II. The Validity And Justice Of Their Title. 147 and religion would suffer from the interruption of intercourse between the Head and the members. The interests of Christianity demand that the Vicar of the Prince of Peace should possess one spot of territory which would be held inviolable, so that all nations and peoples could at all times, in war, as well as in peace, freely correspond with him. Nothing can be more revolting to our feelings than that the spiritual government of the Church should be constantly hampered by the hostile aggressions of ambitious rulers, an eventuality always likely to occur so long as the Pope remains the subject of any earthly potentate.187 But we are told that the Roman people, by a plebiscitum, or popular vote, expressed their desire to be annexed to the Piedmontese Government. To this I answer, in the first place, [146] that we ought to know what importance to attach to elections held under the shadow of the bayonet. It is well known that the Roman plebiscitum was undertaken by the authority and guided by the inspiration of the Italian troops. It is equally notorious that the numerous stragglers who accompanied the Italian army to Rome legalized the gigantic fraud of their master, as well as their own petty thefts, by voting in favor of annexation. In the second place, the Roman people, even had they so desired, had no right to transfer, by their suffrage, the Patrimony of St. Peter to Victor Emmanuel. They could not give what did 1 87 Some of the evils that were predicted to follow from the occupation of Rome by a foreign power have been too speedily realized. Already several convents and other ecclesiastical institutions have been seized and sold, and their inmates sent adrift. A number of colleges founded and endowed by the piety of foreign Catholics have been confiscated. Public religious processions through the streets of Rome have been prohibited. These and other outrages are perpetrated by a government which solemnly pledged itself to maintain inviolate the sovereign rights of the Holy Father when it took forcible possession of his city in 1870. From the events that have already transpired, we shall not be surprised to see the Pope still more seriously hampered by a monarch who has unscrupulously violated his former guarantees.