Front matter (continued 8)

This was a "rebuke" indeed! These writers for the press must have been seized with consternation at finding themselves in the presence of such a sovereign—so august and irresponsible. They, doubtless, supposed that duty to their own consciences and to the public enjoined upon them the obligation to deal fairly and frankly with their patrons, by laying before them such opinions as they honestly entertained, and such reasons in support of them as really existed in their own minds. These are the legitimate fruits of the liberty of the press, as is shown by the fact that in countries where this liberty is maintained, there is no class of people more independent than public journalists, or whose views, on that account, are more appreciated and influential. It is not stated that those who assembled in Rome, "from all countries," to seek advice from Leo XIII were of a different class. We are told only that to their inquiries he returned "a severe rebuke," and commanded them not to "presume to decide in their own right and by their own light" anything concerning the papacy, but to employ their journals in communicating to their readers the opinions expressed by himself in such manner as not "to seem to have opinions" of their own!

Here we are furnished by the present pope himself a practical example of what papal sovereignty and dominion mean; that is, the preservation to himself of the right of doing and saying whatsoever seems proper in his own eyes, and the denial of it to all others. Does anybody need to be told whether this is tolerance or intolerance; whether it means intellectual liberty or bondage, a free or a muzzled press? This absolute censorship over the press was intended to be universal; not only because, in his opinion, what he does and says must be so by virtue of the universality of his spiritual power, but because he was addressing public journalists "from all countries," who were expected to take home with them, and obey, his pontifical commands. Unquestionably he intended to avow a general principle, alike applicable everywhere and to all—whether in Europe or America—so that wheresoever a pen of the faithful shall be employed in conveying intelligence to the public, "bearing on the circumstances" and condition of the papacy, there is but one possible legitimate use to which it can be applied; that is, to announce what the pope does as infallibly right, and what he says as infallibly true—censuring and condemning all else. He who uses it must not "presume to decide" anything or any question for himself, or appeal to his own conscience to ascertain its convictions, or "seem to have opinions" of his own; but must consider himself as surrounded by Egyptian darkness, until a ray of light shall break upon him from Rome. Until then he must remain deaf to any appeal for information, and "like a lamb, dumb before his shearer." This would undoubtedly give to the pope the liberty for which he is striving, but it would enslave all others brought within the circle of his spiritual jurisdiction.

That which can not escape observation in these opinions of the pope, is the extent to which he carries the doctrine of papal infallibility. In common acceptation among the bulk of Christians who accept the teachings of the Church at Rome, that doctrine is regarded as applying only to matters concerning religious faith, and not to matters of fact. These differ from the Jesuits, who insist that it includes both faith and fact; that is, everything spiritual in its nature, and such temporals also as pertain to the spiritual. Leo XIII takes the Jesuit ground, for facts would be necessarily mingled with faith in the politico-religious matters submitted to him by the Congress of editors and writers. When, therefore, he commands that all he shall do and say concerning the restoration of the temporal power and the interests of the papacy, shall be accepted as infallibly right and true, not to be called in question by any, he conclusively shows the effect of his early Jesuit education and training. And since he expects all Roman Catholics to accept this doctrine as a necessary part of their faith, it is specially important for the people of the United States to understand the extent to which he expects it to be carried wheresoever his spiritual authority shall reach. We are plainly and expressly told that it includes "politico-religious questions," and this is affirmed by him in the incident related by his biographer. The Jesuits themselves could say no more, and are careful not to say less in their definition of papal infallibility, for fear that some inquisitive minds might discover loopholes in the doctrine through which individual opinions might escape, and thus give approval to liberty of thought, of speech, and of the press, and to the forms of popular government which they underlie.

The pope does not intend to be misunderstood, and therefore takes pains not to leave the least doubt with regard to his opinions upon the great question of the right of a people to establish and maintain a government separated from and independent of the Church—as was done by the people of the United States when they formed their Government, founded upon their own will. He well knows that all governments of this character have been the result and are the fruits of the Reformation, and therefore, when he found it necessary for him to address a letter to the Archbishop of Cologne, touching affairs in Germany, he denounced them as "socialistic," or, in other words, as threatening to the peace and happiness of society. That he might not be misapprehended with regard to the character and forms of government he intended to condemn as of this character, he assigned "the sixteenth century" as the period when the seeds out of which they grew were sown, well knowing, as all intelligent people do, that the right of the people to govern themselves by laws reflective of their will then began to take root. That period is specially odious to him on account of the results foreshadowed by it, and because he sees in it the germs of those measures of public policy which have acquired such growth and strength as to undermine the pope's temporal power—without which the world seems to him to be given over to the dominion of evil. Intending therefore to show—what is manifestly a fixed purpose in his mind—what he regards as the source of the ills which threaten to overwhelm modern society with ruin, he availed himself of the occasion of his episcopal letter to the Archbishop of Cologne to say: "Hence, an impious thing never dreamed of even by the old pagans, States were formed without any regard to God or to the order by him established. It was given as a dictate of truth that public authority derives from God neither its origin, nor its majesty, nor its power to command—all that coming, on the contrary, from the multitude; and that the people, deeming themselves free from all divine sanctions, consented only to be ruled by such laws as they chose to enact." And following these opinions to their logical consequences, he pictures the condition into which society has been thrown by such institutions as the people have created for themselves by separating Church and State—as in the United States. He thus draws the sad and deplorable picture: "By spreading such doctrines far and wide, such an unbridled licentiousness of thought and action was begotten everywhere, that it is no wonder if men of the lower classes, disgusted with their poverty-stricken homes and their dismal workshops, are filled with an inordinate desire to rush upon the homes and the fortunes of the wealthy; no wonder is it that tranquillity is banished from all public and private life, and that the human race seems hurried onward to ruin."[201]

In contemplating the picture of modern prosperity and progress—that which is to be found mainly, if not only, where monarchs have been dispensed with or their hands tied by constitutional checks and guards—he imagines nothing discernible but "unbridled licentiousness of thought and action"—nothing but desolation, decay, ruin, death! In this way he accounts for his anxiety to regain the temporal power which the Italian people took away from Pius IX, so that by obtaining perfect liberty for himself as both a spiritual and a temporal monarch, he may disperse his ecclesiastical forces throughout the world, and so reform it as to get rid entirely of that "impious thing" called popular government, and teach the people that by assuming to make their own laws they have reached the borders of a gulf from which the papal arm alone can rescue them. Are these utterances of Leo XIII to be accepted as infallibly true, as he required those to be which he made to the public journalists who went all the way to Rome to ask his advice? In both cases the questions involved are politico-religious, and as he commanded the latter to have no opinions of their own—nor seem to have any—even Jesuit ingenuity and sophistry can discover no distinction between them. In the one case as in the other his meaning is clear and unmistakable—that these matters are all within his spiritual jurisdiction, and that whatsoever he has said or may hereafter say concerning them must be accepted as expressing the will of God. This conclusion can not be escaped, nor does he intend that it shall be; for instead of leaving his meaning to be discovered by reading between the lines, it is plain, palpable, and distinct. His eloquent biographer does not mistake him. When the same questions were discussed by him in an encyclical, and the same arguments substantially repeated, this eminent divine rapturously affirms that his utterances "were like the second promulgation of the law on which rest the foundations of the moral world."[202]

It thus appears, plainly and palpably, that the modern nations are confronted by the fact that the pope has denounced the making of laws by the people—that is, self-government—as an "impious thing," which inevitably leads to "unbridled licentiousness of thought and action," and is hurrying the human race "onward to its ruin,"[203] and that, with his own sanction and pontifical approval, the faithful are instructed to liken his commands upon this and other kindred subjects to the promulgation of the law to Moses in the mount! What more important and interesting question could be submitted to the modern progressive nations, and especially to the United States, than this? It is an arraignment of the chief fundamental principle of our civil institutions—a proposition to remove the corner-stone upon which our national edifice is resting. Our fathers separated Church and State deliberately and wisely, and more than a century of experience has assured to us a degree of prosperity unsurpassed anywhere in the world. Yet the pope—considering this the triumph of evil, of the State over the Church, and of Belial over Christ—invites us to come within the circle of his spiritual jurisdiction, so that every law of the people conflicting with the Canon law of the Roman Church shall be blotted from our statute-books, and our limbs bound with chains forged in papal workshops. If he could achieve this result, he would still admit our right to manage such of our affairs as did not conflict with the interests and policy of the Church over which he presides; but such as did, he would assert the spiritual and divine power to regulate himself. He would be content that we should carry on our industrial pursuits, sow and harvest our grain, build our houses and barns, construct our roads, and pursue our ordinary occupations in peace. But he would add tithes to our taxes, deny the right of civil marriage, put a stop to the erection of Protestant churches, plant his pontifical foot upon every form of dissenting worship, and demand in the name of religion that he should be recognized as both a spiritual and temporal monarch over every foot of soil set apart for the uses of the Roman Church, and over every devotee of that Church, in so far as its interests and necessities should require. And to make it sure that all these things should become lasting and perpetual, he would close all our school-houses, and turn all our teachers adrift, so that the minds of the pupils should be molded by Jesuit influence—as his own was—in order that the blessed period of the Middle Ages should be revived, and all memory of the Reformation be blotted out forever.

The pope's biographer, in order to show his readiness for the part he has to play in this revolution in our affairs, takes occasion to disavow and repudiate, in explicit terms, the doctrine of the natural equality of mankind as set forth in our Declaration of Independence—seeming to suppose that when the proper time shall arrive some modern pope may be found who will declare that immortal instrument null and void, as Innocent III did the Magna Charta of England. He makes his disavowal in these words: "The inequality which exists among men living in society arises from nature and its Author, just as from Him comes in the magistrate the right to rule, and in the subject the duty to obey."[204]

It is not to be supposed that this sounds well in any American ears. The author takes advantage of the general sentiment that all things have their source in God as their author, and assumes from this that because men are differently endowed by nature, intellectually and physically, they are therefore, by the laws of nature, politically divided into a superior and inferior class—the former to rule, and the latter to obey. This is the papal theory of society and government; but, from the standpoint of modern advancement, it will readily be seen that it contains two capital errors: it mistakes social for political inequality, and perpetuates the power to rule in one class, and the obligation to obey in the other, leaving the latter no chance of changing its condition of inferiority and submissiveness. It fails to observe that what men do in social intercourse is one thing, and concerns themselves and immediate associates only; whereas, what they shall do in civil and political intercourse is another thing, and concerns the community of which they are members. It does not follow, because they do not in their intercourse with each other enjoy social equality, that they should not share alike in political equality, in order thereby to promote the welfare of all. The contrary is far more reasonable and just—that civil and political equality shall prevail, in order that the whole of society may be brought, as nearly as possible, to the common ground of social equality; that is, that the opportunities for equality should be open to all. This is the progressive theory of government. But the papal and retrogressive theory, as set forth by Leo XIII and his biographer, is opposed to this, for the reason alleged by the latter that God and nature established "inequality," in order that the right of the superior class to govern, and the obligation of the inferior class to obey, shall remain perpetual. This fallacy was successfully maintained during the Middle Ages, and so long as Church and State remained united, because monarchism possessed sufficient power to enable the ruling class to hold the multitude in inferiority. But as the example of Christ, during his humanity, demonstrated that men could lead pious and Christian lives without regard to the character of the governments which ruled over them; that, in fact, civil governments can have no rightful authority over internal religious convictions—the influence of that example opened, through the Reformation, the way to such enlightenment as pointed out the necessity for return to primitive Christianity, in order to fit communities, organized as States, for equality of rights under governments of their own in so far as all things pertaining to their general welfare were concerned. This equality is not confined to aggregated communities alone, but extends to the individuals composing them in all matters not relating to the good of the whole. Among these, made prominently conspicuous under the civil institutions of the United States, is the natural right of each individual to worship God as his own conscience shall dictate, without interference from any quarter, so that by enlightenment he may realize the full sense of his own personality, and thereby increase his ability to add to the common stock of prosperity. Experience has shown that this could be accomplished in no other way than by disuniting Church and State; and therefore we, in this country, are well assured that the framers of our Government acted wisely in doing this, by assigning to the former the spiritual, and to the latter the temporal sphere, as was the case during the lives of Christ and the apostles. In furtherance of this end it became necessary that our Declaration of Independence should establish the proposition, as a fundamental principle, that all men are entitled, by the law of nature, to perfect equality of rights, and while our sense of security may lead us to bear with some degree of patience the papal censure of this principle, they are mistaken who argue therefrom that we can be persuaded, upon any conditions, to exchange that principle for one involving civil and political inequality, which the papacy recommends to us as alone in conformity to the divine law as the pope interprets it.

When the pope tells us that "unbridled licentiousness of thought and action" results from governments by the people, and that thereby "tranquillity is banished from all public and private life," and "the human race seems hurried on to ruin," he manifestly allows his zeal to outstrip his discretion. This arises out of his position, as well as the desire to regain the temporal power lost by his predecessor. He overlooks the fact that the most prosperous among existing nations are those where Church and State have been separated, and clings to the idea that he can not be reconciled to this prosperity without violating the divine command. One reason he assigns for this belief is that the "licentiousness of thought and action" which he considers the outgrowth of civil institutions responsive to the will of the people—where Church and State are separated—has excited the "lower classes" by the "inordinate desire to rush upon the homes and the fortunes of the wealthy." He certainly did not desire to be understood as intending to incite these "lower classes" into anarchy; but careful reflection would have enabled him to see that by announcing to them that those who have separated Church and State, and constructed popular governments, have sinned by breaking the divine law, he furnished to these "lower classes" who are obedient to his teaching, an argument by which many of them would readily justify themselves for rushing "upon the homes and fortunes of the wealthy." If disobedience to the papal decrees is heresy, as multitudes of popes and ecclesiastics have declared; if heresy may be lawfully suppressed by the extermination of heretics, as Innocent III instructed the faithful, and the Council of Constance decreed; if dissension from the faith of the Roman Church has the curse of God resting upon it, as Leo XIII has himself affirmed, there are those of these "lower classes" ready to become the avengers of the divine wrath by rushing "upon the homes and fortunes of the wealthy," under the pretext that they are wrongfully deprived of their rightful share of property, which God designed for the common uses of mankind. It is said that there are bandits not far from Rome who follow the capture of their victims by crossing themselves before the image of Mary; and while Leo XIII has no sympathy with these, and would readily aid in punishing them as outlaws, yet he can not fail to realize, in his calmer moments, that when he expresses "no wonder" at their acts of outlawry, because they are perpetrated upon those who are guilty of "unbridled licentiousness" and the sin of heresy, he suggests to them a pretext of which they are not slow to avail themselves. Manifestly he has suffered himself—like many other good and Christian men—to go too far.

The danger lies in the excess into which the pope and others who are intent upon the restoration of his temporal power, are betrayed by the peculiar conditions surrounding them. There can be no denial of the fact that this is a politico-religious question, and there is no attempt to deny it. Politically it involves the conversion of the pope into a king over the Italian people, not only without their consent, but against their protest. There can be no question more important to any people than this; for it directly involves their right to be free, independent, and self-governing. But it is made to assume a religious aspect by reason of the fact that the pope and his followers assume it to be a necessary part of the divine plan that the head of the Church shall be—whether the people of Italy consent or not—an absolute temporal monarch in Rome. This they make an essential part of religious belief, and everything contrary to it heretical. Consequently, whatsoever institutions recognize the right of the people to make their own laws and select their own agents to administer them, are placed under the ban of the papacy. This brings the papacy in conflict with all the modern nations which have separated the State from the Church; and as the pope can not maintain the papal theory without arraigning them as violators of the divine law, he can not avoid excesses without seeming to abandon, in some degree, his claim to temporal power. This politico-religion directly assails one of the fundamental principles of our Government, and the effort to induce any part of our population to accept it as religious faith, necessarily antagonizes the Government itself; for, although the question primarily and practically concerns the Italian people alone, the growth of this sentiment in this country could have no other tendency than to threaten our popular institutions and the right of self-government with ultimate overthrow. In the very face of this, the biographer of Leo XIII, and undoubtedly reflecting his sentiments, ventures to refer to the present Constitutional Government of Italy, in these words: "The occupation of Rome is an international wrong, which all Catholics are bound to denounce and oppose until it is done away with."[205]

This language is express, direct, emphatic. There is not the least obscurity about its meaning; and having the approval of the pope and of his American cardinal, together with his official blessing, it is undoubtedly intended to instruct every Roman Catholic in the United States that he shall treat the loss of the temporal power as an international question; and that the whole body of the faithful shall organize themselves into a politico-religious party, to bring the Government to interfere for its restoration; and not to cease the agitation, no matter what consequences shall follow, until this shall be accomplished. This is a serious matter—too serious to be passed by idly or inconsiderately. The restoration of the pope's temporal power is exclusively a foreign question, because it involves alone the question how a foreign people shall govern their own domestic affairs; whether, in other words, they shall govern themselves or have a king forced upon them, with absolute imperial power in his hands, to govern them at his own will and without their consent, as their ancestors were governed during the Middle Ages, and themselves also, until, imitating the example set them by the people of the United States, they grasped the scepter of government in their own hands by a patriotic and successful revolution. The Government of the United States has neither the right nor the power to interfere, any more than it has the right and power to dictate the successor to the throne of England upon the death of Queen Victoria, or who shall be the pope of Rome when Leo XIII shall die. Besides, by the separation of Church and State, this country can not have, by legal sanction, any politico-religious questions to agitate and disturb the nation, and put its peace in peril. This had been sufficiently done throughout the world before our institutions were formed, and to guard against its repetition here, our fathers properly and wisely excluded all such matters from the domain of American politics. The attempt to introduce them now can have but one meaning—the desire to unsettle the work so wisely done and thus far so patriotically maintained.

We must not permit the pope or his apologists to mislead us by the pretense that they do not propose to interfere with purely political questions, as they understand them. If deceived themselves upon this point, we should be careful not to be deceived by them; for it requires but little intelligence to foresee the evil consequences that would inevitably follow the introduction of politico-religious questions among us, especially such as tend to involve us in dangerous controversy with a foreign and friendly power. It would, beyond any reasonable doubt, lead to the formation of a politico-religious party, and incite tremendous and threatening commotion. The people would then be required to re-decide questions long since settled, as they supposed, finally. Such a controversy could have but one end, which might, however, have to be reached through turmoil and strife, if not tribulation; for the people would not be likely to decide themselves incompetent for self-government, or to acquiesce in the pope's jurisdiction over the fundamental principles of their Government, or to see their own authority so narrowed as to embrace only the administration of local and inferior affairs. If this battle is to be now fought, it has not been invited by the people of the United States. They are satisfied with the fundamental principles of their institutions as they are, and those will find themselves mistaken who shall endeavor to make their tolerance the fulcrum upon which the papal lever may rest, in order that they may be carried back to those "blessed ages" when unquestioning obedience to the pope, upon whatsoever subject he chose to embrace within his spiritual jurisdiction, was considered the highest duty of citizenship and the only road to heaven.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XX.

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE.

No injustice should be done to Leo XIII. If his position as the official head of a great Church were not sufficient to shield him against unfairness, his eminent Christian virtues should do so. Before his election to the pontificate he had acquired the reputation of being conspicuously great. He was, undoubtedly, the ablest defender of the prerogative rights of the papacy among the entire body of cardinals; and this distinction was well deserved. His arguments were then addressed mainly to ecclesiastics, and were designed to encourage them in their efforts to extinguish the revolutionary spirit which pervaded the Roman Catholic populations of Europe.

Now that he has become pope, the circle of his influence is enlarged so that it reaches the whole body of the Church of Rome through the medium of his hierarchy and priesthood; of whom it may rightfully be said, without intending offense, that they have no other spiritual work to do but what he assigns to them. That they may be fitted for this they have been deprived of all share in the responsibilities which pertain to the conduct of human affairs—all participation in the active operations of society and all those domestic associations which excite generous and kindly emotions and give to life its greatest charm. They are, consequently, molded by him into a compact organization, held in cohesion by the power of a common purpose, with the special design of assailing, in every part of the world, whatsoever he shall decide to be under the ban of his pontifical displeasure. With such a force at his command—unitedly resisting what he shall direct them to resist, and defending what he shall direct them to defend—he constitutes such a power in the presence of the nations as exists nowhere else. Reaching, therefore, vaster multitudes of people, and possessing more potential influence than any other man in the world, nothing should be permitted to impair our obligation to become acquainted with his present pontifical opinions and purposes, as well as with the habits of thought which prepared him for his present eminent position. It can not be rightfully complained that his pontifical opinions are interpreted in the light of those previously entertained and expressed by him—more especially since his biographer has made such liberal use of them to prove his fitness to become the potential head of the Christian world.

While cardinal, he availed himself of frequent opportunities to denounce the Italian Revolution as sinful, and supported all the measures designed to suppress it. He aided Pius IX by his advice and counsel, and defended the entire series of his pontifical measures—condemning as heresy every professed form of Christianity that did not recognize the obligation of obedience to the pope as a divinely-appointed temporal sovereign. He regarded all other Churches besides the Roman as impiously pretentious—having no legitimate right to exist—and consequently as under the Divine displeasure. As he considered unity of Christian faith essential to the unity of the Church, and the temporal dominion of the pope as absolutely necessary to both, he employed much of his time as cardinal in supplying the clergy of Perugia with arguments against the revolution, and in pointing out both its spiritual and temporal consequences. As part of his pastoral work he insisted that the destruction of the temporal power of the pope would necessarily and inevitably lead to infidelity and atheism, because it would open the door to the toleration of other religions besides the Roman. This, in his opinion, would inaugurate the reign of "irreligion and libertinism," for the reason that there was no middle state between obedience to the pope as an absolute temporal monarch, with complete authority over the faith and consciences of his subjects, and the ruin of society. He divided society into two classes: one faithful to Christ, and therefore obedient to the pope; and the other representing Belial—that is, Satan—because of the refusal of that obedience. Upon all these points his meaning was plainly expressed in eloquent and faultless style.

Although differing from Pius IX with regard to the duration of the temporal power—fixing it at "eleven centuries," and not as obtained at the fall of the Roman Empire, several hundred years previously—he, nevertheless, considers it a "divine institution," conferring upon the pope the "supreme and governing power in spirituals." Before explaining, however, what he intends by "spirituals," he insists that whatsoever they are, they can not become subject to any human interference or limitation in any part of the world, but must be everywhere complete and plenary. Upon this point his biographer assumes to assist him, by interjecting between his sentences, as a key to his meaning, the idea that the temporal power is "incarnate in a manner in the Roman pontiff;" that is, that in some strangely mysterious way, it so permeates the pope as to be made providentially inseparable from his personal as well as official existence! But, seeming not to realize the ridiculousness of his bold hyperbole, he omits to explain why this same power was not incarnate in the popes before they placed crowns upon their own heads at the fall of the Roman Empire. Perhaps he imagined that the incarnate principle was in its germ during the first ages of the Church, and that the process of its development into absolute imperialism was not complete until the peaceful alliance between the Eastern and the Western Christians was sundered by the invading armies of Pepin and Charlemagne, when these sovereigns imparted a portion of their royal prerogatives to the popes and protected them by military force. Whatsoever meaning may have been intended, it is manifestly designed to convey and enforce the sentiment as part of the doctrinal faith of the Church, that because the temporal power "maintains in their unity and integrity the Church and religion," therefore it is divine, and confers superhuman authority upon the pope over the sentiments, opinions, and conduct of mankind. "Besides," said Leo XIII, while yet Cardinal Pecci, "can it be intelligible that the living interpreter of the divine law and will should be placed under the jurisdiction of the civil authority, which itself derives its own strength and authority from the same will and law?" To this question he attempts no specific answer, but his meaning was well understood by those to whom it was addressed; that is, by the ecclesiastics whose minds had been molded by the same training as his own. It is this: That as the authority of the pope and that of the State are both derived from the same divine law, and as the pope alone is the "living interpreter" of that law, therefore the State must accept and obey what he shall declare as "the voice of God." Continuing, however, he embraces this same meaning in equally expressive terms. Happiness in this life he considers the only means of procuring higher happiness hereafter, and therefore the pope as "high priest" has "received from Christ the mission of guiding humanity toward the everlasting felicity;" that is, there is no other true religion than that announced and maintained by the pope; that all other forms are false and heretical; and that those who do not profess it will, in the great and unknown future, be cast into utter darkness, to weep and wail and gnash their teeth forever. And then, basing his conclusion upon this hypothesis, he breaks out in this ejaculation: "See, then, what upsetting of ideas it would be to make the high priest of the Catholic Church, the Roman pontiff, the subject of any earthly power;" as if God had so endowed all the popes—even Alexander VI (!)—with the faculty of inerrancy, that they alone, of all the ages, have had the mysteries of nature and revelation revealed to them! He never permits this idea of universal papal sovereignty to escape him without so expressing its meaning as to show that wheresoever or into whatsoever country he shall assert it, it can not become subject to any other law than that which the pope himself shall prescribe. It requires but little scrutiny to see that what he intends is, that when the pope sends his ecclesiastical representatives into any part of the world, his instructions must be to them a code of laws which they must obey at every hazard, although it may become necessary to violate whatsoever conflicting laws the civil authorities may enact. If the people of the United States were to submit to this, from the moment they should do so they would cease to exist as an independent nation, and their progressive prosperity would wither and die under the spiritual tyranny of papal Rome, as other republics have hitherto withered and died under the temporal tyranny of imperial Rome. And thus that ancient city which, by its iniquities, became the Babylon of the apostolic times, would again acquire the power to rebuild by unrewarded labor the monuments upon her seven hills, and to exult at the decay of the present progressive nations, as her great prototype did when she looked out upon the miserable but obedient populations who swarmed throughout the valleys of the Tiber.

Leo XIII lays down his premise with such assumed authority as not to admit of challenge, and logically argues from it certain satisfactory conclusions, without pausing to inquire whether the premise itself is true or false. In this respect he imitates some logicians who seem not to realize the difference between assumption and proof. For example, he insists that Christ established an independent Church and a dependent State, so that the former does not exist in the latter, but the latter must exist in the former, in its condition of dependence. He overlooks the fact that States existed before the Church, and that instead of interfering with their temporal affairs Christ paid tribute to them, and recognized the independence of each in its own proper sphere—the one spiritual and the other temporal. The spiritual obedience he exacted was to the divine law, in order to promote the spiritual welfare of individuals and consequently of society; the temporal obedience was to make secure the political rights of citizenship, including those of person and property. He did not consider States as capable of rewards and punishment in another life, but as mere aggregated communities who could bring them to an end by abandoning their territories. Therefore, he left the State to its own temporal government, independently of the Church, and not only obeyed its laws himself, but enjoined the obligation of the same obedience upon his disciples and followers; that is, of rendering "unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's." He gave equal independence to the Church, so that by administering to the spiritual welfare of individuals the temporal welfare of the State would be advanced and the common prosperity the better secured. And thus, by also rendering "unto God the things that are God's," the general welfare of the State would rest upon firmer foundations.

History, during all the ages since Christ, well attests the character of his plan. For more than five hundred years the Church and the State acted independently of each other, neither encroaching upon the sphere of the other, and Christianity progressed until paganism disappeared before it. When the ambitious popes brought on a conflict that separated the Western from the Eastern Christians, and accepted the crown of temporal dominion from Pepin and Charlemagne in consideration of the pontifical ratification of the former's treason to France, the world was plunged into the darkness and stupor of the Middle Ages, and they became enabled to employ their power of absolute monarchism to compel obedience from the State to the Church and the Inquisition, to produce unity of religious faith. When the cloud of popular ignorance became so dense as to be scarcely penetrable, and such popes as Alexander VI could assert their own infallibility with impudent impunity, and burn at the stake those who denied it, the necessity for reform became so urgent that the period of the Reformation was ushered in with such violence that the papacy, aided by the Jesuits, was powerless to arrest it. And when the Reformation gave birth to Protestantism, and enabled it to culminate, through the influence of free religious thought, in the civil institutions of the United States, such impetus was given to the liberalizing spirit of progress that monarchism in both Church and State would be hastened to its final decay, were it not that Leo XIII has thrown the great weight of his Christian character into the scale in favor of it and against the progressive spirit which has advanced the world to its present condition of prosperity and happiness. Those who advise us to turn back from this prosperity and happiness toward the Middle Ages, under the pretense that they are produced by the triumph of irreligion and licentiousness over Christianity, are, to say the least, counselors of evil.

Leo XIII reasons within a narrow circle; or, rather, within a number of circles, reaching always the same conclusion, that whatsoever is adverse to the papacy must be opposed until it is put out of the way. His spiritual power must be as comprehensive as he desires to make it—including whatsoever of temporals he shall decide necessary to its free exercise, or to the interests of the Church; and within this circle his jurisdiction must be so full, complete, and independent, that neither Governments nor communities nor individuals can place any limitation upon it, or violate the rules and principles he shall prescribe, without heresy. He is always explicit upon questions concerning the relations between the pope and Governments—never losing sight of the idea that he must be absolutely independent of them; so much so that while they must obey him when he shall think proper, in behalf of the Church and religion, to command their obedience, he shall be under no obligation to obey any of their laws which he shall consider in conflict with his pontifical plans or the interests of the Church. "He must be free," he says, "to communicate without impediment with bishops, sovereigns, subjects, in order that his word, the organ and expression of the divine will, may have a free course all over the earth, and be there canonically announced." Here, again, he gives prominence to the idea that he is the only interpreter of the divine will, coupling with it the additional one, that not only bishops, but sovereigns and peoples everywhere, must recognize and obey it; for obedience is necessarily implied, inasmuch as his commands would not have "free course" without it. No Government must possess the power to prohibit this, because he acts canonically; that is, his decrees, being an embodiment of the divine will, become part of the Canon law, which, having thus the stamp of divinity upon it, must be universally recognized and obeyed, no matter what Governments may do or say to the contrary. Practically it is the same as if he had said that the laws of all the Governments, touching matters embraced within his pontifical jurisdiction, must give way to the Canon law, because they are human and it is divine.

There are many methods of illustrating the effect of this papal doctrine which will occur to intelligent minds; but at this point one is sufficient. In the United States we have separated Church and State, and based our civil government upon the principle of toleration for differences of religious faith. But by papal decrees and the Canon law all this is declared to be heresy, and placed under the pontifical ban. Hence, the sovereign spiritual power claimed by Leo XIII, as pope, gives him the divine right, in the face of all our Constitutions, National and State, to anathematize the heretical form of our institutions, and to impose upon all who recognize obedience to him the obligation to oppose this heresy, and to eradicate it whensoever it is expedient to undertake it. Involved in this there is, also, the claim of additional power to reconstruct our Government so as to unite Church and State, and subordinate the latter to the former, by putting an end to all religious differences, and establishing the religion of the pope—whatever that is or may be—as the national religion.

But Cardinal Pecci—now Leo XIII—expressed himself more plainly and emphatically upon these points, in assigning the reasons why the pope should possess, and exercise throughout the world, this extraordinary spiritual sovereignty. It is necessary, he said, in order that the pope may be empowered "to keep off schism; to prevent the spread of public heresies; to decide religious disputes; to speak freely to rulers and peoples; to send nuncios and ambassadors; to conclude concordats; to employ censures; to regulate, in fact, the consciences of two hundred millions of Catholics scattered all over the earth; to preserve inviolate dogmas and morals; to receive appeals from all parts of the Christian world; to judge the causes thus submitted; to enforce the execution of the sentences pronounced; to fulfill, in one word, all his duties, and to maintain all the sacred rights of his primacy."

Having thus enumerated these extraordinary powers of the pope—such as exist nowhere else in the world—he goes a step further by defining the relations between the papacy and those Governments and peoples that have taken away, or refused to recognize, the existence of these powers. In this he refers, primarily, to the kingdom of Italy, which had committed the offense of abolishing the temporal power of the pope and separated Church and State; and, secondarily, to all other Governments throughout the world where the union between Church and State is forbidden; that is, where Governments of, and for, and by the people have been established. "Here, then," says he, "is what they are aiming at by taking from the pope his temporal power: they mean to render it impossible for him to exercise his spiritual power." This goes to the bottom of the question, and states plainly the idea present in his mind; that is, that the spiritual power, being superior to the temporal, necessarily includes it to the extent he shall think proper to assert—limited only by his pontifical discretion—so that the latter must to that extent be kept in subordination to the former, and obey its commands. For example, the pope considers it his duty to send an army of ecclesiastics to all parts of the world, and to exact from them implicit obedience to himself, so that wheresoever they shall find temporal laws forbidding them to perform their spiritual functions as he shall define them, he and they must be endowed with sufficient spiritual power to enable them to disobey those laws and set them aside when it becomes expedient to do so. He assumes that "every Catholic"—no matter where he is—accepts this as part of his religious faith, being instructed that the pope must possess such power over both spirituals and temporals as shall make him independent of every Government upon earth in all such matters as he shall declare to be within his spiritual jurisdiction. Quoting some obscure "lodge of Carbonarism in Italy," in order to show that where the pope does not possess the power he claims for him, irreligion, infidelity, and immorality must, of necessity, prevail, he declares that "it is no longer matter of policy; it is matter of conscience" to remove out of the way all impediments to papal supremacy, and that every Christian must stand by the pope in order to put down the enemies of religion, who are designated by him to be those who have taken away from the pope or deny to him any or all of the above enumerated powers.

He does not fail to make his denunciation as comprehensive and sweeping as possible, by characterizing as "irreligion and libertinism" the progressive advancement of modern nations, which prevails where Church and State have been separated. He attaches this character to all these, because, according to him, they are not faithful to Christ, or the Church, or the pope. He denounces the revolution in Italy as "the result of conspiracy, deception, injustice, and sacrilege," merely because it abolished the temporal power of the pope, without the least impairment of any single principle of religious faith that can be traced back to Christ, to the apostles, or to the primitive Christians. What seemed to him to be one of its deplorable and most odious consequences was the loss of power by the pope in consequence of the provision which placed the clergy upon equality with other citizens in regard to civil duties and rights, and made them responsible to the laws of the State, precisely as they are in the United States. This is a point upon which neither the pope nor the clergy will compromise, otherwise than upon compulsion. With them there is no heresy more flagrant than compelling the clergy to comply with any law requiring them to do what the pope forbids as prejudicial to the Church. The right of the pope to require of them disobedience to any such law, and their right to disobey it, is what they call independence, which, according to them, can not be impaired without violating the divine law. They submit to this in the United States, and wheresoever Church and State are separated, but always with the unchangeable purpose of securing, in the end, complete triumph for the law of the Church over that of the State. Hence, when, as the result of the revolution, the law of Umbria placed the clergy upon an equality with other citizens, and made them responsible to the laws of the State, as they now are in the United States, it was denounced by the present occupant of the papal chair as a sacrilegious violation of the divine law. Is this requirement any less "sacrilege" in the United States than in Umbria? The degrees of latitude and longitude do not vary the meaning of the divine law; but the difference in conditions may account for simulated acquiescence in the one case and open protest in the other.

He saw also, in the "diffusion of pestilential books, of erroneous doctrines, and heterodox teachings" another cause for the pontifical curse, inasmuch as it impaired the power of the pope to place restrictions upon the freedom of the press, which has opened the way to liberalism and made the crowns of kings insecure. But that which he condemned more than all, and considered the source of innumerable ills, was the fact that Church and State were separated, and each confined to its own distinct and independent sphere. Referring to the law of Umbria which required the clergy to accept this—as the clergy in the United States are required to accept it—he said: "They are offered, as the basis of reconciliation, to accept the condemned and false system of the separation of Church and State, which, being equivalent to divorcing the State from the Church, would force Catholic society to free itself from all religious influence." He manifestly intended to impress the minds of all who acknowledged obedience to the pope, whether in Europe, the United States, or elsewhere, with the sentiment that the only true religion in the world required, as a matter of faith, that Church and State should be united, with the latter subordinate to the former in whatsoever concerns faith and morals, and that where they have been separated their union should be restored. Having thus made this the solemn religious duty of "every Catholic" throughout the world, he has thereby placed himself, and is preparing them to be placed when the proper time shall arrive, in direct hostility to the principles which prevail in all modern liberal Governments, including that of the United States.[206]

In all this there is no disguise—nothing equivocal. Nor is there any reason why there should have been, inasmuch as these admonitions were addressed to a population reared and educated in the faith of the Church at Rome, for centuries obedient to the commands of the pope and his clergy, and in whose minds there was supposed to linger such sentiments of reverence for the papacy as would, if vigorously appealed to, stimulate them to demand the restoration of the temporal power. Therefore, the foremost man among the clergy—he whose eloquence stirred the heart and whose virtues were universally acknowledged—was chosen as the champion of the papal cause. But for events which have subsequently occurred—more especially his election to the pontificate—and the tolerant spirit which pervades our institutions, it is not probable they would ever have reached the people of the United States. And even now, since they have done so in the pope's biography, there are scarcely five out of every hundred thousand of our population who will ever read them, or, if they do, will turn aside from the multitude of their pursuits to investigate and scan them closely enough to discover their true meaning, plainly and fairly as it is expressed. By such investigation and discovery they would see that Leo XIII considers the following propositions irrevocably settled as religious dogmas: That God provided for the Italian people a form of civil government subject to the absolute dominion of the pope, as the only one that can be religiously tolerated; that revolution to set it aside and establish a popular and constitutional form of government in its place, violates the law of God, and is heresy; that self-government by the people is an abomination which can never obtain the sanction and approbation of the papacy; and that the people of Italy, in order to remain faithful to the Church, should continue forever obedient subjects of this imperial absolutism, no matter how severe its oppressions may become, or how much they may desire to rid themselves and their children of it. And it will be observed that the condition of Italy, in rebellion against the temporal absolutism of the pope, serves him to illustrate the principle which lies at the bottom of all his reasoning; that as God governs the world in equity, and has provided this imperial absolutism for that purpose, with the pope to preside over all that is spiritual and whatsoever temporals shall involve spirituals, therefore all other forms of government are founded upon "irreligion and libertinism," especially such as make the whole body of the people the source of civil power.

The integrity of Leo XIII is not questioned by any one. But he might be liable to the suspicion of insincerity if he had been personally enabled to contrast the present improved condition of the people of the United States, which has been reached within little more than a century of time, with that of the peoples who have for more than twelve hundred years been compelled to submit to the authority and spiritual dominion of the papacy. At all events, it is difficult, for minds impressed by the influences of free popular government, to appreciate either the force or merits of his arguments, when he attempts to make the temporal indispensable to the spiritual power, and asserts the divine right to maintain it when possessed, and the duty of acquiring it when not possessed, as equally indispensable parts of religious faith. The fact that the Italian people—otherwise devoted to the Church of Rome—repudiated this doctrine both politically and religiously, should have impressed his mind with its want of adaptability to the present condition of the world, distinguished as it is either by some form of progress or the popular desire for it among all the nations. Yet, instead of coming to some terms with this progressive spirit among the Italians—which needed only acquiescence in the loss of the temporal power—he was constrained by the united pledge of the College of Cardinals, at the time of his election, to persist in the protesting and aggressive policy of his immediate predecessor. And as he could not turn back without an entire abandonment of the temporal power, he has been likewise constrained to define the extent to which this power, if restored, must be recognized, as a matter of religious faith, beyond Rome and the States of the Church. Without this, the faithful would have been left to suppose that the restoration was designed only to force an absolute temporal monarch upon the people of Italy without their consent, and, therefore, that no religious motive for it existed. Consequently he defined the universal faith to be that, by the restoration of the temporal power, the pope would become again so absolutely sovereign and independent of all Governments that he could not "be placed under the jurisdiction of the civil authority" anywhere in the world, so that whatsoever he shall command in his "mission of guiding humanity," he must be obeyed, no matter what any civil authority may provide to the contrary; that is, that the laws of every State, in conflict with such religious dogmas as he shall announce, must become void and inoperative in so far as they may impede the measures directed by him. Entering upon particulars, he does not shrink from the responsibility of declaring, as we have seen, that the pope must have power to prevent schism and heresy, which includes the means necessary to suppress them; that is, to put an end to Protestantism and all that it has produced. He alone must decide "religious disputes," and every question involving dogmas and morality, and what he shall determine concerning all these must direct and guide the consciences of all "the faithful" throughout the world. And he shall have the right "to enforce the execution" of whatsoever judgment he shall pronounce, no matter whether against Governments, communities, or individuals. The word "enforce" is his own, evidently employed with a full understanding of its import; for the completeness of his style shows that it is not his habit to waste words, or to use them without deliberation. He could not have intended a resort to force as a primary remedy against heresy, but probably considers it justifiable when circumstances render it necessary, as in the cases of rebellious and obdurate heretics whose defiance of papal authority becomes flagrant. It is desirable, however, to follow him further, in order to become entirely familiar with the practical working of his doctrines, as he himself applied them to the state of affairs with which he was directly concerned, in carrying on the battle with "irreligion" and the revolution.

When the Archbishops and Bishops of Umbria deemed it proper to protest to the Piedmontese Government against its infringement of papal rights, Cardinal Pecci was chosen by them as specially fitted for that delicate and important work. As the population of Piedmont were Roman Catholic, and there had been no attempt on the part of the Government to interfere with what they considered the established faith of the Church upon strictly religious points, this protest was mainly intended to express opposition to the laws which regulated the relations of the clergy to the State, by requiring them to obey the public statutes, as they are required to do in the United States, and in such countries as have disunited Church and State. Up till that time they had been an exclusive and independent class, with privileges and prerogatives not enjoyed by the mass of citizens—such as exemption from taxes and from the support of the Government—and to the change in these relations this protest was intended to apply. The laws then existing were considered an irreligious invasion of the liberty of the clergy; that is, of their right of exemption from all governmental obligations. Consequently the feeling upon the subject became very intense among the clergy, as was to be expected after so many years of license and indulgence; and it furnished Cardinal Pecci with the opportunity of making an admirable display of his intellectual powers and eloquence. Without preface, he came to the question directly in these words: "It is a grievous error against Catholic doctrine to pretend that the Church is the subject of any earthly power, and bound by the same economy and relations which regulate civil society. The Church is not a human institution, nor is it a portion of the political edifice, although it is destined to promote the welfare of the men among whom it lives. It affirms that from God came directly its own being, its constitution, and the necessary faculties for attaining its own sublime destiny, which is one different (from that of the State), and altogether of a supernatural order. Divinely ordered, with a hierarchy of its own, it is by its nature independent of the State."

He makes the whole superstructure of his argument rest upon the foundation that as the constitution and all the faculties of the Church came from God, therefore it must of necessity have a "hierarchy of its own," and entirely "independent of the State;" that is, the clergy must be bound to obey the pope, and released from all obligation to obey the laws of the State, unless they also shall be approved by the pope. To require from them this obedience to State laws, "invades," according to this protest, "the sacred province of the priesthood," as well, also, as "the rights and liberties of the Church," because it tempts them "away from the due subjection to their superiors," who are governed only by the pope and the Canon law. And, in order to show that the Church can not tolerate liberalism in the form of the freedom of religious belief or of the press, this protest deplores the "licentiousness of the theater and the press, and the continual snares laid to surprise pious souls, to undermine faith by circulating infamous pamphlets and heterodox writings, and by the declamations of fanatical preachers of impiety;"[207] in other words, by Protestantism and Protestants.

Cardinal Pecci dealt more directly with the "irreligion and libertinism" of the present age in a Lenten pastoral "on the current errors against religion and Christian life." He here expressed himself with severe intolerance against those who proclaim that "man is free in his own conscience; he can embrace any religion he likes;" that is, he condemned the freedom of religious belief. He could not have done otherwise without causing his fidelity to the papacy to be suspected. Consequently, he made his meaning perfectly clear, so that none of the faithful could mistake it, and doubtless because the freedom of conscience is necessary to popular government, which, in serving the pope, he was obliged to condemn. Nevertheless, he was driven to the necessity of admitting that man is created "free and gifted with reason," but sought to break the force of the admission by insisting that this natural freedom must be subject to restraint, because God has imposed obligations upon him and dictated laws for him which he is bound to obey. He, however, gives no latitude to the individual and makes no allowance for his private conscience, but considers him incompetent to decide for himself within the scope of religious laws, and as fit only for obedience to authority; that is, the Church at Rome, and the pope who may, for the time being, preside over it. In setting forth the manner in which God has made known his laws for the direction and government of individual consciences, and how he requires them to be obeyed, he insists that they are only such as the Roman Church has announced, and that the natural right of the human reason to its freedom must be restrained into obedience to them, so that the only liberty of thought or conscience to be allowed must be that which centers in this obedience. To him any other freedom than this violates the divine law, and is heresy. But he plainly involves himself in the absurdity of supposing that to be freedom which is the very reverse of it; for there can be no proposition more palpably true than that a man has no freedom of thought or conscience when constrained, by a force he is powerless to resist, to exchange his own opinions for those of others. It may well be doubted whether opinions formed under the dictation of authority are in fact such. Fear of consequences may induce acquiescence in them, or even their avowal; but as the laws which govern the mind and conscience have no agency in their production, they are simple utterances of the lips which are not responded to by the heart. This must be the case with enlightened minds, except where pre-existing opinions are changed by the force of argument and new enlightenment. The papacy understood this, and therefore kept in ignorance the populations within the circle of its influence and jurisdiction; and Cardinal Pecci, instructed as his mind was upon general topics, was unable to conceive any other methods of human thought than those instilled into his mind by his Jesuit education, and which his official position made it necessary for him to maintain.

Controlled entirely by the idea of unresisting and uninquiring obedience to authority, without any regard for the dictates of individual conscience or the suggestions of reason, he announced the logical result of his own and the papal teachings in these words: "Nor is it left to the free will of man to refuse it, or to fashion for himself a form of worship and service such as he pleases to render." It does not require a man of learning to understand this; it is plain and palpable to any ordinary mind. He could have chosen no words more expressly condemnatory of the freedom of conscience; nor could he have more formally arraigned the people of the United States for having asserted the right of every man to worship God as his own conscience dictates, and having made that fundamental in their institutions and necessary to their existence. According to him this is heresy, because it draws the people away from obedience to the pope; and no man has the right to refuse this obedience, or "to fashion for himself a form of worship or service" which the pope shall condemn! He is immeasurably shocked at the idea that men should be permitted to entertain and express different religious opinions, and to reject the teachings of the pope, to whom alone implicit obedience is due! He had too much character at stake to disguise anything upon this point—leaving that to others in free countries, where the pretense of toleration may be maintained with the hope that it may ultimately pave the way to papal intolerance. Continuing, therefore, the same undisguised denunciation of the freedom of conscience, he says: "It would be not only impious, but monstrous, to maintain every form of worship is acceptable and indifferent, that the human conscience is free to adopt whichever form it pleases, and to fashion out a religion to suit itself." It is not necessary to comment here upon this bold and defiant assault upon our civil institutions. But it is well to remark that it ought to tinge the cheeks of those in this country who, in one breath, profess obedience to the pope who uttered the language here quoted, and in the next talk glibly about their advocacy of the freedom of conscience, which he has condemned as "impious" and "monstrous"—as an unpardonable offense against God!

He then proceeds to speak of the relation of the State to the education of the young, by saying that it is "not called upon to discharge this great parental duty, but to keep the natural educators in their work," by permitting it to "be carried on under the direction of the Church, the depository and teacher of religious doctrines." This is as if he had said that the State shall be forbidden to participate in the work of education even to the extent of teaching patriotism to its youth, for the reason that such State education has the tendency to substitute love of country for fidelity to the pope; and for the further reason that all education that can be tolerated should "be carried on under the direction of the Church" and confined exclusively to "religious doctrines." He expresses the same idea more fully by insisting that all other kinds of education are "devoid of all the external practices and duties of the Christian faith, and calculated to familiarize young people with 'freedom of conscience' and indifferentism;" that is, to encourage them in the belief that popular freedom is worth striving after, and that people are more prosperous and happy when governed by laws of their own making than by those dictated by the ambition of those who claim that they alone are divinely chosen to govern mankind. He sees nothing in such religious liberty as our institutions establish but "irreligion and libertinism," to which it has given rise, and against which he strives hard to enlist all the supporters of the papacy.[208]

From the papal standpoint his arguments are sound and logical, because the general enlightenment of the mind, which enables it to investigate and understand the causes of things, and makes it competent to form conclusions of its own, tends to create self-reliance and opposition to oppressive laws; and has, on these accounts, been odious to the popes ever since they acquired temporal power and made the Church, by means of it, the most potent instrument in maintaining monarchism. Therefore the student of history finds that the papacy has grown weaker as the world has increased in enlightenment. But from the standpoint of our free institutions, both his positions and reasoning are radically wrong and indefensible, because they assail the freedom of conscience which our institutions guarantee to every individual, and our common-school system, which is more responsive to the public sentiment and will than any other measure of our public policy. The plain and manifest import of what he has said is this: That if he were allowed full liberty in this country to dictate what shall and what shall not be regarded as true religion, we would have neither freedom of conscience nor public schools. And this, by his subsequent elevation to the pontificate, constitutes to-day, the greatest if not the only danger which threatens our free, popular form of government.

By his election as pope, Leo XIII occupies a different position from that filled by him as Cardinal Pecci. In the latter he defended the papal doctrines and recommended them for strict observance by the faithful; in the former he dictates and commands, allowing no discretion and submitting to no disobedience. Therefore it is manifestly proper, as well as necessary, that we in this country shall know to what extent the religious doctrines of the cardinal are embodied in the authoritative teachings of the pope. In this latter capacity he has undoubtedly flattered himself, as Pius IX did, that he has at his back and subject to his command, two hundred millions of obedient subjects throughout the world, and has, consequently, availed himself of his first consistorial allocution to prepare them for submission, by announcing that he has been chosen "to fill on earth the place of the Prince of pastors, Christ Jesus!" He must have known, when these words were traced by his pontifical pen, that Christ was never the pastor of an organized Church with a constitution of either spiritual or temporal government; that when the primitive Churches were established by the apostles, they were independent of each other; that none of these ever had a bishop or a presbyter with temporal power in his hands; that this power was not acquired until after the fall of the Roman Empire, according to Pius IX, and not until several hundred years later, according to himself; and that even then it was wrenched from the people by the aid of ambitious monarchs and their armies, and maintained by the false and forged "donation of Constantine," the pseudo-decretals of Isidore, and other means long since repudiated in all parts of the world, and not now defended except by the most mendacious. Yet, with this knowledge in his possession, he strangely complains that the "Apostolic See" has been "violently stripped of its temporal sovereignty" in disobedience of the divine law—pretending thereby that Christ exercised and possessed such sovereignty when upon earth, and that he, as his only representative, is his legitimate successor!

His mind must have been overflowing with exhilaration, when, giving full play to his imagination, he fancied himself thus elevated above and superior to all other human beings. But, like many others who indulge in similar flights and "build castles in the air," the excesses of his fancy were checked by the conviction that the world was, at last, a practical reality in what concerns its welfare, and that the Italian people, who had for many centuries submitted to papal dominion, would not permit him to place the crown of temporal royalty upon his head. Seemingly saddened by this melancholy conviction, he found himself constrained to announce to his "venerable brothers" of the episcopacy that the papacy had been "reduced to a condition in which it can in no wise enjoy the full, free, and unimpeded use of its powers," well knowing that it had not been deprived of any of its spiritual authority except that involved in his right to wear a temporal crown and govern the people arbitrarily as a temporal monarch. And then, under the stimulant of hope, he imposed upon them the religious obligation to labor for the restoration of this lost temporal power, by reminding them how gloriously Pius IX had served the papacy by his efforts "to re-establish the episcopal hierarchy" in Scotland, in the face of the Government of England and the religious sentiment of the Scotch people. Under the influence of these mingled emotions of despondency and hope, his pontificate commenced. What fruits it is destined to bear are hidden in the womb of time. What he intends to accomplish, so far as he can, it is the duty of the civilized world to understand, not by what any cardinal, archbishop, bishop, or priest shall say, but as he himself has chosen officially to announce it. No other man upon earth besides him has the right, according to the papal theory, to prescribe a single tenet of religious faith, because he alone occupies the place of Christ upon earth!

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XXI.

THE CHURCH SUPREME.

In all the encyclical letters issued by Leo XIII, he has exhibited the restlessness which may fairly be presumed to have been produced by discomfiture at finding the difficulties in the way of restoring the temporal power increasing rather than diminishing. This is in no way surprising, inasmuch as all the faculties of his mind are absorbed by contemplation of the means of producing that result, his pontifical influence not being necessary to enforce the recognition of any other principle of faith. He is too intelligent not to realize that there is a strong tendency among the laity of the Church toward "liberal Catholicism"—especially among those who are sharing the advantages of free and popular government, like those in the United States—and that if this tendency is not checked by official rebuke in some way, the present age may destroy all hope of re-converting the pope into a crowned king and leave him forever hereafter in possession of spiritual power alone. Being unable to persuade himself that this ought to be acquiesced in, he steadily persists in trying to bring all peoples and nations within the circle of his pontifical jurisdiction, in so far as matters involving faith, morals, and discipline—as he shall define them—are concerned. Hence we find him often announcing the principles by which all the Roman Catholics throughout the world are to be governed in their relations with civil institutions. And, in order to show that he is unwilling to abate any of his own claims to official royalty, he invariably assumes the attitude of a universal guardian, and, consequently, employs the language of authority. He, manifestly, continues now to speak in the same spirit which heretofore prompted him to affirm "that the false wisdom or philosophy which the last three centuries have followed must be set aside, and Christian wisdom and philosophy made the light of education.... Religion, Christianity, Catholicism, must now come with the steady, unfailing lamp of her divine philosophy, extricate social order from its mortal peril, and lead it back to the old paths."[209] The remedy is evidently plain and simple to his mind—merely this, and nothing more—that the modern world shall return "to obedience to the Church," by the "docile acceptance of the teachings of the one divinely-appointed authority on earth"—who is now himself, and after him to be his successors. What strange infatuation it must be for one so enlightened as Leo XIII undoubtedly is, to suppose that he can so wield the scepter of his spiritual authority over the nations as to cause them to "set aside" their present progress and prosperity, and be led "back to the old paths!"

He omits no opportunity to renew his claim of spiritual authority over "the life, the morals, and the institutions of nations"—that is, over their constitutions and laws—to the extent of requiring them to conform to "the precepts of Christian wisdom" as promulgated from the papal throne. Such nations as shall do this he recognizes as having claim to permanent existence; such as do not, possess only illegitimate power obtained by usurpation. To "set aside" the latter—especially when they have so disregarded "Christian wisdom and philosophy" as to separate Church and State—he evidently regards as a duty, not only incumbent upon himself, but upon all who accept his teachings as infallibly true. To enforce this obligation, therefore, to make the pope, and not the people, the sovereign source of civil power in all that pertains to faith—as the restoration of the temporal power does—he maintains the proposition that Roman Catholics everywhere owe their first duty to the Church, and, after that, allegiance to the State; that is, they are not bound to obey any law of a State which requires them to do anything prejudicial to the Church. Consequently, his pontifical teachings concentrate in this: that when he shall officially declare that any law of a State conflicts with the divine law, their primary duty is to obey him, although, by so doing, they shall violate the law of the State. And, in order to assure this, he requires them to obey their bishops, and the bishops to obey him. While he recognizes the right of States to regulate such merely secular affairs as concern the common and ordinary interests of society, the spiritual authority he claims over them is sufficient to enable him to interfere with and regulate at his own discretion such matters as are within his spiritual jurisdiction, as he shall define it, because "the Church is the mistress of all nations." From this sovereignty—which breaks over the geographical boundaries of nations, as if none existed—he derives the right of the Church to "concern herself about the laws formulated in the State;" that is, to interfere with political questions which involve the interests of the Church. And this interference is justified upon the ground, not only that it is promotive of the welfare of the State, but because, in the absence of it, the States sometimes transcend their just powers by encroaching upon the rights of the Church—as they do by separating Church and State, and prescribing an independent sphere for each. This last offense is, with him, unpardonable, because they who commit it—as the people of the United States have done—"tear asunder civil and sacred polity, bound together as they are in their very essence."

These religious doctrines are not alone the official utterances of Leo XIII. They are inherent in both the papal and Jesuit systems, neither of which can exist without them. The Jesuit theory is that no legitimate rights can be acquired under any constitution or law which violates the divine law as the pope shall interpret it; and that the violation of such constitution or law is neither treason nor rebellion, because, being null and void, they can impose no just obligation of obedience. The authoritative utterance of these doctrines now, and the requirement of obedience to them, constitute a grave and serious fact, which should arrest universal attention. For obvious reasons they demand this attention from the people of the United States more than from any other peoples, because the freedom and tolerance of our Government allow their promulgation, notwithstanding their manifest and direct tendency to encourage traitorous plottings against our popular institutions. Looking only to our own time—the pontificates of Pius IX and Leo XIII, to say nothing of such popes as Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII—we find the well-defined papal policy to condemn as violative of the divine law these fundamental principles of our institutions: The separation of Church and State; the freedom of conscience and religious belief; the liberty of speech and press; the subjection of ecclesiastics to obedience to the laws like other citizens; the people as the exclusive depositories of political power; the refusal to concede to the pope the potential power of conferring upon bishops and clergy the prerogative right to manage church property in contravention of the laws; and last, but far from being least, our common-school system as it prevails in every part of the country. A man, therefore, must be stupid if he can not, and willful if he will not, see that, according to the religious doctrines announced by Pius IX and Leo XIII—omitting other popes—all these great, fundamental principles of our Government, and all the laws enacted to preserve them, are held to be impious, and so in violation of the divine law that they may be rightfully resisted whensoever the pope shall find it expedient so to command. What question of greater magnitude and importance could command the attention of both Protestant and Roman Catholic citizens of the United States? It is a direct blow aimed by a foreign and alien power at the very foundation of our civil institutions. If it has been incited by the indifference of Protestants, they, being apprised of this, are bound by the obligation of patriotism to rebuke it. If the pope has acted only upon the Jesuit theory that the laity of the Church are only animals, and fit only for passive obedience to their superiors, who assume to be their masters, they will prove themselves unworthy of American citizenship if they do not assert their manhood sufficiently to teach the pope that it would be a higher offense against divine justice to plot treason against a Government they have sworn to support and defend, than to disobey one from whose head their own religious brethren plucked a temporal crown, and who is now endeavoring to stir them up to a war against those same brethren in order that his lost crown may be restored. They who ask this, and all their aiders and abettors, have doubtless been encouraged by a knowledge of American and Protestant tolerance, as well as by the desire to reduce our Roman Catholic population to the humiliating condition of professing allegiance to the Government, while, at the same time, they cherish the hope of its ultimate overthrow by some mysterious providences not yet revealed. To indicate the ground upon which this hope may rest, the country is every now and then reminded of the estimated number of Roman Catholics it contains—varying from 8,000,000 to 12,000,000—as if all these could be rightfully counted upon the papal side in a war upon the most cherished principles of the Government, just as plantation-slaves were formerly counted before being put to work in the fields. How far they are destined to disappointment in this remains to be seen. But it is confidently believed—with assurance, indeed, somewhat exceeding belief—that they have been misled by the false and delusive hope of converting the multitude of Roman Catholics in this country into mere unthinking machines, subject, as if they were all Jesuits, to passive and uninquiring obedience to an alien authority which assumes the spiritual and prerogative right to turn "back to the old paths" all the modern progressive nations, as if God had deputed to him alone this extraordinary and plenary power over the interests and happiness of the whole human family. While we are waiting patiently to see what the future shall reveal with reference to these matters, the Protestants of the United States can not be released from the obligation of preparing for whatsoever exigency the future shall present. Every avenue of approach to the citadel which has thus far guarded their constitutional and popular rights, must be carefully guarded. They should not be indifferent to the slow and insidious methods of approaching that citadel which Jesuit ingenuity has contrived and is still contriving. Nor should the popular eye be turned too far away from Leo XIII; for if he, too, has no sinister object in view with regard to our cherished national principles, why, "in the name of all the gods at once," does he not leave the United States and the other modern nations to conduct their own affairs without his perpetual interference? Why do he and his ecclesiastical representatives so unceasingly thunder in our ears the awful penalties that await us for the infidelity of Protestantism, for the separation of Church and State, for the toleration of diversities of religious belief, and for our "godless" common schools?

It requires but limited intelligence to see that the Jesuits alone—and not the Church—would gain if the principles and policy of Leo XIII should become established. They would see in such a result cause for rejoicing that the work of their society had been so well done when the youthful and plastic mind of Joachim Pecci had their doctrines so indelibly stamped upon it that now, when he has become pope in his old age, he seems to keep himself alive by the stimulating hope of successfully employing them to arrest modern progress and civilization, and turn the nations back "to the old paths." The Jesuits already exhibit signs of exultation, arising, manifestly, out of the belief that the pontifical favor and patronage bestowed upon them has caused the world to forget their history; how they endeavored to fix disrepute upon the Church by their conduct in India, China, Paraguay, and elsewhere; how they disobeyed the peremptory commands of some popes, and endeavored to degrade and humiliate others; how they were compelled to obedience only by the severest methods of reproof; how they were expelled from every Roman Catholic country in Europe, and from Rome by Pius IX, during the last years of his pontificate; how they were suppressed and abolished by one of the best of the popes for crimes that could not be condoned; how they abused and vilified his name and memory in order to justify their refusal to obey the authoritative commands of the Church; and how their revival was excused alone upon the ground that they were better fitted than any other body of men in the world, by habit, education, and training, to become warriors in the cause of political absolutism.

But a still more flattering cause of Jesuit satisfaction is doubtless found in the fact that Leo XIII—faithful to his early impressions—has assigned to the members of that society the special duty of becoming the educators of the young, and is sending them into all the countries of the world, and especially those where Protestantism prevails, for that particular purpose, well instructed, beforehand, in the obligation to maintain such a system of education as he established in Perugia, so that every mind seduced by its influence may be brought to the religious belief that Church and State must be so united that the State shall be subordinate to the Church; that there is but one form of true religion in the world, and all else is heresy; and that no Government can have the divine approval which does not recognize the pope as possessing the sovereign power to dictate its policy in so far as all matters touching faith, morals, and discipline are involved. Evidences of this settled purpose are constantly crowding upon us. Scarcely a day passes without some fresh attack upon our system of common schools—a method of education which has the popular approval in a far greater degree than any other part of our public polity. These are called "godless" schools because they are not permitted by law to teach that the Roman Catholic religion is absolutely true, and all other forms of religious belief false and heretical. It is alleged that they are the nurseries of vice and immorality, and that they send out young men and women into the world to propagate error and libertinism, and sow the seed of moral and social decay. Every now and then some fanatical priest—unable to keep his passions within reasonable bounds—threatens the members of his congregation with excommunication for sending their children to the public schools, and allowing them to become contaminated by false teaching and association with Protestant children. The American people, consequently, are required to decide whether their system of common schools shall live or die, whether the competent and distinguished corps of American teachers shall be expelled, and the doors of our school-houses be thrown wide open to the Jesuits. Why should the Protestant part of our population remain indifferent when these insults are so impudently flung in their faces? They have deemed it wise and better for themselves, and out of kindly deference to their assailants, to prohibit the teaching of any system of religious belief in their public schools, or the levy of any tax for that object; and, in order that Church and State shall remain perpetually separated, they have provided for this inhibition by constitutional provisions—both National and State. To the Jesuit, therefore, all this is "godless," and the Government is "godless" for separating Church and State, and the Protestant people are "godless," rapidly hastening to inevitable ruin in this life and to fearful punishment hereafter!

There ought to come a time when this controversy, forced upon the people against their will, shall cease. Our public schools are designed for training and educating American citizens—those who are to perpetuate our institutions when existing generations have passed away—and it is no special wonder that those who do not come up to the full measure of American citizenship themselves, and desire that others shall not do so, are seeking to destroy them. Notwithstanding they are fully protected in the right of maintaining and conducting their own private schools in their own way, without the least interference from any quarter, they have presumptuously, if not insolently, inaugurated a relentless warfare upon our whole system of public education, because our common schools are nurseries of patriotism, and keep alive in the minds of our children the obligation of obedience to the Constitution and Government as they are. If the system we have so long cherished were weakened materially by this malignant warfare, it would be the just cause of serious alarm. But everything occurring creates a contrary belief, by giving assurance that it continues to disseminate influences fast reaching the most remote and obscure places in the country, causing the popular heart to rejoice at the victories it has already won over ignorance and vice, and manifesting that it possesses established power sufficient to assure continued growth and complete triumph. Nevertheless, it is well and important for us all to know what attitude Leo XIII occupies toward our common schools, and what kind of education he proposes to establish here in preference to that we have cherished so highly. In this way it will be plainly seen that his first and highest object is the extermination of Protestantism, by putting out of the power of those who obey him implicitly to become American citizens in the sense and meaning of the Constitution of the United States. He knows nothing of the nature of this citizenship or of the obligations it imposes. As a foreigner and alien, ignorant of our language, Constitution, and wants, his chief object is to create here a politico-religious party, held in unity by the desire to restore to him his lost crown as a religious duty, so that when he shall have succeeded in that he may bring us all within his spiritual jurisdiction, and deal with us accordingly. This accomplished, the history of the papacy for more than a thousand years proves that the next step would be to treat our nationality as a fiction and our boundary-lines as merely imaginary, so that instead of our present independence we should be reduced to an inferior and submissive department in a vast and universal "Holy Empire," with its crown resting upon his own head, and, after him, upon the heads of his successors.

Not very long ago Leo XIII sent to the United States an official representative in the person of Mgr. Satolli, nominally Archbishop of Lepanto, in Greece. He is called a "delegate," but in view of the fact that he fully represents the pope, as his other self, and that his powers are so complete and plenary that no appeal can be taken from his decisions, it is more appropriate to call him a vice-pope. He is said to be a learned and discreet man, and it is doubtless true that he deserves all the compliments otherwise bestowed upon him. He had not, however, been long in this country before he found that there were divisions of sentiment among the Roman Catholics with reference to our common schools, some sending their children to them, notwithstanding the instructions of their priests not to do so, and others refusing because they considered them "godless;" that is, infidel. This devolved upon him the duty and necessity of deciding a question which had hitherto baffled the most ingenious minds—a question made more difficult by the fact that it involved either the approval or disapproval of well-established and popular measures of public polity. His decision is entitled to consideration, and should be closely scrutinized, inasmuch as it is claimed for it that it is the final solution of a great and puzzling problem. The statement of it which follows, is taken substantially from that made by himself to the archbishops at a meeting held by them in New York.

He claims for "the Catholic Church" both "the duty and divine right" of teaching religion to "all nations," and of "instructing the young;" that is, "she holds for herself the right of teaching the truths of faith and law of morals in order to bring up youth in the habits of Christian life." Nevertheless, "there is no repugnance in their learning the first elements and the higher branches of the arts and natural sciences in public schools controlled by the State," which protects them in their persons and property. "But," he continues, "the Catholic Church shrinks from those features of public schools which are opposed to the truth of Christianity and to morality;" wherefore he insists that every effort shall be made, both by the bishops and others, to remove these "objectionable features." And he recommends that the bishops and the civil authorities shall agree "to conduct the schools with mutual attention and due consideration for their respective rights;" that is, that the schools shall be under their joint control, so that teachers "for the secular branches" shall be "inhibited from offending Catholic religion and morality," and the Church be permitted to shed her "light" by "teaching the children catechism, in order to remove danger to their faith and morals from any quarter whatsoever."

This was adroit, but not satisfactory. Although it was understood that Mgr. Satolli's decisions were to be final, this created such disaffection that it was found necessary to submit the matter to the pope, against whose opinion, when officially promulgated, there could be no protest. Leo XIII deliberated upon the matter for some time, and received from the American prelates arguments upon both sides. He, however, reached a conclusion which he communicated to Cardinal Gibbons in an encyclical dated May 31, 1893, which constitutes one of the latest papal utterances. Besides its numerous recitals, some of which do not bear directly upon the subject, he distinctly approves the decision of Mgr. Satolli, because it had been approved and recommended to him by the archbishops at their meeting in New York. He expresses great admiration for the people of the United States—especially the Roman Catholic portion of them—and says that he had sent Mgr. Satolli here in order that his "presence might be made, as it were, perpetual among the faithful by the permanent establishment of an apostolic delegation at Washington." This he probably considers a precautionary step; for, as Mgr. Satolli can not have any official relations with our Government—Italy being represented by a minister appointed by the king—he can remain as a "permanent establishment" at the Capital of the nation, so that he may not only watch the course of events, but be in readiness to become an apostolic minister plenipotentiary whensoever, by the aid of the faithful outside of Italy, he shall be able to snatch the crown from the head upon which the Italian people have placed it, and put it upon his own!