is no great matter. But do not ponder over things which are past and gone. If you must ponder, ponder over the passion of Christ.
Mastai to Amandi :
I am harsh with her. It is kinder. What would she do or be in the world? It is cruel and needs the sanctuary of the Church.
Mastai to Amandi, 1845 :
Rome, I’m told, is negotiating with the prince of worldlings. Czar Nicholas, whom the abbé Lammenais calls ‘the Satan of the North’, is to have an audience with His Holiness who must receive him by the rules of the etiquette books while extolling those of the gospel! Not easy!
The same to the same :
The departing Russians – had you heard? – distributed seven little boxes: a perfect number and perfectly suited to the recipients. Their Lordships, the Governor and Treasurer, got fine ones; the Major-domo a good one and four inferioris notae went to lesser hands. They say H.H. is ailing.
From the diary of Raffaello Lambruschini :
Interesting to reread those letters and note the tart, easy irony of the man on the sidelines! His Holiness, Pope Gregory XVI, was not ailing but dying. Shortly after this, His Eminence and his fellow cardinals met in conclave to elect a successor. After some haggling, Mastai-Ferretti was himself picked as a compromise candidate to the surprise of everyone except Monsignor Amandi, who claimed to have had a premonition of his friend’s rise.
It was not, of course, a premonition at all. Amandi was a pope-maker.For years he had been haunting antechambers and dropping hints in influential ears. Then, when his efforts succeeded, he began to wonder whether, after all, his friend had the stomach for the job. Mastai was a good administrator but there is more to politics than that – especially in times like ours.
I have a letter which Amandi wrote at the time, justifying himself. ‘Stomach maybe not,’ he wrote, ‘but head yes.’ Mastai had a head for figures and that, as Amandi must have assured half the conclave at one time or another, was what was needed with the Treasury in the state it was. I can just imagine him: ‘Your Eminence didn’t know !About our near-insolvency! The lack of balance sheets! The public debt!’ He must have seriously unsettled his hearers. ‘Remember,’ he would add, ‘how he handled the disturbances in Spoleto! He’s a man to build bridges between factions and what else should a pontiff do?’
His hope was that Mastai could reconcile the ideals of 1789 – the ideals only: liberty and fraternity, not the guillotine! – with the gospel’s message, and the Church with a world it had shunned for fifty years.
‘If he succeeds,’ wrote Amandi, ‘it will be by blind instinct which is the only safe way.’ Pius, as we both knew, had no grasp of the abstract and this, argued Amandi, was all to the good. Theory frightened more people than practice and had sunk the chances of Cardinal Gizzi, who went into conclave with the reputation of being ‘the reformers’ candidate ’, just as my uncle, Cardinal Lambruschini, was known as the champion of the status quo. In the end, as so often happens, it was the third man, the dark horse, whose discretion won the votes of the timid old porporati who were fearful of extremes but eager for a change.
Three
Returning from Paris after the conclave – as he was not yet a cardinal, he had not returned for it – Monsignor Amandi picked up garbled news. Along the route, the new pope’s name was being mauled beyond recognition. In the north nobody had heard of him. Mastai-Ferretti? They tried it on their tongues. Bishop of where ?
Closer to Imola legends had begun. A white dove had been seen to land on Mastai’s carriage as he left for Rome and had refused to leave the carriage roof. A link boy, while lighting Amandi to his lodgings with a torch of pitch and tow, swore that he, personally, had seen the dove hover. Dazzled by the boy’s exclamatory torch-waving, Amandi was soon seeing hovering doves himself. Also tongues of
Mastai to Amandi :
I am harsh with her. It is kinder. What would she do or be in the world? It is cruel and needs the sanctuary of the Church.
Mastai to Amandi, 1845 :
Rome, I’m told, is negotiating with the prince of worldlings. Czar Nicholas, whom the abbé Lammenais calls ‘the Satan of the North’, is to have an audience with His Holiness who must receive him by the rules of the etiquette books while extolling those of the gospel! Not easy!
The same to the same :
The departing Russians – had you heard? – distributed seven little boxes: a perfect number and perfectly suited to the recipients. Their Lordships, the Governor and Treasurer, got fine ones; the Major-domo a good one and four inferioris notae went to lesser hands. They say H.H. is ailing.
From the diary of Raffaello Lambruschini :
Interesting to reread those letters and note the tart, easy irony of the man on the sidelines! His Holiness, Pope Gregory XVI, was not ailing but dying. Shortly after this, His Eminence and his fellow cardinals met in conclave to elect a successor. After some haggling, Mastai-Ferretti was himself picked as a compromise candidate to the surprise of everyone except Monsignor Amandi, who claimed to have had a premonition of his friend’s rise.
It was not, of course, a premonition at all. Amandi was a pope-maker.For years he had been haunting antechambers and dropping hints in influential ears. Then, when his efforts succeeded, he began to wonder whether, after all, his friend had the stomach for the job. Mastai was a good administrator but there is more to politics than that – especially in times like ours.
I have a letter which Amandi wrote at the time, justifying himself. ‘Stomach maybe not,’ he wrote, ‘but head yes.’ Mastai had a head for figures and that, as Amandi must have assured half the conclave at one time or another, was what was needed with the Treasury in the state it was. I can just imagine him: ‘Your Eminence didn’t know !About our near-insolvency! The lack of balance sheets! The public debt!’ He must have seriously unsettled his hearers. ‘Remember,’ he would add, ‘how he handled the disturbances in Spoleto! He’s a man to build bridges between factions and what else should a pontiff do?’
His hope was that Mastai could reconcile the ideals of 1789 – the ideals only: liberty and fraternity, not the guillotine! – with the gospel’s message, and the Church with a world it had shunned for fifty years.
‘If he succeeds,’ wrote Amandi, ‘it will be by blind instinct which is the only safe way.’ Pius, as we both knew, had no grasp of the abstract and this, argued Amandi, was all to the good. Theory frightened more people than practice and had sunk the chances of Cardinal Gizzi, who went into conclave with the reputation of being ‘the reformers’ candidate ’, just as my uncle, Cardinal Lambruschini, was known as the champion of the status quo. In the end, as so often happens, it was the third man, the dark horse, whose discretion won the votes of the timid old porporati who were fearful of extremes but eager for a change.
Three
Returning from Paris after the conclave – as he was not yet a cardinal, he had not returned for it – Monsignor Amandi picked up garbled news. Along the route, the new pope’s name was being mauled beyond recognition. In the north nobody had heard of him. Mastai-Ferretti? They tried it on their tongues. Bishop of where ?
Closer to Imola legends had begun. A white dove had been seen to land on Mastai’s carriage as he left for Rome and had refused to leave the carriage roof. A link boy, while lighting Amandi to his lodgings with a torch of pitch and tow, swore that he, personally, had seen the dove hover. Dazzled by the boy’s exclamatory torch-waving, Amandi was soon seeing hovering doves himself. Also tongues of
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