“The Papal Conquest” (1909)

THE

PAPAL CONQUEST

ITALY'S WARNING –

“WAKE UP, JOHN BULL!”

BY

REV. ALEXANDER ROBERTSON, D.D.

CAVALIERE OF THE ORDER OF ST. MAURICE

AND ST. LAZARUS, ITALY

Author of

“THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ITALY”

“THE BIBLE OF ST. MARK” “VENETIAN SERMONS”

“FRA PAOLO SARPI” etc. etc.

“He that taketh warning shall deliver his soul.”–

Ezek. xxxiii. 5.

LONDON : MORGAN AND SCOTT LTD.

12, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C.

MCMIX

[1909]

CHAPTER I

Conquest Determined Upon

'Mr. Gladstone did not think she [the Papacy] was an enemy to be despised when he wrote his first famous pamphlet, The Vatican Decrees : for he tells us in his second pamphlet, Vaticanism (called forth in its defence against his critics, Newman, Manning, and others), that his very object in writing it was to put England on her guard against the Roman Catholic Church. He says : “My object has been to produce, if possible, a temper of greater watchfulness; to promote the early and provident fear which, says Mr. Burke, is the mother of necessity; to distrust that lazy way of thought, which acknowledges no danger until it thunders at the doors; to warn my countrymen against the velvet paw, and smooth and soft exterior of a system which is dangerous to the foundations of civil order, and which any one of us may at any time encounter in his daily path.” [Vaticanism, by W.E. Gladstone, p. 117.]

'In his Introduction to this second pamphlet (Vaticanism), Mr. Gladstone says : “It is, in my opinion, an entire mistake to suppose that theories like those, of which Rome is the centre, are not operative on the thoughts and actions of men. An army of teachers, the largest and most compact in the world, is ever sedulously at work to bring them into practice. Within our own time they have most powerfully, as well as most injuriously, altered the spirit and feeling of the Roman Church at large; and it will be strange indeed if, having done so much in the last half century, they shall effect nothing in the next. I must avow, then, that I do not feel the same security for the future as for the present. . . . Nor can I overlook indications which lead to the belief that even in this country and at this time, the proceedings of Vaticanism threaten to be a source of some practical inconvenience. I am confident that if a system so radically bad is to be made or kept innocuous, the first condition for attaining such a result is that its movements should be carefully watched, and above all, that the bases on which they work should be faithfully and unflinchingly exposed.” [Vaticanism, by W.E. Gladstone, p. 16.]' (The Papal Conquest, pp. 5-6).

CHAPTER XVII

The Military Invasion

'Some few years ago, here in Venice, I had much pleasant intercourse with Dr. Andrew D. White of Cornell University, and late Ambassador at Berlin of the United States of America. Speaking together one day of the Hague Conference of 1899, at which he sat as President of the American Delegation, he told me the following incident. The Conference had finished its work, and he was bidding farewell to the “House in the Wood,” when he found at its door, in a towering passion, a leading Roman Catholic diplomat who represented one of the great Catholic Powers. Dr. White said to him : “Step into my carriage, and drive home with me to dinner and unburden your mind.” He did so. The cause of his wrath was as follows :–

'When the Conference was being arranged for, the Pope claimed, as the world knows, to be represented at it, not only as a temporal sovereign, but as the world's great peace-maker, the representative on earth of the Prince of Peace. He moved heaven and earth to enforce his claim; but of course it was rejected without discussion, as the very idea of such a thing was out of the question. Had it been entertained, Italy would have refused to enter the Conference, and England, and probably other powers, would have done the same; hence the Conference would necessarily have been given up. However, at the closing meeting of the Conference, as Dr. White said, “to the amazement of all, and almost to the stupefaction of many,” M. de Staal, the representative of the Netherlands, handed a paper to the Secretary to read. It turned out to be a letter from his Queen to the Pope, in which she indicated that it was not the fault of her Government that he was not represented at the Conference. The paper also contained the Pope's reply, in which he magnified his office as the world's peace-maker, and reiterated his incontestable right as such to be represented. It was the Pope's letter with its mendacious statements and preposterous claims that roused the anger of this Roman Catholic Delegate, who, once seated in the carriage, delivered himself as follows (and now I am quoting, not from memory, but from Dr. White's Autobiography which he has just sent me) :–

“The Vatican has always been, and is to-day, a storm-centre. The Pope and his advisers have never hesitated to urge on war, no matter how bloody, when the slightest of their ordinary worldly purposes could be served by it. The great religious wars of Europe were entirely stirred up and egged on by them; and, as everybody knows, the Pope did everything to prevent the signing of the treaty of Münster, which put an end to the dreadful Thirty Years' War, even going so far as to declare the oaths taken by the plenipotentiaries at that Congress of no effect. All through the Middle Ages and at the Renaissance period the Popes kept Italy in turmoil and bloodshed for their own family and territorial advantages, and they kept all Europe in turmoil, for two centuries after the Reformation—in fact, just as long as they could—in the wars of religion. They did everything they could to stir up the war between Austria and Prussia in 1866, thinking that Austria, a Catholic power, was sure to win; and then everything possible to stir up the war of France against Prussia in 1870, in order to accomplish the same purpose of checking German Protestantism; and now they are doing all they can to arouse hatred, even to deluge Italy in blood, in the vain attempt to recover the Temporal Power, though they must know that they could not hold it for any length of time even if they should obtain it. . . . Their whole policy is based on stirring up hatred and promoting conflicts from which they hope to draw worldly advantage. In view of all this, one stands amazed at the cool statements of the Vatican letter.” [Autobiography of Dr. D. White, vol. ii. pp. 349-351.]

'That is the indictment of one whom Dr. White calls “an eminent Roman Catholic representative of a Roman Catholic Power.” And what a sweeping condemnatory indictment it is! In face of it, coming from the burning heart and lips of such a man, one feels that it is impiety or culpable ignorance to talk, as so many do, of the Pope being the Vicar of the Prince of Peace, and of the Roman Catholic Church as having a mission of peace and of goodwill to mankind. He is, on the contrary, the Vicar of Christ's Adversary, “The Prince of this World”; [John xii. 31, xiv. 30.] he is the “Beast” of the Revelation, to whom the “Dragon” gave “his power, and his seat, and great authority . . . to make war with the saints.” [Rev. xiii. 2, 7.]

'It will be noticed that this “eminent Catholic representative of a Roman Catholic Power” in his sweeping indictment says : “And now they are doing all they can to arouse hatred, even to deluge Italy in blood, in the vain attempt to recover the Temporal Power.” That was the Godlike work in which the so-called “Vicar of the Prince of Peace” has been engaged during the ten years that have elapsed since then; and that is the Godlike work in which the so-called “Vicar of the Prince of Peace” is engaged at the present time! Italy knows this to her cost; and it has often been brought forward in Parliament and in the Press, both native and foreign, by Italian writers. Ruggiero Bonghi wrote, in 1894, in the Nuova Antologia – and his words are equally true to-day – “The war is conducted by the Papacy; and since its commencement twenty-three years ago (now [in 1909] thirty-nine) it does not seem to decrease in vigour, and in precision of aim. . . . The Pope continues to fight fiercely to recover the Temporal Power.” [ Nuova Antologia, January 1894.] The Honourable Francesco Crispi said, in 1892 : “To-day he (the Pope) conspires; to-morrow, as king, he would openly treat with our enemies to the detriment of our national unity.” [The New Review, May 1892.] Mr. Gladstone again and again refers to it; and I have already quoted him as saying : “She (Italy) is the country whose very heart it is the fixed desire and design of the Roman Curia to tear out of its bleeding body, for the purpose of erecting anew the fabric of the Temporal Power now crumbled in the dust”; [Gleanings of Past Years, by W.E. Gladstone, vol. vi. p. 202.] and again, as saying : “that there is a fixed purpose among the secret inspirers of Roman policy to pursue, by the road of force, upon the arrival of any favourable opportunity, the favourite project of re-erecting the terrestrial throne of the Popedom, even if it can only be re-erected on the ashes of the city, and amidst the whitening bones of the people.” [The Vatican Decrees, by W.E. Gladstone, p. 50.] Again Mr. Gladstone speaks of “the venomous ambition of Curialism, determined to try another fall before renouncing its dream of temporal dominion,” [Gleanings of Past Years, by W.E. Gladstone, vol. vi. p. 201.] and Cardinal Manning, who incarnated the policy of the Vatican, fully confirms Mr. Gladstone's statements, for he declared to the late Rev. Hugh Price Hughes that he (the Pope) was willing to deluge Europe in blood, if thereby he could destroy the kingdom of Italy, and restore the Temporal Power. [Methodist Times, August 6, 1896.]

'Mr. Gladstone's “favourable opportunity” is, in the estimation of the Pope and the Church, at last fast approaching. The great prize, which they have kept steadily before their eyes ever since 1870, and to which everything else has been subordinated, and made subservient, is almost, they think, within their grasp. The Italian cartoon on this subject, reproduced [in this work], represents the Pope welcoming the [Austrian] Emperor Francis Joseph and his invading army, with the words : “Come on ! come on, my sons ! For thirty-nine years we have waited for you in Rome.” Another cartoon which I possess represents Rome as a luscious pear, hanging high up in the air, and the Pope climbing a ladder, held by the Emperor Francis Joseph, in the hope of plucking it. It is still, however, beyond his reach. Yet in this fixed determination of reaching it, we come upon the crowning reason, the impelling cause, for the Conquest of England. It is not the only reason, the only impelling cause, for, as we have already seen (Chapter II.), there are others. They want John Bull's gold. They want to regain a measure of prestige in the world, and they want to put down what they call heresy.

'England, then, is recognized as the great obstacle to the recovery of the Temporal Power. So long as England holds its place of intellectual, moral, and material supremacy among the nations, the recovery of the Temporal Power is an impossibility. Therefore England must be humiliated, must be subdued. And to effect this the thousands and tens of thousands of myrmidons of the Church, now scattered throughout the land, are not enough. These are working, as we have seen, to weaken, and deteriorate, and degenerate John Bull; but that is only preparatory work. They are but the sappers and miners sent in advance of a great army of another kind, which the Pope and the Church hope soon to land on our shores. That army of another kind is an army of soldiers, by whom, in co-operation with the enemy already in the field, and profiting by its work, the war will be fought out to the finish. As Mr. Froude long ago said, “it ended in blood before, and it will end in blood again.” [Short Studies on Great Subjects, by J.A. Froude, vol. ii. p. 178.] The Pope and the Church are saying : “Come on ! come on, my sons !” for they hope to complete the Conquest of England by means of a great Military Invasion.

'The nation seems now pretty well alive to the fact that a Military Invasion is impending. It is a strange thing that it did not become aware of this before. I believe that the Pope and the Church formed the resolution to bring it about, soon after the fall of the Temporal Power, in 1870, when, as we have already seen, a league was founded of all Catholics throughout Christendom for the restoration of that Power. And the fact was fully and clearly announced by the Church four years later. Cardinal Manning then said : “There is only one solution of the difficulty, a solution, I fear impending, and that is, the terrible scourge of Continental war, a war which will exceed the horrors of any of the wars of the first Empire. And it is my firm conviction that, in spite of all obstacles, the Vicar of Jesus Christ will be put again in his own rightful place. But that day will not be until his adversaries will have crushed each other with mutual destruction.” [The Tablet, January 24, 1874.] In the last sentence of this quotation, the Cardinal clearly refers to Protestant England being at war with some other Protestant nation, as he hopes, to their “mutual destruction.” Cardinal Manning's article appeared in January 1874; then in November of the same year appeared another article by another writer in another Roman Catholic periodical, called The Month, exactly expressing the same thoughts, but without hesitation mentioning England. The article impressed Mr. Gladstone very much, and twice he drew public attention to it, once in a letter to Lord Durham, and again in an appendix to his pamphlet on The Vatican Decrees. I quote from the latter. After speaking of the determination of the Church to restore “the terrestrial throne of the Popedom,” even by the use of fire and sword, he says : “Compare the recent and ominous forecasting of the future European Policy of the British Crown in an article from a Romish periodical for the current month (The Month, November 1874), which has direct relation to these matters, and which has every appearance of proceeding from authority.

“'Surely in any European complication, such as may arise, nay, such as must ere long arise, from the natural gravitation of the forces, which are for the moment kept in check and truce by the necessity of preparation for their inevitable collision, it may very well be that the future prosperity of England may be staked in the struggle, and that the side which she may take may be determined, not either by justice or interest, but by a passionate resolve to keep up the Italian Kingdom at any hazard.'

“This is a remarkable disclosure. With whom could England be brought into conflict by any disposition she might feel to keep up the Italian Kingdom? Considered as States, both Austria and France are in complete harmony with Italy. But it is plain that Italy has some enemy; and the writers of The Month appear to know who it is.” [The Vatican Decrees, by W.E. Gladstone, Appendix C.]

'Whatever difficulty may have existed when Mr. Gladstone penned these words, in recognizing who Italy's enemy is, there is none to-day. Italy's enemy is Austria. Austria, like the Roman Catholic Church, is Italy's “Eternal Enemy.” The two cartoons of which I have just spoken bear this out. Her whole policy, especially during recent years, has been one of provocation, and almost of unconcealed hostility. She has made military roads, built forts, and mined bridges, wherever her frontier is contiguous with that of Italy. When Italy was prostrated by the great earthquake disasters in Sicily and Calabria, and every civilized nation in the world was tendering sympathy and help, the Vienna papers said : “See how generous we are not to profit by this opportunity to make war”; and they boasted that the Emperor was with them in entertaining the idea. I have another cartoon, which represents the Pope and the Emperor Francis Joseph rubbing their hands over the catastrophe, the Pope saying : “Serves Italy right, she took from you Lombardy and Venetia,” and the Emperor replying : “Serves Italy right, she took from you the Temporal Power.” Pasolini never spake truer words than when he said that “Italy will always side with the enemies of Austria,” and that “the alliance of France, England, and Italy is the strongest guarantee for civilization, and the freedom of the world.” [Guiseppe Pasolini Memorie Racolte da suo Figlio, pp. 328, 332.] The Vatican looks to the Government of Austria, its bond-servant, to restore the Temporal Power; but, as we have already said, England blocks the way. Austria cannot move in the matter, either to regain Venetia and Lombardy, or to help the Pope to the Temporal Power, until England is humiliated. The Pope and the Church must first find a power to attempt this, find a power that will dare to make war upon England. And a serious war it will be. The Roman Catholic writer in The Month knew that when he said : “It may very well be that the future prosperity of England may be staked in the struggle.”

'Well the world knows – it has again and again been declared – that the Pope and the Church have found such a power in Germany, and that in the person of the Kaiser they have found the very man to inspire and lead the nation in this enterprise. Amongst his [the Kaiser's] great and varied talents, his boundless ambition and self-confidence which would lead him to undertake almost anything, he possesses, in quite a phenomenal degree, these two qualifications for the task – hatred of England and love of the Pope. I believe he stands unique amongst the rulers of the world in this respect; and it is the more strange it should be so, seeing he [the Kaiser] professes to be a Christian and a Protestant. Yet that he possesses, or rather, is possessed by, these two passions [hatred of England and love of the Pope], there can, I think, be no doubt.

'The Pope, as I have already had occasion to say, feels very much at home in the company of Venetians, and talks freely to them on most subjects. In this way the Kaiser and his strange doings form not infrequently a topic of conversation, or at least a subject of passing remark. Indeed, this can hardly be avoided, for his portrait is a prominent object in the Pope's rooms. Here it is on a table, there it hangs on a wall, yonder it is in an album; whilst on his breast, suspended on a massive gold chain, sparkles a magnificent cross, composed entirely of emeralds, a gift of the Kaiser to Leo XIII. When anyone noticing these things calls the Pope's attention to them, a smile of amusement lights up his face as he comes out with his favourite joke about the Kaiser, “Why, he is my best European friend!” The statement is a joke, and yet it is a literal truth. No Catholic fanatic in the world is more punctilious than he is in sending his homage and congratulations, and flattering speeches and presents to the Pope on his ever-recurring personal festivities, such as the anniversaries, the semi-jubilees and jubilees, actual or prospective, of the day on which he was born, or was christened, or became a priest, or began to climb the ecclesiastical ladder, or reached its summit and vaulted into the chair of St. Peter.

'No greater proof of the Kaiser's sympathy with the wearer of the triple crown can be given than the speech he made at Aix-la-Chapelle in his praise on the occasion of the last jubilee of Leo XIII. Part of that speech was the following : “It was with pride and joy that he was able to tell them that the Pope had said to his special Ambassador, who went to Rome on the occasion of the Holy Father's jubilee, that he (the Pope) had always kept a high opinion of the piety of the Germans, and especially of the German army; and the Ambassador was to tell his Sovereign that the country in Europe where control, order, and discipline still prevailed, with respect for the authority, and regard for the Church, and where the latter could live, was the German Empire, and for that the Papal See was indebted to the German Emperor.” [Daily Telegraph, June 21, 1902.] (The Papal Conquest, pp. 313-325).

'. . . The result of this unholy alliance, of this union in mutual love of each other and detestation of England, is that the Kaiser has become the willing instrument of the Pope and the Vatican for the humiliation of England, in order to [facilitate] the ultimate restoration of the Temporal Power. What Richard Bagot, the Roman Catholic novelist, wrote during the Boer War, in the number of the National Review for May 1900, holds equally true to-day, that “the whole campaign against England was due to the intrigues of the Vatican, which is working, as it has ever worked and ever will work, to promote and encompass the humiliation of England.” [The National Review, May, 1900.]

'Italy has long known that the Vatican has been egging on the German Emperor to invade England, and has for years warned us of our peril. She has done this with all the greater earnestness and persistency that she knows that her own turn will come next. She has told us that just as the naval and military preparations of Germany, carried on with such mad haste and to such an abnormal extent, are, in her opinion, directed against England : so the similar preparations carried on in the same spirit by Austria, are directed against herself ; and that, in the event of England's humiliation, Austria will at once, backed by Germany, attempt to recover Venetia and Lombardy; and then, as Dr. White's eminent Roman Catholic diplomat at the Hague said, Italy will be deluged in blood, in the attempt to restore the Temporal Power.

'I think that Great Britain is pretty well alive now to this peril against which Italy has warned us; and it would be an easy task for me to marshal facts in its support, to show, indeed, that the peril is very great and very near, as great and near, as I said in my opening chapter, as it was in 1690. Indeed, I have already written out these facts, but at the last moment I withhold them from a sense of the grave responsibility of publishing anything that might be construed as inciting to war. At the same time, there is less need that I should recount them, as many of them are now widely known, having been discussed in the British Parliament and in the public Press; and as Italy's interpretation of Germany's objective is very generally accepted by men of political complexions as the correct one.

'It has long been known in Italy, and Italy has warned England of the fact, that the original date fixed upon by the Pope and the Kaiser for the carrying out of their nefarious enterprise was 1911-1912. This date has been mentioned also several times in the British Parliament and in the Press. I am in possession of the reasons that led to the selection of this date. They are many and various, some touching Germany, others England, and Italy, and not a few having reference to the disaffected state of Ireland at our own doors, and of Ireland across the ocean. However, I do not intend here to enter further into them, all the more that the partial awakening of England to the danger of the situation has probably spoilt the project for so early a date as the one indicated.

'Still it cannot be too vividly recognized that it will not be the fault of Britain's enemies – in this case the enemies of Italy's unity and liberty also – if the scheme be not carried out later. Its prevention lies in the hands of England. Not long ago Lord Roberts, writing to General Sir Henry Rawlinson, said : “I am persuaded that before very long Englishmen will be called upon to defend themselves. I fear lest the hour of trial may find them unprepared.”

'It is for England, then, to rouse herself, so as, in the first place, to realize, clearly and fully, her peril; and then, without a moment's delay, to set about putting in force measures to ensure her safety and well-being; determined that, cost what it may, “the hour of trial” shall not find her unprepared. It is for England to realize that it is not only her own welfare and her own life, with all that these stand for of human liberty and progress, and of the spreading of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ throughout the world, that are at stake in the threatened conflict; but also the welfare and the life, with all their promise of blessing to mankind, of Italy, her most faithful and warm friend. If England is humiliated, so also will Italy be humiliated. The welfare of Old England and of Young Italy are in jeopardy. WAKE UP, ENGLAND!' (The Papal Conquest, pp. 327-330).

[In light of the above, the following quote is taken from the historian Sidney Bradshaw Fay's work, Before Sarajevo: The Origins of the [First] World War , Vol 1, 1928:

'The most valuable to the historian of all the Austro-Hungarian memoirs is the voluminous work of the Austrian Chief of Staff, Baron Conrad von Hoetzendorf (entitled, Aus meiner Dienstzeit [My Years of Service], 5 vols.; published Vienna, 1921-25). It consists in large part of an undigested mass of important documents of all sorts, copies of which he evidently took from the official files and published in chronological order, with a commentary of his own. It also includes conversations in dialogue form which appear to be taken from a diary kept from day to day. With extraordinary frankness, he recounts the repeated efforts he made to have Austria make war on Italy or Serbia on what he regarded as numerous favourable occasions between 1906 and 1914. In July, 1914, it was probably he, more than anyone else, who galvanised the incompetent and hesitating Berchtold into an active advocate of war against Serbia.']