We are in agreement with the desire of workers to increase their income… [H]owever, we insist that most of this increased income should be derived from ownership of capital. Any other policy leads to the disorderly taking from the owners of capital the income which rightfully belongs to them. Our government increased this disorder by creating many economically unproductive jobs. Of course most of the funds for such jobs are derived from property and corporation profit taxes which further discourages ownership of capital by the majority of our people…. If property can confer dignity, material comfort, and security upon the few, it can do the same for the many…. We note the repeated affirmations by Popes Leo XIII, Pius XI, John XXIII, and Paul VI] of the natural right of all men to private property and their growing insistence upon the need for making ownership and its benefits serve the needs of all of God’s people…. We suggest that the perennial emphasis of the Church on the right of individuals to own [productive] property deserves reaffirmation at this time and that we should consider bold new steps to enable the vast majority of God’s people to become owners of property which will constitute for them a source of a second income. We maintain that this will help reduce poverty and to restore human rights and dignity to millions. [Des Moines, Iowa, June 19, 1968.]
The _Order of St Maurice and St Lazarus_ (SS Maurizio e Lazzaro), is a combination of two ancient orders. The Order of St Maurice was originally founded by Amadeus VIII., duke of Savoy, in 1434, when he retired to the hermitage of Ripaille, and consisted of a group of half-a-dozen councillors who were to advise him on such affairs of state as he continued to control. When he became pope as Felix V. the order practically ceased to exist. It was re-established at the instance of Emmanuel Philibert by Pope<b> Pius V. in 1572 as a military and religious order, and the following year it was united to that of St Lazarus by Gregory XIII. The latter order had been founded as a military and religious community at the time of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem with the object of assisting lepers, many of whom were among its members. Popes, princes and nobles endowed it with estates and privileges, including that of administering and succeeding to the property of lepers, which eventually led to grave abuses. With the advance of the Saracens the knights of St Lazarus, when driven from the Holy Land and Egypt, migrated to France (1291) and Naples (1311), where they founded leper hospitals. The order in Naples, which alone was afterwards recognized as the legitimate descendant of the Jerusalem community, was empowered to seize and confine anyone suspected of leprosy, a permission which led to the establishment of a regular inquisitorial system of blackmail. In the 15th and 16th centuries dissensions broke out among the knights, and the order declined in credit and wealth, until finally the grand master, Giannotto Castiglioni, resigned his position in favour of Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, in 1571. Two years later the orders of St Lazarus and St Maurice were incorporated into one community, the members of which were to devote themselves to the defence of the Holy See and to fight its enemies as well as to continue assisting lepers. The galleys of the order subsequently took part in various expeditions against the Turks and the Barbary pirates. Leprosy, which had almost disappeared in the 17th century, broke out once more in the 18th, and in 1773 a hospital was established by the order at Aosta, made famous by Xavier de Maistre's tale, _Le Lépreux de la cité d'Aoste_. The statutes were published in 1816, by which date the order had lost its military character; it was reformed first by Charles Albert (1831), and later by Victor Emmanuel II., king of Italy (1868). The knighthood of St Maurice and St Lazarus is now a dignity conferred by the king of Italy (the grand master) on persons distinguished in the public service, science, art and letters, trade, and above all in charitable works, to which its income is devoted. There are five classes. The badge of the combined order is composed of the white cross with trefoil termination of St Lazarus resting on the green cross of St Maurice; both crosses are bordered gold. The first four classes wear the badge suspended from a royal crown. The ribbon is dark green. Entry: ROYAL
In conclusion, a few words should be said with regard to the right of _veto_. In the 16th and 17th centuries the character of the conclaves was determined by the influence of what were then known as the "factions," i.e. the formation of the cardinals into groups according to their nationality or their relations with one of the Catholic courts of Spain, France or the Empire, or again according as they favoured the political policy of the late pope or his predecessor. These groups upheld or opposed certain candidates. The Catholic courts naturally entrusted the cardinals "of the crown," i.e. those of their nation, with the mission of removing, as far as lay in their power, candidates who were distasteful to their party; the various governments could even make public their desire to exclude certain candidates. But they soon claimed an actual right of formal and direct exclusion, which should be notified in the conclave in their name by a cardinal charged with this mission, and should have a decisive effect; this is what has been called the right of veto. We cannot say precisely at what time during the 16th century this transformation of the practice into a right, tacitly accepted by the Sacred College, took place; it was doubtless felt to be less dangerous formally to recognize the right of the three sovereigns each to object to one candidate, than to face the inconvenience of objections, such as were formulated on several occasions by Philip II., which, though less legal in form, might apply to an indefinite number of candidates. The fact remains, however, that it was a right based on custom, and was not supported by any text or written concession; but the diplomatic right was straightforward and definite, and was better than the intrigues of former days. During the 19th century Austria exercised, or tried to exercise, the right of veto at all the conclaves, except that which elected Leo XIII. (1878); it did so again at the conclave of 1903. On the 2nd of August Cardinal Rampolla had received twenty-nine votes, when Cardinal Kolzielsko Puzina, bishop of Cracow, declared that the Austrian government opposed the election of Cardinal Rampolla; the Sacred College considered that it ought to yield, and on the 4th of August elected Cardinal Sarto, who took the name of Pius X. By the bull _Commissum Nobis_ (January 20, 1904), Pius X. suppressed all right of "veto" or "exclusion" on the part of the secular governments, and forbade, under pain of excommunication reserved to the future pope, any cardinal or conclavist to accept from his government the charge of proposing a "veto," or to exhibit it to the conclave under any form. Entry: A
With the government of Italy his general policy was to be as conciliatory as was consistent with his oath as pope never to surrender the "patrimony of St Peter"; but a moderate attitude was rendered difficult by partisans on either side in the press, each of whom claimed to represent his views. In 1879, addressing a congress of Catholic journalists in Rome, he exhorted them to uphold the necessity of the temporal power, and to proclaim to the world that the affairs of Italy would never prosper until it was restored; in 1887 he found it necessary to deprecate the violence with which this doctrine was advocated in certain journals. A similar counsel of moderation was given to the Canadian press in connexion with the Manitoba school question in December 1897. The less conciliatory attitude towards the Italian government was resumed in an encyclical addressed to the Italian clergy (5th August 1898), in which he insisted on the duty of Italian Catholics to abstain from political life while the papacy remained in its "painful, precarious and intolerable position." And in January 1902, reversing the policy which had its inception in the encyclical, _Rerum novarum_, of 1891, and had further been developed ten years later in a letter to the Italian bishops entitled _Graves de communi_, the "Sacred Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs" issued instructions concerning "Christian Democracy in Italy," directing that the popular Christian movement, which embraced in its programme a number of social reforms, such as factory laws for children, old-age pensions, a minimum wage in agricultural industries, an eight-hours' day, the revival of trade gilds, and the encouragement of Sunday rest, should divert its attention from all such things as savoured of novelty and devote its energies to the restoration of the temporal power. The reactionary policy thus indicated gave the impression that a similar aim underlay the appointment about the same date of a commission to inquire into Biblical studies; and in other minor matters Leo XIII. disappointed those who had looked to him for certain reforms in the devotional system of the Church. A revision of the breviary, which would have involved the omission of some of the less credible legends, came to nothing, while the recitation of the office in honour of the Santa Casa at Loreto was imposed on all the clergy. The worship of Mary, largely developed during the reign of Pius IX., received further stimulus from Leo; nor did he do anything during his pontificate to correct the superstitions connected with popular beliefs concerning relics and indulgences. Entry: LEO
The entry of Crispi into the Depretis cabinet (December 1877) placed at the ministry of the interior a strong hand and sure eye at a moment when they were about to become imperatively necessary. Crispi was the only man of truly statesmanlike calibre in the ranks of the Left. Formerly a friend and disciple of Mazzini, with whom he had broken on the question of the monarchical form of government which Crispi believed indispensable to the unification of Italy, he had afterwards been one of Garibaldi's most efficient coadjutors and an active member of the "party of action." Passionate, not always scrupulous in his choice and use of political weapons, intensely patriotic, loyal with a loyalty based rather on reason than sentiment, quick-witted, prompt in action, determined and pertinacious, he possessed in eminent degree many qualities lacking in other Liberal chieftains. Hardly had he assumed office when the unexpected death of Victor Emmanuel II. (9th January 1878) stirred national feeling to an unprecedented depth, and placed the continuity of monarchical institutions in Italy upon trial before Europe. For thirty years Victor Emmanuel had been the centre point of national hopes, the token and embodiment of the struggle for national redemption. He had led the country out of the despondency which followed the defeat of Novara and the abdication of Charles Albert, through all the vicissitudes of national unification to the final triumph at Rome. His disappearance snapped the chief link with the heroic period, and removed from the helm of state a ruler of large heart, great experience and civil courage, at a moment when elements of continuity were needed and vital problems of internal reorganization had still to be faced. Crispi adopted the measures necessary to ensure the tranquil accession of King Humbert with a quick energy which precluded any Radical or Republican demonstrations. His influence decided the choice of the Roman Pantheon as the late monarch's burial-place, in spite of formidable pressure from the Piedmontese, who wished Victor Emmanuel II. to rest with the Sardinian kings at Superga. He also persuaded the new ruler to inaugurate, as King Humbert I., the new dynastical epoch of the kings of Italy, instead of continuing as Humbert IV. the succession of the kings of Sardinia. Before the commotion caused by the death of Victor Emmanuel had passed away, the decease of Pius IX (7th February 1878) placed further demands upon Crispi's sagacity and promptitude. Like Victor Emmanuel, Pius IX. had been bound up with the history of the Risorgimento, but, unlike him, had represented and embodied the anti-national, reactionary spirit. Ecclesiastically, he had become the instrument of the triumph of Jesuit influence, and had in turn set his seal upon the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the Syllabus and Papal Infallibility. Yet, in spite of all, his jovial disposition and good-humoured cynicism saved him from unpopularity, and rendered his death an occasion of mourning. Notwithstanding the pontiff's bestowal of the apostolic benediction _in articulo mortis_ upon Victor Emmanuel, the attitude of the Vatican had remained so inimical as to make it doubtful whether the conclave would be held in Rome. Crispi, whose strong anti-clerical convictions did not prevent him from regarding the papacy as preeminently an Italian institution, was determined both to prove to the Catholic world the practical independence of the government of the Church and to retain for Rome so potent a centre of universal attraction as the presence of the future pope. The Sacred College having decided to hold the conclave abroad, Crispi assured them of absolute freedom if they remained in Rome, or of protection to the frontier should they migrate, but warned them that, once evacuated, the Vatican would be occupied in the name of the Italian government and be lost to the Church as headquarters of the papacy. The cardinals thereupon overruled their former decision, and the conclave was held in Rome, the new pope, Cardinal Pecci, being elected on the 20th of February 1878 without let or hindrance. The Italian government not only prorogued the Chamber during the conclave to prevent unseemly inquiries or demonstrations on the part of deputies, but by means of Mancini, minister of justice, and Cardinal di Pietro, assured the new pope protection during the settlement of his outstanding personal affairs, an assurance of which Leo XIII. on the evening after his election, took full advantage. At the same time the duke of Aosta, commander of the Rome army corps, ordered the troops to render royal honours to the pontiff should he officially appear in the capital. King Humbert addressed to the pope a letter of congratulation upon his election, and received a courteous reply. The improvement thus signalized in the relations between Quirinal and Vatican was further exemplified on the 18th of October 1878, when the Italian government accepted a papal formula with regard to the granting of the royal _exequatur_ for bishops, whereby they, upon nomination by the Holy See, recognized state control over, and made application for, the payment of their temporalities. Entry: F
BENTIVOGLIO, GIOVANNI (1443-1508), tyrant of Bologna, descended from a powerful family which exercised great influence in Bologna during the 15th century, was born after the murder of his father, then chief magistrate of the commune. In 1462 Giovanni contrived to make himself master of the city, although it was nominally a fief of the church under a papal legate. He ruled with a stern sway for nearly half a century, but the brilliance of his court, his encouragement of the fine arts and his decoration of the city with sumptuous edifices, to some extent compensated the Bolognese for the loss of their liberty. Cesare Borgia (q.v.) contemplated the subjugation of Bologna in 1500, when he was crushing the various despots of Romagna, but Bentivoglio was saved for the moment by French intervention. In 1502 he took part in the conspiracy against Cesare, but, when the latter obtained French assistance, he abandoned his fellow-conspirators and helped Borgia to overcome them. During the brief pontificate of Pius III., who succeeded Alexander VI. in 1503, Bentivoglio enjoyed a respite, but the new pope, Julius II., was determined to reduce all the former papal states to obedience. Having won Louis XII. of France to his side, he led an army against Bologna, excommunicated Bentivoglio and forced him to abandon the city (November 1506). The deposed tyrant took refuge with the French, whom he trusted more than the pope, and died at Milan in 1508. Entry: BENTIVOGLIO
Isolated enterprises somewhat of the character of a Crusade, but hardly serious enough to be dignified by that name, recur during the 14th century. The French kings are all crusaders--in name--until the beginning of the Hundred Years' War; but the only crusader who ever carried war in Palestine and sought to shake the hold of the Mamelukes on the Holy Land was Peter I., king of Cyprus from 1359 to 1369. Peter founded the order of the Sword for the delivery of Jerusalem; and instigated by his chancellor, P. de Mézières (one of the last of the theorists who speculated and wrote on the Crusades), he attempted to revive the old crusading spirit throughout the west of Europe. The mission which he undertook with his chancellor for this purpose (1362-1365) only produced a crop of promises or excuses from sovereigns like Edward III. or the Emperor Charles IV.; and Peter was forced to begin the Crusade with such volunteers as he could collect for himself. In the autumn of 1365 he sacked Alexandria; in 1367 he ravaged the coast of Syria, and inflicted serious damages on the sultan of Egypt. But in 1369 he was assassinated, and the last romantic figure of the Crusades died, leaving only the legacy of his memory to his chancellor de Mézières, who for nearly forty years longer continued to be the preacher of the Crusades to Europe, advocating--what always continued to be the "dream of the old pilgrim"--a new order of knights of the Passion of Christ for the recovery and defence of Jerusalem. De Mézières was the last to advocate seriously, as Peter I. was the last to attempt, a Crusade after the old fashion--an offensive war against Egypt for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre.[57] From 1350 onwards the Crusade assumes a new aspect; it becomes defensive, and it is directed against the Ottoman Turks, a tribe of Turcomans who had established themselves in the sultanate of Iconium at the end of the 13th century, during the confusion and displacement of peoples which attended the Mongol invasions. As early as 1308 the Ottoman Turks had begun to settle in Europe; by 1350 they had organized their terrible army of janissaries. They threatened at once the débris of the old Latin empire in Greece and the archipelago, and the relics of the Byzantine empire round Constantinople; they menaced the Hospitallers in Rhodes and the Lusignans in Cyprus. It was natural that the popes should endeavour to form a coalition between the various Christian powers which were threatened by the Turks; and Venice, anxious to preserve her possessions in the Aegean, zealously seconded their efforts. In 1344 a Crusade, in which Venice, the Cypriots, and the Hospitallers all joined, ended in the conquest of Smyrna; in 1345 another Crusade, led by Humbert, dauphin of Vienne, ended in failure. The Turks continued their progress; in 1363 they captured Philippopolis, and in 1365 they entered Adrianople; the whole Balkan peninsula was threatened, and even Hungary itself seemed doomed. Already in 1365 Urban VI. sought to unite the king of Hungary and the king of Cyprus in a common Crusade against the Turks; but it was not till 1396 that an attempt was at last made to supplement by a land Crusade the naval Crusades of 1344 and 1345. Master of Servia and of Bulgaria, as well as of Asia Minor, the sultan Bayezid was now threatening Constantinople itself. To arrest his progress, a Crusade, preached by Boniface IX., led by John the Fearless of Burgundy, and joined chiefly by French knights, was directed down the valley of the Danube into the Balkans; but the old faults stigmatized by de Mézières, _divisio_ and _propria voluntas_, were the ruin of the crusading army, and at the battle of Nicopolis it was signally defeated. Not the Western Crusades but an Eastern rival, Timur (Tamerlane), king of Transoxiana and conqueror of southern Russia and India, was destined to arrest the progress of Bayezid; and from the battle of Angora (1402) till the days of Murad II. (1422) the Ottoman power was paralysed. Under Murad, however, it rose to its old height. To meet the new danger a new union of the churches of the East and the West was attempted. As in 1074 Gregory VII. had dreamed of such a union, to be followed by a joint attack of East and West on the Seljuks, so in 1439, at the council of Florence, a new union of the two churches was again attempted and temporarily secured, in order that a united Christendom might face the new Turkish danger.[58] The logical result of the union was the Crusade of 1443. An army of cosmopolitan adventurers, led by the Cardinal Caesarini, joined the forces of Wladislaus of Poland and John Hunyadi of Transylvania, and succeeded in forcing on Murad II. a truce of ten years at Szegedin in 1444. But the crusaders broke the truce, to which Caesarini had never consented; and, attempting to better what was already good enough, they were defeated at Varna. Here the last Crusade ended; and nine years afterwards, in 1453, Mahommed II., the successor of Murad, captured Constantinople. It was in vain that the popes sought to gather a new Crusade for its recovery; Pius II., who had vowed to join the crusade in person, only reached Ancona in 1464 to find the crusaders deserting and to die. Yet the ghost of the Crusades still lingered. It became a convention of diplomacy, designed to cover any particularly sharp piece of policy which needed some excuse; and the treaty of Granada, formed between Louis XII. and Ferdinand of Aragon for the partition of Naples in 1500, was excused as a thing necessary in the interests of the Crusades. In a more noble fashion the Crusade survived in the minds of the navigators; "Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus, Albuquerque, and many others dreamed, and not insincerely, that they were labouring for the deliverance of the Holy Land, and they bore the Cross on their breasts."[59] "Don Henrique's scheme," it has been said, "represents the final effort of the crusading spirit; and the naval campaigns against the Moslem in the Indian seas, in which it culminated, forty years after Don Henrique's death, may be described as the last Crusade."[60] Entry: 9
BERNIS, FRANÇOIS JOACHIM DE PIERRE DE (1715-1794), French cardinal and statesman, was born at St Marcel-d'Ardèche on the 22nd of May 1715. He was of a noble but impoverished family, and, being a younger son, was intended for the church. He was educated at the Louis-le-Grand college and the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, but did not take orders till 1755. He became known as one of the most expert epigrammatists in the gay society of Louis XV.'s court, and by his verses won the friendship of Madame de Pompadour, the royal mistress, who obtained for him an apartment, furnished at her expense, in the Tuileries, and a yearly pension of 1500 livres (about £60). In 1751 he was appointed to the French embassy at Venice, where he acted, to the satisfaction of both parties, as mediator between the republic and Pope Benedict XIV. During his stay in Venice he received subdeacon's orders, and on his return to France in 1755 was made a papal councillor of state. He took an important part in the delicate negotiations between France and Austria which preceded the Seven Years' War. He regarded the alliance purely as a temporary expedient, and did not propose to employ the whole forces of France in a general war. But he was overruled by his colleagues. He became secretary for foreign affairs on the 27th of June 1757, but owing to his attempts to counteract the spendthrift policy of the marquise de Pompadour and her creatures, he fell into disgrace and was in December 1758 banished to Soissons by Louis XV., where he remained in retirement for six years. In the previous November he had been created cardinal by Clement XIII. On the death of the royal mistress in 1764, Bernis was recalled and once more offered the seals of office, but declined them, and was appointed archbishop of Albi. His occupancy of the see was not of long duration. In 1769 he went to Rome to assist at the conclave which resulted in the election of Clement XIV., and the talent which he displayed on that occasion procured him the appointment of ambassador in Rome, where he spent the remainder of his life. He was partly instrumental in bringing about the suppression of the Jesuits, and acted with greater moderation than is generally allowed. He lost his influence under Pius VI., who was friendly to the Jesuits, and the French Revolution, to which he was hostile, reduced him almost to penury; the court of Spain, however, mindful of the support he had given to their ambassador in obtaining the condemnation of the Jesuits, came to his relief with a handsome pension. He died at Rome on the 3rd of November 1794, and was buried in the church of S. Luigi de' Francesi. In 1803 his remains were transferred to the cathedral at Nîmes. His poems, the longest of which is _La Religion vengée_ (Parma, 1794), have no merit; they were collected and published after his death (Paris, 1797, &c.); his _Mémoires et lettres 1715-58_ (2 vols., Paris, 1878) are still interesting to the historian. Entry: BERNIS