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Church has a permanent claim on the property in question, is legally untenable, and has been granted

Catholic and only through rededication could Theory property once sequestrated again come

time, the State is ethically bound, since it holds so large a portion of the possessions of the Church through its secularizations, to provide adequately for the needs of the'two communions which all German states regard as corporations in public law. This has been carried out perhaps more favorably to the Roman Catholic than to the Protestant communion. And it should be noted that purchasers of secularized property, having a legal title from the State treasury, are the valid owners of such property, though Roman Catholic purchasers are in duty bound, according to canon law, to gain the approval of the pope to their purchase.

The secularization of the States of the Church deserves special consideration. This " patrimony of Peter " (see PAPAL STATES) was regarded as the property of the Church, and every pontiff was required to pledge himself that none of it should be

alienated-a fact which did not preio. The vent Pius VI. from accepting the peace

and the legations of Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna, were lost to the Church. Between the States of the Church and the concept of the modern secular State there was the widest discrepancy. The modern State is construed as an independent organization resting on its own ethical foundation, as the legitimate organization for the complete life of its people, in whose behalf all its energies are devoted. That the State should be in control of a subject beyond its own borders, which was the relation of the Roman Catholic Church to the States of the Church, is irreconcilable with the modern theory of the State; and though the States of the Church were incapable of the profound transformations undergone by secular powers, this very fact would ultimately have proved fatal. The States of the Church lacked, moreover, an organic national basis, and the whole trend of modern history was opposed to them. In 1798 the boundaries of the States of the Church were abolished, though restored, essentially undiminished, at the Congress of Vienna; but the temporal power of the pope over his states was possible only through repeated, and finally permanent, armed intervention of foreign powers, until, amid profound changes in Europe, the Italian revolutions of 1859-60 robbed the States of the Church of a great part of their possessions, while the overthrow of the French Empire in 1870 encouraged the Italians, after taking Rome on Sept. 20, 1870, to incorporate the remainder of the papal dominions in the kingdom of Italy. True to the principle that the continuance of the temporal power of the pope was essential, especially at that period, to the independence of the Roman Catholic Church and of her earthly head, Pius IX. placed all who had taken part in the act which he termed

" robbery of God " under major excommunication. Meanwhile the kingdom of Italy, on May 13, 1871, promulgated its law concerning the Curia and the Roman Catholic Church. By this the pope was guaranteed the personal prerogatives of a sovereign, the Holy See was endowed with a yearly pension of 3,225,000 francs (corresponding to the former papal budget for apostolic palaces, the holy college, the congregations, the secretaryship of state, and diplomatic representation abroad), freedom was granted the pope in the discharge of his office in the governance of the Church, while on Italian soil he was granted free communication with his bishops and foreign governments, and the full immunity of diplomats was accorded his nuncios and legates to foreign courts as well as to the diplomats accredited to the Holy See.

Despite the loss of his temporal sovereignty, the pope still possesses a quasi-sovereignty in his relations, as a spiritual power, to sovereign states, as well as a still more real power which gives him, besides the honors rendered to his perii. Anomal- son, the right of embassy and of conous Position chiding quasi-international treaties.

of the On the other hand, the essential differPapacy. ences of his quasi-sovereignty from the full sovereignty of temporal powers forbids any actual equality between the two. He can not, for example, wage war, since he has no state to form the object of attack. All this involves difficult and thus far unsolved problems of international law, which are only complicated by the Italian law of guaranty. Not only would Italy have to answer, by the law of nations, for any armed attack upon the pope, but, again by the law of nar tions, the Italian government must be responsible for any misuse of its guaranty to the pope of the privilege of legal immunity, even in the case of breaches of the peace which otherwise violate international law. On the other hand, considerations of practical policy justify recognition of a privileged and immune legal position of the pope in the international fellowship of Christian nations so long as the Roman Catholic Church maintains its quasistate organization. This assures to the papacy the possibilities of such far-reaching political development that, recognizing that a double sovereignty of spiritual and temporal power over the same peopies is irreconcilable, the pope, since his loss of temporal sovereignty, has renewed with increased energy those ancient claims to spiritual universal monarchy which represent him as the one true sovereign over the national states, these being regarded by curialists as mere provinces of his world dominion, over which he is to exercise rule. The Roman Church is, in a word, both an institution of political power and a Christian body for the worship of God, and for this reason the relation of temporal states toward it can be governed only by individual rules, not by any general theory of the relation of the State to the Christian Church as a whole.

On the secularization of churches, and especially of monasteries, in Italy see ITALY, I., § § 1-2, and on the secularization in France, wrought by the law of separation of Dec. 9, 1905, see FRANCE, I.

(E. SEHLrNG.)