WI No Restoration of Papal States

[John Fredrick Parker]

What if, following either the French invasion of 1798 or 1808 (your choice), Papal control of Rome and central Italy was not restored in subsequent years? How would this affect the Catholic Church and wider christianity in general?

 

[Arkenfolm]

Who rules the area then? Is the Roman Republic allowed to remain, or is it replaced by a "Roman Kingdom?"

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

@metalinvader665 If we go with the earlier option, then a continuing Roman Republic would work; we could also say, with a post 1808 PoD, that central Italy stays divided between Naples and/or France.

 

[Yanez de Gomera]

What if, following either the French invasion of 1798 or 1808 (your choice), Papal control of Rome and central Italy was not restored in subsequent years? How would this affect the Catholic Church and wider christianity in general?

This requires a decisive French/Napoleonic victory though, for Rome to remain republican or French.

A more conservative option might be that the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars play out similarly, but at the end there is some POD that leads the European Powers to reduce Papal temporal power to just Rome and Latium, maybe in the framework of an Italian Confederation and certainly under guarantee by the Catholic powers for the rump-papal states.

I'd give Marche and Romagna to the King of Saxony as compensation in case of Prussia getting all of Saxony and parts of Northern Latium and Umbria to Tuscany (which would be elevated to a Kingdom).
A scenario I'd like rather more would instead be one with Eugene Beauharnais turns against Napoleon and is allowed either to keep the whole Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy (well, minus Veneto and some other bits) or at least a principality in Romagna. Both scenarios are really unlikely though...

What I don't think possible is the survival of the Roman (or of any other) "sister" Republic, at least not in the same institutional form.

 

[JackLumber]

This requires a decisive French/Napoleonic victory though, for Rome to remain republican or French.

A more conservative option might be that the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars play out similarly, but at the end there is some POD that leads the European Powers to reduce Papal temporal power to just Rome and Latium, maybe in the framework of an Italian Confederation and certainly under guarantee by the Catholic powers for the rump-papal states.

I'd give Marche and Romagna to the King of Saxony as compensation in case of Prussia getting all of Saxony and parts of Northern Latium and Umbria to Tuscany (which would be elevated to a Kingdom).
A scenario I'd like rather more would instead be one with Eugene Beauharnais turns against Napoleon and is allowed either to keep the whole Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy (well, minus Veneto and some other bits) or at least a principality in Romagna. Both scenarios are really unlikely though...

What I don't think possible is the survival of the Roman (or of any other) "sister" Republic, at least not in the same institutional form.

Perhaps not though, maybe it only requires the total defeat of the Austrians, if the Austrians don't play any real role in Napoleon's defeat then none of the remaining major players are Catholic, I feel you could do something with that for a pod

 

[Japhy]

I doubt there'd be much impact on Catholicism at all, though the door is open for the Church to go with a more Nationalist Pope whenever the Post-Revolutionary/Napoleonic Settlement starts to fray.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

@Japhy Really? So did Pius IX, for example, not have a noticeably conservative influence on Roman Catholic doctrine?

 

[Japhy]

@Japhy Really? So did Pius IX, for example, not have a noticeably conservative influence on Roman Catholic doctrine?

I mean the definition of conservatism in the Church was always changing. I don't think one can really make the case that any pope ever had a really long term influence, doctrine adapted the Church has always played the role of all faiths in being a Conservative force even at its most liberal and Liberationist. The next Pope is always going to redefine it a bit more one way or the other.

 

[Indicus]

I don’t think that the Roman Republic could have lasted. Italian Jacobins were extremely nationalistic - for instance, Melchiorre Gioia’s newspaper often talked about an Italy “one and indivisible” in his newspaper. It’s only a matter of time before the Italian sister republics become a single Italian Republic in this scenario.

 

[Emperor Constantine]

Highly unlikely. The 1798 Roman Republic was doomed from the start as it had little popular support among the conservative Papal subjects and was completely dependent on the French army. Now a Napoleonic victory would probably work though. Finally, all the Great powers at the Congress of Vienna agreed to restoring the Pope to his patrimony; this included Protestant Britain and Prussia alongside Orthodox Russia. They were restoring the old order to a manageable state and there was no reason to deny the Pope his seat at the table, so to say.

 

[Indicus]

The 1798 Roman Republic was doomed from the start as it had little popular support among the conservative Papal subjects and was completely dependent on the French army.

On the contrary, it had very real support from homegrown Jacobins known as Giacobini, whose suppression by the Papal States was actually what caused the French invasion in the first place. If Revolutionary France was able to survive, some sort of Roman Republic, along with a Cispadane Republic, a Transpadane Republic, and a bunch of other Italian client states, would still exist. As Giacobini were very nationalist, I think the Roman Republic would eventually become part of a unified Italian Republic, though, so that means the Roman Republic would only survive for a while.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

Just to note -- whether the Roman Republic can last as such isn't the relevant question here, but whether, said republic being declared in 1798, the restoration of papal rule could be averted (and that's if we go with earlier option).

 

[LordKalvan]

The problem with this alternate Vienna Congress is that none of the Great Powers (other than Austria) has a real interest in Italy: therefore it makes sense to hand Italy over to Austria as its own private garden, and keep hands free in Germany (where all of the GPs have real interests).
Religion has little or nothing to do with the outcome, and even the principle of "restoration" works if (and only if) there are no good reasons to do otherwise.
OTOH Austria has not a strong interest in re-drawing completely the map of Italy: Veneto is certainly important to them (both to have an unassailable link to Lombardy and because it would be a province which is a net tax-payer), and it's reasonable to reinstate Habsburg proxies in Modena and Florence. There is no need or desire however to partition the Papal States: why should they? Post-Vienna Austria is the natural protector of the Papal States, while partitioning them would potentially create problems: an enlarged Tuscany might be less obedient to Austria dictates, and creating a principality out of the Papal Legations in Emilia, Romagna and Marche introduces a wild card (who would be the prince chosen for this new state?).
Therefore restoring the Papal States is the default solution: it is not controversial, follows the principle of restoration, keeps the Catholics happy and does not allow other powers to ask for compensations elsewhere. Metternich was pretty sure it was an optimal solution, although he had to change his mind 20 years later when he was forced to recognize that the absolute incapacity of the Church to grant a minimally decent form of government (and the acceptable bar was pretty low) became even too obvious.