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Show THE VATICAN AND ITALY. . Cardinal Capecelatoro's Speech For Unity at Capua "Ultra-Clericals Stirred Up Disintegration of Italy Ita-ly and Restoration of the Pope's Temporal Power, They Say, Are What Italy Needs France Is Threatened. (New- York Sun.) Home, Feb. 16: The organs of the Triple Alliance have given, of late extraordinary ex-traordinary importance to a speech by-Cardinal by-Cardinal Capeeelatro on the love of country and the "reconciliation" between be-tween the Vatican and the Quirinal. With characteristic fathomless ignorance ignor-ance other journals ha-?e gone even beyond them. "Liberal" ideas, a vague and abstract humanitariaoism, the lack of positive direction, the preponderance of jihiloHophic theories over the care of material interests, make o! foreign pol-, pol-, ioies something indefinabt. It its a strange conjunction of Biometry and doctrinairism. Hence the excitement of mind, the enthusiasm in the presence of episodes in which "national" egotism ego-tism can be the sole rule of conduct. The Archbishop of Capua' speech, to which a higher importance is so generously gener-ously attributed, ia regarded at the Vatican as a mere literary exercise for the opening of the school year at the seminary. A delicate and elegant writer, ignor-em ignor-em of matters of general pcope. a prolific pro-lific biographer of saints, much more like Cardinal Bembo or Sadolet than like Leo XIII, librarian of the Vatican, for he hat; preserved his tapte for study. Cardinal Capeeelatro has nevr received receiv-ed a political mission from Rome. A friend of the late Father Tosti and a brother of a former Minister, of the Quirinal. he wishes for peace between the two power. Who does not pray for that great reconciliation! We all think of it; it ia the noble and sweet ideal dream that we find at our bed-Hidtrs. bed-Hidtrs. at the foot of the crucifix., at the oWk, in the long walks when ouj..inds embrace in a freer, wider gaze the outlines out-lines and the laws of affair. Leo XIII has made of it the central point of hie crovernment. Until 147 he had concentrated his J -ffortis upon peace with the powers, for the policy if peace seemed to him the guarantee for the re-overy of the c'tv. When, on the occasion of the Carolines affair, he signed with Herr von Bis-m?rck Bis-m?rck the end of the Kulturkampf, Leo NlII. in a celebrated speech, invited the Quirinal to reconciliation. The House of Savoy spurned the appeal. It instated thai abdication should be the price of the modus Vivendi. At that critical moment, at that turning point in the Pppal policy, Leo XIII was able to tee :nto the very depth3 of the question. He ame to a full sense of the real meaning of the government which has its seat in the presence of and in opposition oppo-sition to the greatness of the Papal Tiara. He learned beyond all doubt that "Roma Capitale" rests upon the alliance with schismatic England and with Lutheran Germany; that it owes .its life to the dualisms of Italy and the " ' Papal power; that the usefulness of the lbly See means the abasement of the House of Savoy: that the monarchy will not evacuate the Patrimony of St. Peter, save after a revolution or a disastrous dis-astrous war; in a word. Leo XIII became be-came convinced that the enjoyment of material conquest would be the price of peace, whereas the fundamental interests in-terests of the Papacy, the rights and pafetv of universal Catholicism demand inevitably that Rome shall be restored to the Pope as his base of action, the foundation of hi.- visible independence, the guarantee of his dignity and his prestige. The dwelling together of the "two halves of God" at Home presupposes the effa cement of the one. Neither the Jiojy fee, an 111 lei nd mnmi ui i the- monarchy, the keystone of the present pres-ent Government, could ftoop to such dependence. Either the Pope must abandon the Pacred pomaerium, bearing bear-ing with him in the folds of his white robe the liberty of souls and the respect for all rights, or the dynasty must withdraw to Florence, making of the independence of the Vatican the pedestal pedes-tal on which it may erect us future, its security and its greatness. After he this, Leo XIII gave up his dazzling dream. With his superior practical sense, jealous of the glory of the Holy See and yearning for the good, for the ideal and for peace, he looked about him for the conditions of an adequate policy. He found them in Christian democracy, that ancient treasure of Italy, where the politics of the people kept abreast with the Commune Com-mune system; that Government of liberty lib-erty and of overflowing life, that matrix of cisalpine civilization, that breeder ol riches, of art. of literature and of faith. The Italy of the Hundred Cities; the wonderful Middle Ages and the Renais-sanc1, Renais-sanc1, where individuality took undreamed-of development: the towns, each one of which has a history of its own. and has created a civilization, all th-se have formed the most attractive and most variegated country in the j worM. Did not these glorious realities H-i-ing from the local life as the flower from its stem? The provincial tendencies which are. marked in the North, in Sicily and everywhere, ev-erywhere, the contempt w hich the cities profess for each other, the pitiful results re-sults of the mathematically unitarian system, literature silent, industry failing, fail-ing, commerce disappearing, universal poverty wailing on every road, the I nameless, silent cV-cadence spreading like a pall are not these the signs of s,n inevertable evolution? Lp,, XIII, therefore, is building tip " egain the cellular process of the old democracy. So long as the 'organs live and breathe in the full national life, resurrections ar possible. Two facts jnaj be taken as certain: first, nothing wili modify the Pope's line of conduct, nnd, second. Home will see reconciliation reconcilia-tion only on tne day when circumstances circum-stances have removed from the City the monarchy and the Government. Home has the preatness of a supernatural superna-tural city, for it is the asylum of a ; cosmopolitan power. Cardinal Capecelatrf's speech, there fore, has no intrinsic significance. I do not care to go into the question of whether it is merely an isolated manifestation mani-festation or whether, as our adversaries pretend, it ooir.es within the category of events that are to bring about the triumph of the Triple Alliance against Fiance, either at the coming conclave or by bringing iiJto play the power of the Papacy. The anarchy that presses upon France, the contusion under which she is suffering, h.-.re awakened the wildest hopes. The hour has come, it is thought, when her f. .-tunes must decline and c nrieh with 1er rich spoils the States i which promise the Vatican to practise) a policy of fcivish cifis. It is not the I Holy See that is threatened; it is not! the Papal policy that is breaking up or I being transformed. What is aimed at is France. It is her position in the world, her rights, her interests. Senti- nels, be on your guard! t INNOMINATO. |