Thus the motives of Pius VII are clearly shown to have been temporal and political, and when he excused himself on account of the "deplorable times"--that is, the political disturbance among the nations--he manifestly had in view the advancement of those plottings against popular liberty which soon furnished the rallying point to the "Holy Alliance" at Vienna. He seems to have been so intent upon this subject as not to realize that he owed at least some show of respect to the memory of Clement XIV. As if unconscious that when the latter abolished the society, he also was the head of the Church, possessing all the powers and prerogatives of a lawfully-elected pope, he abrogated and annulled his decree as if it had possessed no higher dignity than a municipal ordinance, imitating in this the practice of those sovereigns who brush all impediments out of the paths of their ambition. He conferred upon the Jesuits the right to exist as an order throughout the world, and thereby approved and indorsed their vilification of Clement XIV. And to show his own estimate of the plenitude of his pontifical authority, he declared that his decree of restoration should be "inviolably observed," and that it should "never be submitted to the judgment or revision of any judge." And then, as if he stood in the place of God, whilst Clement XIV had rebelled against the Divine authority, he commanded that "no one be permitted to infringe, or by an audacious temerity to oppose any part" of his decree; and made disobedience to it an act of sin, by declaring that he who shall be guilty of it "will thereby incur the indignation of Almighty God, and of the holy apostles Peter and Paul." He treated contemptuously the decree of Clement XIV, without the least pretense that the Jesuits had repented of the crimes for which he abolished their society after four years of careful investigation, and without any pledge upon their part not to repeat them--a serious and dangerous omission.[154]