es of our
respective dioceses, to the shame and horror of the beholders, to the
great detriment of religion, of decency and public morality, since the
ordinances against which we protest deprive us of all power to protect
religion and morality, or to repress the prevailing crimes and
licentiousness. The public sale, at nominal prices, of mutilated
translations of the Bible, of pamphlets of every description, saturated
with poisonous errors or infamous obscenities, is permitted in the cities
which, a few months ago, had never heard the names of these scandalous
productions; the impunity with which the most horrible blasphemies are
uttered in public, and the worse utterance of expressions and sentiments
that breathe a hellish wickedness; the exposition, the public sale and the
diffusion of statuettes, pictures and engravings, which brutally outrage
piety, purity, the commonest decency; the representation in our theatres
of pieces and scenes in which are turned into ridicule the Church--Christ's
immaculate spouse--the Vicar of Christ, the ministers of religion, and
everything held dear to piety and faith; in fine, the fearful
licentiousness of public manners, the odious devices resorted to for
perverting the innocent and the young, the evident wish and aim to make
immorality, obscenity, uncleanness triumph among all classes; such are,
your Excellency, the rapid and faint outlines of the scandalous state of
things created in the Marches by the legislation and discipline so
precipitately introduced by the Piedmontese government. We appeal to your
Excellency. Could we remain silent and indifferent spectators of this
immense calamity without violating our most sacred duty?" If anything
under the government of subversion has saved Italy from utter ruin, it is
nothing less than the zeal and devotedness of its pastors. In the
remonstrance referred to, they declare that notwithstanding all the
contradictions, the trials, the obstacles they have had to encounter, "not
one spark of charity, of zeal, of pastoral and fatherly solicitude has
been quenched in our souls. We solemnly affirm it, with our anointed hands
on our hearts, and with the help of God's grace, these sentiments shall
never depart from us through fault of ours."

(M72) This mode of reforming, so dear to the revolutionists, is further
illustrated by the proceedings of Garibaldi in Sicily and at Naples. It
will be remembered that this hero of the revolution was eclipsed