No Popery!

Chapters on Anti-Papal Prejudice

by Herbert Thurston, S.J., London, Sheed & Ward, 1930.

IMPRIMI POTEST SI IIS AD QUOS PERTINET VIDEBITUR
HENRICUS KEANE, S.J.
PRÆP: PROV: ANGLIÆ
NIHIL OBSTAT: EDUARDUS J. MAHONEY, S.T.D.
CENSOR DEPUTATUS
IMPRIMATUR: EDM. CAN. SURMONT. VIC. GEN.
WESTMONASTERII, DIE 19A MAII, 1930

CHAPTER IV
THE POPE WHO WAS A FREEMASON

ALTHOUGH the Freemasons rightly claim that Léo Taxil was expelled from their fraternity in 1881, three or four years before he made his submission to Rome, still he was undoubtedly a Mason, and fully recognised as such at the the time when he founded the Anti-Clerical and began the publication of Les Amours secrétes de Pie IX., with a crowd of equally abominable lampoons culminating in La Bible farce and its comic illustrations. Despite the fact that he had on several occasions, between 1872 and 1880 been prosecuted, mulcted in damages, and once at least been sent to prison, either for libellous attacks on the clergy or for his profanity in caricaturing Catholic worship, 1 the committee of the Grand Orient apparently saw nothing in this which called for animadversion. It was only when he contested an election against one of their own candidates that they took action and found it necessary to get rid of this insubordinate member whose indiscretions were compromising them. There can be no reason to question the authenticity of the congratulatory letters addressed to him in 18802 by various French Lodges after the publication of Le Fils du Jésuite, already referred to, under the ægis of Garibaldi. The leaders of the Grand Orient were thoroughly in sympathy with such attacks on the Church. Écrasons l'infâme was undisguisedly their motto, and l'infâme of course meant Catholicism.

The condemnation of Freemasonry by the Holy See is of ancient date. Twenty-one years after the foundation of the London Grand Lodge in 1717, Pope Clement XII by his Bull In eminenti forbade the Catholic faithful to join any such Masonic fraternities or to retain membership with them, under pain of excommunication. 3 How far the reasons assigned for this prohibition were justified will be seen later. Let it only be noted here that the condemnation was renewed by several subsequent Popes, and in particular by Pius IX in his Allocution Multiplices inter, delivered on 25th September, 1865. The Freemasons are an influential bdoy, and it is not surprising that both in the English and the Continental Press many violent articles were published expressing surprise or indignation at the renewal of papal hostilities. "Whatever can the Pope be thinking of," wrote The Times in a leading article, "to select this innocent and convival asociation for these tremendous denunciations?... It reminds us of Jupiter thundering in a clear sky, to witness these rattling thunderbolts let loose upon so unobstrusive a society as the Freemasons... We can only explain such an uncalled-for burst of pontifical wrath on the supposition that the Pope is profoundly ignorant of the circumstances of modern life and society."

Such language, one might retort, is equally inexplicable except on the supposition that the leader-writer was himself not less profoundly ignorant of the character of Continental Masonry. His appreciation of the aims and practice of the English Lodges was no doubt just enough, but the Grand Orients of France, Italy and Belgium were always and everywhere actively militant, and anyone who will take the trouble to look up the terms of their own pronouncements, as recorded in the early volumes of the Revue Maçonnique, the Monde Maçonnique, or the Rivista della Massoneria Italiana, will find that they identify themselves without disguise with the principles of the French Revolution, that they claim for Freemasonry the credit of having brought about that great cataclysm, and that they are openly pledged to the overthrow of the Catholic Church, and, indeed, of all forms of revealed religion. The Masonic periodical last named, commenting on this very allocution of Pius IX, proclaimed that the Pope was perfectly right. "To Masonry is due, if not as an organising, at any rate as an inspiring force, all, absolutely all, that has been effected from 1859 to our own days towards shaking off the moral yoke of the Vatican."4 Mazzini, Garibaldi, Lemmi and Pike, the dominating influences in the Craft during the third quarter of the nineteenth century, never made the least secret of the determined war they were waging against Catholicism and the Papacy. In these circumstances many of the fraternity found a peculiar interest in circulating the report that the author of the denunciations of the Multiplices inter had himself been initiated as a Mason, and indeed some, not content with this, went further and professed to furnish proof that he had been formally expelled from the Order for perjury after a regular trial.

The earliest reference which I have been able to trace in print to the supposed initiation of J. M. Mastai as a Mason is again to be found in La Rome des Papes by Pianciani published in 1859. It is characteristic of this writer that he practically contradicts himself in the statements he makes about it. On the one hand he declares that Mastai was pressed to become a Mason at Sinigaglia but was probably deterred by fear of excommunication, on the other he asserts that Crétineau-Joly later on discovered some Masonic documents implicating Pius and endeavoured to blackmail the Pontiff by threats of publishing them.5 However it may be with Pianciani, Vésinier and Petruccelli dell Gattina at any rate state unhesitatingly that Mastai joined a Masonic lodge. What is of more importance, T. Adolphus Trollope, who, as we have seen, rejects in emphatic language the charges of early debauchery brought against the Pope, believes that in this matter he has probably not been maligned. It has constantly been asserted [he says] and as constantly denied, that the young Mastai was a Mason. It is exceedingly probable, considering the complexion of the times and the liberalising tendencies of his then surroundings, that he did become a member of the order. Nor is there the slightest reason for deeming it any ground of censure that he should have done so; or for thinking that it is on that ground impossible that he should subsequently have looked at the matter from a papal point of view.6 The point, of course is that if Mastai, whether as lay Catholic or cleric, became a Freemason he acted in defiance of a most grave and perfectly well understood prohibition of the Church. If Pius IX as a young man had been the debauchee and the hypocrite that his enemies pretend, then his initiation as a Mason would be quite probable, but otherwise the reverse would be the case. Those who made this allegation were perfectly aware that such a lapse from the obligations of a Catholic would be fatal to the popular conception of Pius as an innocent lad who had consecrated his heart to God from early youth. As a result of this state of feeling, the assertion that Pius IX had been a Mason was indignantly contradicted by Catholics, while on the other hand many anticlericals were eager to discover documentary evidence which would place the allegation beyond dispute. As usual, the Pope's assailants were not wanting in audacity. The mere absence of anything that could be called evidence, did not deter them from circulating the most precise statements on the subject. It would be useless to multiply illustrations. Let the following sentence from a work published as late as 1880 serve as a specimen of the rest: "In 1805," says Lachâtre in his account of Pius IX, "Mastai had himself afiliated to a Vendita7 of the Carbonari at Macerata, and earlier still he had been enrolled among the Freemasons of Sinigaglia, where his name is entered upon the register of the lodge."8 None the less if we accepted all the statements thus boldly put forward we should have to believe that Mastai had been initiated a Freemasion half a dozen times over and in as many different places; which is not in itself likely. All the more keen then the desire among Masons themselves in their Masonic journals to produce unequivocal proof that the Head of the Church despite all his anathemas had been inconsistent enough to enrol himself at one time in their ranks.

Seemingly the earliest attempt to place the fact of Mastai's initiation beyond dispute was made in 1868. The Monde Maçonnique of Paris announced in February of that year that satisfactory evidence was forthcoming from Sicily which would be placed before their readers without delay. The promise was not redeemed until August, when it appeared that the evidence, such as it was, thought sent from Messina, referred not to Sicily but to Philadelphia in the United States. The account stated that Mastai "in the time of Gregory XVI" (sic), returning from a mission to Chile, passed through Philadelphia and being there initiated as a Mason was most diligent in attending the lodges. On one occasion in particular he delivered a speech containing the following sentences: "In truth it is from you, my illustrious brothers, that I receive to-day the true light. I have been up to this in the most dense fog. I am entirely convinced that Freemasonry is one of the noblest associations known to the world and I am proud to have been admitted a member." The extravagance of all this was too glaring even for the readers of the Monde Maçonnique. The simple fact was that Mastai on returning from his mission to Chile in 1825, seven years before Gregory XVI was elected Pope, came straight back from South America without ever setting foot in the northern continent at all. In the end inquiries were made in Philadelphia itself with the result that the Monde Maçonnique in February 1869 published the official replies received and declared itself satisfied that Pius IX had never been initiated as a Mason in Philadelphia. Other attempts to supply evidence followed, but all collapsed upon investigation. It would be futile to go into details, but one case perhaps merits special notice on account of the quite marvellous play of the imagination for which some individual must have been responsible.

Shortly after the death of Pius IX another Mason journal of Paris, the Chaîne d'Union, in its number for April 1878, printed a long letter from M. Lebrun, an architect and a Freemason, whom the editor declared to be a man whose veracity was above suspicion.9 M. Lebrun described how in the year 1865 he had been in intimate business relations with a certain M. Déforges, who declared that he had been "godfather" to Pius IX on the occasion of his Masonic initiation. Pius IX was then, as he alleged, in a cavalry regiment serving under Napoleon and in garrison at Thionville. M. Déforges supplied many details about the gay, not to say dissipated, life then led by Mastai. He further declared that after Mastai became Pope he (Déforges) paid him a visit at the Vatican and was well received. The Pope talked over old times with him and called him jocosely "mon petit lieutenant."

Needless to dwell upon the chronological and other difficulties which at once raised vehement suspicions as the trustworthiness of this narrative. Search was made in the military archives and it was found that J. M. Mastai had never served in Napoleon's army. Ultimately in the number for October 1878 (p. 371) the editor of the Chaîne d'Union admitted in express terms that Mastai had never served in a French regiment and, to use his own words: "Consequently Count Mastai Ferreti never formed part of the garrison at Thionville. This is the best proof that he was never admitted as Mason in the lodge of this town."

We may pass over the photographs (sold in thousands) which by a process of more or less ingenious faking professed to be likenesses taken of Pius IX as a young Abbé dressed in soutane and rabbat, but wearing at the same time a Masonic scarf with all its distinctive emblems. The contrivers of this unscrupulous fraud had evidently forgotten that long before photography came into use for taking portraits Mastai had been consecrated Archbishop and consequently would never have worn the particular form of ecclesiastical costume in which he was represented, even if he had been so crazy as to have his protrait taken in such a guise. It is, however, only right to mention that the Masonic journal Chaîne d'Union in 1885 (p. 367) strongly protested against the sale of these bogus photographs, fully admitting at the same time that they had beyond all question been produced by fraudulent means.

With regard to Sinigaglia it may briefly be said that when Pius IX was a young man, there was no Masonic lodge at Sinigaglia. Finally we may note that shortly after the publication of Leo XIII's antimasonic Encyclical Humanum genus another attempt was made to produce documentary evidence which would prove that Pius IX had himself been a Freemason. In an article in the Monde Maçonnique of Paris in 1885 a M. Léon Bigot professed to print the text of the diploma given to John Mastai Feretti by a Masonic lodge of the Scotch rite at Palermo in the first fortnight of August 1839. The moment the document was printed, its spuriousness was made manifest by a crowd of blunders and anachronisms which many of the Masonic fraternity were not slow to point out. Most glaring of all, in 1839 Mastai was Bishop of Imola (he was made Cardinal at the end of that same year), and his signatures in the registers and other official documents of the see showed that he had never quitted the town during the first fortnight of August when he was supposed to have been at Palermo. The forgery was completely and finally exposed in the rival Masonic journal, the Chaîne d' Union, already mentioned, in a long article of 1st October, 1885.

But the most remarkable and significant of all the happenings connected with the alleged Freemasonry of Pius IX was the "incident Floquet," as it may conveniently be called, which occurred when M. Floquet was President of the French Chamber of Deputies, on 11th December, 1891. A member of the Government, M. Fallières, then Minister of Justice and of Worship, was delivering a speech upon the pretended aggressiveness of the Frech episcopate. There was a question of a certain admonitory circular calling the attention of the Bishops to this and that, when one of the deputies interpolated a taunting remark asking whether the circular had been previously submitted for approval to the heads of the French Freemasons. M. Fallières retorted that the question had nothing to do with Freemasonry, and a tremendous scene ensued of which the first phases are thus recorded in the Journal Officiel. The President (M. Floquet) addressing the Right.

Surely you cannot be unaware that Freemasonry has been fully authorised for years past. What is more, it has numbered amongst its dignitaries many individuals who have belonged to your own party. (Protests from the Right. Hear, Hear, from the Left.)

M. Fallières. With your permission, gentlemen, I should like to say that this is a question upon which I can express no opinion seeing that I myself am not a Freemason. (Uproar.)

The President. Very well, I who am a Freemason —

M. le Comte de Bernis. I can't congratulate you —

The President. —am able to tell you that Freemasonry has been long ago been authorised. You know it perfectly well, you gentlemen who are making all this disturbance. (Applause from the Left.)

M. le Comte de Bernis. Authorised by whom? By you I suppose.

The President. It has in particular been authorised by Pius IX, who belonged to that body (Loud applause from all the benches on the Left and Centre. Protests from the Right.)

Monseigneur Freppel. That is untrue (C'est faux).

M. le Comte de Bernis. This is atrocious. It is an imposture. I defy you to prove it. (Loud exclamation from the Left.)

M. de Baudry d'Asson. It is abominable.

M. le Comte de Bernis. An unparalleled piece of insolence.

M. de Baudry d'Asson. It is an abominable lie.

M. le Comte de Bernis. Prove it. I defy you to prove what you have stated.

Mgr. Freppel. It is a calumny.
(Meanwhile round after round of applause is addressed to the President from the same benches.)
It is impossible to quote further; the scene was long protracted. The Right refused to allow the debate to proceed until the President explained his words. The President threatened penalties of obstruction and it seems characteristic of the methods of the Republican French Government that the first person to be "named," as we should say in English parliamentary procedure, was the Bishop of Angers, Mgr. Freppel, though to judge from the report, his attitude throughout had been perfectly correct and dignified. Member after member on the Right—M. le Comte de Mun, M. Paul de Cassagnac, M. Provost de Launay, etc.—rose to his feet, called upon the President to substantiate his words and declared himself ready to be called to order. "It is you, M. le Président, who ought to be called to order," ejaculated the Baron de Mackau indignantly. Eventually some sort of hearing was accorded to M. Fernand de Ramel, who spoke as an authority on procedure and who, addressing himself to the President, urged very forcibly: You have laid aside your character as President, you have taken part in the discussion and in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House you ought to leave the presidential chair and come down to the tribune to make your explanation. These protests were not without effect. The President seems to have murmered something about being exasperated beyond endurance, and also named the Grand Dictionnaire of Larousse as his authority for the statement made concerning Pius IX. That he could not have meant to insult the memory of Pius IX was, he declared, evident from the fact that he only attributed to him a quality which he was proud to claim for himself. This particular explanation was received with thunders of applause from the Left, but the futility of the logic is apparent when one reflects that by parity of reasoning it would be no libel for a married citizen to proclaim that the Pope had a wife and as many children as he had in his own family.

The inevitable result of such an incident was to revive the whole discussion. The old familiar stories were repeated, to be met with the same refutations. We are only concerned here to notice a challenge which in January 1892 was copied into several Italian newspapers and which had the effect of eliciting the following telegram addressed to the Secolo of Milan by Adriano Lemmi, Grand Master of the Italian Freemasons. In consequence of the article whic I read in No. 9252 of your Journal (7th Jan. 1892), and to put to an end to further wild talk, I ask you to publish the following statement.

On the 12th of December last, the Chancery of thr Grand Orient of France telegraphed to me to ask if I possessed any documents showing that Pius IX had been a Mason. The Chancellor of the Grand Orient of Italy, by my direction, replied in the following terms:

It has been constantly been rumoured that Pius IX had belonged either to the Carbonari or to the Freemasons, but no serious documentary evidence has yet been produced to show that he had been initiated in any of the Reunions (Vendite)10 of Lodges of Italy.

In this way it will be seen that all the insinuations of clericals and renegades fall to the ground.

Adriano Lemmi, Grand Master of the Italian Freemasons.
By the "insinuations of clericals" Lemmi presumably means the suggestion that the Freemasons wished to claim Pius IX as a member of their body, although they were well aware that no evidence existed of his ever having joined them. Finally, to our thinking, the most satisfactory proof of all, if further evidence is needed, is the fact that three times over, the question of the Freemasonry of Pius IX had been raised in the Intermédiaire, the French equivalent of the English weekly, Notes and Queries. The French journal, like the English, is read by a large number of literary people, interested in out-of-the-way scraps of information, and is rather anti-clerical in tone. On each occasion no serious attempt has been made to furnish evidence of the initiation of John Mastai. On the contrary, Freemasons of standing have written to declare that the discussions in Masonic journals had made the fact plain that no such evidence existed.

"It is now ten years," said a contributor, who described himself as a former member of the Council of the Grand Orient of France, "that this story has been in circulation, and surely it is a surprising thing that not a single one of the Pope's contemporaries [this was written in 1874 when Pius IX was still living], have come forward to say that he remembered meeting him in a Masonic lodge;" and then the writer goes on the describe in detail the utter collapse of every attempt to supply definite information. 11 To letters written to the Intermédiaire in this tone, practically no answer was attempted either on this or any subsequent occasion. 12 It does not seem too much to infer that this may be taken as a final decision of the question so much debated.

But even now this ridiculous calumny is still circulated. In 1922, there was published in London a pretentious work13 by Mr. Dudley Wright, who is now the editor of an English Masonic journal and who on the title page proclaims himself the author of several books dealing with Masonry. The numerous misprints and blunders which occur in the volume do not give a very favourable idea of the writer's level of education, but that does not prevent him from making many categorical statements as to matters of fact, which in almost every case are unsupported by any verifiable reference. After devoting some forty pages, almost entirely made up of extracts from contemporary newspaper attacks, to Pius IX's Allocution Multiplices inter (1865) against secret societies, Mr. Wright remarks: But strange to say, there is no doubt that Pius IX was himself a Freemason. His signature still exists in the books of one of the Italian Lodges of Montevideo. Shortly after his ordination Mastai Ferreti was sent as Auditor to the Vicar-General of Chile, and at one time it was believed that he was initiated into Freemasonry in that country. When in later years he was appointed Apostolic Delegate in Uruguay, he appeared in the Lodges as a fully qualified Freemason, and a writer in the Libertad del Pensamiento, a Madrid journal, in 1870, said that there was in existence in the possession of one whose name he gave (Soussingeas) a protrait of the Pope in Masonic regalia. Quite recently [!!],14 however, any doubt that may have existed on the question was put on one side by the discovery of the initiation of Pope Pius IX into Freemasonry in the Lodge Eterna Catena of Palermo on 15 August 1839."15 One migh have thought that Mr. Dudley Wright would have seen some slight improbability in the story of Mastai's initiation as a Mason at Palermo on the feast of the Assumption in 1839, seeing that at that date he had already been an Archbishop for more than twelve years.16 Even prudential motives ought to have restrained him from such an indescretion—for his handsome face was as well known as any in Italy—on the very eve of his promotion to the Cardinalate. But Mr. Wright knows more than this, and it will again be best to let him tell the rest of the story himself. In 1874 [says Mr. Wright] the Voice of Masonry published the following item of news:

"At the semi-annual meeting of the Grand Lodge of Masons, Scottish Rite, of the Orient of Palermo, Italy [sic], on 27th March last, Pope Pius IX. was excommunicated form the Order. The decree of expulsion was published in the official Masonic paper at Cologne, Germany [it seems a little curious that the Italian, or rather, Sicilian, Masons should go so far afield to publish their decrees], and is preceded by the minute of the Lodge in which he was initiated, and is as follows:

"'A man named Mastai Ferretti, who received the baptism of Freemasonry, and solemnly pledged his love and fellowship, and who afterwards was crowned Pope and King, under the title Pio Nono, has now cursed his former Brethren and excommunicated all members of the Order of Freemasons. Therefore, said Mastai Ferretti is herewith, by decree of the Grand Lodge of the Orient, Palermo, expelled from the Order for perjury.'

"The charges against him were first prepared in his Lodge at Palermo in 1865, and notification and copy thereof sent to him, with a request to attend the Lodge for the purpose of answering the same. To this he made no reply, and for divers reasons the charges were not pressed until he urged the Bishops of Brazil to act aggressively towards the Freemasons. Then they were pressed, and, after a regular trial, a decree of expulsion was entered and published, the same being signed by Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy and Grand Master of the Orient of Italy."

The King thus returned his compliments for the "major excommunication" which the Pope had sent him a few years previously "with the Pope's kindest regards." "It is difficult," said the Pall Mall Gazette in October 1874, "to see what retort Pius IX can make to this decree, unless indeed he has in reserve some still more formidable maledictory missile to launch at the Grand Lodge of the Orient. But in these days, unfortunately, a papal anathema is hardly as terrible as a Masonic decree."17
This is the sort of rubbish which, as a legacy from such shameless calumniators as Count Pianciani and Léo Taxil, is still served up, even in England, to the readers of The Freemason and The Masonic News, to which journals Mr. Dudley Wright has successively acted as editor. In Italy the campaign of slander conducted against Pius IX for more than thirty years found its climax in a peculiarly disgraceful outrage which marked the passage of the remains of that Pontiff to their final resting-place. It may be explained that it is the traditional custom on the death of a Pope that the body should be deposited temprarily for the space of some two years in the walls fo St. Peter's and then conveyed to the tomb prepared for it elsewhere, in this case the basilica of San Lorenzo fuori le mura. I quote the account of the incident sent to the Times by its Roman correspondent and copied in The Tablet for July 16th, 1881. Rome, July13. The hope, and indeed the general expectation, that the removal of the remains of Pope Pius IX would be effected in perfect order has been woefully disappointed. Upon whom rests the responsibility for the grave scandal that has occurred, I must, for the present, leave you to gather from a simple narration of the facts. A mere rumour on Monday that the body of the late Pope was to be removed completely absorbed public attention during the whole of yesterday. By 11 o'clock in the evening the streets from one side of the city to the other along which the cortège would pass were lined with people. All the most respectable part of the population, with their wives and families, were outdoors, and the Piazza of St. Peter's was crowded. In the corner close to the archway to the sacristy and the door called Santa Maria, a great number of persons with torches were assembled, but beyond that point no one was permitted to pass. A few minutes after midnight a funeral car, covered with splendid crimson velvet pall surmounted by a cushion, and drawn by six horses, came through the archway, preceded by a plain, closed carriage, and followed by four others, in which were seated those members of the Chapter of St. Peter's, and others whose official duty it was to consign the body to those waiting to receive it at San Lorenzo. As this simple cortège passed into the piazza the torchbearers I have mentioned, among whom were many ladies and even children, formed themselves in a line behind—a line which extended completely accross the piazza. The number of torches was estimated at 2,000. As the procession moved, those taking part in it chanted prayers for the dead, but it had scarcely proceeded half the distance to the Bridge of St. Angelo when the existence of a disturbing element became manifest. SOme men began singing popular songs in parody of the chanting and cries of an antagonistic and insulting character were raised. This, however, was but the beginning. As the cortège passed along the streets forming what is called the Strada Papale these excesses increased in violence, and I may state at once that they were perpetrated all along the route by a distinct group of persons who, as fast as they were dispersed by the police at one point, darted down the side streets and reappeared with increasing audacity further on. Their number has been variously estimated at from 40 to 100. Near the Piazza Venezia they made an attempt to extinguish some of the torches, and a momentary conflict took place. To prevent greater disorders, some troops were drawn across the ascent to the Magnapoli, but, proving insuffieient, the cordon was broken and the assailants tore along the Via Nazionale, heading the procession and singing "Garibaldi's Hymn." At the Piazza di Termini stones were thrown at the carriages. Here again the police endeavoured to form a cordon, but they were unable to stand their ground, but two companies of soldiers coming up, the Italian Riot Act, in the form of a peremptory legal intimation and three trumpet calls, was read, and the rioters dispersed, to reappear again in full force in front of the Basilica San Lorenzo as the funeral car came up. Here the scene beggars all description. The rioters, the torchbearers, and the people already assembled in the piazza there, were in a moment mixed up in a tumultuous mass surging round the car and between the carriages, the rioters howling and yelling, the women screaming, and the police striving with might and main to restore order. The legal intimation and the three loud trumpet calls were made, and the mob fell back for a moment to regain its ground as quickly. A sencond and a third time were the three trumpet calls blown before any clearance could be effected, and finally, after a determined struggle, the car was backed up to the iron gateway of the portico. The coffin was got out as quickly as its enormous weight permitted, and it was immediately rolled into the church, the doors were closed, and the funeral rites, which, with various official acts to be performed, were not concluded when I left the Basilica at four o'clock this mornign, commenced in peace. As might be expected, the occurence of such an incident was the signal for the outbreak of a flood of newspaper polemics. The anti-clerical journals sought to throw the whole blame for the disturbance on the ecclesiastical authorities, thoug some of them, unrebuked by the Government, wrote in such terms as these: "The carrion (carogna) of Pius IX... but for the bayonets of the soldiers and the revolvers of the police, would have been flung out of the hearse... The clericals were hissed and we applaud the hisses. We should have applauded even more loudly if the remains of the old booby (sciocco) had been thrown from the Bridge of St. Angelo into the Tiber." A few of the rioters were arrested and light sentences passed upon them. But every legal expedient was resorted to to impede the execution of even this modicum of justice. It was not until two months later that the final court of appeal was reached. In a long and reasoned judgment the Court exonerated the participants in the procession from all blame and confirmed the sentences. A full account of the disturbance was included in this statement which corroborates in all essentials the description of the Times correspondent quoted above. 18
1. In ch. VI of his Confessions d'un Ex-Libre Penseur other prosecutions are mentioned which are not noticed in Larousse.
2. See Les Frères Trois-Pointes, ch. I, where the text of some of these is printed.
3. It is a little difficult to see why Protestants should feel so aggrieved at this papal ordinance. The penalties inflicted by an excommunication do not affect them. The Pope does not address himself to them or attempt to lay any burden on their conscience.
4. Rivista della Massoneria Italiana, Vol. XVIII, p. 114.
5. Pianciani, La Rome des Papes, II, pp. 365-367.
6. Trollope, Pius IX, I, p. 10 note.
7. Literally "sale;" this was the name given to reunions of the Carbonari.
8. Lachâtre, Histoire des Papes (Edn. 1880), Vol. III, p. 351. The life of Pius IX is only found in this, the third edition.
9. He introduced him as "bon Franc-maçon et citoyen d'une honorabilité incontestable et incapable d'avancer un fait quelconque à la légère."
10. Vendite (sales) as previously explained was the technical name of the meetings of the Carbonari. Such pretended "sales" were the natural occasions when charcoal burners would come together to discuss their secret purposes.
11. See Intermédiaire, Vol. III, p. 702. 10 Dec. 1874.
12. See Vol. XVIII (1885), pp. 322, 461, 492 and Vol. XXIV (1891), p. 999.
13. Roman Catholicism and Freemasonry, London, W. Rider, 1922.
14. This "quite recently" gives an idea of Mr. Dudley Wright's trustworthiness. The Palermo story, as stated above, was exposed by the Masonic journal Chaîne d' Union in 1885.
15. Roman Catholicism and Freemasonry p. 172.
16. Imola, though a suffragan see, was regarded as a diocese of great importance, and its bishops were at that time almost invariably raised to the Cardinalate. Mastai had been made Archbishop of Spoleto in 1827, but was translated to Imola in 1832. He was named Cardinal (in petto) five months after the supposed date of his initiation as a Freemason.
17. Wright, Roman Catholicism and Freemasonry (1922), pp. 174-175.
18. The more important passages of the judgment are printed in The Tablet for September 10, 1881, p. 414.
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