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The Kentucky Gazette
Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky
What is this article about?
London dispatch confirms an insurrection in Rome, described as potentially leading to the astonishing abolition of popery. The article reflects philosophically on the historical power and despotism of the Catholic Church, citing popes like Leo X and Alexander VI, and includes a quote on intellectual suppression near Rome.
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The news from Rome confirm the insurrection we announced. The abolition of popery would be one of the most astonishing revolutions of the present age. When we examine with philosophic attention this singular power, we cannot refrain from a sort of admiration—when we see that priests have been desirous enough to raise their despotism above that of kings, in order to dispose, without armies, without real power, of crowns and of treasures—when we recollect that Vatican, the asylum of policy, was also very well known as the palace of voluptuousness, and of libertinism; that Leo X., Alexander VI. Borgia, and his son Caesar, his daughter and his mistress Lucretia, governed the church and dictated laws to princes. We cannot conceive how such a domination should have subsisted so many ages; there is no institution of antiquity which can be compared to popery.
If the sovereign pontiff were reduced to the state of a simple bishop, the south would soon acquire that knowledge, which the north owes to the introduction of protestantism. It is very certain that the human mind has remained in a state of infancy in every Catholic state. This idea calls to my mind the saying of a celebrated Florentine physician, M. Fontana, to the president Dupaty. The Italian physician had made several curious experiments upon the singular animalculi found in the beard of a head of barley. The president proposed, that he should publish his observations.
"Alas! (replied the naturalist) when I think in the neighborhood of Rome I have not the courage to think at all."
August 28.
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Foreign News Details
Primary Location
Rome
Event Date
August 21
Key Persons
Event Details
News from Rome confirms the previously announced insurrection, potentially leading to the abolition of popery, viewed as an astonishing revolution. The report philosophically admires the historical power of the Catholic Church, its priests' despotism over kings without armies, and the Vatican's reputation for policy, voluptuousness, and libertinism, exemplified by popes Leo X., Alexander VI. Borgia, and his family who governed the church and dictated to princes. It questions how such domination endured for ages, unmatched by ancient institutions. Reducing the Pope to a simple bishop could bring knowledge to the south like Protestantism did to the north, as Catholic states stifle the human mind, illustrated by M. Fontana's anecdote to president Dupaty about lacking courage to think near Rome.