequent peaceful annexation of Rome as the new capital of a united Italy.Footnote 25 Passaglia was employed in this negotiation directly by Cavour, tasked with providing the theological justification for such an act by the pope.Footnote 26 Indeed, at the time, Passaglia was still considered a prominent theologian in Rome and enjoyed the full esteem and the trust of Pius ix. However, the mission failed, as the pope and his entourage were radically opposed to such a plan. From this moment on, there was a progressive hardening of the pope's attitude towards any form of openness or dialogue. As summarised by O'Malley, ‘the Popes of the nineteenth century, like their predecessors for centuries, considered the Papal State, and most especially the city of Rome, a sacred trust, a holy legacy that they could never surrender. No Pope was more convinced of this truth than Pius ix’.Footnote 27

Between 1850 and 1870, Pius ix wrote numerous official documents (roughly one per year) in which he condemned contemporary events that were threatening the Papal State. Of these the most relevant documents in terms of the clarity with which the pope's views are presented are the brief Cum Catholica Ecclesia (26 March 1860),Footnote 28 the address Maxima Quidem (9 June 1862)Footnote 29 and the very famous encyclical Quanta Cura, and the Syllabus Errorum (8 December 1864).Footnote 30

In the first of these, written after the partial occupation of the Papal State by the Piedmontese army, Pius ix claims that the Church ‘has acquired the form of a perfect society by its divine character, it ought, therefore … to possess that freedom by which it may not be subject to any civil Power … It was, therefore, in accordance with Divine Providence, that the Roman Pope … obtained temporal power’.Footnote 31 Pius ix then reaffirms his condemnation of the contemporary events that were perverting the order established by God, and excommunicates all those taking part in the attack on the Papal State and the temporal power of the pope: supporters, helpers, counsellors, followers etc. In short, all those who supported in any way the fall of papal temporal power, namely, roughly half of the population of Italy. It is worth quoting the formula of the major excommunication used, as these solemn words provide evidence for how the pope experienced and interpreted the events that led to the fall of the Papal State:

Having invoked the light of the Holy Spirit … we declare in accordance with the authority which we hold from Almighty God, and the most holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and also in accordance with our own authority, all those who have taken part in this sinful insurrection in our provinces … as well as those who have been their warranters, supporters, helpers, counsellors, followers, as well as those who connived at executing the above-mentioned deeds, under whatever pretences and in whatever manner, or who perpetrated them themselves, to have taken on themselves the atonement of the major excommunication and religious punishment, as they are determined in our Apostolic constitution, and by the decrees of the General Councils, especially that of Trent, (sess. 22, chap. 11, on reforms;) and, if necessary, we excommunicate them again, we anathemise them, further declaring that they are to lose all privileges and graces, and indulgence which they enjoyed until now from our Papal predecessors, and that they cannot in any manner be released or absolved of these censures by anyone except ourselves, or the Roman Pontiff then reigning, except at the moment of death; but not in the event of their recovery, when they are again subject to the above punishment, and are unable to receive any absolution until they have retracted, revoked, annulled, and abolished in public all they have committed, and have brought everything back, fully and effectively, to its former state, and have given complete satisfaction to the Papal power.Footnote 32

According to Giacomo Martina, at that time ‘tens of thousands of Italians were excommunicated, and Pius ix considered them in this way’.Footnote 33

The second text, Maxima Quidem, a document addressed to the cardinals after the consistory of 9 June 1862, is also relevant. Here Pius ix explicitly affirmed the need for the Church to possess temporal power. A war against the Church was in progress, a war which aimed to ‘subvert, and destroy the proper, true, and genuine nature and authority of divine revelation, and the constitution and power of the Church’.Footnote 34 So, once again the pope reaffirmed his condemnations of new philosophical and political doctrines and stated explicitly that ‘the civil power of the Holy See …, given to the Roman Pontiff by a special decree of divine providence … is necessary so that the Roman Pontiff might not be subject to any worldly authority’.Footnote 35

The third document is undoubtedly the most famous: the encyclical Quanta Cura along with the Syllabus Errorum. Here Pius ix reaffirms the position of the Church against liberalism and the new form of society based on the ‘false and perverse opinions’Footnote 36 of liberalism that pervert civil society. Moreover, he condemns once again ‘the errors regarding the civil power of the sovereign Pontiff’,Footnote 37 reaffirming the doctrine of the temporal power of the pope as a matter of faith.Footnote 38

In the light of these official documents, it is possible to summarise Pius ix’s idea of the Church and history.Footnote 39 First of all, it is evident that the pope thought of the Church in the light of post-Tridentine ecclesiology which was based on the juridical-political model of the societas perfecta.Footnote 40 The Church, being a perfect society like the state, has to be independent and sovereign. Therefore, it possesses every potestas, legislative, judicial and executive, necessary to achieve its aim. Whereas the state is merely a natural society, the Church is a supernatural society since Christ founded it. Consequently, Christ himself, in his divine providence, provided the Church with all the powers that it needed to achieve his supernatural aims, namely the salvation of those who belonged to it. In the light of this reasoning, the Papal State and the temporal power of the pope are essential. According to Pius ix and, consequently, to the Church, temporal power and the Papal State were providential means by which Church and pope could be free and could exercise freely every power at its disposal for the spiritual good of Christians.Footnote 41 As the Church is the perfect supernatural society, it has the moral duty to exercise an indirect power (potestas indirecta) over the state (a perfect natural society) to ensure the good of those people who belong both to the Church as Christians, and to the state as citizens. In the light of these documents, it is also evident that, when he refers to the Church, Pius ix actually means the hierarchy. This means that a clear distinction emerges between the Ecclesia docens (hierarchy) and the Ecclesia discens (laypeople).Footnote 42 In sum, according to Pius ix, contemporary events were to be considered catastrophic because they were subverting the right order established by God. The pope was opposing modernity, and, consequently, his vision of the Church was apologetic and, at the same time, naïve. The Church had to be closed to any relationship with this kind of world. Only a miraculous intervention of God could save the Church and the world from these perverted times.Footnote 43 According to Martina,

the profound reason for Pius ix’s hostility to the Risorgimento – which was not limited to a new territorial organisation of the peninsula but tended towards the creation of a new form of state, based on the equality of all citizens before the law, without discrimination of cult, on the overcoming of the ancient privileges of the Church, and on the freedom of the press, of worship and propaganda, to indicate only the essential traits – originated in the end of that special status which the Church had enjoyed until then, and, in the classic post-Tridentine ecclesiology, appeared as an almost necessary condition for the fulfilment of its saving mission. In other words, not sensitive to the historical dimension that implies an adaptation of the Church to the changing structures of society, Pius ix seriously feared that the new secular state would put at risk the salvation of millions of people.Footnote 44

Ecclesiological reasons for conflict

In 1861 Passaglia wrote an anonymous Latin pamphlet, Pro caussa italica ad episcopos catholicos actore presbytero catholico, in which he asked the pope to renounce his temporal power for the good of the Church.Footnote 45 On 9 October 1861 this booklet was censured;Footnote 46 Passaglia was excommunicated in accordance with the papal brief Cum Catholica Ecclesia; and he fled Rome. Nevertheless, the booklet enjoyed outstanding success all over Europe as is proved by contemporary translations into Italian, French, English and German.Footnote 47 As Lord Acton wrote to Richard Simpson on 2 May 1861:

I saw Passaglia's pamphlet, which is eloquent, diffuse and going as far as possible in saying that the temporal is lost, and that without detriment to religion. He says all I attributed to him, and more. But the publication is secret, printed at Rome it bears Asisi [sic] on the title page, a misprint meant to save the lie, and the authorship is carefully concealed. It is however quite fair that we should bring him forward, and there will be some astonishment. There is only one copy in England.Footnote 48

Passaglia's pamphlet is very special for three main reasons: its literary genre; its ecclesiology; and its idea of the relationship between Church and State.

First, as regards literary genre, the pamphlet is not properly polemical.Footnote 49 It is not written against the Church or the pope. On the contrary, it is a political-theological essay in its own right, written by a priest and a theologian who loves the Church and is trying to offer the right answer to the complicated question of the Church and the Italian state.Footnote 50 Passaglia looks at the question from a theological perspective, basing his arguments on Scripture and the tradition of the Church. Thus there are numerous biblical and patristic quotations by means of which Passaglia wished to show his readers that his arguments and his conclusions were, theologically speaking, genuinely Catholic and in line with the tradition of the Church.Footnote 51

Secondly, Passaglia bases the ecclesiological argument of his pamphlet on the ecclesiology that he had elaborated in his monumental De Ecclesia Christi. Footnote 52 His ecclesiology was remarkable for its time in that by elaborating a proper Trinitarian and sacramental ecclesiology, Passaglia anticipates several themes that were to be developed at Vatican II, more than a century later.Footnote 53 Passaglia observes the Church in its complex theandric reality, not just human or divine, but human and divine simultaneously. Thus he describes the non-visible dimension of the Church as the Trinity in its unity and diversity; and the visible, the efficacious reflection of the non-visible Trinitarian dimension, as not just the pope or the hierarchy but as the unity of both clergy and laity.Footnote 54 Passaglia reaches this position thanks to the theological idea of the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit: every Christian, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, participates in the Trinity.Footnote 55 In the light of this, Passaglia also elaborates the idea of a common priesthood of the faithful.Footnote 56 As a consequence, if the voice of the layman is in accordance with Scripture and tradition, it is an authentic expression of the Church, even when this voice differs from that of the hierarchy:

we have still before us the words of Tertullian … in his ‘Exhortation to Chastity’: ‘Are not the laity priests also? It is written that Christ has made of us and of the priests a kingdom for God his Father? The difference between the clergy and the mass of the faithful has been established by the authority of the Church, and by the sanctity of a sacerdotal gathering … But where three of the faithful, though they be laymen, shall be gathered together, there is the Church.’ Moreover, examples abound in ecclesiastical history of laymen who have distinguished themselves in the investigation and solution of religious questions.Footnote 57

This, according to Passaglia, differs significantly from Pius ix’s idea of the Church.

Thirdly, in Passaglia's work the relationship between Church and State is observed from a perspective wholly different from that of Pius ix. As human-divine reality, the Church has different aims and means if seen in relation to other, merely human, institutions like the state. As a consequence, Passaglia also addresses clearly the distinction and the division between the two powers: the temporal and the spiritual.Footnote 58 They cannot be confused, as their origin and aim are different. The temporal power derives from God as Creator; the spiritual power from God as Redeemer. The temporal power relates to the natural order and the spiritual power to the supernatural order.Footnote 59 Therefore, as supernatural reality, the Church has the spiritual power; by contrast, the state, as a natural reality, has the temporal one.Footnote 60 Nevertheless, both have ‘equal liberty within the limits of their attributions, so that a free Church harmonizes with a free State’.Footnote 61 In his argument Passaglia reasons that papal arguments about the Papal State and the temporal power of the Church are not a matter of dogma: ‘they have no connection with the Holy Scriptures; they are not derived from Christian tradition; they are not bound by the necessary and reciprocal bonds of the articles of the Christian profession; nor is their object the defence of the faith or Catholic unity’.Footnote 62 They cannot therefore be considered a matter of faith.Footnote 63 Moreover, in regard to the necessity and utility of the Papal State as a means by which the pope, as a political prince, could be independent in exercising his spiritual power, Passaglia argues that the freedom and the power of the pope are based not on a temporal foundation, but on the divine foundation which is the will and word of Christ. Therefore, ‘the rights of the supreme Pontiff and the plenitude of his authority have no bond of dependence, nor any co-relation with the political liberty of the Prince’.Footnote 64 In other words, according to Passaglia, the pope can lose the state and his temporal power without detriment to his spiritual authority and independence, and without any detriment to the Church.Footnote 65 Passaglia comes to this conclusion thanks to his ecclesiological starting point, based as it is on the Trinitarian and sacramental dimension of the Church, and not on the idea of the perfect society (societas perfecta).

How Passaglia lived out the conflict

Although Passaglia was excommunicate and his booklet Pro caussa italica censured, he never considered himself outside the Church, as his address to parliament on 26 April 1863 shows:

Dear Sirs, who has told you that we [Passaglia] are suspended [a divinis] and excommunicated? We are excommunicated by the same tribunal, by the same authority, by which you too are excommunicated. Therefore, we are excommunicated among others who are excommunicated. Dear Sirs, neither you nor I am excommunicated. Man cannot excommunicate; Christ, through Peter, can excommunicate. But, from Rome it is not Peter who has spoken but man.Footnote 66

Passaglia's address claimed that the major excommunication issued by Pius ix was completely invalid. For, in this case, Pius ix would speak just as a man, and not as the successor of Peter because his words did not concern any matter of faith, but only a human and temporal matter. Moreover, in line with what he saw as the authentic tradition of the Church, Passaglia argued that ‘excommunication can never be employed for the protection of things temporal or profane’Footnote 67 as excommunication is an ecclesiastical measure in matters purely spiritual or concerning the Catholic faith.Footnote 68 Since the matter of the Papal State and the temporal power was not a matter of Catholic faith, it was clear also that the papal excommunication was invalid and did not conform to the authentic tradition of the Church.Footnote 69 It is also relevant to highlight that, according to Passaglia, such an excommunication was not in accord with the divine dimension of the Church which is the unity and charity of the Triune God:Footnote 70

If charity should inspire the acts of every Christian, how much more needful is it that it should inspire the acts of Christian Pastors, and above all, their Chief, the Pastor of Pastors; it becomes evident that excommunication, when employed for the defence of things profane or temporal, is by its very nature not in accordance with the spirit of the Gospel and Christianity.Footnote 71

In the visible Church, every power has to be exercised in the spirit of Christ, namely ‘not to destroy but to build up’,Footnote 72 and to reach unity, and spread charity among the people.Footnote 73 In the light of his Trinitarian and sacramental ecclesiology, Passaglia reaffirms that the pope and the Catholic hierarchy have to be the instrument at the service of the visible unity of the Church (the reflection of the unity of the Trinity).Footnote 74 Therefore, the hierarchy has to encourage unity rather than responding ‘non possumus’ (we cannot) to a legitimate claim of the Italian state and dividing the Church (namely the flock from their shepherds) through censures and excommunications.Footnote 75 Passaglia continues by saying that if excommunication produces great evils, such as a schism (namely, the destruction of unity), then the Church has to abstain from censure and employ the evangelical law of charity because the Church cannot put its unity at risk.Footnote 76

Passaglia always considered himself within the Church. Evoking the Augustinian idea of the Church as a corpus permixtum, he also stated that ‘it may happen, that one, who is bodily ejected from the Church, may remain spiritually within its fold, and vice versa’.Footnote 77 He often used Augustine's idea of tolerare pro pace: tolerating anything for the sake of the peace of the Church. In other words, whoever is punished unjustly by the authority of the Church has to tolerate this kind of injury with patience, without provoking any schism. In doing so, he will be the very expression of Christ. According to Passaglia, such a man has always to proclaim the truth without compromise.Footnote 78Tolerare pro pace lies at the very heart of Passaglia's resistance to the Church but, at the same time, came from within it.

From 1861, the year of his excommunication, Passaglia continued to express his political-theological ideas against the temporal power of the pope with such force that roughly 10,000 Italian priests, almost 10 per cent of the Italian clergy, signed a petition to Pius ix urging him to renounce his temporal power in the interests of unity and the peace of the Church and nation.Footnote 79 These signatories were called Passaglian clergy, and were condemned and suspended a divinis.

The most significant factor to emerge from this enquiry is the radically different understanding of the Church of Passaglia and of the pope, and, consequently, their completely different way of thinking about the Church in relation to history and modernity. Starting from the idea of the perfect society, Pius ix claimed that the temporal power of the Church and the Papal State were matters of faith and essential to the Church. In 1860 he therefore felt justified in excommunicating all those who plotted against the temporal power. From a completely different perspective, namely the Trinitarian and sacramental dimension of the Church, Passaglia reached opposite conclusions, namely that the temporal power and the Papal State were not matters of faith. They were not necessary to the Church. Indeed they constrained the Church from revealing its divine nature. According to Passaglia, the temporal power of the Church was a legacy of the past; it was not rooted in Christ's will and word. Therefore, it had to be changed in accordance with current historical changes. For this reason, Passaglia invoked the harmonious distinction between the two powers, the spiritual and the temporal: the former, proper to the Church; the latter, proper to the state: ‘The two Powers, sacerdotal and imperial, from their divine institution, should harmonize with each other. And, in fact, they do so harmonize when each remains in its respective domain.’Footnote 80

It is should also be noted that Passaglia's affaire should not be considered an isolated case of Catholic resistance in contemporary Europe. There was another very similar instance, that of Ignaz von Döllinger.Footnote 81 These cases, news of which spread out around mid nineteenth-century Europe, represent a sort of counterpoint to the Catholic mainstream as it moved towards ultramontanism.Footnote 82 That element eventually triumphed, being accepted and ratified by the First Vatican Council (1869–70),Footnote 83 which solemnly promulgated the controversial dogma of the personal infallibility of the pope. This was the final step and logical consequence of the ecclesiological model of the societas perfecta. Thinkers like Passaglia and Döllinger, however, in their troubled lives, had struggled and fought for a different understanding of the Church. According to both of them, the Church had the duty to update itself and to enter into dialogue with contemporary society. To reach these aims, on the one hand they adopted a new theological method, based on an accurate historical-critical analysis of the sources in order to assess what was genuinely matter of faith. On the other, they approached history in a new way. History was considered as a proper locus theologicus,Footnote 84 namely the place where it is possible to ‘make theology’, since it is the place where the Triune-God reveals his providence. The latter assumption allowed these thinkers to overcome the fear of modernity and enter into dialogue with it, given that the present times, with their contradictions, were considered as the only place where there could be an encounter with God.

There is a paradox in the role of history vis-à-vis the Church. While during Vatican I the Church reaffirmed, un-historically, the model of the societas perfecta along with all its consequences (for instance the reaffirmation of the temporal power), it was also history that put an end to the temporal power of the Church and forced it to rethink and re-establish itself on a new ecclesiological model. Moreover, after the council and the Capture of Rome (20 September 1870), which determined the end of the temporal power of the pope, the Church failed to read the signs of the times,Footnote 85 and developed an even more radical rejection of modern society, which gave a birth to an apologetic defence of a sort of disembodied truth. This attitude is exemplified in the reaction of Pius ix and his successors who, having shut themselves in the Vatican, considered themselves prisoners of the king of Italy.Footnote 86 Only by adopting a different idea of history could a constructive dialogue with the present times became possible for the Church, as happened at the time of Vatican II. Therefore, if ‘Vatican II implicitly recognised, in the words of the philosopher Charles Taylor, that “some of the most impressive extensions of a gospel ethic depended on a breakaway from Christendom,” from the temporal power of the Church and nostalgia for the political and social norms that had governed Europe's ancien régime’,Footnote 87 then it is clear that Passaglia, along with other similar nineteenth-century thinkers, although unheeded at the time, should be considered prophetic voices.

Footnotes

All translations, in text and footnotes, except where a published translated version exists, are the author's own.

This article is based upon a paper given to the panel ‘Catholics in Conflict: Theology and the Politics of Resistance’, held at the 2019 annual conference of the European Academy of Religion in 2019. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Petra Kuivala, the chair of the panel, and to Professor Massimo Faggioli for their valuable suggestions.

References

1 It is quite remarkable to observe the profound respect with which Passaglia is addressed in some contemporary articles. ‘Prof. Passaglia has already reached an eminence sufficiently conspicuous to connect his name in the annals of theology with the ablest writers of a past generation. There are few men who combine within themselves a greater number of those particular qualities which constitute a theologian of the first order. For to a profound and impassioned love of the study to which his life is devoted, he unites an extensive acquaintance with the writings of the Fathers, a familiarity with the labours of St. Thomas and his numerous commentators, and an accurate knowledge of hermeneutical science. [Prof. Passaglia] is fully able to cope with the best biblical scholars of Protestant Germany’: Todd, W. G., ‘De immaculato deiparae semper virginis conceptu Caroli Passaglia Sac. e. S. I: Commentarius: 3 partes, Rome, 1854–1855’, Dublin Review xli (1856), 117–18Google Scholar. According to Walter Kasper, Passaglia should be considered one of the most brilliant Roman theologians of the nineteenth century: ‘Carlo Passaglia war zweifellos der genialste Theologe der Römischen Schule’: Die Lehre von der Tradition in der Römischen Schule, 2nd edn, Freiburg-im-Breisgau 2011, 83–4Google Scholar.

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15 Martina, Pio IX (1846–1850), 287–422.

16 O'Malley, J. W., Vatican I: the council and the making of the ultramontane Church, Cambridge, Ma 2018, 107CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 ‘Romanus Pontifex potest ac debet cum progressu, cum liberalismo et cum recenti civilitate sese reconciliari et componere’: Pii IX pontificis maximi acta: pars prima acta exhibens quae ad ecclesiam universam spectant, Rome 1864, iii. 717; English version at <https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9syll.htm>.

18 Chadwick, History of the popes, 176.

19 Martina, G., Pio IX (1851–1866), Rome 1986, 85–152Google Scholar. With regard to the so-called Questione Romana, the political conflict between the kingdom of Italy and the Papal State over Rome, see Pirri, P., Pio IX e Vittorio Emanuele II: dal loro carteggio privato, Rome 1944–61Google Scholar.

20 ‘En France, Lacordair écrivait: “Je suis pour le Saint-Siège contre ses oppresseurs, je crois à la nécessité morale de son domaine temporel …, mais en même temps je desire l'affranchissement de l'Italie, des modifications sérieuses dans le gouvernement des États romains”’: Aubert, R., Le Pontificat de Pie ix (1846–1878), in Fliche, A. and Martin, V. (eds), Histoire de l’Église depuis les origins jusqu'a nos jours, xxi, Paris 1952, 88–9Google Scholar.

21 Howard, The pope and the professor, 98.

22 Ibid. 95–102.

23 Musselli, L., ‘I cattolici e l'unità d'Italia: le linee di fondo dell'evoluzione di un rapporto’, Revista europea de historia de las ideas politicas y de las instituciones publicas vi (2013), 201–9Google Scholar.

24 Martina, G., ‘La fine del potere temporale nella coscienza religiosa e nella cultura dell'epoca, in Italia’, Archivum Historiae Pontificiae ix (1971), 335–41Google Scholar.

25 D'Ercole, P., Carlo Passaglia, Turin 1888, 14–22Google Scholar. See also Pirri, Pio IX e Vittorio Emanuele, ii. 338–66.

26 ‘Il Passaglia essendo in grado di valutare le materie in discussione nel loro valore teologico e canonico, fu forse il solo che potè [sic] dare a Cavour, intorno al grave problema delle relazioni fra i due poteri, dei criteri dottrinali ben fondati’ (‘Passaglia, being able to evaluate the subjects at stake in their theological and canonical aspects, was perhaps the only one who could provide Cavour with well-founded doctrinal criteria on the severe problem of the relations between the two powers’): Pirri, Pio IX e Vittorio Emanuele, ii. 364.

27 O'Malley, Vatican I, 17–18.

28 Pii IX acta, iii. 137–47; English version at <https://www.nytimes.com/1860/04/24/archives/italy-the-Popes-bull-of-excommunication-apostolic-lettfr-of-our.html>.

29 Pii IX acta, iii. 451–61; English version at <https://thejosias.com/2015/06/10/maxima-quidem/#6>.

30 Pii IX acta, iii. 687–717; English version at <http://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9quanta.htm>.

31 ‘Cum Catholica Ecclesia … perfectae societatis formam vi divinae suae institutionis obtinuerit, ea proinde libertate pollere debet, ut … nulli civili potestati subiaceat. … Iccirco singulari prorsus divinae providentiae consilio factum est ut … Romanus Pontifex … civilem assequeretur principatum’: Pii IX acta, iii. 137.

32 ‘Post Divini Spiritus lumen … auctoritate Omnipotentis Dei et Ss: Apostolorum Petri et Pauli ac Nostra denuo declaramus, eos omnes, qui nefariam in praedictis Pontificiae Nostrae Ditionis Provinciis rebellionem et earum usurpationem, occupationem, invasionem … itemquem ipsorum mandantes, fautores, adiutores, consiliarios, adhaerentes, vel alios quoscumque praedictarum rerum exequutionem quolibet praetextu et quovis modo procurantes, vel per se ipsos exequentes, Maiorem Excommunicationem, aliasque censuras ac poenas ecclesiasticas, a Ss. Canonibus, Apostolicis Constitutionibus, et Generalium Conciliorum, Tridentini praesertim (Sess. xx. Cap. xi de reform.) Decretis inflictas incurrisse; et si opus est, de novo excommunicamus, et anathematizamus, item declarantes, ipsos omnium et quorumcumque privilegiorum, gratiarum, et indultorum sibi a Nobis, seu Romanis Pontificibus Praedecessoribus Nostris, quomodolibet concessorum ammissionis poenas eo ipso partier incurrisse; nec a censuris huiusmodi a quoquam, nisi a Nobis, seu Romano Pontifice pro tempore existente (praeterquam in mortis articulo, et tunc cum reincidentia in easdem censuras eo ipso quo convaluerint) absolve ac liberari posse; ac insuper inhabiles et incapaces esse qui absolutionis beneficium consequantur, donec omnia quomodolibet attenta publice retractaverint, revocaverint, cassaverint, et aboleverint, ac omnia in pristinum statum plenarie et cum effectu redintegraverint, vel alias debitam et condignam Ecclesiae, ac Nobis, et huic Sanctae Sedi satisfactionem in praemissis praestiterint’: ibid. iii. 142–3.

33 ‘Decine di migliaia di italiani erano scomunicati e Pio IX li considerava tali’: Martina, Pio IX (1851–1866), 104. See also O'Malley, Vatican I, 104.

34 ‘Subverti, deleri propriam, veram germanamque divinae revelationis indolem, auctoritatem, Ecclesiaeque constitutionem et potestatem’: Pii IX acta, iii. 452.

35 ‘Civilem Sanctae Sedis principatum Romano Pontifici fuisse singulari divino providentiae consilio datum, illumque necessarium esse, ut idem Romanus Pontifex nulli unquam Principi aut civili potestati subiectus’: ibid. iii. 457.

36 ‘Falsae ac perversae opiniones’: ibid. iii. 689.

37 ‘Errores de civili Romani Pontificis principatu’: ibid. iii. 716.

38 ‘Praeter hos errores explicite notatos, alii complures implicite reprobantur, proposita et asserta doctrina, quam catholici omnes firmissime retinere debeant, de civili Romani Pontificis principatu’: ibid.

39 For an overview of Catholic ecclesiology in the nineteenth century see Congar, Y. M., ‘L'Ecclésiologie de la Révolution Française au Concile du Vatican, sous le signe de l'affirmation de l'autorité’, in Aubert, R. and Nédoncelle, M. (eds), L'Ecclésiologie au XIXe siècle, Paris 1960, 77–114Google Scholar. See also Petruzzi, P., Chiesa e società civile al Concilio Vaticano I, Rome 1984, 7–36Google Scholar, and Vitali, D., ‘Il concilio Vaticano I nel contesto ecclesiologico del secolo xix’, Pontificia Academia Theologica xiii (2014), 39–81Google Scholar.

40 See R. Bellarminus, De controversiis christianae fidei adversus hujus temporis haereticos: tertia controversia generalis de Romano Pontefice quinque libri explicata, v.1-10, in Opera omnia, Naples 1856, i. 524–40. See also Suarez, F., Defensio fidei catholicae et apostolicae adversus anglicanae sectae errores iii.22, in Opera omnia, Paris 1859, xxiv. 308–14Google Scholar. For an overview of the development of the idea of the Church as societas perfecta and the related concept of the potestas indirecta see also Tromp, S., ‘De evolutione doctrinae potestatis indirectae R. Pontificis circa res temporales in controversiis s. Roberti Bellarmini’, in Acta congressus iuridici internationalis VII saeculo a decretalibus Gregorii IX et XIV a Codice Iustiniano promulgatus Romae 12–17 Novembris 1934, Rome 1936, iii. 95–107Google Scholar; Schmitt, C., Der Nomos der Erde im Völkerrecht des Jus Publicum Europaeum, 2nd edn, Berlin 1974, 28–36Google Scholar; P. Granfield, ‘The rise and fall of societas perfecta’, in Huizing, P. and Walf, K. (eds), ‘May church ministers be politicians?’, Concilium vii (1982), 3–8Google Scholar; Prodi, P., Il sovrano pontefice: un corpo e due anime: la monarchia papale nella prima età moderna, Bologna 1982Google Scholar; and Frajese, V., ‘Una teoria della censura: Bellarmino e il potere indiretto dei papi’, Studi Storici xxv (1984), 139–52Google Scholar.

41 There were countless publications on this topic at that time. The most relevant are those of La Civiltà Cattolica, the conservative Jesuit journal.

42 On this ecclesiological distinction see Vitali, ‘Il concilio Vaticano I’, 65–9.

43 Martina, ‘La fine del potere temporale’, 309–76, and Pio IX (1867–78), Rome 1990, 234–6Google Scholar. This apologetic view is clearly present in the idea that Pius ix had of the Immaculate Conception. According to him, the Immaculate One would have been the most effective remedy for the salvation of the Church and society from contemporary evils. Precisely for this reason, Pius ix’s original intention was to combine the dogmatic proclamation with a condemnation of all modern errors, what would subsequently be the Syllabus: Martina, Pio IX (1851–1866), 263–4, 266–9. See also O'Malley, Vatican I, 101–7. On history of the redaction of the Syllabus see Sandoni, L., Il Sillabo di Pio IX, Bologna–Rome 2012, 23–48Google Scholar.

44 ‘Il motivo più profondo dell'opposizione di Pio IX al processo risorgimentale – che non si riduceva ad un nuovo assetto territoriale della penisola, ma tendeva alla creazione di una nuova forma di stato, fondata sull'uguaglianza di tutti i cittadini di fronte alla legge, senza differenza di culto, sul superamento degli antichi privilegi della chiesa, sulla libertà di stampa, di culto e di propaganda, per indicarne solo i tratti essenziali – nasceva però dalla fine di quella posizione speciale di cui aveva goduto fino allora la chiesa, e che, nella classica ecclesiologia post-tridentina, appariva come una condizione quasi inderogabile per il compimento della sua missione salvifica. In altre parole, poco sensibile alla dimensione storica che implica un adattamento della chiesa alle mutevoli strutture della società, Pio ix temeva sinceramente che il nuovo stato laico mettesse a rischio la salvezza di milioni di persone’: Martina, Pio IX (1851–1866), 114–15.

45 Passaglia, C., Pro caussa italica ad episcopos catholicos actore praesbitero catholico, Florence 1861Google Scholar.

46 Römische bücherverbote: edition der Bandi von Inquisition und Indexkongregation, 1814–1917, ed. Wolf, H., Paderborn 2005, 281–2Google Scholar.

47 Passaglia, C., Per la causa italiana ai vescovi cattolici apologia di un prete cattolico, Florence 1861Google Scholar; Pour la cause italienne aux evêques Catholique: apologie par un prête Catholique, Paris 1861Google Scholar; An apology of the Italian cause addressed by an Italian priest to the Catholic bishops, in The four pamphlets of P. C. Passaglia on the temporal power of the pope, Paris–London 1862Google Scholar; and Für die italienische Sache an die katholischen Bischöfe Vertheidigungsschrift eines katholischen Priesters, Coburg 1862Google Scholar.

48 The correspondence of Lord Acton and Richard Simpson, ed. Altholz, J. L., McElrath, D. and Holland, J. C., Cambridge 1973, ii. 146CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Passaglia, Apology, 53.

50 ‘It cannot therefore be imputed as a crime to a Roman Catholic Priest if, whilst showing all needful respect to the first order of the hierarchy, of which the Pontiff is the supreme mediator, he should endeavour to dispel the difficulties which may have arisen in religious matters, or if, where discord should unhappily have broken out, he should endeavour to appease it and to restore peace’: ibid. 65.

51 ‘Publicly and solemnly then do we protest that we are pure and sincere Catholics – that we have nothing so much at heart as the integrity of the Catholic creeds and Catholic discipline … The rule, then, of our thoughts, words, and writings, is not ambiguous, but fixed; not variable, but constant; not human, but human and divine’: ibid. 57–8.

52 Passaglia, C., De ecclesia Christi commentariorum libri quinque, Regensburg 1853–6Google Scholar.

53 Rossi, V. M., ‘Carlo Passaglia's De ecclesia Christi: a Trinitarian ecclesiology at the heart of the nineteenth century’, Irish Theological Quarterly lxxxiii (2018), 329–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 On Passaglia's Trinitarian ecclesiology see Passaglia, De ecclesia, iii. 392, 801–26. See also Rossi, La Chiesa, 87–156.

55 On Passaglia's concept of the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit see Schauf, H., Die Einwohnung des Heiligen Geistes: die Lehre von der nichtappropriierten Einwohnung des Heiligen Geistes als Beitrag zur Theologiegeschichte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, Freiburg-im-Breslau 1941Google Scholar.

56 A. Ferranti, ‘Avvertenza del traduttore’, in Passaglia, Per la causa italiana, 4–5.

57 Passaglia, Apology, 60.

58 Ibid. 105–6, 138.

59 Idem, Conferenze di diritto pubblico, Turin 1864, 34–48.

60 ‘I should lay down some principles and points of doctrine, and, before all, the undeniable difference between the two Sovereign Powers, that is to say, the supernatural religious Power proper to the Church and the natural civil Power proper to human society’: idem, Observation of a Roman Catholic priest upon excommunication, in The four pamphlets, 19 (italics original). (Italian original: Della scomunica: avvertenze di un prete cattolico, Florence 1861.)

61 Idem, Apology, 135.

62 Ibid. 121.

63 Ibid. See also idem, Conferenze, 230–9.

64 Idem, Apology, 132.

65 Ibid. 128–30, 133–5.

66 ‘Signori, chi vi ha detto che noi siamo sospesi, che noi siamo scomunicati? Siamo scomunicati da quel medesimo tribunale, da quella medesima autorità dalla quale siete scomunicati pur voi. Dunque siamo scomunicati fra scomunicati. Ma, signori, né scomunicati voi, né scomunicato io. Non iscomunica l'uomo, scomunica Cristo per Pietro; ma da Roma non ha parlato Pietro, ha parlato l'uomo’: idem, Discorso alla camera dei deputati, < https://storia.camera.it/regno/lavori/leg08/sed399.pdf>, p. 6479.

67 Idem, Observation, 17.

68 Ibid. 12.

69 Ibid. 23–4, 41–2.

70 Ibid. 17–18. See also Apology, 1–10.

71 Idem, Observation, 18.

72 Ibid. 18.

73 Ibid.

74 ‘The general institution of Bishops and the special institution of the Papacy were ordained in order that the unity of the particular Churches and that of the Catholic Church might flourish, so as to remain victorious against heresies and schisms. Unity is and ever will be the object to the realization of which the hierarchy and the hierarchical order ever tend by divine virtue. Whoever shall imperil, violate, or attempt to destroy this unity will be thereby guilty of the greatest of crimes, by opposing Christ's direct will’: idem, Apology, 93.

75 ‘The plan is to be observed which is laid down by the Lord himself, namely, that we give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, as well as to God the things that are God's. Would that the episcopal order would attend to these and other warnings of a like kind, and then there would be no reason why we should be now lamenting the painful schism between our pastors and the people … Therefore, so long as the Roman Pontiff, Pius ix, shall persevere in his oft-repeated “Non possumus”, so long as he shall oppose the Italian cause, and refuse peace and communion to the Italians, the Italian Bishops will continue to follow the example of their chief. Therefore, all our efforts should tend to induce the Roman Pontiff to lay aside all anger and resentment, that he may hearken to the lamentations of Italy and the wishes of civilized nations, and grant the peace which he has hitherto refused’: idem, Observation, 118–20.

76 Ibid. 30.

77 Ibid. 39.

78 Idem, Lo scisma non è una minaccia dei rivoluzionari ma un timore giustissimo dei cattolici: avvertenze di un prete cattolico, Turin 1861, 24–9, and Observation, 30–1.

79 Idem, Plurimorum ex Italiae clero ad Pium IX P. M. cum eoque cohaerentes catholicos antistites petitio, Turin 1862Google Scholar (Petizione di novemila sacerdoti italiani a S.S. Pio Papa IX ed ai vescovi cattolici con esso uniti, Turin 1862Google Scholar).

80 Idem, Observation, 29.

81 Howard, The pope and the professor.

82 Aubert, Le Pontificat de Pie IX, 262–310.

83 Ibid. 311–67. In this regard, it is also worth remembering the subtitle of O'Malley's monograph on Vatican I: ‘The council and the making of the Ultramontane Church’: O'Malley, Vatican I.

84 About the relevance of history as locus theologicus see Prodi, P., ‘La storia come luogo teologico’, Rivista di Teologia dell'Evangelizzazione xiii supplement (2009), 7–29Google Scholar.

85 In this connection, it is important to stress that, until the very last day before the fall of Rome, Pius ix believed that the Eternal City, and consequently its temporal power, would be preserved thanks to a miraculous intervention of God and the Blessed Virgin: Martina, Pio IX (1867–1878), 234–8, and ‘La fine del potere temporale’, 309–76. Moreover, according to Martina, even after the Capture of Rome, ‘molti continuarono imperterriti a sperare nel miracolo che avrebbe portato, presto o tardi, alla restaurazione del potere temporale’ (‘many continued to hope for a miracle that, sooner or later, would have led to the restoration of the temporal power’): ‘La fine del potere temporale’, 315.

86 Chadwick, History of the popes, 215–72.

87 Howard, The pope and the professor, 227.