La mobilitazione transnazionale dei cattolici di fronte al crollo del potere temporale del papa (1859-1870)

ARTHUR HÉRRISON

On Friday 11 April, in room F007, at 5 p.m., the fifth appointment of the annual cycle of the permanent seminar in History of the Papacy will be held. On this occasion, Arthur Hérisson, from the Centre d'histoire du XIXe siècle (Universités Paris 1 - Sorbonne Université) in Paris, will give a lecture entitled ‘The transnational mobilisation of Catholics in the face of the collapse of the pope's temporal power (1859-1870)’. The scholar will focus on the forms of international mobilisation implemented by the papacy in the third quarter of the 19th century.

Between 1859 and 1870, Italian unification threatened the existence of the Papal States. Faced with this situation, the papacy chose to mobilise the faithful on a transnational scale. This mobilisation had two main objectives: to put pressure on European governments to defend the cause of the Holy See against Italy and to provide the Papacy with the resources that the Papal State, reduced to Rome and Lazio since 1860, could no longer provide. The lecture will study this mobilisation strategy, analysing in particular its two main forms: recourse to international military volunteers, of which the Papal Zouaves provide the best example, and financial mobilisation, illustrated in particular by the collection of St. Peter's obolus. In this lecture, Hérisson will try to clarify the complex ways in which the Papacy entered the age of the masses.