Public Ledger

THE PROTEST OF PIO.
The Pope's Letter to the Cardinals
-He Complains of Infringements
of His Liberty—Interference with
Education.
The following protest, in Latin, has
been addressed by the Pope to each car-
dinal, and was distributed in the three
hundred vestries of Rome:
Pius IX, Pope.
Beloved Son, salutation and apostolic
benediction; our Lord Jesus Christ, who
humbles and elevates, mortifies and vivi-
fies (I Kings, chap. ii, ver. 6); scourges
and saves (Tobias, chap. xiii, ver. 12);
has recently permitted that this city of
Rome, the seat of the Supreme Pontifi-
cate, should fall into hostile hands, as
well as the remaining portion of the
Pontifical State, which the enemies had
for some time considered it expedient
not to usurp. Yielding to the impulse
of our fatherly love towards our be-
loved the Holy Roman Church, and see-
ing in them co-operators in our supreme
apostolate, we have this day resolved,
in our mourning and sorrow, to declare
to them, as is required by the duty of
our dynasty, and as even the voice of our
conscience urges us to do, the inmost
feeling of our soul, which makes us to
detest and publicly and openly to repro-
bate the state of things now existing.
We who, although unworthy and unde-
serving, exercise the power of the vicar
of our Lord Christ on earth, and who are
the pastor over the whole House of
Israel, find ourselves now practically
wanting that freedom which is abso-
lutely indispensable to us in order to
govern that Church of God and to main-
tain its rights; and we feel it is our duty
to issue this protest, which we moreover
intend to have published, that it may be
known, as it is proper that it should, by
the whole Catholic world. And when
we assert that the freedom has been
ravished and taken from us, our adver-
saries could not reply that this complaint
and this declaration are without founda-
tion. Indeed, any one who possesses
good sense will understand and
confess that having no longer that
supreme and free power in virtue of
which we enjoy the right of our civil
principate in the use of public means of
conveyance and in the public circulation
of letters, and being unable to trust the
government who has arrogated this
power, we are really deprived of the ne-
cessary and speedy way as well as of the
free faculty of treating the affairs which
the vicar of Jesus Christ and the Com-
mon Father of the Faithful, to whom his
sons so numerously come from all parts
of the world, must treat and administer.
This observation has again been con-
firmed by a fact within the past few days.
Persons going out of our Palace of the
Vatican have been searched by soldiers
of the new government, who wanted to
know if they were not carrying some-
thing under their clothes. A complaint
was lodged against this proceeding, and
the reply was it had been done by mis-
take, and an apology was offered for it.
But who can ignore how easily errors of
this kind can be repeated and lead to
others?
August city is threatened with a very serious
evil. Before long the academic
year will be opened at the university.
This establishment, which has heretofore
enjoyed exemplary tranquillity and
order, although about 1200 young men
are there assembled, being the sole place
where so many Christian and honest pa-
rents can send their children to be in-
structed without the risk of being cor-
rupted; this establishment, either on ac-
count of the false and erroneous doc-
trines which are now prevailing, or on
account of the enemies of those who
have been chosen to propagate them,
must fall, as will be easily understood,
into a state very different from what it
was. It was made known that the laws
in operation in Rome should remain in
their integrity and inviolability after the
occupation; but in spite of such declara-
tions, the parish registers are taken away
by force and examined, and it is not
difficult to guess that such in-
formation is therein searched
for as will doubtless be useful to
draw up conscription lists, and for other
ends which are easily imagined. It must
be added that attacks and offenses, in-
spired by the desire of vengeance and by
party spirit, are left unpunished, and
that a similar impunity is assured to the
authors of those shameful and unworthy
outrages with which our faithful bodies
of troops, who have so well deserved of
society and religion, have been loaded
to the great grief of all honest people.
Lastly, ordinances and decrees concern-
ing church property have already showed
the tendencies of the usurpers. There-
fore, against all those things already ac-
complished, as well as against those still
worse which are imminent, we intend to
protest in virtue of our supreme author-
ity, as we protest through the present
letter, by means of which we let you
know, beloved son, and also each of the
cardinals of the Holy Church, a brief
statement of those particular facts.
Moreover, reserving to ourselves to enter
more fully into the matter elsewhere.
Meanwhile let us fervently and inces-
santly pray Almighty God that He will
enlighten the minds of our enemies in
order that they may cease loading their
souls with the more and more overwhelm-
ing weight of ecclesiastical censures, and
provoking upon themselves the terrible
wrath of the living and all-seeing God,
whose arm nobody can shun. We, on
our part, pray the Divine Majesty, with
constancy and humility, imploring also
the intercession of the Immaculate Vir-
gin and of the Prince Apostles Peter
and Paul; and let us do so with the holy
confidence that we shall obtain what we
ask, because the Lord helps those who are
in tribulation who invoke him in sin-
cerity. Meanwhile, praying that Our
Lord Jesus Christ may bestow peace and
joy on thee, beloved son, we, from the
bottom of our heart, give thee the apos-
tolic blessing. Given at Rome, near St.
Peter's on the 29th of September, the
Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, in
the 25th year of our Pontificate.
Pius P. P. IX.