The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

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HISTORY OF THE POPES.
true remedy for heresy.^ If they did not hesitate to inflict
the severest penalties in a few cases, Italy would be saved
from a civil war, which, as had already happened in France,^
would drown the countr}^ in blood, while the religious divisions
would only grow worse ; whereas by acting as he suggested
the punishments with which God would otherwise visit the
world would be averted.^
The Pope's viev;s of justice, however, afforded the heretic
some excuse, even though they did not justify them ; he
often recognized that the low state of morals among the clergy,
a thing which he fought against with all his strength, was the
starting point and foundation from which the Protestant movement
drew its force.* This, however, was far from giving the
^ " Omai I'esperienza, che in case di erectici si e fatta atiche
in altre citta d'ltalia, mostra, giusta ropinione del Pontefice, che
il rigore sia la vera medicina di questa paste." (Cardinal Cicada
tp the Doge of Genoa, June 4, 1568, in Rosi, Riforma in Liguria,
90).
" Quo lenius cum illis [Hugonottis] agitur, eo magis eorum
corroboratur audacia " (Pius V. to Catherine de' Medici, June 27,
1566, in Laderchi, 1566, n. 423).
^ Catena, 68 seq.
^ So wrote Pms V. to Charles IX. on April 13, 1569, after having
enumerated the crimes of the Huguenots :
" nam si qualibet
inductus causa (quod non putamus) ea de quibus Deus offenditur
msectari atque ulcisci distuleris, certe ad irascendura eius patientiam
provocabis, qui quo tecum egit benignius, eo debes acrius
illius iniurias vindicare." Goubau, 166 ; cf. 163.
* " che il principio e origine delle eresie nella maggior parte era
stato il mal esempio che avevano dato gU ecclesiastici ; pero li
confortava [i cardinali] e pregava al ben vivere." (Pius V. in the
consistory of January 12, 1566, in Serristori, Legaz. 420 ; cf.
GouB.^u, 2, 12, 24, 28, 109, 127 seq., 132, 143, etc.). The prin-
cipal objection which he had met with from the Italian
Protestants when he was Inquisitor was the " scandalo delle
meretrici di Roma " and, in connection with that, the corrupt
life of clergy and laity, whereas it was Rome which should have
set an example to the world (C.\tena, 49). For moral and religious
conditions in Italy cf. the picture drawn by H. Bohmer, Studien zur
Geschicte der Gesellschaft Jesu, Bonn, 1914, 177 seqq.