"We can not admit the following proposition: That we should have for your majesty in temporals the same regard that you have for us in spirituals. This proposition has an extent that destroys and alters the notions of our two powers. A Catholic sovereign is such only because he professes to recognize the definitions of the visible head of the Church, and regards him as _the master of truth and the sole vicar of God on earth_. There is therefore no identity or equality between the spiritual relations of a Catholic sovereign and the temporal relations of one sovereign to another."[164] The true meaning of this was well understood at the time, and can not now be disguised by any method of interpretation. According to Pius VII, therefore, a "Catholic sovereign" must accept whatsoever the pope shall define in the domain of faith and morals, whether spiritual or temporal, because he alone is "the master of truth," and stands in the place of God on earth, and is, consequently, without any superior, or even equal; that in no other way can a pope be such a supreme sovereign as he ought to be; that it is his divine right to command, and the duty of temporal sovereigns to obey; and that, no matter what temporal relations shall exist among sovereigns, there can be no equality between them and the pope, who shall rule them all, in whatsoever concerns faith and morals, as "the sole vicar of God on earth." If in this Pius VII is to be taken to have defined the only form of government which the papacy can recognize as rightful, then it is clear that none such now exists in the world--not even in Italy since the abolition of the pope's temporal power. The European people at the time understood him sufficiently well to foresee that all their efforts to limit the monarchical power by constitutions would be unavailing if the papal policy announced by him should prevail. The Roman Catholic populations, already upon the verge of revolution, were specially indignant when they realized that the papacy was thus availing itself of the authority of the Church, not only to defeat the popular will, but to require them to accept these teachings as essential parts of the faith. Hence, the revolutionary spirit was increased, so that by the time of the death of Pius VII, in 1823, it had become evident that it could not be arrested unless the papacy abated its pretensions and became reconciled to the existing condition of affairs. Pius VII fretted out his life because of the tendency of the times to liberalism; and if it be said in his behalf that he lived at a stormy period, when the waves of the political sea ran high, it may well be replied that if he had possessed a conciliatory spirit he could have done more than any other living man to bring the discontented and jarring elements into harmony. But instead of this, he turned loose upon society the odious and condemned Jesuits, whose very presence increased the popular discontent, as the storm rages more violently