§ 187.7. The inferior clergy of Italy, after the political emancipation of Naples from the Bourbon domination in A.D. 1860, longed for deliverance from clerical tyranny, and founded in A.D. 1862 a society with the object of establishing a =national Italian church= independent of the Romish curia. Four Neapolitan churches were put at the disposal of the society by the minister Ricasoli, but in 1865, an agreement having been come to between the curia and the government, the bishops were recalled and the churches restored. Thousands, to save themselves from starvation, gave in their submission, but a small party still remained faithful. Encouraged by the events of 1870 (§§ 135, 3; 189, 3), they were able in 1875 to draw up a “dogmatic statement” for the “Church of Italy independent of the Roman hierarchy,” which indeed besides the Holy Scriptures admitted the authority of the universal church as infallible custodian and interpreter of revealed truth, but accepted only the first seven œcumenical councils as binding. In the same year Bishop Turano of Girgenti excommunicated five priests of the Silician town Grotta as opponents of the syllabus and the dogma of infallibility. The whole clergy of the town, numbering twenty-five, then renounced their obedience to the bishop, and with the approval of the inhabitants declared themselves in favour of the “statement.” North of Rome this movement made little progress; but in 1875 three villages of the Mantuan diocese claimed the ancient privilege of choosing their own priest, and the bishop and other authorities were obliged to yield. The Neapolitan movement, however, as a whole seems to be losing itself in the sand.