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Pope Gregory XVI

The pontificate of Gregory XVI (1831-1846) was singularly infelicitous. Bartolommco Alberto Cuppellari, pope from 1831 to 1846, was born at Belluno on September 18, 1765, and at an early ago eutercd the order of the Cuinaldoli, among whom he rapidly gained distinction for his theological and linguistic acquirement. His first appearance before a wider public was in 1799, when he published against the Italian Jansenista a controversial work entitled II trionfo della Santa Sede, which, besides passing through several editions in Italy, was translated into several European languages. In 1800 he became a member of the Academy of the Catholic Religion, founded by Pius VII, to which he contributed a number of memoirs on theological and philosophical questions. When Pius VII was carried off from Rome in 1809, Cappellari withdiew to the monastery of San Michèle at Murano, near Venice, and in 1814, with some other members of his order, he removed to Padua.

Soon after the restoration of the pope he was recalled, wheie he received successive appointments as vicar-general of the Caiualdoli, councillor of the Inquisition, prefect of the Propaganda, and examiner of bishops. In March 1825 he was created cardinal by Leo XII, and shortly afterwards was intrusted with an important mission to adjust a concordat regarding the interests of the Catholics of Belgium and the Protestants of Holland. On the 2d February 1831 he was, after sixty-four days conclave, unexpectedly chosen to succeed Pius VIII in the papal chair.

A member of the Venetian Cappellari family (b. 1765) and educated in Ultramontanism, the new pope had been since early youth an advocate of papal infallibility (1786). He had not been a leader in the College of Cardinals and was not among the prominent candidates for the papal office. When the supporters of the two great rival candidates despaired of securing a majority for their respective favorites, the choice of Cappellari was made as a compromise measure. The election was hastened by the urgent appeal of Austria in view of the revolution that was breaking out in central Italy.

When Gregory XVI entered upon his fifteen years' pontificate, the revolution of 1830 had just inflicted a severe blow on the ecclesiastical party in France, and it seemed as if similar disasters to the papal cause were imminent in other parts of Europe. Almost the first act of the new Government of France was to unfurl the tricolor at Ancona ; and the immediate effect was to throw all Italy, and particularly the Papal States, into a state of excitement such as seemed to call for strongly repressive measures. In the course of the struggle which ensued, the temporal reign of Gregory was marked accordingly by executions, banishments, imprisonments, to an extent which makes it impossible for the candid reader to absolve him from the charges of cruelty and bigotry which were so frequently raised at the time.

The controversy with Prussia about the education of children of whose parents but one was Roman Catholic led to the imprisonment of Droste-Viscbering, archbishop of Cologne, and later of Dunin. archbishop of Gnesen-Posen; but the accession of the royal romanticist Frederick William IV. in 1840 brought a pacific reversal of the Prussian policy, sometimes judged more benevolent than wise. In France agitation was directed chiefly against the Jesuits, active in the movement to displace ancient local catechisms and liturgies by the Roman texts, to enroll the laity in Roman confraternities, and to induce the bishops to visit Rome more frequently. To check this ultramontane propaganda the government secured from the papacy in 1845 the promise to close the Jesuit houses and novitiates in France.

In Italy, however, lay the chief obstacles to the success of all papal undertakings. The revolution of 1830, though somewhat tardily felt in the States of the Church, compelled Gregory to rest his rule on foreign bayonets. In return he was obliged to lend an ear to the proposals of France, and above all to those of Austria. This meant opposition to all schemes for the unification of Italy. In 1815 the Italian peninsula had been divided into seven small states. Besides the government of the pope there were three kingdoms: Sardinia, Lombardo-Venetia and Naples; and three duchies: Parma, Modena, Tuscany. To these regions the Napoleonic regime had given a certain measure of unity; but Metternich, dominant after 1815, held Italy to be merely a geographical term. To its unification Austria was the chief obstacle; she owned Lombardo-Venetia; she controlled the three duchies, whose rulers were Austrian princes; and she upheld the autocracy of the king of Naples and that of the pope against all revolutionary movements. To the Italian patriot the papacy seemed in league with the oppressor. The pope sacrificed the national aspirations of his subjects to his international relations as head of the Church; and he sacrificed their craving for liberty to the alliance with autocracy on which rested the continued existence of the temporal power.

The policy of non-intervention in Italian affairs by France or other powers, proclaimed by Louis Philippe, left the Italian democracy free to engage in revolutionary proceedings. Two days after the election of Gregory XVI. (February 4), revolution broke out in Bologna and the Italian tricolor was hoisted as a declaration that the dominion of the pope was at an end. From Bologna as a center the revolution spread to other parts of Italy. An unsuccessful attempt was made (February 12, 13) to arouse the Roman populace to revolution, and a short time afterward outside revolutionaries approached close to the gates of the city. Powerless to pacify turmoiled Italy, the pope appealed to Austria, which was anxious for an opportunity to intervene in Italian affairs, and an Austrian army was soon in the field. The provisional government that had been established at Bologna by the revolutionaries was put to flight and most of the conspirators, including Louis Napoleon, were compelled to leave Italy.

By inviting Austria to aid in quelling the revolution, Gregory had incurred obligations to satisfy the demands of the Catholic powers for the reformation of papal administration in Italy. A papal edict (March 23) confirmed the lavish promises of reform that had been made by Bernetti, Secretary of State. The promised reforms not having appeared, the five great powers united in a memorandum of reforms thought to be essential to the maintenance of order in Italy. The reforms suggested embraced the admission of laymen to administrative and judicial positions, the leading of the communes through self-chosen counselors, the constitution of a body of provincial counselors, and a junta or administrative assembly of notables who should furnish a guarantee for continuity in the government. These reforms should not be limited to the districts threatened with revolution, but should be extended throughout the whole papal territory, including Rome.

Gregory exerted himself to the utmost to save the Jesuits of France, who had incurred the disfavor of Lours Philippe and his minister, Thiers ; but he felt obliged at last to acquiesce in their suppression (1845). Gregory is said to have practised a rigorous asceticism, sleeping very little and on the floor, eating the plainest food, and devoting much time to religious exercises. Filled with dark forebodings regarding the future of the papacy and of Italy, but consoled by the fact that the Romans were going wild over a favorite ballet dancer (" As long as my Romans applaud the appearing of a dancing girl, they make no revolutions"), he died June 1, 1846. The embarrassed financial condition in which he left the States of the Church also made it doubtful how far his lavish expenditure in architectural and engineering works, and his magnificent patronage of learning in the hands of Mai, Mezzofanti, and others, were for the real benefit of his subjects. The years of his pontificate were marked by the steady development and diffusion of those ultramontane ideas which were ultimately formulated under the presidency of his successor Pius IX by the council of the Vatican.