A MEMOIR OF LOUIS DESANCTIS. IN TWO PAPERS. NO. I. F the many eminent men who have devoted the treasures of their eloquence and learning to expose the errors and contradictions of the Church of Rome, few have enjoyed so many rare opportunities of close personal observation, and turned them to better account, than the late Professor Desanctis of Florence. The Protestant controversialist never being allowed to penetrate into the inner churchlife of his antagonists, and still less to get behind the scenes in an official capacity, much of what he has to tell is necessarily derived from the pages of books or the purely external aspects of Catholic society; and his information thus lacks that element of freshness and reality which is necessary to enlist our sympathies. Viewed in this light, the testimony of a born Roman, who passed the prime of his days in an ecclesiastical atmosphere, filled high offices in the Church, and spared no pains to acquire a thorough understanding of the genius, history, and working of the Papacy, becomes from its very rarity more than usually valuable. A brief sketch of his studious and conscientious life, drawn from the most recently published sources and from personal recollections, will perhaps best show his claims on our attention. cal profession. He was hardly seventeen when, throbbing with pure and generous impulses, he took the decisive step which identified him with the Church. At that age he became a member of the Order of Camillists-a congregation of ecclesiastics affiliated with the Jesuits, and devoted to the relief of the suffering and distressed. His sentiments in forming a connection which lasted for twenty-two years will be best expressed in his own language,-"The down was hardly sprouting on my chin when I, a youth of warm fancy, assumed the clerical costume, trusting in good faith thus to benefit my native country, which I have always dearly loved, and which in my exile is, after God, my first thought. Persuaded that the gospel alone could confer happiness, I believed that in following the clerical life I should follow the gospel more closely, and so render myself useful to my country and to humanity; but very quickly I perceived my mistake.” After passing through the usual curriculum of theological study, he was admitted to priest's orders at the age of twenty-three, when his public life may be said to have commenced. Shortly after his ordination, we find him settled at Viterbo, where the native energy of his character soon found abundant scope for its exercise. The enthusiasm with which he plunged into every kind of Church work, whether pastoral or academic, and the ability with which he performed it, at once procured him a shower of honours, that showed the confidence his superiors already reposed in his personal character not less than the high place he already occupied in their regards as a scholar. Before he was six and twenty he was made a Doctor in Theology by the Roman University, and appointed Lecturer in Theo Louis Desanctis was born at Rome on the last day of the year 1808, in the parish of St. Sylvester and St. Martin. His father, Blaise, a respectable merchant, sprang originally from the Romagna, but had removed to the city, settled there, and married a Roman lady named Camilla Forzi. Louis, their first-born child, was so delicate at his birth that the attendant nurse, despairing of his surviving many hours, summoned a priest in all haste to baptize him. These anxious fears for his life were happily disappointed; and few who in after-logy and Philosophy in the house of his Order at Viterbo, years looked on his manly frame and massive Roman countenance could have believed that on the very threshold of existence he had passed through such a crisis. After the death of his mother his father married three times, and eventually had a family of twentyfour children to provide for. Though Louis had often a pretty hard time of it with his different step-mothers, he was comforted in his early troubles by the special marks of attachment shown him by his father. Himself a devoted son of the Church, Blaise Desanctis helieved that for his promising boy there was hardly any career in life to be compared with the ecclesiastical, and to this he seems to have taught him to look forward from an early age. That the views of the son on the choice of a calling coincided with those of the father, we may gather from the ardour with which, on the completion of his preliminary education, he embraced the cleri where, during a vacancy, he also filled the position of interim-superior. About the same period he received two marks of confidence, which were destined to exercise much influence on his future history. These were, the permission to confess, and the right to read the prohibited books. By the former the immoralities of Catholic life were disclosed in some of their grosser features to his amazed intelligence; whilst by the latter the primary germs of religious doubt were sown deep in his mind at the outset of his career. Thus, both on the moral and intellectual side, the events of his brief residence at Viterbo unconsciously placed him in an attitude that predisposed him for dispassionate inquiry. In the autumn of 1834 he was removed to Genoa, where he continued to give lectures in the house of his Order for somewhat more than a year. Toward the close of his stay the cholera broke out, and worked dreadful havoc among all classes. In the all but universal panic which ensued among the superstitious population, Desanctis was one of the few who retained his presence of mind, and displayed a courage that proved fully equal to the emergency. His official connection with an Order of clergy specially devoted to works of mercy would of itself have sufficed to bring him to the front on such an occasion, but when the stimulus of duty was reinforced by keen philanthropic instincts, it proved irresistible. Having offered his services to the authorities, he was attached to the temporary hospital of St. Bartholomew; and from the day it was opened until it was finally closed, he clung to his post with unflinching courage. Day and night he waited on the sick, and administered the last offices of the Church to the dying. Indeed, the fearlessness with which he exposed himself to the risk of infection not infrequently degenerated into recklessness, and repeatedly called forth the remonstrances of the physicians, who, even while they condemned, could not help admiring the lefty disregard of death displayed by the young Camillist. Unable to comprehend the character of a man who, to prove his opinion that there was no danger of contagion, wished to pass the night in a bed in which seven cholera patients had successively breathed their last, they must certainly have set him down as little better than a fanatic. The truth was, he had freely rendered his life as a sacrifice to God, and faith placed him above the fear of consequences. 66 But," as he himself says, "God refused to accept the sacrifice of his life, perhaps for the sake of saving him as an instrument of good to his countrymen in a higher field." On the disappearance of the deadly scourge, he felt so exhausted with his labours, that he found it necessary to apply to his superior for a period of repose. His request was granted in the most flattering terms, and in October 1535 he received permission to leave Genoa and take up his residence at Rome, in Santa Maria Maddalena, the seat of his Order. It was characteristic of this period of his life, that though modest even to the verge of shyness, he never held aloof from any useful or learned movement. Thus, during his residence at Viterbo, he became an Honorary Associate of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in that town; and before he left Genoa, the Academy of Rome had, at its general congress in 1535, appointed him corresponding member in the section of Philosophy. In like manner, no long time elapsed after his return to Rome ere he was admitted to the Society of Secular Priests of St. Paul-an honour reserved for "those who distinguish themselves by the zeal of their efforts for the salvation of men." In the spring of 1837 he was also enrolled a member of the Academy of the Catholic Religion, "in virtue of the learning and genius he had shown in defence of the doctrines of Catholicism." But none of the public appointments he ever held was fraught with such significant and far-reaching issues as his nomination by Pope Gregory XVI., in June 1837, to the office of Qualificator to the Inquisition. The description he gives of this office, in his notes to Roma Papale, will show its importance :-"The Qualificators of the Holy Office are theologians to whom are remitted doctrinal cases for the definition of their propositions. For example, an individual is imprisoned on religious grounds. If he has written or printed anything, the writings or books are given to the Qualificators, who, having studied them, make extracts of their statements, and pronounce them heretical, schismatic, or scandalous. If the accused has written nothing, the statements he has uttered are communicated to the Qualificators..... The judgment of the Qualificators is passed on to the Consultors, and afterwards to the Cardinal Inquisitors." From this period he was gradually brought face to face with the whole range of objections which have been levelled at the existence of the Church of Rome by those outside her pale. The contending theories of Protestants, Rationalists, and infidels were submitted to him from time to time for critical examination; and we can hardly wonder that his eminently upright and candid mind began to waver, on finding that the objections of the enemies of the Church were more easily heard than answered. We are not distinctly informed of the various steps in the mental process by which he was led to the conclusion he afterwards adopted; but from the nature of the subjects he was called upon by the Arch-gymnasium of Rome to study and refute between 1838 and 1842, we have enough to convince us that toward the close of the latter year a large breach had been made in the foundations of his received beliefs. It would seem that the Theological Arch-gymnasium has a regulation, in accordance with which one or other of the professors of theology is furnished every year with certain theses for examination, the replies to which are regularly printed and published. The course of discussion for these years covered the whole field of Scripture, theology, and Church history; and a single glance at the imposing array of propositions submitted to him for defence or refutation, is enough to show what effect the honest and unprejudiced effort to grapple with them must have had upon a mind like that of Desanctis. For instance, with what feelings must he have risen from the task set him in 1839, to prove "that Mosheim and other historians must be regarded as impudent slanderers, in accusing Gregory VII. of desiring to have all the kings of the earth subject to his control"? Or such a proposition as this: "That the Council of Constance did not teach that no faith was to be kept with heretics, and cannot be accused of having broken faith with John Huss and Jerome of Prague"? Or this: "That it is no violation of the divine precept to give only the bread to the laity"? Or, "That the mass is a true and proper sacrifice, that it is not necessary the people should partake of it, and that it need not be said in the vulgar tongue"? We can readily understand in general the damaging results of such a searching course of in vestigation, when conducted by a man of high capacity | remainder of his Roman career. He himself confesses, in in an honest and candid spirit; and we are consequently not at all surprised to learn that on making the attempt | to harmonize the decrees of the Council of Trent with the teachings of the Word of God, he was baffled outright when he reached the doctrine of tradition. From that moment, we are told, the case broke down in his hands, and he found it impossible to proceed. Yet, horrible as the discovery must have been to a devout soul suddenly to behold the ground beneath his feet thus sapped to its centre, he had some compensation at this juncture in lighting upon the key of the whole position. By discarding tradition, and basing his inquiries on Scripture alone, he at once rid himself of a monstrous incubus, and obtained firm hold of a clue which was certain in the long-run to lead to the soundest conclusions. That he was thoroughly conscious of this, appears from the account he afterwards gave of his experience in a letter written from Malta to Father Togni, SuperiorGeneral of the Camillists: "I gave myself to the study of the Bible; I compared the dogmas and the morality of the Bible with the dogmas and morality of the Church of Rome; and I was horrified to see how the Church of Rome has counterfeited these dogmas and falsified that holy morality, and for both the one and the other had substituted new beliefs and a new morality, not dictated by God for our good, but invented by man for his own interest. I then understood that there could be no hope of salvation in a Church so corrupt." The agony of doubt through which he passed in this mental conflict, was largely increased by the danger attending a premature declaration of his sentiments, even to his most intimate friends. In the silence and solitude of his own bosom he continued to fight his way out of the system in which he had been born, and around which all the most precious memories of life were entwined; and it was doubtless with many a bitter pang that, step by step as he advanced in his inquiry, he saw shred after shred of his old beliefs crumble to pieces under the subtle alembic of the Divine Word. But whilst this process of inquiry was going on, and long before it had reached its final stages, he found it necessary to seek an outlet for his pent-up anxieties in the devotion of his energies to pastoral work. Accordingly, in 1838, the year when his convictions received their rudest shock, he began to display an extraordinary activity in the practical work of the Church, and in particular to give special attention to pulpit ministration. Largely endowed by nature and education with every needful gift for becoming an accomplished speaker, he soon rose into fame as a preacher, and from this period, down to the year of his retirement from Rome, his services in this capacity were constantly in request. Now, for instance, he appears at the Church of the Conception preaching to the nuns; now to the prisoners in the Castle of St. Angelo; again to the inmates of the Monastery of St. Denis; then to the soldiery in the Church of the Stigmata;-and so on, all through the his preface to "La Confessione," the secret spring of all this energy: "For a long time I had been acquainted with the infamous frauds of the priests, and the attempts the popes had made against the gospel; but what was I to do? I did not possess the courage to declare myself openly; I should have exposed myself to the horrible alternative of falling into the hands of the Inquisition, or of abandoning my dear country; and in the one case, as in the other, I could be of no use to my compatriots. I chose the middle path. I remained in my country, and occupied myself wholly with popular preaching, in order to teach the people morality, and prepare it for listening to the truth of the gospel. The convicts in the galleys, prisoners, soldiers, and the lower classes of the people, were the elect portion of my apostleship; the unhappy and the ignorant seemed the most fertile field for sowing the gospel seed." His indefatigable exertions in this department did not escape the notice of the watchful heads of the Church; but as they had not as yet the remotest conception of what lay behind this unusual display of vigour, they naturally put a favourable interpretation on his conduct. S completely indeed were they in the dark as to its real causes, that at this very time, when his mind was literally seething with doubts, he was considered fit to be trusted with the delicate and responsible functions of a parish priest of Rome-a special letter of Gregory XVL being issued in February 1840, granting him a nomination to the incumbency of Santa Maria Maddalena, the parish church of the Camillists. The explanation given by Dr. Desanctis of the peculiar nature of the duties of this office throws a curious light upon the policy of the Papacy in the conduct of its internal affairs. The incumbents of the city parishes, besides attending to their proper spiritual duties, had certain others to discharge, not unlike those of a criminal officer. No arrest conli be made by the police without an information from the curé of the parish to which the accused belonged, the accusation lodged by him with the chief of police forming the ground of the criminal process. But before so grave a step could be taken, it was often necessary to verify to a certain extent the alleged offence on which the criminal information was to be founded, and this had sometimes to be done by the curé in person. From the difficulty of maintaining a strict incognito, this duty was sometimes attended with no little danger, and cases of priests coming to grief, who had been caught in the act of playing the spy upon the loose characters of the city, were of common occurrence. It speaks well for his prudence that, in the seven years' apprenticeship which Dr. Desanctis served to this degrading work, he never gave occasion to any one to molest him. Toward the close of 1841, being again worn out by his multifarious labours and harassing inward struggles, he asked leave to retire to the Jesuit Convent of St. Eusebius, to perform the "Exercises" of St. Ignatius. These consist of an arduous course of devotional duties, prescribed by the Jesuits to those who aim at an extraordinary degree of sanctity. This appears to have been the second time he paid a visit to the "House of Exercises." He had gone through the "Exercises" at an earlier period in his religious history, when, in the glow of youthful enthusiasm, he still regarded the Jesuits as the great pillars of the Church. On the present occasion he repaired to the convent with considerably altered feelings. Under the teaching of the Word of God the scales were beginning to fall from his eyes, and he now booked with a colder and more critical eye upon the distinctive features of Jesuitism. Still, it does not appear that the main purpose of this second visit involved anything more than a general desire to pass a few days of furlough in calm retirement from the world. It was not till somewhat later that he performed the "Exercises" | with the deliberate purpose of making a scientific analysis of the doctrines of Jesuitism. The circumstances which led to this third visit are invested with a more than ordinary degree of interest. It was impossible to suppose that the altered tone of a mind which was thus secretly working its way upward to the light, could altogether escape the notice of the authorities. His public duties were so numerous and varied, that however carefully he might stand upon his guard against the danger of detection, he must have found it no easy matter to steer quite clear of all suspicion. His very choice of subjects and style of treatment, his turns of expression and whole meutal posture, could hardly fail, as he became more pronounced in his views, to suggest grounds of suspicion to some of the more subtle and keen-sighted guardians of the faith. Yet it would seem that, as far on as 1843, confidence in Lis orthodoxy continued unimpaired, if at least we are entitled to build upon the fact of his appointment to the post of Censor Emeritus to the Roman Academy of Theology bearing date from that year. At length, however, some incautious political utterances drew upon him the observation of the Holy Office, and a legal process was immediately instituted against him. At the outset, things threatened to go rather hard with him, but eventually he managed, though with difficulty, to escape the stigma of official disgrace. In the account which he gives of the proceedings, he says:-" Although I belonged (involuntarily, however) to that tribunal, I could not escape a process and a condemnation. I was accused of having expressed sentiments disrespectful to the Pope, of not believing him to be the vicar of Christ, and of holding liberal tendencies. The anonymous accusations were received by Cardinal Lambruschini, who remitted them to the Inquisition, with orders to depose me from the office of parish priest, and banish me from the Roman States; and this sentence was to have been intimated to me before granting me a hearing, and without my being admitted to defend myself. Not the defender of the accused, who was a priest, but the lay fiscal, resisted such an infamous procedure, and procured me a fair hearing. I had not the baseness to deny the charge; yet neither had I the courage to maintain my convictions boldly: but by equivocating in my replies, and adducing the facts of my indefatigable labours in the pulpit and elsewhere as a foil to the accusation, I got the sentence of deposition and exile changed into an injunction, commanding me under penalty to refrain from speaking in future as I had done, with ten days' confinement in a Jesuit convent." The whole affair was so dexterously managed, that even the Jesuits of St. Eusebius, in whose convent he passed his term of imprisonment, had no idea of the real cause of his visit, but believed that he had come on this third occasion, as he had done previously, for purely religious purposes. But the compromise with conscience, by which he had managed to escape the tender mercies of the Holy Office, could not from its very nature long continue. In itself a temporary makeshift, dictated not so much by a pusillanimous regard for worldly consequences, as by the consciousness of his religious struggle not having yet worked itself out to mature and positive issues, it was destined to make way for a nobler and more resolute course of action, so soon as the growth of his convictions enabled him to determine not merely in what the truth did not consist, but in what it actually did. The process by which he was led to embrace evangelical principles being positive as well as negative, we can scarcely wonder that he needed time for the onerous task of thinking out for himself, with the help of his Bible alone, an entirely new form of belief. The wonder rather is, that, without one human soul to aid him in the work, he was able to arrive at such clear and shapely views of truth as we know he actually held. The moment he was able to put his foot down firmly on solid ground, his official position became intolerably irksome. Alluding to the pain it gave him to continue in a false position longer than he wished, he says in his fourth letter to Cardinal Patrizi: "One of the things which most afflicted me, particularly in the last period of my abode in the Church of Rome, was the frequent duty of saying mass. It is true I sought as far as it was possible to abstain from it, but my position did not permit me to do so always. In bending the knee to adore that bread, I suffered the pains of death, thinking that I was the cause of formal idolatry to the people. I prayed God to grant me pardon for a sin which I had been constrained by the difficulty of my position to commit." His mind being brought to take up this ground, all that he now wanted was a convenient opportunity to retire, without exposing himself to the risk of falling into the hands of the Inquisition. Whilst waiting the arrival of the favourable moment, he relaxed none of his exertions in the pulpit or in the study. Up to the last moment his zealous labours were rewarded by his chiefs with marks of their approbation. As late as 1847, Cardinal Micara appointed him Pro-synodal Examiner to his diocese of Ostia. Pius IX. is said to have preached once and again in Santa Maria Mad dalena, while on grave and delicate local questions he was consulted to the last by the leading members of the hierarchy. Certainly if Dr. Desanctis had been disposed to consult his worldly interests, to sacrifice the brilliant prospects which lay before him would have appeared little short of madness. But the element of personal religion was too closely complicated with the whole course of his theological inquiries to permit him | to settle down into a life of hypocrisy and selfishness. Nothing therefore could remain for him but absolute separation from the Church. The words which the great Florentine puts into the mouth of a penitent Pope in Purgatory, may with slight modification be taken to express the position and sentiments of Dr. Desanctis at this turning-point in his history: "La mia conversione, oime! fu tarda; Nè più salir potiesi in quella vita, I saw that there the heart was not at rest, The happy hour of release at length arrived in the autumn of 1847. Father Achilli, who had abandoned the Church of Rome some six years before, met at Malta in 1846 a gentleman named Lowndes, to whom he communicated information regarding Dr. Desanctis' state of mind. Mr. Lowndes visited Rome in the course of the same year, and had a conversation with him on the subject of his religious opinions. Nothing came of this inter view until the following September, when Mr. Lowndes paid Dr. Desanctis a second visit. The misery it had cost him to go on "bowing down in the house of Rimmon” having already passed all endurable bounds, he no longer delayed taking his visitor into confidence, but immediately divulged his intentions, and requested aid and advice in the emergency. His appeal was not made in vain. Without the loss of a moment, they agreed upon a safe and practicable route; and Dr. Desanctis having first put the affairs of his parish in order, packed up his most valuable papers, and obtained leave of absence from Cardinal Patrizi, took out his passport for Venice, and in company with his friend quitted Rome on the 10th of September 1847. He is said to have felt the wrench of separation so keenly, that he was obliged to keep his eyes pertinaciously closed, as he drove through the city gates, in order to overcome the temptation which at the last moment rushed upon him with wellnigh overpowering force, to leap out of the carriage and return. But he was happily saved at this critical moment from doing violence to his better judgment. The travellers arrived without accident at Ancona, where the friendly attentions of Mr. Moore, the British Consul, proved of the greatest service in expediting his final departure from Italy. Instead of continuing his journey to Venice, he secured a passage by an Austrian steamer bound for Corfu; and after saying his last mass at Ancona, and stripping himself of his priestly habiliments at the consulate, he stepped on board, and was conveyed in safety to his destination. No immediate prospect of usefulness presenting itself at Corfu, he left the island after a brief sojourn, and proceeded to Malta, where for a time he remained. T. T. C. |