Rome in 1860 | Page 5

it
may be in a moral one. Now my own observations have led me to
doubt the correctness of this assumption, which, if true, forms an
important item in the whole matter under consideration. It is no good
saying, as my "Papalini" friends are wont to do, Rome gains everything
and indeed only exists by the Papacy. The real questions are, What
class at Rome gain by it, and what is it that they gain? There are four
classes at Rome: the priests, the nobles, the bourgeoisie, and the poor.
Of course if anybody gains it is the priesthood. If the Pope were
removed from Rome, or if a lay government were established (the two
hypotheses are practically identical), the number of the Clergy would
undoubtedly be much diminished. A large portion of the convents and
clerical endowments would be suppressed, and the present generation

of priests would be heavy sufferers. This result is inevitable. Under no
free government would or could a city of 170,000 inhabitants support
10,000 unproductive persons out of the common funds; for this is
substantially the case at Rome in the present day. Every sixteen lay
citizens, men, women, and children, support out of their labour a priest
between them. The Papal question with the Roman priesthood is thus a
question of daily bread, and it is surely no want of charity to suppose
that the material aspect influences their minds quite as much as the
spiritual. Still even with regard to the priests there are two sides to the
question. The system of political and social government inseparable
from the Papacy, which closes up almost every trade and profession,
drives vast numbers into the priesthood for want of any other
occupation. The supply of priests is, in consequence, far greater than
the demand, and, as the laws of political economy hold good even in
the Papal States, priest labour is miserably underpaid. It is a Protestant
delusion that the priests in Rome live upon the fat of the land. What fat
there is is certainly theirs, but then there are too many mouths to eat it.
The Roman priests are relatively poorer than those in any other part of
Italy. It is one of the great mysteries in Rome how all the priests who
swarm about the streets manage to live. The clue to the mystery is to be
found inside the churches. In every church here, and there are 366 of
them, some score or two of masses are said daily at the different altars.
The pay for performing a mass varies from a "Paul" to a "Scudo;" that
is, in round numbers, from sixpence to a crown. The "good" masses,
those paid for by private persons for the souls of their relatives, are
naturally reserved for the priests connected with the particular church;
while the poor ones, which are paid for out of the funds of the church,
are given to any priest who happens to apply for them. So somehow or
other, what with a mass or two a day, or by private tuition, or by
charitable assistance, or in some cases by small handicrafts conducted
secretly, the large floating population of unemployed priests rub on
from day to day, in the hope of getting ultimately some piece of
ecclesiastical patronage. Yet the distress and want amongst them are
often pitiable, and, in fact, amongst the many sufferers from the
artificial preponderance given to the priesthood by the Papal system,
the poorer class of priests are not among the least or lightest.

The nobility as a body are sure to be more or less supporters of the
established order of things. Their interests too are very much mixed up
with those of the Papacy. There is not a noble Roman family which has
not one or more of its members among the higher ranks of the
priesthood, and to a considerable degree their distinctions, such as they
are, and their temporal prospects are bound up with the Popedom.
Moreover, in this rank of the social scale the private and personal
influence of the priests, through the women of the family, is very
powerful. The more active, however, and ambitious amongst the
aristocracy feel deeply the exclusion from public life, the absence of
any opening for ambition, and the gradual impoverishment of their
property, which are the necessary evils of an absolute ecclesiastical
government.
The "Bourgeoisie" stand on a very different footing. They have neither
the moral influence of the priesthood nor the material wealth of the
nobility to console them for the loss of liberty; they form indeed the
"Pariahs" of Roman society. "In other countries," a Roman once said to
me, "you have one man who lives in wealth and a thousand who live in
comfort. Here the one man lives in