that
the religious orders should be restored and organized according to the
instructions and faculties imparted by the Sovereign Pontiff; that the
patrimony of the church and the rights connected therewith should be
guaranteed and protected; that none be allowed to disseminate false and
subversive doctrines; that public as well as private education be directed
and superintended by ecclesiastical authority; and, finally, that those
fetters be broken which had hitherto for some time held the church
dependent on the arbitrary will of the civil power. "If," continued the
Holy Father, "the religious edifice be re-established, as we doubt not it
will, on such foundations, your Majesty will satisfy one of the greatest
wants and realize the most ardent aspirations of the religious people of
Mexico; you will dispel our disquietude and that of the illustrious
Mexican Episcopate; you will pave the way for the education of a learned
and zealous clergy, as well as the moral reformation of the people. You
will thus, also, consolidate your throne, and promote the prosperity and
glory of your Imperial family." In all this the Emperor would have been
sustained by the great majority of the Mexican people. And there was
nothing impossible required of him. It is not shown anywhere that the
restoration of church properties, which had been long alienated and had
often changed proprietors, would have been exacted, any more than in
England, when religion was restored under the reign of Mary. The policy
indicated by Pius IX. would have won for Maximilian a host of friends and
supporters. The line of conduct which he pursued was most unacceptable to
the Catholic nation of Mexico, whilst it was not in the least calculated
to satisfy the revolutionary party. Refusing to concede everything that
the church required, he wished to retain for himself the ancient regal
privileges of the Crown of Spain--the investiture of bishops, the
regulating of ecclesiastical tariffs, the limitation of the number of
monastic orders and religious associations, &c. So far the revolution was
pleased. It was loud in its applause. With what sincerity events failed
not to show. Pius IX. insisted on the Emperor's solemn pledges so recently
given at Rome. Maximilian was deaf to the counsels, the complaints, the
earnest prayers of the Holy Father. So it remained only for the Papal
Nuncio, Monsignor Meglia, to take his departure from Vera Cruz (1st June,
1865). Meanwhile, Maxim