pe. This princess is now the Queen of Portugal.

(M57) Another bond of friendship with the world's Powers was secured,
apparently, by the conclusion of a Concordat with the great Austrian
Empire. The negotiations which led to this Concordat had lasted several
years. It was abundantly liberal in the true acceptation of this term.
Nevertheless, it awakened the hatred and contempt of the professed
liberals, who enjoy this appellation, one would say, simply because they
are not liberal, just as in Latin a grove is called by a word expressive
of light, because it is not light (_lucus a non lucendo_). How can they be
called truly liberal, who have no liberality for any but themselves, who
know no other liberty than that which enables them to tyrannize over the
church, and trample under foot her most sacred and beneficial
institutions? The Concordat with Austria provides that the Catholic,
Apostolic and Roman religion shall be preserved in its integrity
throughout the whole extent of the Austrian monarchy, together with all
the rights and prerogatives which it ought to enjoy in virtue of the order
which God has established and the canon law.

The Roman Pontiff having, by divine right, in the whole church the primacy
of honor and jurisdiction, mutual communication, as regards all spiritual
things, and the ecclesiastical relations of the bishops, the clergy and
the people with the Holy See, shall not be subject to the necessity of
obtaining the royal _placet_, but shall be wholly free.

In a consistorial allocution of 5th November, 1855, Pius IX. gave
expression to the joy which it afforded him to have obtained, after so
much tedious negotiation, such happy results. The following year, on the
17th of March, he addressed a brief to the bishops of the Austrian Empire,
exhorting them to avail themselves of the spiritual independence which
they had once more won, in order to guard their dioceses against the
ravages of rationalism and indifference.

(M58) Meanwhile, new difficulties arose in Spain and Spanish America. The
government of Isabella II., regretting the good to which it had so
recently been a party, commenced a new war against the church.
Notwithstanding the Concordat, it exposed for sale such ecclesiastical
property as was not yet sold, forbade religious communities of women to
receive novices, and forcibly removed several bishops from their dioceses.
The excesses were such that Pius IX. was obliged to recall his
repre