Appendix:

On the choice of bishops by clergy and people.

Three letters of Antonio Rosmini Serbati, priest,
to Canon Giuseppe Gatti.

Letter 2
Rome, 21st October 1848

Dear Canon,

In your kind reply to my letter of June 8th, 1848, about the divine right to choose bishops freely, ou courteously invited me to answer the difficulties raised about the way in which this most important right of free choice may be restored to the Church and put into practice.

You believe it will be difficult for a ruler to renounce spontaneously his nomination of bishops, and equally difficult to determine how canonical elections may be carried out without disturbances and other problems. Such difficulties would have been serious in other periods, for example, a century ago. At present I think they have no weight or, if they have, they can easily be overcome provided the clergy wish to overcome them. When the clergy desire it, there is no freedom of the Church which cannot be re-established within a short time. Brute force has to give way to moral force; what is reasonable and just always finds a way to be put into practice.

In this letter, I shall deal only with the first difficulty: the fear that catholic monarchs may refuse to renounce spontaneously their usurped right to episcopal nominations. I think that this reluctance arises principally from the veil of ignorance long obscuring this matter of episcopal elections from the christian people. If the ignorance is removed, the light of truth will do the rest.

All I want is to ensure that everyone, lay people included, realise that the choice of bishops is of divine right and that, as I explained in the previous letter, the Church's entire freedom is of divine right, especially her freedom in elections. The Church abandoned a great part of this right, after fighting for centuries to save it, in order to avoid greater evils at a moment when hard-pressed civil society was collapsing, and to impede the threat of greater usurpations on the part of lay power which at the time of Francis, king of France, had become absolute. All that is needed is to preach this from the rooftops, and make people understand why the restoration of free choice is a supremely urgent need in the Church of our times. Lay people especially must be informed that this is the only way in which the clergy can be reformed and rendered capable of facing present-day needs in society. I do not mean that our modern clergy are lacking in doctrine and virtue, but that these must be increased so that the word of the gospel may be better appreciated in the preaching, life and saintly works of the clergy. A spiritual revival amongst the clergy is desired by all except the devil and his angels. The way to attain it has been pointed out: everyone must be persuaded that the quickest, surest and only way to reach it is to abolish the Church's slavery in the choice of her ministers, and restore her full freedom.

Christian rulers will have their conscience roused when they are persuaded that they are doing great harm to the Church (and the clergy has to enlighten them about this) by retaining the nomination of prelates instead of leaving the Church completely free, as the nature of episcopal elections demands. Generally speaking, I have no doubts about catholic sovereigns. I believe in their right intention, their piety, their attachment to the Church, and the influence exercised over them by the great example of many ancestors distinguished for their piety and submission to the Church. If only one of them begins to take the right path, others will follow. I believe that God will bless them if they are loving children of the Church, glad to leave her free and to vindicate her freedom.

While I believe that sovereigns are capable of this magnanimous and saintly act of justice which leaves the Church complete freedom of action, I also recognise that public opinion is necessary to stimulate this good work. On their part, the clergy have to form public opinion by instructing people about the matter. The clergy is subject at present to such tremendous calumny because the bishops are nominated by the rulers. The faithful receive their bishops without knowing or loving them, without having loved them or seen proof of their good works, without trusting them - and the diocesan clergy do the same. The bishop is imposed on clergy and people, and has to be taken as he is. He may be an excellent person, of course, but he will have to fight indifference and aversion before his presumably excellent talents and virtues can be used in the service of his flock.

The matter is different if the bishop is supported by his people. For example, seminary studies are under discussion. Give me bishops nominated by clergy and people, and these studies will change direction immediately. Perhaps people have little respect for their pastor; perhaps the clergy of the diocese are scarcely in union with him; all will be put right if he is chosen by the clergy with the witness of the people. But bishops falling under suspicion as tools of the ruler, are necessarily seen as contrary to reforms and liberties which lessen the arbitrary power of the ruler. False though this suspicion may be, it exists, and causes great damage to the Church, religion, and the souls of the faithful. It ceases when the bishop is no longer seen as the favourite or the beneficiary of the ruler nominating him

I could go on, but this is only a letter. There is not a single point of reform in church matters which could not be satisfied by the free choice of bishops. All that is required is for learned churchmen to deal with the matter in extenso and illustrate the infinite beneficial consquences of free elections. Enlightened public opinion would insist on this freedom, and rulers would undoubtedly grant it.

You are afraid that rulers would hold on to concessions made previously by the Church, and perhaps threaten greater evils in their own interests rather than lose the moral influence they appreciate bishops possess over the people.
I do not think that such interest, calculated at increasing the power of rulers by sacrificing the freedom of the Church and the rights of the people, has any place in modern society. Our rulers, it seems to me, are too farsighted to make such a mistake about their own interests. They cannot be so blind after so many lessons.

Bishops nominated by rulers, as they are today, cannot enjoy much influence over free peoples jealous of their newly-acquired liberty. Hence rulers cannot rely on the influence of such bishops who, in the eyes of the people, are tainted with an original sin. But it is much more displeasing to see that, while bishops considered partisan cannot move the people in favour of the ruler nominating them, they cannot exercise such influence in support of the faith, morality and religion. Surely it is not in the ruler's true interest to help form a people composed of immoral disbelievers, indifferent to good works, and deaf to the words of their bishops? This is the way in which rulers have been overthrown by mob rule, and it will go on until rulers and people become docile to the voice of the Church, their mother and teacher. And this will not happen as long as bishops are nominated by rulers.

If justice is the only solid foundation for government, let rulers begin by being just and generous towards the Church which existed before them and will exist after them, and by sincerely desiring the presence of impartial arbitrators between themselves and the people. Both sides will esteem and love bishops as authoritative peacemakers if they are freely chosen by the Church without the intervention of rulers, who have nothing to fear if they are seeking for justice. An outstanding, just ruler possesses no greater good than the presence around him of ministers of the God of peace and justice who are prepared to speak the truth candidly.

Three centuries have shown conclusively that princes (and when I say "princes" I mean any other kind of government also) are incapable of nominating great men to episcopal sees. This is why religion has been reduced to its present state. There is a good deal of complaint about the present dominant irreligion amd immorality, but its causes and remedies go unexamined. If you try to offer suggestions, new Jeremiahs lift their eyebrows and are almost prepared to call you a heretic or at least innovator. Their ignorance causes them to destroy the love amongst men of good will that could so assist the progress of the kingdom of God on earth. The past three centuries, when the church has been enslaved regarding her choice of bishops, have provided very few large-minded, holy, learned and active pastors - and this is harmful to rulers, people, order, freedom, faith and the temporal well-being of the world.

If these things were insisted upon, rulers might well conclude that they had put the Church in chains, and been punished accordingly by God. Can any ruler affirm in good faith that he has always chosen the most worthy persons for vacant sees? His incapacity for doing so will not excuse him before Jesus Christ. Rulers, and lay power in general, do not and cannot recognise the true needs of the Church, nor appreciate rightly the sublime qualities required of a pastor. A fortiori, they are incapable of choosing the best out of many possible pastors, even when temporal interests do not intervene to bias their judgment. The laity may well do its own work well; it will never carry out completely that of the Church.

In conclusion, let me say that rulers' enlightened self-interest, on temporal and spiritual planes, will counsel the restoration to the Church of freedom to choose her own pastors. I hope they will listen in time to this advice coming from a person without authority, but with love in his heart. If the advice is ignored, their peoples will know how to act in their own self-interest, and begin unfortunately to reclaim freedom of choice of bishops which their masters obstinately cling to. This freedom is a sacred right of people as well as of clergy - in the way I have indicated - and the best guarantee of freedoms accorded in constitutional government. Although the christian people seem indifferent about episcopal elections at present, they will one day appreciate their importance, and redeem them.