§ 187.5. =Attempts at Reform in Church Government.=--In A.D. 1861 =Liverani=, pope’s chaplain and apostolic notary, exposed the scandalous mismanagement of Antonelli, the corruption of the sacred college, the demoralization of the Roman clergy, and the ambitious schemes of the Jesuits, recommended the restoration of the holy Roman empire, not indeed to the Germans, but to the Italians: the pope should confer on the king of Italy by divine authority the title and privileges of Roman emperor, who, on his part, should undertake as papal mandatory the political administration of the States of the Church. But in A.D. 1873 he sought and obtained papal forgiveness for his errors. The Jesuit =Passaglia= expressed enthusiastic approval of the movements of Victor Emanuel and of Cavour’s ideal of a “free church in a free state.” He was expelled from his order, his book was put into the Index, but the Italian Government appointed him professor of moral philosophy in Turin. At last he retracted all that he had said and written. In the preface to his popular exposition of the gospels of 1874, the Jesuit father =Curci= urged the advisability of a reconciliation between the Holy See and the Italian government, and expressed his conviction that the Church States would never be restored. That year he addressed the pope in similar terms, and refusing to retract, was expelled his order in A.D. 1877. Leo XIII. by friendly measures sought to move him to recant, but without success. The condemnation of his books led to their wider circulation. In A.D. 1883 he charged the Holy See with the guilt of the unholy schism between church and state; but in the following year he retracted whatever in his writings the pope regarded as opposed to the faith, morals, and discipline of the Catholic church.
§ 187.6. =Attempts to Found National Catholic Churches.=--After the July Revolution of A.D. 1830 the Abbé =Chatel= of Paris had himself consecrated bishop of a new sect by a new-templar dignitary (§ 210, 1) and became primate of the =French Catholic Church=, whose creed recognised only the law of nature and viewed Christ as a mere man. After various congregations had been formed, it was suppressed by the police in A.D. 1842. The Abbé =Helsen= of Brussels made a much more earnest endeavour to lead the church of his fatherland from the antichrist to the true Christ. His =Apostolic Catholic Church= was dissolved in A.D. 1857 and its remnants joined the Protestants. The founding of the =German Catholic Church= in A.D. 1844 promised to be more enduring. In August of that year, Arnoldi, Bishop of Treves, exhibited the holy coat preserved there, and attracted one and a half millions of pilgrims to Treves (§ 188, 2). A suspended priest, =Ronge=, in a letter to the bishop denounced the worship of relics, seeking to pose as the Luther of the nineteenth century. =Czerski= of Posen had in August, 1844, seceded from the Catholic church, and in October founded the “Christian Catholic Apostolic Church,” whose creed embodied the negations without the positive beliefs of the Protestant confessions, maintaining in other respects the fundamental articles of the Christian faith. Ronge meanwhile formed congregations in all parts of Germany, excepting Bavaria and Austria. A General Assembly held at Leipzig in March, 1845, brought to light the deplorable religious nihilism of the leaders of the party. Czerski, who refused to abandon the doctrine of Christ’s divinity, withdrew from the conference, but Ronge held a triumphal procession through Germany. His hollowness, however, became so apparent that his adherents grew ashamed of their enthusiasm for the new reformer. His congregations began to break up; many withdrew, several of the leaders threw off the mask of religion and adopted the _rôle_ of political revolutionists. After the settlement that followed the disturbances of A.D. 1848 the remnants of this party disappeared.[547]