A History Of Christianity Part 12

Few in 1789 could have predicted that France would be the seat of revolution. It was western Europe's greatest power, its language spoken by elites everywhere. After the crus.h.i.+ng of the Huguenot uprisings in the first decade of the century, it was generally a less violent or excitable country than its otherwise not dissimilar rival Great Britain.74 Its weakness, however, in another contrast with Britain, was government finance. France had never established a proper national banking and credit system, and thanks to the centralizing impulse of its monarchy, failed to maintain a national representative body which could cooperate in raising revenue. This was disastrous even when France was victorious in war, as happened when the French supported Britain's former North American colonies in their War of Independence after 1776. Within four years of the Treaty of Paris recognizing the United States (1783), the French government faced bankruptcy, and it had no effective means of cutting through France's archaic revenue system. A run of terrible harvests and consequent famine inflamed the political temperature still further. An a.s.sembly of notables called in 1787 refused to help solve the financial crisis; so did an a.s.sembly of the clergy, who had jealously guarded their ancient right to tax themselves. However, the clergy raised the whole level of the argument by pointing out that their privileges survived from a time when all taxation had been levied with the consent of the feudal estates of the realm meeting as the States General. The clergy, or at least an idealized image of the good and conscientious Its weakness, however, in another contrast with Britain, was government finance. France had never established a proper national banking and credit system, and thanks to the centralizing impulse of its monarchy, failed to maintain a national representative body which could cooperate in raising revenue. This was disastrous even when France was victorious in war, as happened when the French supported Britain's former North American colonies in their War of Independence after 1776. Within four years of the Treaty of Paris recognizing the United States (1783), the French government faced bankruptcy, and it had no effective means of cutting through France's archaic revenue system. A run of terrible harvests and consequent famine inflamed the political temperature still further. An a.s.sembly of notables called in 1787 refused to help solve the financial crisis; so did an a.s.sembly of the clergy, who had jealously guarded their ancient right to tax themselves. However, the clergy raised the whole level of the argument by pointing out that their privileges survived from a time when all taxation had been levied with the consent of the feudal estates of the realm meeting as the States General. The clergy, or at least an idealized image of the good and conscientious cure cure (parish priest), became hugely popular nationwide - for the moment. (parish priest), became hugely popular nationwide - for the moment.75 The idea of reviving this representative inst.i.tution therefore met with great enthusiasm, and if Louis XVI and his successive ministers had been more adroit in using it, they might have carried out substantial reform without disaster. Unfortunately the King was not a decisive man. Having a.s.sembled the States General in 1789 after more than a century and a half in abeyance, he could not make his mind up on vital procedural matters. In an atmosphere of expectation and with a torrent of suspicions and grievances already released by the summoning of the delegates, he lost the initiative. On 17 June 1789 the 'Third Estate', those delegates neither clergy nor n.o.blemen, declared themselves a National a.s.sembly; they were soon joined by dissident clergy and n.o.blemen from the First and Second Estates. Further clumsy moves from the King increasingly destabilized the situation; rural France fell into turmoil. On 26 August 1789 the a.s.sembly pa.s.sed a Declaration of the Rights of Man, owing much to the American Declaration of Independence thirteen years before. It is worth noting what a break with the past this was, a high point of Enlightenment optimism: it was a declaration of rights, not accompanied by a declaration of duties. It took half a decade of mounting atrocity in war and revolution before duties were officially formulated.

It was still likely that France would develop a monarchy under a const.i.tution, a tidier version of the British system, but the religious question pushed events a stage further. The National a.s.sembly was as determined to reform the Church as everything else. Its plan was to create a national Church like that in England, but Catholic in doctrine and without the faults evident in the English Church. Gallican Catholics in France had long sought such arrangements, and indeed since the fifteenth century the monarchy had episodically done much to encourage such an outcome. Yet what was proposed took the most extreme form - it would be a national Church indeed, because bishops would be elected by the entire male population, including the newly emanc.i.p.ated Protestants and Jews.76 Church lands were confiscated, and the rural labouring cla.s.ses watched in growing anger as wealthy merchants, office-holders and former officials flush with compensation for lost jobs all used their cash to build up new landholdings. Church lands were confiscated, and the rural labouring cla.s.ses watched in growing anger as wealthy merchants, office-holders and former officials flush with compensation for lost jobs all used their cash to build up new landholdings.

The 'Civil Const.i.tution of the Clergy', pa.s.sed by the a.s.sembly in 1790, left the Pope with no power, merely a formal respect. The fact that its pa.s.sage paid no attention to what the Pope might think horrified many clergy who had gone along with reform so far. Recklessly the a.s.sembly forced all clergy to take an oath of obedience to the Civil Const.i.tution in January 1791. About half refused - and in the countryside that was particularly serious, because parish priests refusing were liable to carry their congregations with them. So now large sections of the population were cast as opponents of the a.s.sembly: a fatal moment for the Revolution and the Church. Resistance was much strengthened when the Pope officially condemned the Civil Const.i.tution that spring.77 The King, a devout Catholic, was increasingly identified with this opposition, and when he failed in an attempt to flee the country later that year, he was deprived of all power. The King, a devout Catholic, was increasingly identified with this opposition, and when he failed in an attempt to flee the country later that year, he was deprived of all power.

It was more or less inevitable as events swept on that the a.s.sembly should declare war on the traditional great powers of Europe, beginning in 1792 with the bulwark of the old system, the King's brother-in-law the Holy Roman Emperor. The Pope was one of those enemies: the lynching of a tactless Jacobin envoy in Rome, Nicolas Jean Hugon de Ba.s.seville, only cemented that impression in the minds of the government in Paris. War had a terrible effect on the Revolution. In 1792, spurred by provincial rebellions in the name of Catholic Christianity and the King, the State had begun large-scale executions of its aristocratic and clerical enemies in Paris. The numbers were at first small scale by modern standards of State terror, but they were horrifying at the time, particularly since they included nearly all available members of the French royal family, the King and Queen among them - the King died a week after de Ba.s.seville. At Nantes there were ma.s.s drownings of prisoners, beginning with priests, and the ma.s.sacres in the Catholic Vendee set standards for later European atrocities in dehumanizing victims in order to make ma.s.s slaughter easy and virtuous. Europe's first single-party dictators.h.i.+p in the name of the people had emerged. The awful tidy-mindedness of Enlightenment thought bred an insistence on everyone being liberated in ways defined by Revolutionaries - forcing them to be free, in a ghastly echo of Rousseau.

What was new about this regime - contrasting, for instance, with the austere enthusiasm of Savonarola's Republic of Florence or the nightmare popular kingdom of the Anabaptists besieged in Munster (see pp. 591-3 and 623-4) - was that the Jacobins, most extreme Revolutionaries of the French Republic, radicalized the snickering scepticism of French philosophes philosophes about the whole Christian message. They came to regard any form of Christian faith as a relic of the about the whole Christian message. They came to regard any form of Christian faith as a relic of the ancien regime ancien regime which they were destroying, though they had to acknowledge that the people on whom they were imposing liberty, equality and fraternity craved for some sort of religion. The Revolution which had begun with a sincere effort to improve the Church now sought to replace it with a synthetic religion, constructed out of cla.s.sical symbolism mixed up with the eighteenth century's celebration of human reason: the Christian calendar of years and months was abolished, religious houses closed, churches desecrated. which they were destroying, though they had to acknowledge that the people on whom they were imposing liberty, equality and fraternity craved for some sort of religion. The Revolution which had begun with a sincere effort to improve the Church now sought to replace it with a synthetic religion, constructed out of cla.s.sical symbolism mixed up with the eighteenth century's celebration of human reason: the Christian calendar of years and months was abolished, religious houses closed, churches desecrated.

Much of the violence against the Church exploded out of popular feeling, striking out at anything which spoke of past authority, but much de-Christianization was imposed by government decree, and it was particularly hard to create new public ceremonies for a manufactured religion that did not seem ludicrous. An opera singer posed as the G.o.ddess of Liberty (or Reason - her sponsors changed their minds) on a stage in Notre-Dame de Paris. She had novelty value but no staying power. When the coldly anti-Christian revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre tried to redesign and calm down the revolutionary liturgy, his efforts turned into a trigger for his own sudden march to the guillotine. 78 78 Although the campaign of active de-Christianization petered out by the end of the 1790s, the Revolution had served long-term notice that the inst.i.tutional Church and perhaps Christianity itself would be seen as an enemy of the new world. The Const.i.tutional Church was wrecked; this ally of the Revolution was caught miserably between the de-Christianizers and those fighting the Revolution. Although the campaign of active de-Christianization petered out by the end of the 1790s, the Revolution had served long-term notice that the inst.i.tutional Church and perhaps Christianity itself would be seen as an enemy of the new world. The Const.i.tutional Church was wrecked; this ally of the Revolution was caught miserably between the de-Christianizers and those fighting the Revolution.

As wars with all France's neighbours dragged on, the French people became increasingly disillusioned with their masters: the Church had been shattered apparently to no purpose, and, since before the Revolution it had a virtual monopoly on caring for the poor and helpless, the weakest suffered most by the destruction of Church inst.i.tutions. The most successful of the Revolution's generals, the Corsican Napoleon Bonaparte, gained more and more popular support, in contrast to the revolutionary government's waning popularity. It would have taken a man with no ambition to resist this temptation, and Napoleon did not. He staged a coup d'etat in 1799, and successive plebiscites, only partially rigged, gave overwhelming majorities to his a.s.sumption first of the Republican t.i.tle of First Consul and then of Emperor of the French. Right up to the final collapse of his extraordinary conquests in 1813-14, Napoleon continued to enjoy widespread support throughout France.

An astute politician as well as a brilliant general, Napoleon attached great importance to religion - not because he cared about it personally, but because he saw that other people cared about it a great deal. The Republic had made a gross error in attacking the Church. Now, if he was to unite France, he would have to come to an understanding with this inst.i.tution which so controlled human emotions. He would benefit not only in France but throughout the large areas of Catholic Europe that came to be under French rule. If Napoleon was to clinch an agreement to cover all these territories, he would have to approach the Pope. Accordingly, in 1801, he and Pope Pius VII reached an agreement or Concordat, the model for many similar deals between the papacy and a variety of governments throughout the world during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Napoleon said that its negotiation was the most difficult task of his life.79 This Concordat was important not simply for its extensive reorganization of the French Church in partners.h.i.+p with the State, but for its effect on the pope's position. The marginalization of the pope begun by 'Enlightened Despots' had seemed to be complete when revolutionary French armies arrested Pius VI and watched him die in French exile in 1799. Now the new pope was negotiating terms for the whole French Church, once so proud of its independence. The new structure of appointments and hierarchy among the clergy gave the pope much more power, a move which many lower clergy welcomed since it was likely to curb the powers of their immediate superiors the bishops. The Pope's new position was most effectively symbolized when in 1804 he agreed to be present at the coronation ceremony for Napoleon as Emperor in Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris: a curious reconciliation of the traditional Church with the new people's State, as Napoleon placed on his own head the crown which the people's armies had won for him. Nor was the Pope's usefulness over then: Napoleon prevailed on his new ally to discover a new saint of the Church, an ancient Roman martyr called with providential coincidence Napoleon, whose feast day on the Emperor's birthday, 15 August, usefully fell on that popular holy day of the Church, the Feast of the a.s.sumption of Our Lady (see Plate 39). Even after the Emperor's fall, the Feast of St Napoleon remained a rallying point for Bonapartists throughout the nineteenth century, a sore annoyance to those French Catholics who detested the Emperor's memory and wanted to concentrate on celebrating G.o.d's Mother.80 Napoleon had a genius for the public gesture. In 481 King Childeric, father of Clovis, the first Christian king of what became France, had been buried in what is now the city of Tournai. Childeric's richly furnished grave was rediscovered beside a Roman fort in 1653, becoming the subject of Europe's first detailed archaeological report. Among the many precious objects recovered were hundreds of little gold-and-garnet bees (some think that they were actually badly drawn eagles); they had probably decorated a rich cloak or horse-covering. Most of them disappeared in a burglary in the nineteenth century, but before that the bees caught Napoleon's imagination, and he adopted them as his dynastic emblem because he could thus identify himself with a French monarch who predated but had literally fathered the ancient Christian monarchy so recently destroyed by the French Revolution. The Bonapartes' bees could thus upstage the old French royal family's symbol of the fleur-de-lys; it was an adroit attempt to remould traditional Christendom, rather like the Concordat itself. Napoleon had grasped a truth which had eluded the Revolutionaries whose commitment to the Enlightenment spurred them to abolish the past: tradition and history had their own authority, which could become the ally of change, and at the heart of that tradition in western Europe was Christianity.81 Popular enthusiasm greeted Pius VII on his visit to Paris in 1804. That surprised everyone, but it was all of a piece with the fierce resistance to the Revolution in parts of France, and with the fury which had confronted the Emperor Joseph II's attempted monastic confiscations in the Austrian Netherlands. This was the beginning of a new era of popular Catholic activism, increasingly directed towards a charismatic papacy. The popular mood was only strengthened when Napoleon seized papal territories in Italy in 1809, and the Emperor effectively imprisoned Pius for four years. The papacy's sufferings at the hands of the Revolution transformed the Pope from ineffectual Italian prince to a confessor for the Faith, pitied throughout Europe. Significantly, even in Protestant England, centuries of anti-papal prejudice were weakened by sympathy for the enemy of England's enemy. Already refugee Catholic priests and monks had been welcomed to England as victims of the Revolution, something inconceivable before 1789.

A further catastrophe for the Church indirectly benefited the Pope. In 1803 all the ecclesiastical territories in the Holy Roman Empire ruled by prince-bishops and abbots were turned over to secular governance, and huge amounts of Church property confiscated; henceforth more than half of German Catholics were under the rule of Protestants.82 Often these prelates, secure in their ancient privileges, had shown scant respect for His Holiness. Now they were gone, and in 1806 the Pope also saw the end of that traditional counterweight to papal power, the Holy Roman Empire itself, when the Emperor Francis II remodelled himself as the Emperor Francis I of Austria. Without much public fuss, in 1814 the Pope reconst.i.tuted the Society of Jesus. The future of the Catholic Church was veering towards monarchy, as a result of the revolution which had aimed to overthrow all monarchs. This was one of the many paradoxes of the century between the downfall of Napoleon in 1815 and the outbreak of the First World War, the last century in which the fabric of Christendom might be said to be intact. Although that period was to bring further revolutions in both Western politics and consciousness, Christianity worldwide is still trying to make what it can of the Enlightenment, and of the French Revolution which was its unexpectedly violent experiment. Often these prelates, secure in their ancient privileges, had shown scant respect for His Holiness. Now they were gone, and in 1806 the Pope also saw the end of that traditional counterweight to papal power, the Holy Roman Empire itself, when the Emperor Francis II remodelled himself as the Emperor Francis I of Austria. Without much public fuss, in 1814 the Pope reconst.i.tuted the Society of Jesus. The future of the Catholic Church was veering towards monarchy, as a result of the revolution which had aimed to overthrow all monarchs. This was one of the many paradoxes of the century between the downfall of Napoleon in 1815 and the outbreak of the First World War, the last century in which the fabric of Christendom might be said to be intact. Although that period was to bring further revolutions in both Western politics and consciousness, Christianity worldwide is still trying to make what it can of the Enlightenment, and of the French Revolution which was its unexpectedly violent experiment.

AFTERMATH OF REVOLUTION: A EUROPE OF NATION-STATES.

In 1815 a combination of the Revolution's victorious enemies among the great powers of Europe confirmed the restoration of the senior surviving Bourbon as King Louis XVIII of France. Yet it is never possible to recreate the past. In two significant respects, the victorious allies did not try when they met at the Congress of Vienna to remap Europe. Since the Habsburgs no longer wanted their recently renounced t.i.tle of Holy Roman Emperor, it was not revived, and neither were any of the ecclesiastical territories within the empire - the only clergyman to regain his temporal jurisdictions (with a few subtractions) was the Pope in Italy. However effective governors the imperial clergy had been - and generally their record had been good - the Enlightenment had destroyed their credibility in government. Thus ended one component of Christendom which had been in place for a thousand years. For a century afterwards, Europe avoided a repet.i.tion of universal war, but when it came in 1914, it was to damage the concept of Christendom irreparably. During that hundred years, Western Christianity experienced both renewal and challenges to its faith and practice as fundamental as anything that happened in the 1790s.

Throughout Europe, the rhetoric of revolution and the traumas of war left in their wake new possibilities, particularly the possibility of ordinary people having a say in shaping their own destinies. As the industrial revolution based on steam power spread from its original base in Britain through economically suitable enclaves as far away as Russia, large populations were drawn to new manufacturing communities, which might grow as large as any traditional city. More and more people had the experience of building up their own lives without traditional resources of family or custom, though often amidst demoralizing poverty and lack of alternatives. It was a pattern which was to spread through the rest of the world and continues now. The movements of peoples, their conversations and the spread of ideas became all the easier because (beginning in the 1830s in Britain) the map of Europe was covered with a network of steam railways, the most spectacular leap in the speed of transport since humankind had first mastered horse-riding. There were far greater sudden lurches of speed to come. During the nineteenth century, first the electric telegraph and then the telephone made communication instant over long distances, at least for those who could pay for it. Now the history of Christianities, previously fairly easy to distinguish as three separate stories of non-Chalcedonians and Western and Eastern Chalcedonians, began to merge and interact far more closely.

The established Churches of Europe, and Churches throughout the world which sprang out of them, had to adjust to these new realities, to compete with new messages which the revolutionary years spread from the elegant tracts of philosophes philosophes into a much wider public domain. So much could not be unsaid: the French Revolution's slogan of 'liberty, equality, fraternity' could not be forgotten. The French National a.s.sembly had created a citizen army, whose soldiers were the State, and who therefore had a right to a direct say in it (some voices suggested that their wives might have the same rights). That implied a new type of politics, different from the traditional view of political representation which survived, for instance, in early-nineteenth-century British parliamentary life, where privilege, wealth or the possession of property was still the main qualification for having a voice in the kingdom's affairs. The French Revolution had overtaken a dynastic kingdom which had seemed as powerful as Britain, and with a far more coherent and ancient ideology of sacred monarchy. As a subst.i.tute, it had decreed into existence a nation-state, whose project was to replace a patchwork of jurisdictions, dialects and loyalties by a centralized government, a single French language to be spoken by all, and a shared sense throughout the population that this was the only way to live - the ideology known as nationalism. into a much wider public domain. So much could not be unsaid: the French Revolution's slogan of 'liberty, equality, fraternity' could not be forgotten. The French National a.s.sembly had created a citizen army, whose soldiers were the State, and who therefore had a right to a direct say in it (some voices suggested that their wives might have the same rights). That implied a new type of politics, different from the traditional view of political representation which survived, for instance, in early-nineteenth-century British parliamentary life, where privilege, wealth or the possession of property was still the main qualification for having a voice in the kingdom's affairs. The French Revolution had overtaken a dynastic kingdom which had seemed as powerful as Britain, and with a far more coherent and ancient ideology of sacred monarchy. As a subst.i.tute, it had decreed into existence a nation-state, whose project was to replace a patchwork of jurisdictions, dialects and loyalties by a centralized government, a single French language to be spoken by all, and a shared sense throughout the population that this was the only way to live - the ideology known as nationalism.83 This idea of a nation became the chief motor of politics in nineteenth-century Europe: varied struggles to create nations, where often no comparable political unit, common culture or ma.s.s consciousness had ever previously existed - and equally, varied struggles by surviving traditional governments to resist this process. For many in the nineteenth century, nationalism became an emotional replacement for the Christian religion. It might imitate the French example, but many of the lands which the French revolutionary armies had overrun in the 1790s gained a full sense of national unity through their resentment at this violation. On that basis, Belgium, Italy and Germany all built up national ident.i.ties during the nineteenth century, in the process also overturning ancient political structures. Their rhetoric of national resistance in turn provided a model for the twentieth-century struggles of non-European colonial peoples against the rule of those same nation-states.

Alongside nationalism was an economic revolution, which brought the struggle of a new elite against an old. The industrial revolutions were as important as the French Revolution in challenging aristocracies whose wealth and power were based mainly on land and agriculture. Even in pre-industrial France, the main impulse to overthrow the ancien regime ancien regime had come from groups outside the landed cla.s.s: lawyers, journalists, businesspeople, urban workers with specialist skills - what is clumsily but unavoidably called the middle cla.s.s. In the more decorous politics of Britain as much as in mainland Europe, middle-cla.s.s groups now sought to legislate into being political inst.i.tutions to give themselves voices in national affairs appropriate to their wealth and talent, at least to share power with the landed aristocracy. They aimed to create structures designed to reward ability and personal achievement rather than birth, and to gain the right to express their political and religious opinions as they wished. This was the politics of liberalism. had come from groups outside the landed cla.s.s: lawyers, journalists, businesspeople, urban workers with specialist skills - what is clumsily but unavoidably called the middle cla.s.s. In the more decorous politics of Britain as much as in mainland Europe, middle-cla.s.s groups now sought to legislate into being political inst.i.tutions to give themselves voices in national affairs appropriate to their wealth and talent, at least to share power with the landed aristocracy. They aimed to create structures designed to reward ability and personal achievement rather than birth, and to gain the right to express their political and religious opinions as they wished. This was the politics of liberalism.

Liberals looked to the Revolution's rhetoric of liberty and equality. It was not enough. The early nineteenth century was chastened by the memory of what had happened when Enlightenment ideals were put into practice, and that led to a general s.h.i.+ft in mood among western Europeans towards what was styled romanticism. People who cared about the restructuring of Europe in the wake of events from 1789 to 1815 respected the rationalism of the Enlightenment less than a new expression of emotion and a search for individual fulfilment. Romanticism became a major colouring for political movements in Europe, whether looking to the past or to the future. In a chastened age after Napoleon's fall, it provided multiple opportunities for Europeans to posture. Fraternity, the third element of the revolutionary trinity, became the watchword of groups who envisaged a brotherhood of all oppressed people against both old and new oppression, confronting both Europe's surviving monarchical pattern and the newly wealthy elites of the industrial revolution. Quite suddenly in the 1830s, radical politics in Britain and France acquired a new word: 'socialism'.

'Socialists' a.s.serted that without the distortions of inequality or poverty, people would naturally behave to one another as brothers (once more, sisters were not then greatly considered). This was a restatement of Enlightenment optimism, but socialists often sought to co-opt the love ethic of Jesus Christ and occasionally even of his Church, though generally in the face of deep lack of sympathy from Church hierarchies.84 Robert Owen, one of the chief personalities in the movement, who from 1816 turned theory into remarkably productive practice in his New Lanark cotton mills in Scotland, detested established Churches, but he certainly did not lack religious seriousness, which included his own fervent belief in an age of human perfection to come. Robert Owen, one of the chief personalities in the movement, who from 1816 turned theory into remarkably productive practice in his New Lanark cotton mills in Scotland, detested established Churches, but he certainly did not lack religious seriousness, which included his own fervent belief in an age of human perfection to come.85 Sometimes those who admired Owen's commitment to social engineering rejected the industrial society which he had embraced, channelling their efforts into setting up new agriculturally based communities which would not be tainted by industrial misery. The favoured destination was North America, where Owen's export of his proto-socialism had been defeated by the st.u.r.dy individualism of the people of Indiana. In America, there was available land (discounting the Native American population) and, among immigrants, none of the social inequalities of Europe. Such efforts usually ended in failure, like Owen's own ill-starred venture across the Atlantic, and could easily be dismissed as romantic and backward-looking. Not surprisingly, the hard-pressed governments of early-nineteenth-century Europe felt that such groups were less of a threat to their survival than the more radical forms of liberalism. Sometimes those who admired Owen's commitment to social engineering rejected the industrial society which he had embraced, channelling their efforts into setting up new agriculturally based communities which would not be tainted by industrial misery. The favoured destination was North America, where Owen's export of his proto-socialism had been defeated by the st.u.r.dy individualism of the people of Indiana. In America, there was available land (discounting the Native American population) and, among immigrants, none of the social inequalities of Europe. Such efforts usually ended in failure, like Owen's own ill-starred venture across the Atlantic, and could easily be dismissed as romantic and backward-looking. Not surprisingly, the hard-pressed governments of early-nineteenth-century Europe felt that such groups were less of a threat to their survival than the more radical forms of liberalism.

This was a mistake: a new generation of theorists transformed socialism. In France, Louis Blanc presented a vision of a national state run by the people to implement socialist policies, and he became a member of the brief and fragile revolutionary 'Second Republic' regime of 1848, which almost gave him a chance to see what the reality might be. In the 1840s Friedrich Engels used his personal connections with English industry to construct an accurate description of the social injustice of contemporary English society, going on to identify both cause and solution in cla.s.s conflict. His friend Karl Marx applied to socialist ideas and rhetoric a newly rigorous system and a philosophy of both the past and the future. The latter, a vision of the inevitable consummation in what he termed the dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat, was no less a prophetic and apocalyptic vision than anything that Christianity had produced in its two millennia.

Yet while Marx prophesied in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, what was distinctive about this new phase of socialism was its commitment to materialism and rejection of religions of revelation. This echoed one of the greatest influences on Marx: the rejection of religious consciousness in the writings of Ludwig Feuerbach (see p. 833). As early as 1844, Marx was writing of the need to abolish religion, since it was a distraction from the task of freeing workers from their burdens. When he and Engels took over a socialist organization called the League of the Just in 1847, they changed its name to the League of Communists and its slogan from 'All men are Brothers' to 'Proletarians of all Countries - Unite!'86 Henceforth, the growing proportion of socialists looking to Marx's prophetic scheme of the future regarded Christianity as an obstacle rather than an ally in their confrontation alike with liberalism, nationalism and the remains of the Henceforth, the growing proportion of socialists looking to Marx's prophetic scheme of the future regarded Christianity as an obstacle rather than an ally in their confrontation alike with liberalism, nationalism and the remains of the ancien regime ancien regime. Christians must now decide who were their enemies indeed.

22.

Europe Re-enchanted or Disenchanted? (1815-1914) CATHOLICISM ASCENDANT: MARY'S TRIUMPH AND THE CHALLENGE OF LIBERALISM The European Churches had many different responses to the traumas of the revolutionary wars and the eventual defeat of Napoleon. Up to the great convulsions after the First World War, virtually everywhere in Europe still had an established Church whose establishment owed itself to an equally long-established monarchy. As a result, anyone opposing or seeking to curb the power of such monarchies was liable to regard the Church as an enemy. Yet complications arose in countries of multiple religions, and, wherever a grouping with a common culture and language ruled by an external power adhered for the most part to one Church, that Church was likely to become the focus for nationalist self-a.s.sertion. The situation was still more complex where both sides owed allegiance to Roman Catholicism.

One underlying structural consideration was that in Western Churches, whether Catholic or Protestant, a large proportion of the clerical leaders.h.i.+p had always been drawn from the able rather than the well born, unusually among the inst.i.tutions of traditional society. Now that prince-bishops, abbacies and cathedral chapters stuffed with aristocratic dimwits had been swept away from the Catholic Church in the former Holy Roman Empire, this became even more obviously the case. In the long term, such a s.h.i.+ft in clerical leaders.h.i.+p, in parallel with the growing professionalization of secular government and bureaucracy in Europe, was going to produce a predisposition to liberalism in Western Christianity, but in Roman Catholicism its immediate effect was to strengthen the growing concentration of power and emotional loyalty in the papacy, as clergy turned from their traditional aristocratic leaders to the ultimate patron in Rome.

The movement embodying this mood had long borne the name of ultramontanism, deriving its image of 'looking beyond the mountains' from the perspective of people in northern Europe, caught up in papacy's great medieval conflicts with the Holy Roman Empire. 'Ultramontanes' were thus those who looked across the Alps to Italy, reverencing the pope's authority. It contrasted with those localist moods in Catholicism such as Gallicanism in France, which had not sought leaders.h.i.+p across the Alps in Rome, and which looked first to their own resources. Ultramontanism is often seen as a conservative force in the Church, but after 1815 it represented innovation and the prospect of Church reconstruction and revival, albeit of a particular type. The papacy was now Europe's last elective monarchy. As such, the pope was a symbol of the old world, but he also embodied a form of centralizing Catholicism so old as to seem new: ultramontanism revived the ambitions of Gregory VII and Innocent III centuries before. Papal power continued to sit uneasily alongside that of Europe's royal dynasties. These monarchs sought to maintain their inherited positions with the aid of the Church. They generally negotiated concordats with Rome in the style of Napoleon, giving them many opportunities to interfere in Church affairs in their realms, including extensive powers of appointment to bishoprics - far more, indeed, for the time being than the pope himself.1 The Austrian emperor, after all the varied religious commitments of the Habsburg dynasty, still identified himself as the leader among Catholic monarchs, and as late as 1903, Francis Joseph, Emperor-King of Catholic Austria-Hungary, vetoed a likely candidate for the papacy in a papal election. The Austrian emperor, after all the varied religious commitments of the Habsburg dynasty, still identified himself as the leader among Catholic monarchs, and as late as 1903, Francis Joseph, Emperor-King of Catholic Austria-Hungary, vetoed a likely candidate for the papacy in a papal election.2 Francis Joseph was expressing a tradition of dispersed power in the Western Church which now had much to contradict it. Ultramontanism built up its new emotional power in alliance with a startling revival in popular Catholic practice; this was heralded in the eighteenth-century popular resistance to the efforts of monarchs and revolutionaries alike to interfere in the everyday lives of Catholics. New pilgrimage cults and religious orders mushroomed to reverse earlier destruction, but just as in late-sixteenth-century Catholic Europe, this was no mere restoration of the past. Against a French Revolution which represented more than two decades of male nationalist violence, the Church found itself managing an international uprising of women - what has been termed with a pleasing overturning of modern sociological a.s.sumptions 'ultramontane feminism'.3 It followed the trend first perceptible among both Protestants and Catholics in seventeenth-century Europe (see pp. 791-4) that women were becoming more active than men in devotional practice. As far afield as Mexico, while men began to drift away from the sacramental life of the Church, lay women's a.s.sociations played an ever growing part in running parish affairs. It followed the trend first perceptible among both Protestants and Catholics in seventeenth-century Europe (see pp. 791-4) that women were becoming more active than men in devotional practice. As far afield as Mexico, while men began to drift away from the sacramental life of the Church, lay women's a.s.sociations played an ever growing part in running parish affairs.4 Everywhere, a maelstrom of nuns descended on the Church. In the land which became Belgium, for instance, the proportion of women religious to men reversed from 1780 to 1860, from 40:60 to 60:40, and at the end of this process, in a development to horrify any bishop from the Council of Trent, only 10 per cent of Belgian nuns were in contemplative orders: the vast majority were involved in teaching, health care and help for the poor.5 Even would-be female contemplatives could be distinctively active when it suited them. The world-denying and savagely self-punis.h.i.+ng teenager Therese Martin of Lisieux in Normandy, overexcited by her pilgrimage to Rome in 1887, seized on a routine papal audience to beg no less a figure than Pope Leo XIII for permission for immediate entrance to the Carmelite Order despite her age. The hapless pontiff was understandably alarmed, particularly when she clung to his knees and had to be removed by ecclesiastical bouncers. She got her way in the end, to the point of canonization half a century after her early death from tuberculosis. Even would-be female contemplatives could be distinctively active when it suited them. The world-denying and savagely self-punis.h.i.+ng teenager Therese Martin of Lisieux in Normandy, overexcited by her pilgrimage to Rome in 1887, seized on a routine papal audience to beg no less a figure than Pope Leo XIII for permission for immediate entrance to the Carmelite Order despite her age. The hapless pontiff was understandably alarmed, particularly when she clung to his knees and had to be removed by ecclesiastical bouncers. She got her way in the end, to the point of canonization half a century after her early death from tuberculosis.6 The most a.s.sertive woman of all was the Mother of G.o.d. The nineteenth century proved one of the most prolific periods for Mary's activity in the history of the Western Church since the twelfth century. She seems to have made more appearances all over Europe and Latin America than in any century before or since: generally to women without money, education or power and in remote locations, and often in a.s.sociation with the political upheavals or economic crises which repeatedly hit a society in the middle of dramatic transformations.7 Our Lady conveyed a rich variety of messages and opinions. In Paris in 1830 she manifested herself three times to Catherine Laboure, a newly professed young nun. The first occasion was in July, at the height of the political upheavals which less than a fortnight later swept away the Bourbon monarchy and replaced it by the Orleanist Louis Philippe. Mary gave the nun the pattern for a medal to be struck with her image: within twelve years, a hundred million copies of the medal were providing more comfort to the faithful than a French Orleanist monarchy which many of them regarded as a distressing usurpation and compromise with the Revolution. Our Lady conveyed a rich variety of messages and opinions. In Paris in 1830 she manifested herself three times to Catherine Laboure, a newly professed young nun. The first occasion was in July, at the height of the political upheavals which less than a fortnight later swept away the Bourbon monarchy and replaced it by the Orleanist Louis Philippe. Mary gave the nun the pattern for a medal to be struck with her image: within twelve years, a hundred million copies of the medal were providing more comfort to the faithful than a French Orleanist monarchy which many of them regarded as a distressing usurpation and compromise with the Revolution.8 When Our Lady appeared again at Marpingen in Germany to three village girls in 1876, she made a political point as she had already done frequently in France. Although she never brought the good folk of Marpingen anything like her earlier success at Lourdes (see p. 824), she strengthened the morale of ordinary German Catholics caught up in the so-called Kulturkampf Kulturkampf, a fierce confrontation with the Protestant state apparatus of the new German Empire, and so she contributed to the Kulturkampf Kulturkampf 's failure to intimidate Catholicism in Germany. She did so without any help from the diocesan hierarchy of the Rhineland, who, if they had not been under such government pressure, would have done their best to bring her cult to a swift end. 's failure to intimidate Catholicism in Germany. She did so without any help from the diocesan hierarchy of the Rhineland, who, if they had not been under such government pressure, would have done their best to bring her cult to a swift end.9 Mary had technology on her side: the steady speeding up of communications and the sudden availability of cheap print, two of the motors of social change generally, were of great benefit, spreading the news of her growing loquacity at an unprecedented pace. As her shrines old and new flourished, much of their prosperity was dependent on the steam train. Protestants went on trains to the seaside, Catholics to light a candle in a holy place; devout pilgrimage had never been easier or more enjoyable. Mary had technology on her side: the steady speeding up of communications and the sudden availability of cheap print, two of the motors of social change generally, were of great benefit, spreading the news of her growing loquacity at an unprecedented pace. As her shrines old and new flourished, much of their prosperity was dependent on the steam train. Protestants went on trains to the seaside, Catholics to light a candle in a holy place; devout pilgrimage had never been easier or more enjoyable.

Many of Mary's appearances were surrounded by fierce controversies, as were parallel events such as twenty or so cases of the appearance of stigmata (despite the experience having been pioneered by a man, Francis of a.s.sisi, nearly all those bearing stigmata in modern times have been women).10 Such wonders pitted Catholics against Catholics, with a regular pattern of sceptical clerical men versus heroically insistent women who went on to find clerical and lay support for their experiences. They continued into twentieth-century crises for Catholic communities across Europe. Mary's manifestations to three children in Fatima in Portugal 1917 were cla.s.sics of the genre, during a world war and seven years after the overthrow of Portugal's monarchy. Similar were her appearances in the strongly Catholic Croat town of Medjugorje in 1981, as the Yugoslav Federation began to lose the political will to survive on the eve of catastrophic inter-confessional violence in the region. During the Yugoslav war that followed, Mary's Catholic partisans in Herzegovina became virulent anti-Muslim nationalists, who also bizarrely threatened to blow up the Catholic cathedral in Mostar if the bishop there did not abandon his scepticism about the heavenly visions. Such wonders pitted Catholics against Catholics, with a regular pattern of sceptical clerical men versus heroically insistent women who went on to find clerical and lay support for their experiences. They continued into twentieth-century crises for Catholic communities across Europe. Mary's manifestations to three children in Fatima in Portugal 1917 were cla.s.sics of the genre, during a world war and seven years after the overthrow of Portugal's monarchy. Similar were her appearances in the strongly Catholic Croat town of Medjugorje in 1981, as the Yugoslav Federation began to lose the political will to survive on the eve of catastrophic inter-confessional violence in the region. During the Yugoslav war that followed, Mary's Catholic partisans in Herzegovina became virulent anti-Muslim nationalists, who also bizarrely threatened to blow up the Catholic cathedral in Mostar if the bishop there did not abandon his scepticism about the heavenly visions.11 For people caught up in this exhilarating outburst of religious energy, Catholic ultramontanism represented a unifying ideology against the onslaughts of the Enlightenment, and the pope came to symbolize the sufferings and eventual triumph of the whole Church in the revolutionary era. The French arch-polemicist Joseph de Maistre was a prophet of absolute monarchy in Church and State, and a fanatical opponent of everything that the French Revolution represented: in 1819 he spelled out that 'Christianity rests wholly on the Sovereign Pontiff' and 'all sovereignty is infallible in nature'.12 The confrontational style of such ultramontane rhetoric was sharpened by the papacy's anger at the direct challenge to its temporal rule in central Italy. Nationalists and liberals sought to unite the peninsula for the first time since the disappearance of the Roman Empire. The charismatic, creative (and often naive and self-a.s.sertive) Pope Pius IX opened his pontificate in 1846 with startling measures of modernization, such as plans for a railway system in the Papal States. It was easy to see such gestures as liberalism: a possibility intoxicating in its unexpected emergence from the Vatican. It seemed as if the Pope himself might lead Rome into the leaders.h.i.+p of a liberal reconstruction of all Europe, but the nationalist revolutions of 1848 revealed his confusion, which readily tipped into his horrified opposition to Italian unification, not least because it would involve an end to the Papal States. The confrontational style of such ultramontane rhetoric was sharpened by the papacy's anger at the direct challenge to its temporal rule in central Italy. Nationalists and liberals sought to unite the peninsula for the first time since the disappearance of the Roman Empire. The charismatic, creative (and often naive and self-a.s.sertive) Pope Pius IX opened his pontificate in 1846 with startling measures of modernization, such as plans for a railway system in the Papal States. It was easy to see such gestures as liberalism: a possibility intoxicating in its unexpected emergence from the Vatican. It seemed as if the Pope himself might lead Rome into the leaders.h.i.+p of a liberal reconstruction of all Europe, but the nationalist revolutions of 1848 revealed his confusion, which readily tipped into his horrified opposition to Italian unification, not least because it would involve an end to the Papal States.

By 1864, after a series of humiliating losses of territory to a new Italian monarchical state based on the once devoutly papalist House of Savoy, Pius reacted in frustration by issuing an encyclical letter to which was attached a Syllabus of Errors Syllabus of Errors, hastily gathered from a series of recent papal p.r.o.nouncements. Some were uncontroversial, but they included a series of peevish statements which among other things condemned socialism and the principle that non-Catholics should be given freedom of religion in a Catholic state. They culminated in the proposition that it was wrong to believe that the Pope 'can and ought to reconcile himself with progress, liberalism and modern civilization'.13 There were many in Catholic Europe to applaud the Pope: those with memories of the atrocities inspired by that parent of liberalism and modern civilization, the French Revolution, and those still witnessing Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or Latin American anticlerical liberals - even Swiss liberals - continuing to close convents and seize schools from the Catholic Church. In Spain, between 1829 and 1834, liberals forced the King to disband that faithful guardian of Spanish Catholic ident.i.ty, the Spanish Inquisition. What did that say about the Spanish patriotism of liberals? There were many in Catholic Europe to applaud the Pope: those with memories of the atrocities inspired by that parent of liberalism and modern civilization, the French Revolution, and those still witnessing Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or Latin American anticlerical liberals - even Swiss liberals - continuing to close convents and seize schools from the Catholic Church. In Spain, between 1829 and 1834, liberals forced the King to disband that faithful guardian of Spanish Catholic ident.i.ty, the Spanish Inquisition. What did that say about the Spanish patriotism of liberals?

Catholics could also readily link such destructive fruits of liberalism to that curious offspring of the Scottish Reformation, Freemasonry (see pp. 771-2). By the eighteenth century, Freemasonry had become the adopted son of the Enlightenment, just as so many eighteenth-century Protestant Scots had done more generally; long before the French Revolution, Freemasonry's leading figures came to sound more like Voltaire than John Dury or Johann Heinrich Alsted. Now especially in Catholic countries in southern Europe, Central and South America and the Caribbean, in the absence of any popular Protestant alternative to the Catholic Church, the Masonic Lodge became a rallying point for all who loathed ecclesiastical power. Here Freemasonry often did indeed become the chief force within liberal politics: a rival to that other closed male caste, the Catholic clergy, complete with Masons' own engrossing (though a good deal less public) ritual life. A remnant of this survived to our own age in that time-warped and embattled island, Fidel Castro's Cuba. A promenade around the cheerfully shabby towns and villages of Cuba at the turn of the second and third millennia would reveal an unexpected (and interestingly little-remarked) feature of this determinedly anti-Catholic state with its opportunistic version of Communism. Alongside the local Communist Party headquarters, one of the best-kept buildings on the street was the hall of the local Masonic Lodge, complete outside with its proudly displayed bust of the great nineteenth-century liberal hero and liberator Jose Mart. President Castro was as much heir to the nineteenth century's anticlerical liberalism as he was to Marx.14 Yet in 1864 'liberalism' had a different and less negative sound for Catholics elsewhere. Even in France, tormented by the rift between those venerating and those execrating the Revolution, several influential bishops were privately appalled at the Syllabus Syllabus's potential effects. One of their number not ashamed of joining the word 'liberal' to 'Catholic', Felix Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, wrote a best-selling pamphlet defending the Syllabus Syllabus by the backhanded method of explaining away its intemperate propositions. by the backhanded method of explaining away its intemperate propositions.15 Likewise in the British Empire, Catholicism owed its opportunities for expansion to liberal principles. The precedent came in the historic decision of the British Crown in 1774 to secure its newly won Canadian dominions by allying with the Catholic elite of New France. This effectively prevented French Canadian Catholics from abetting France's aid to the Protestant revolutionaries of the United States. Their decision was vindicated by the anticlerical horrors perpetrated by French revolutionaries a decade later - indeed, the Catholic Church in Quebec became well aware that it enjoyed much less interference under the British than from the previous royal French government. Likewise in the British Empire, Catholicism owed its opportunities for expansion to liberal principles. The precedent came in the historic decision of the British Crown in 1774 to secure its newly won Canadian dominions by allying with the Catholic elite of New France. This effectively prevented French Canadian Catholics from abetting France's aid to the Protestant revolutionaries of the United States. Their decision was vindicated by the anticlerical horrors perpetrated by French revolutionaries a decade later - indeed, the Catholic Church in Quebec became well aware that it enjoyed much less interference under the British than from the previous royal French government. 16 16 Then Britain and Ireland witnessed a gradual dismantling of public disabilities for Catholics (not yet completed in the early twenty-first century, with a repeal of the legislation of 1701 forbidding Catholics to succeed to the British throne still pending). Without such new freedoms, the authorities in Rome could not have launched a comprehensive reform of the startlingly pre-Tridentine and lay-dominated Catholic Church in Ireland, to bring it into line with the well-regulated devotional revolution in the rest of Catholic Europe. Then Britain and Ireland witnessed a gradual dismantling of public disabilities for Catholics (not yet completed in the early twenty-first century, with a repeal of the legislation of 1701 forbidding Catholics to succeed to the British throne still pending). Without such new freedoms, the authorities in Rome could not have launched a comprehensive reform of the startlingly pre-Tridentine and lay-dominated Catholic Church in Ireland, to bring it into line with the well-regulated devotional revolution in the rest of Catholic Europe.17 Not only Catholics subject to the British Crown benefited from the rearrangement of the modern world. In the Protestant republic which was the United States of America, Enlightenment was the benevolent force in separating Church and State, allowing the Catholic hierarchy complete inst.i.tutional freedom and the chance to exercise pastoral care for a growing flood of Catholic immigrants, protected by the Const.i.tution in the face of widespread Protestant popular hostility (which was nevertheless often paradoxically couched in the language of liberalism and resistance to Catholic priestcraft). In Lutheran northern Europe, the new const.i.tutional arrangements for state boundaries which so favoured Protestant monarchies were mitigated by a liberal idea of Paritat Paritat - fair play between Catholics and Protestants - which was especially important in the former Holy Roman Empire in protecting Catholic subjects against their newly acquired Protestant princes. - fair play between Catholics and Protestants - which was especially important in the former Holy Roman Empire in protecting Catholic subjects against their newly acquired Protestant princes.18 In the southern Netherlands, a revolution of unmistakably liberal character in 1830 against the lumpishly discriminatory rule of a Protestant Dutch monarchy created a new state, Belgium, whose cement across linguistic divisions between French-and Flemish-speakers was its flamboyant Catholicism. Despite having to accept a German Lutheran monarch, the Belgian Catholic Church enjoyed a freedom without parallel in any Catholic country in Europe; the closest a.n.a.logy was British Quebec. This was specifically thanks to the adventurous liberalism of the new Belgian Const.i.tution: now liberals could conveniently defend their freedoms against any royal attempts at encroachment by judicious deployment of fervent loyalty to the pope and appeals for his support. In the southern Netherlands, a revolution of unmistakably liberal character in 1830 against the lumpishly discriminatory rule of a Protestant Dutch monarchy created a new state, Belgium, whose cement across linguistic divisions between French-and Flemish-speakers was its flamboyant Catholicism. Despite having to accept a German Lutheran monarch, the Belgian Catholic Church enjoyed a freedom without parallel in any Catholic country in Europe; the closest a.n.a.logy was British Quebec. This was specifically thanks to the adventurous liberalism of the new Belgian Const.i.tution: now liberals could conveniently defend their freedoms against any royal attempts at encroachment by judicious deployment of fervent loyalty to the pope and appeals for his support.19 The Belgians were more fortunate in their access to Rome than the Catholic Poles and Lithuanians, whose repeated national risings against the Russian tsar in 1830, 1848 and 1863 met with a cold lack of support (and indeed initially even rebuke) from the Vatican, which shocked educated opinion in Europe, including French ultramontanes. The Belgians were more fortunate in their access to Rome than the Catholic Poles and Lithuanians, whose repeated national risings against the Russian tsar in 1830, 1848 and 1863 met with a cold lack of support (and indeed initially even rebuke) from the Vatican, which shocked educated opinion in Europe, including French ultramontanes.20 In such varied settings, the Syllabus Syllabus was a poisonous mistake, yet Pope Pius never admitted as much. His delighted response to the fervency of popular Catholicism, which even after his repudiation of the revolutionary fervour of 1848-9 included a rising tide of devotion to his own genial person, was to affirm more and more previously left indeterminate. In reaction to the dramatic revival of Marian cults, in 1854 he used his authority to promulgate that doctrine first formulated by English monks in the early twelfth century that Mary had been conceived without the spot of sin (see pp. 393-4). It was the final defeat of centuries of Catholic rearguard action against the notion of the Immaculate Conception, which had long been led by the Dominicans, following the opinions of their greatest theologian Thomas Aquinas. So great was the tide of opinion that even the Dominicans countenanced the foundation in 1860 of an Order of Dominican Nuns of the Immaculate Conception, in devoutly Marian Poland. was a poisonous mistake, yet Pope Pius never admitted as much. His delighted response to the fervency of popular Catholicism, which even after his repudiation of the revolutionary fervour of 1848-9 included a rising tide of devotion to his own genial person, was to affirm more and more previously left indeterminate. In reaction to the dramatic revival of Marian cults, in 1854 he used his authority to promulgate that doctrine first formulated by English monks in the early twelfth century that Mary had been conceived without the spot of sin (see pp. 393-4). It was the final defeat of centuries of Catholic rearguard action against the notion of the Immaculate Conception, which had long been led by the Dominicans, following the opinions of their greatest theologian Thomas Aquinas. So great was the tide of opinion that even the Dominicans countenanced the foundation in 1860 of an Order of Dominican Nuns of the Immaculate Conception, in devoutly Marian Poland.

Our Lady showed her approval of the Pope's action by appearing at Lourdes in the French Pyrenees only four years after the Definition, announcing to a peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, with a fine disregard for logical categories, 'I am the Immaculate Conception.'21 Over the next few months she proceeded to produce alarming enthusiasm in other visionaries in Lourdes; large numbers of village women and girls had visions, saw ghostly lights and had to be restrained from throwing themselves into the river or from dizzy rocky heights. In time-honoured folkloric fas.h.i.+on, Our Lady was not above giving salutary frights to local sceptics - such as the state officials who unsympathetically interrogated Bernadette, and then found themselves troubled by poltergeist-like phenomena and specifically directed storms, or the drunkard who had defecated in the Grotto and was then terrified by a night of acute diarrhoea. These two aspects of the events of 1858, zestfully narrated by locals at the time, have subsequently been edited out of the shrine's official narratives; Our Lady of Lourdes has become a much better-behaved Virgin. Over the next few months she proceeded to produce alarming enthusiasm in other visionaries in Lourdes; large numbers of village women and girls had visions, saw ghostly lights and had to be restrained from throwing themselves into the river or from dizzy rocky heights. In time-honoured folkloric fas.h.i.+on, Our Lady was not above giving salutary frights to local sceptics - such as the state officials who unsympathetically interrogated Bernadette, and then found themselves troubled by poltergeist-like phenomena and specifically directed storms, or the drunkard who had defecated in the Grotto and was then terrified by a night of acute diarrhoea. These two aspects of the events of 1858, zestfully narrated by locals at the time, have subsequently been edited out of the shrine's official narratives; Our Lady of Lourdes has become a much better-behaved Virgin.22 Lourdes has become perhaps the most visited of all Christian shrines, Christianity's answer to Mecca (see Plate 44). It has also served as a riposte to those Catholics who had questioned the wisdom of defining the Immaculate Conception. Lourdes has become perhaps the most visited of all Christian shrines, Christianity's answer to Mecca (see Plate 44). It has also served as a riposte to those Catholics who had questioned the wisdom of defining the Immaculate Conception.

The most radical of Pius's achievements was to go where the Council of Trent had feared to proceed and produce a new definition of papal authority. The setting for this was a further council of the Church, in which seven hundred bishops from all over the world, including more than a hundred from across the Atlantic, arrived at the Vatican in December 1869, and occupied themselves in discussion for the next ten months. The council was paradoxical in its chief work, which was a thoroughgoing denial of the principles of conciliarism. Pope Pius was once more influenced by the political events around him: the Italian army was surrounding his last territory, the city of Rome. When external political crises resulted in the hasty withdrawal of French protective troops, it poured through the city defences, halting only at the locked gates of the Vatican. Soon afterwards, the bishops of the Vatican Council dispersed after a hasty adjournment. Some had gone already, before the moment in July 1870 when the vast majority, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, backed a decree, Pastor aeternus Pastor aeternus ('The Eternal Shepherd'). This decisively exalted papal power at their expense, just at the moment when the pope's temporal power was about to d