Chapter 12

FOOTNOTES:[185]Appleton's Ann. Cyclo., 1866, p. 674. "The pope had lost all his bygone sympathy for the popular cause, and was only too willing to secure his restoration to the Vatican by the aid of an Austrian occupation of the Romagna, and of a French siege of Rome." (Life of Victor Emmanuel. By Dicey. Page 118.)[186]During the progress of the Italian revolution, the present pope, Leo XIII, then Cardinal Pecci, wrote a pastoral letter "On the Temporal Dominion of the Popes," for the express purpose of maintaining that dominion. Referring to the period of its first introduction, he said it had been "consecrated by eleven centuries of time." Neither he nor Pius IX has been able to fix the time, except in general and indefinite terms, differing, as they do, several hundred years, yet both infallible! (Life of Leo XIII. By Bernard O'Reilly. Page 200.)[187]Maguire, p. 470. Appleton's Ann. Cyc., 1870, p. 410.After the occupation of Rome by the Italian army, the citizens were required to decide by the form of a plebiscite, whether or no they favored union with the kingdom of Italy, when the popular vote was 133,681 in favor of, and only 1,507 against it. Victor Emmanuel thereupon signified his loyalty to the Church in this strong and expressive language: "As a king and as a Catholic, while I hereby proclaim the unity of Italy, I remain constant to my resolve to guarantee the liberty of the Church and the independence of the supreme pontiff." (Life of Victor Emmanuel. By Dicey. Pages 317-318.)[188]Eight Months at Rome. By Pomponio Leto (Francis Vitteleschi). London Edition. Page 212.[189]Maguire, p. 473.[190]Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia. 1870. Pages 414-415.

FOOTNOTES:

[185]Appleton's Ann. Cyclo., 1866, p. 674. "The pope had lost all his bygone sympathy for the popular cause, and was only too willing to secure his restoration to the Vatican by the aid of an Austrian occupation of the Romagna, and of a French siege of Rome." (Life of Victor Emmanuel. By Dicey. Page 118.)

[186]During the progress of the Italian revolution, the present pope, Leo XIII, then Cardinal Pecci, wrote a pastoral letter "On the Temporal Dominion of the Popes," for the express purpose of maintaining that dominion. Referring to the period of its first introduction, he said it had been "consecrated by eleven centuries of time." Neither he nor Pius IX has been able to fix the time, except in general and indefinite terms, differing, as they do, several hundred years, yet both infallible! (Life of Leo XIII. By Bernard O'Reilly. Page 200.)

[187]Maguire, p. 470. Appleton's Ann. Cyc., 1870, p. 410.After the occupation of Rome by the Italian army, the citizens were required to decide by the form of a plebiscite, whether or no they favored union with the kingdom of Italy, when the popular vote was 133,681 in favor of, and only 1,507 against it. Victor Emmanuel thereupon signified his loyalty to the Church in this strong and expressive language: "As a king and as a Catholic, while I hereby proclaim the unity of Italy, I remain constant to my resolve to guarantee the liberty of the Church and the independence of the supreme pontiff." (Life of Victor Emmanuel. By Dicey. Pages 317-318.)

[187]Maguire, p. 470. Appleton's Ann. Cyc., 1870, p. 410.

After the occupation of Rome by the Italian army, the citizens were required to decide by the form of a plebiscite, whether or no they favored union with the kingdom of Italy, when the popular vote was 133,681 in favor of, and only 1,507 against it. Victor Emmanuel thereupon signified his loyalty to the Church in this strong and expressive language: "As a king and as a Catholic, while I hereby proclaim the unity of Italy, I remain constant to my resolve to guarantee the liberty of the Church and the independence of the supreme pontiff." (Life of Victor Emmanuel. By Dicey. Pages 317-318.)

[188]Eight Months at Rome. By Pomponio Leto (Francis Vitteleschi). London Edition. Page 212.

[189]Maguire, p. 473.

[190]Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia. 1870. Pages 414-415.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PAPAL DEMANDS.

Atthe death of Pius IX he left to whosoever should succeed him, as an official inheritance, the decision of the question whether or no the Church should acquiesce in and become reconciled to the abolition of the temporal power of the pope, or be agitated and possibly further disrupted by the demand for its restoration. In the meantime Italy had become an organized nation, and was so recognized throughout the world. The capital, after several removals, had been established at Rome, and legislative chambers were assembled almost within the shadow of the old senate-house of the Cæsars, under the checks and guards of a written Constitution, to enact laws for and in the name of the Italian people. A king existed, but without absolute power, and had attained great popularity on account of his eminent fitness and recognized fidelity to the trusts committed to him. It, consequently, required but little practical knowledge of affairs to foresee that the future peace and welfare of the Church depended, in a large degree, upon the policy to be pursued with regard to the temporal power—which no longer existed, but had been abolished by Roman Catholic populations, who had, with great deliberation and extraordinary unanimity, taken the right to manage their own political affairs into their own hands, in imitation of the example set them by the people of the United States. Thoughtful minds were inspired by the hope that moderate, wise, and conciliatory counsels would prevail with the new pope, whosoever he might be.

The occasion rendered it necessary that the distinction between the Church as a Christian organization, and thepapacy as a magisterial power over temporals, should be observed; that is, that the ability of the former for Christian usefulness was left unimpaired, whilst the latter was only designed to make the pope an absolute monarch over the Italian people. Nobody understood this better than Pius IX, and, therefore, the year before his death he signalized the first important exhibition of his infallible authority by issuing a decree amending the Confession of Faith, which had been prescribed by Pius IV nearly three hundred years before, and an "allocution," or authoritative andex-cathedraepistle to the clergy and the Church, with regard to the relations existing between the Church and the Government of Italy. The former concerns only those whose faith is influenced by it; the latter concerns all the progressive nations, and none more than the United States.

In this allocution he accused the invaders of his "civil principality"—that is, of his temporal power—with riding roughshod over every right, human and divine; with the attempt to undermine "all the institutions of the Church;" and characterized the act of establishing the Italian kingdom as one of "sovereign iniquity"—a "sacrilegious invasion." He complained that the ministers of religion "were deprived of the right of disapproving the laws of the State which they considered as violating those of the Church"—which was equivalent to asserting it to be a principle of faith that he and the clergy should be permitted to defy any law of a State which he and they considered violative of their prerogative rights. He pointed out "the shameful and obscene spectacle" to be seen in Rome, in "the temples erected in these latter days to dissenting worship;" in "schools of corruption scattered broadcast," and in "houses of perdition established everywhere"—thus intending, undoubtedly, to intimate what his meaning was when he said in his Syllabus, a few years before, that the Church could never be reconciled to the spirit of progress prevailing among the progressive nations. He insisted that the pope can not exist inRome except as "a sovereign or a prisoner"—which has been disproved by all the subsequent years of actual experience—and that there can be no "peace, security, or tranquillity for the entire Catholic Church so long as the exercise of the supreme ecclesiastical ministry is at the mercy of the passions of party, the caprice of Governments, the vicissitudes of political elections, and of the projects and actions of designing men"—meaning thereby, in plain words, that the pope must be so supreme wheresoever his clergy are as to require them to execute his decrees, notwithstanding the laws of Governments shall expressly provide otherwise. He expresses this idea with equal plainness by saying that the pope "can not exercise full freedom in the power of his ministry" scattered throughout the world, so long as he "continues subject to the will of another party;" in other words, that he must be free to require his clergy, wheresoever they may be, to obey him and not the laws of any Government in conflict with his will. He congratulates himself that the "whole Catholic people," everywhere, are united with him in supporting all these propositions, and makes it known that he expects them "to take in hand the cause and defense of the Roman pontificate;" that is, the restoration of the temporal power and kingship of the pope. He expresses the belief that the attachment shown to him by the multitudes of pilgrims who visit Rome "will go on increasing until the day when the pastor of the universal Church will be restored at last to the possession of his full and genuine freedom"—which he can not enjoy without the crown of absolute monarchy upon his head. And with a view to the accomplishment of this, he instructs all the ministers of the Church, everywhere, to "exhort the faithful confided to them to make use of all the means which the laws of their country place within their reach; to act with promptness with those who govern; to induce these latter to consider more attentively the painful situation forced upon the head of the Church, and take effective measures towards dissipating theobstacles that stand in the way of his absolute independence."[191]

All this is plain and emphatic—not susceptible of misunderstanding. It makes the restoration of the temporal power of the pope, so as to make him king of Italy against the positive and expressed will of the people of that country, a politico-religious question, and commands the faithful in every part of the world to form themselves into a politico-religious party to influence the Governments of their respective countries to contribute to that result. This counsel is given in face of what the world knows to be the fact, that the temporal power can not be restored without war—without drenching the plains of Italy with blood, in order to force upon the people of Italy a king whom they have repudiated by their highest act of sovereignty.

This allocution was among the first fruits of the pope's infallibility, and makes known with distinctness the method dictated by Pius IX for reconstructing the papacy. At the time of its issuance he had encountered so many embarrassments without the ability to resist them successfully, he could scarcely have expected that his hopes would be realized during his pontificate. He was confronted by the existence of a kingdom, still Roman Catholic but not papal, within the limits of which Rome was included, and no man knew better than he that what he sought after would have to await the formation of a politico-religious party beyond the limits of Italy, and among the peoples of other nations, strong enough to coerce the Roman Catholic people of Italy, at the point of the bayonet, into obedience to the papacy they had repudiated. Therefore this infallible allocution may properly be considered his last pontifical will and testament, whereby he devised all his right and title to the temporal power to his successor; or perhaps it would be more apt to say, as the politicians do, that it was intended to bethe main plank in the papal platform. How far it became so we shall see.

When, after the death of Pius IX, the cardinals assembled in Conclave, February 17, 1878, their first official act was specially significant. It displayed a settled purpose to hold the wavering, if there were any, to the policy of Pius IX with reference to the restoration of the temporal power, and to make that the test of fidelity to the Church; in other words, that his successor should be pledged to carry out that policy, and elected with that express view. The cardinals, therefore, entered into an agreement among themselves to confirm and maintain all the protests made by Pius IX against the Italian Government. This agreement was to the effect that they "thereby renewed all the protests and reservations made by the deceased sovereign pontiff, whether against the occupation of the States of the Church, or against the laws and decrees enacted to the detriment of the same Church and the Apostolic See;" and that they were unanimously "determined to follow the course marked out by the deceased pontiff, whatsoever trials may happen to befall them through the force of events."[192]

It may fairly be supposed that Cardinal Pecci was the projector of this plan of procedure, as it is stated by his biographer that he "stood in the foremost place at the head of his brethren." At all events, he, together with the other cardinals, was pledged to it. When, therefore, he was elected pope—as he was soon after—and took the name of Leo XIII, he accepted the pontificate under the solemn obligation so to employ all his powers and prerogatives as to regain the temporal power his predecessor had lost, upon the distinct ground that fidelity to the doctrines and faith of the Church required it.

In view of the result to be thus attained, the election of Leo XIII was unquestionably wise. Besides possessing thehighest intellectual qualifications—being, in fact, one of the foremost men of the present time—his Christian character is pure and without a blemish. He is cool, calm, and deliberate in considering great questions, and not apt, as Pius IX was, to be misled by indiscreet advisers, or entrapped by enemies. His passions seemed well restrained, and he brought to the duties of his high office abilities far exceeding those of any of the eminent men who composed the College of Cardinals. There is not a sovereign in Europe of whom he is not the equal, if not the superior, in all such qualities as fit a man for rank, station, and authority. In the rightful and proper sphere of his spiritual duties he is "sans peur et sans reproche." But when he ventures to depart from that sphere, and employ the authority of his high office to reopen a political issue already closed, to deny to the people of Italy the right to regulate their own temporal affairs, as those of the United States have done, and prescribes or approves a plan of Church organization which shall measure the value of a professed Christian life by the depth to which its possessor shall sink in the mire of politico-religious controversy in those countries where Church and State have been separated, he presents himself to the world in another and different aspect. If, by imitating others who have grasped after kingly crowns, he sees proper to lay aside the rightful weapons of his spiritual ministry, and arm himself and his followers with such as pertain to the strife of politics, there can be no just ground of complaint against those whose policy of civil government he assails, if they shall arraign him and them at the bar of public opinion, and challenge his and their right to disturb the peace by scattering the seeds of discord among them.

The people of Italy achieved their independence by revolution, and decided to separate Church and State, and that they would not have the pope for their king; they put an end to the absolute monarchism of the papacy, and substituted a constitutional monarchy, with such checks and guards as they deemed necessary to their own protection. In doing this theyexercised the same power of popular sovereignty as the people of the United States, when they decided that no king should ever rule over them. In each case the act was intended to be final—not subject to reversal by any earthly power. Neither country, therefore, has the right to plot against the quiet and peace of the other; nor have the populations of either the right to do so. All this is forbidden by the law of nations, and if knowingly tolerated would be, by that law, just cause of war. If a politico-religious party should be formed in Italy to change our institutions by reuniting Church and State, and substitute a king in the place of the people in the management of public affairs, it would incite the spirit of resistance in every loyal American heart. And if a politico-religious party, formed under any plea whatsoever, shall be permitted to combine in this country for the avowed object of reuniting Church and State in Italy, and compelling the people of that country to accept the pope as an absolute sovereign, in the face of the result they have accomplished by their revolution, wherein do we escape condemnation by the law of nations? The question whether or no any people shall exercise the right of self-government is political, not religious. This has been decided by the people of the United States. Consequently, to demand of them that they shall reverse this decision, violates the spirit of their institutions, and mocks at their authority.

No liberal and fair-minded people questioned the right of Pius IX to declare himself infallible, or that of others to concede it to him, in matters purely spiritual. Nor is this same right denied to Leo XIII. But when he extends his infallibility so far as to include authority over the fundamental principles of civil government, and thus seeks to imperil the fortunes of the modern progressive nations where Church and State have been separated, it should not be expected that those who share those fortunes in common will sanction his imperial assumption by direct affirmance or by silent acquiescence. The age of "passive obedience" has passed, and is not likely to be revived so long as the Reformationperiod shall continue to bear its rich and abundant fruits, like such as spring from the popular institutions of the United States. The fundamental principle upon which all such institutions rest is the separation of Church and State; for without that there can be no freedom of religious belief and no such development of the intellectual faculties as fits society for self-government. Every assault upon this great fundamental principle must be resisted, no matter under what pretense it may be made or from what quarter it shall come. When it was assaulted and condemned by the vacillating and irascible Pius IX, it was in far less peril than now, when the calm and sagacious Leo XIII has become the general-in-chief of the aggressive forces. The former was not even master of himself—the latter is master of vast multitudes of men.

The election of Leo XIII caused general satisfaction outside the circle of Church influence. He was regarded as a representative of the highest enlightenment, and this gave rise to the hope that he would become reconciled to the existing condition of affairs in Italy, in order to pacify those members of the Church who had wrenched from his immediate predecessor the scepter of temporal sovereignty. A more favorable opportunity for pacification could not have existed; and if it had been accepted in a conciliatory spirit, the rejoicing would not have been confined to the Italians alone, but would have been well-nigh universal. But little time elapsed, however, before there were signs indicating that, instead of throwing oil upon the troubled waters, he preferred that they should remain in agitation. Two facts now conspire to account for this: First, the agreement made by the College of Cardinals to adopt the principles and adhere to the policy of Pius IX; and, second, his Jesuit education and training. Both of these facts are stated by his biographer, and the last with such particularity as to show that when he was only eight years of age he was separated from his family and placed under Jesuit care, and that his education was obtained at the colleges of that societyat Viterbo and at Rome.[193]If the world had known, at the beginning of his pontificate, how solemnly he had pledged himself to his brother cardinals before his election, and how his youthful mind had been trained and fashioned by the Jesuits, it is not probable that anything would have been anticipated, or even hoped for, beyond what has transpired; for the skill of the Jesuits is displayed in nothing more effectually than in the indelible impressions they understand so well how to make upon young and undeveloped minds. Although the question to be decided seemed simple enough to the general public, both in the United States and in Europe, yet to the Jesuits it was of supreme importance; for with Church and State separated in Italy, and with Rome as the permanent capital of a kingdom independent of the pope and submissive to the popular will, their society would be crushed by the weight of public odium resting upon them. During the progress of the controversy and before the abolition of the temporal power, Pius IX had been compelled to expel them from the States of the Church on account of this odium existing in Italy; but they rallied again, with their unabated energy, after his successor had been chosen, doubtless realizing how readily a mind trained and disciplined under their system of education would yield to their demands. For a time Leo XIII seemed to be hesitating, as if in the issue between liberalism and retrogression there was some middle ground. But the Church and the world did not have long to wait before the issuance of his first official encyclical letter, which put an end to all hopes of reconciliation or compromise. In this celebrated document the war upon liberalism and progress, as recognized by the modern nations, was continued with increased and Jesuitical violence—"war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt." There was no longer any hesitation or faltering, but the distinct avowal of the purpose to revive the papacy, by the restoration of the temporal power, and to carry on the conflict untilthe world shall be turned away from all modern civilization and back towards the Middle Ages. His biographer takes special pains to make this plain, so that the encyclical may be interpreted according to the pope's intention. After stating that there were those who expected Leo XIII "to devise amodus vivendiwith the masters of Rome and Italy," and reconcile the Church and the papacy to "modern society and its exigencies," he boastingly proclaims that the encyclical "woefully disappointed all who fancied or hoped that a pope could reconcile the revealed truth of which he is the divinely-appointed guardian, the righteousness, justice, and divine morality which flow from the revealed law of life, with the awful errors, the unbridled licentiousness of thought and word and deed, the iniquity and the immorality which are cloaked over by their pretended civilization."[194]

This learned biographer does not intend that the pope's encyclical shall be misunderstood; and when he thus indicates the "awful errors," the "unbridled licentiousness," "the iniquity and the immorality," which have been scattered over the world by modern progress and civilization—which he characterizes as "pretended" and not real—he manifestly understood the mind and motives of the pope, as he also did the issue which the papacy has made with all the most enlightened peoples of the world, and, more especially, with the prevailing popular sentiment in the United States. We must consequently accept this arraignment of our form of civilization as intentionally and deliberately made. And that he understood this issue as not confined to Italy alone, but as universal in its character, he proceeds immediately to show that the pope "speaks with authority to all mankind, the light imparted by his teaching illuminates both hemispheres."

But this encyclical itself leaves no room to doubt with regard to the universality of jurisdiction and authority claimed by the pope. Almost at the beginning it announcesthat he considers himself called upon, by virtue of his spiritual sovereignty, to decide matters of general import, and not merely such as are understood to pertain to the Church of Rome or to the people of Italy. Regarding himself as possessing this unlimited jurisdiction because he occupies "the place of the Prince of Pastors, Jesus Christ," he asserts pontifical authority over the whole world, in these words: "From the very beginning of our pontificate we have had before our eyes the sad spectacle of the evils which assail mankind from every side." And, accordingly, he makes his purposes known by drawing a sad picture of modern society, "impatient of all lawful power," and threatened, in consequence, with anarchy and dissolution, on account of its "contempt of the laws of morality and justice." All this, to his mind, has arisen out of the lawless spirit of revolution which modern peoples have invoked to free themselves from the crushing weight of imperial and absolute monarchism, which he proposes to revive in Italy by the re-establishment of the temporal power which the people of that country wrested from the hands of his immediate predecessor by revolution. What we, somewhat triumphantly, call patriotism, liberty, and natural right, he denounces as "a pestilential virus which creeps into the vital organs and members of human society, which allows them no rest, and which forebodes for the social order new revolutions ending in calamitous results."

Against these threatened calamities he felt himself constrained, by virtue of the universality of his spiritual dominion, to warn the world, especially that part of it which has voluntarily brought what he considers affliction upon itself, by separating Church and State and establishing freedom of religious belief, free speech, a free press, and free popular government. He seems to have allowed his mind to become disturbed and agitated by this gloomy condition of affairs, because it has been produced by the rejection of the pope's divine right to regulate whatsoever sentiments and opinions he may deem to be within the circle of his spiritual jurisdiction. "The cause of all these evils," he says, "liesprincipally in this: that men have despised and rejected the holy and august authority of the Church, which, in the name of God, is placed over the human race, and is the avenger and protector of all legitimate authority;" that is, that no authority whatsoever, whether of governments, peoples, or individuals, can be set up against it as rightful or legitimate. Then, looking down from this high pinnacle upon the disturbed and raging elements below, and sorrowing because his temporal dominion has been lost, he enumerates some of the principal causes which, in his opinion, threaten to wreck the happiness and welfare of society. Among these, he makes conspicuously prominent the following: Overturning the constitution of the Church by laws in force "in most countries;" obstacles to the "free exercise of the ecclesiastical ministry," which those laws have created; "the unbridled liberty of teaching and publishing all manner of evil;" depriving the Church of "the right," which he considers irrefragable, to "train and educate the young;" and, far from being least in magnitude or importance, the sacrilegious violation of the Divine law by the abolition of the pope's temporal power and imperial sovereignty over the Italian people. This enumeration was manifestly made, as may be implied from the language of his biographer, to enable him to point out more clearly to "the Catholic hierarchy" in all parts of the world, "toward what purpose their common zeal must be chiefly directed;" that is, what he expects them to contribute toward turning the world away from these modern innovations upon the papal policy, so that it may be carried back to its condition during the Middle Ages, when the papal supremacy was maintained by the terrible tribunal of the Inquisition. That he prefers that period, with its ignorance and superstition, to the present, with its advanced enlightenment and prosperity, is plainly and emphatically avowed in these words: "If any sensible man in our day will compare the age in which we live, so bitterly hostile to the religion and Church of Christ, to thoseblessed ageswhen the Church was honored as a mother of the nations, he willsurely find that the society of our day, so convulsed by revolutions and destructive upheavals, is moving straightway and rapidly toward its ruin; while the society of the former ages, when most docile to the rule of the Church and most obedient to her laws, was adorned with the noblest institutions, and enjoyed tranquillity, riches, and prosperity."[195]

This is strange infatuation to be indulged in during the nineteenth century, when human energy is taxed to the utmost to give increased velocity to the car of progress, and to outstrip all previous ages in placing checks and guards upon the ambition of temporal monarchs. It requires but little research to learn that the "blessed ages" to which Leo XIII refers, and gives such marked preference over the present period, were especially distinguished by the ignorance and superstition of the multitude. History is crowded with evidences of this. Maitland—who is highly appreciated and often quoted by papal writers on account of his criticisms of Robertson, the historian—says that "the ecclesiastics were the reading men and the writing men;"[196]but does not pretend that such was the case with the peasants or common people, as the bulk of the populations were called. There is nothing better established than that no facilities for learning were afforded them, and that they were kept down at a common level of ignorance, so as to reconcile them more easily to submission and obedience. This is shown by the picture of society drawn by all the early chroniclers, especially by Froissart and Monstrelet, as well as by the more modern historians, Hallam, Robertson, and Berington. The men of learning and letters belonged to the "upper classes," for whom alone colleges and schools were provided. The people, as such, were left uninstructed, in order to make them passively obedient to the authority of Church and State, which were united by ties they were powerless to break. They were forced—with but little less severity than was shown to the captives of the Pharaohs who built the pyramids, the temple of Karnak, and other Egyptian monuments—to serve taskmasters in erecting magnificent palaces, cathedrals, and churches, designed for display by those whose vanity and pride made them oblivious to the fact that they were the product of unrewarded labor, and did not contain a stone or marble block not stained by the tears and sweat and blood of numberless humiliated victims. But all these unrequited victims were ignorant, and therefore obedient—obedient, and therefore happy! But Leo XIII, exulting at this reflection, instructs the modern nations that the curse of God is resting upon their progressive advancement, and that he, in Christ's name and place, is divinely empowered to turn them back to those "blessed ages," because, if they do not, "they must, by corrupting both minds and hearts, drag down by their very weight, nations into every crime, ruin all order, and at length bring the condition and peace of a commonwealth to extreme and certain destruction."

To escape these dreadful consequences, and save modern society from keeping open the gaping wounds it has inflicted upon itself, he makes known his pontifical purpose in these words: "We declare that we shall never cease to contend for the full obedience to our authority, for the removal of all obstacles put in the way of our full and free exercise of our ministry and power, and for our restoration to that condition of things in which the provident design of the Divine Wisdom had formerly placed the Roman pontiff." Having thus instructed all the faithful that whatsoever prohibits him from acquiring all the power and authority "formerly" possessed by the popes, must be resisted and put out of the way, whether it be constitutions, laws, or customs, he declares to them, by way of encouragement, that the world shall have no rest until this is accomplished; "not only because the civil sovereignty is necessary for the protecting and preserving of the full liberty of the spiritual power, but because, moreover—a thing in itself evident—whenever there is a question of the temporal principality of the Holy See, then the interests of the public good and the salvation of thewhole of human society are involved." His enthusiasm is always heightened, and his eloquence of style becomes captivating, when his mind displays its power at the contemplation of that "temporal sovereignty" by which he hopes that he and his successors shall bring all mankind within the bounds of the pontifical jurisdiction, so that they shall have no care for this or a higher life but what is involved in the duty of passive and uninquiring obedience. It is when this enthusiasm fully possesses him that he seizes upon the occasion to give the word of command to his ecclesiastical army in all parts of the world; as when he tells them they must display their "priestly zeal and pastoral vigilance in kindling in the souls of your [their] people the love of our holy religion, in order that they may thereby become more closely and heartily attached to this chair of truth and justice, accept all its teachings with the deepest assent of mind and will, and unhesitatingly reject all opinions, even the most widespread, which they know to be in opposition to the doctrines of the Church."

This instruction is comprehensive enough to include all, both priests and laymen. It has the merit of simplicity, requiring only obedience to the pope, the full "assent of mind and will" to all the doctrines he shall announce, and the rejection of "all opinions" in opposition to them; no matter if their submission shall involve disobedience to the constitutions and laws under which they may live. He descends also to particulars, and prescribes a course of conduct for all his subordinates—like a commanding general laying down the plan of a military campaign. They must obtain the control of education, so as to "scatter the seeds of heavenly doctrines broadcast," in order to save "the young especially" from the deadly influences of State and public schools, where, according to his teaching, the method of education "clouds their intellect and corrupts their morals." They are required to instruct their pupils "in conformity with the Catholic faith, especially as regards mental philosophy," as taught by Thomas Aquinas and "the other teachers of Christianwisdom." They are to make exterminating war upon the "impious laws" which allow civil marriages, because those thus united, "desecrating the holy dignity of marriage, have lived in legal concubinage instead of Christian matrimony." And lastly, and no less imperatively, all are to be instructed in the indispensable obligation "to obey their superiors."[197]

But Leo XIII has not been content with these distinct avowals of his pontifical opinions and purposes. He has chosen to give emphasis to them in other official methods. After the death of Cardinal Franchi, his secretary of state, he appointed Cardinal Nina to that place. Whether he considered the latter not sufficiently instructed with regard to his opinions, or availed himself of the occasion to express anew and more explicitly the principles of his pontifical policy, there is no means of deciding; but whether the one or the other, he addressed to him an official communication, wherein these principles were made known with perfect distinctness. Still contemplating "the very serious peril of society from the ever-increasing disorders which confront us on every side," and "the intellectual and moral decay which sickens society," in consequence of its having thrown off allegiance to the temporal power of the pope, he arraigns as prominent among the existing evils the separation of Church and State—precisely that condition of things which exists in the United States more distinctively than anywhere in the civilized world. Upon this subject—which involves so much that is absolutely fundamental in free popular government—he says: "The chief reason of this great moral ruin was the openly proclaimed separation and the attempted apostasy of the society of our day from Christ and his Church, which alone has all the power to repair all the evils of society." And referring to the manner in which the pope had been "despoiled" of his temporal power, he admonished him "to consider that the Catholics in the different States can never feel at rest till their supreme pontiff,the superior teacher of their faith, the moderator of their consciences, is in the full enjoyment of a true liberty and a real independence;" that is, that Roman Catholics everywhere are expected to contribute immediate and active aid in bringing about the restoration of the temporal power, so that "the progress made by heresy" may be arrested, and "heterodox temples and schools" shall be destroyed.[198]

There is nothing in all this, or in anything officially done by Leo XIII—howsoever earnestly it may be rejected by liberal minds—that should detract in the least degree from the estimate in which he deserves to be held by all who appreciate upright conduct and the consistent observance of Christian virtue. For these his life has been eminently distinguished, and when its end shall have been reached—fears of which are expressed at the time these words are written—he will well deserve a lofty niche in the papal mausoleum among the greatest and best of the pontiffs. If his opinions and utterances were to be estimated alone by his personal integrity and private virtues, the force of any criticism of them would be materially lessened. But they belong to and are an essential part of the papal system which he represents and is bound by the necessities of his position to maintain against everything in conflict with it. What he has said, and so frequently repeated, is echoed back from the tombs of those of his predecessors who fought their battles with liberalism and progress when the forces which defended them were weak and the papacy was strong. He could not break a single thread in the net which encompasses him, howsoever anxiously he might desire it, and is consequently constrained to carry on the battle waged by his predecessors until final victory is won or the flag of the temporal power is sunk out of sight forever. His task grows harder and harder every day; for now the progressive forces are growing stronger while the powers of the papacy, lessened by the loss of temporal sovereignty, are steadily waning away.He is struggling against the patriotic sentiments of mankind, like a strong man battling with the waves of a tempestuous sea. Although the light of modern progress is not permitted to penetrate the walls of the Vatican, and he is shut in behind impenetrable screens especially to keep it out, he ought, nevertheless, to know that those to whose prosperity and advancement it has contributed are unwilling to acquiesce in its extinction, or to sit silently by when it is attempted. Whilst his arraignment of civil institutions which have grown up within the circle of this light may be well attributed to the papal system he officially represents, he has expressed his desire for their overthrow in such terms of censure and rebuke as to excite the suspicion that he is moved by an uncompromising and unconciliatory spirit. Whatsoever he has shown of this may rightfully be assigned to his Jesuit training and education. Having been placed under the care of that scheming and insinuating society before his opinions were matured and whilst his youthful mind was unable to detect their sophistry or their cunning, they were enabled to mold him to their purposes, as the softened wax is impressed by any seal. Any intelligent investigation of his pontifical policy, in so far as it involves the relations of the papacy to existing civil governments, will demonstrate this to all whose faculties have not been dwarfed by the same system of education and guardianship. We see every day, in the natural world, conclusive proof that "as the twig is bent so the tree is inclined."

FOOTNOTES:[191]Appleton's American Cyclopedia. 1877. Pages 677 to 681.[192]Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Page 299.[193]O'Reilly, pp. 52-53.[194]O'Reilly, p. 328.[195]O'Reilly, p. 333.[196]The Dark Ages. By Maitland. Page 461.[197]O'Reilly, pp. 329 to 341.[198]O'Reilly, pp. 344 to 350.

FOOTNOTES:

[191]Appleton's American Cyclopedia. 1877. Pages 677 to 681.

[192]Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Page 299.

[193]O'Reilly, pp. 52-53.

[194]O'Reilly, p. 328.

[195]O'Reilly, p. 333.

[196]The Dark Ages. By Maitland. Page 461.

[197]O'Reilly, pp. 329 to 341.

[198]O'Reilly, pp. 344 to 350.

CHAPTER XIX.

PRESENT ATTITUDE OF THE PAPACY.

Theopinions and utterances of the pope concerning religious duty are considered, at least by his army of ecclesiastics, as commands which are to be obeyed at the peril of pontifical censure. Among these the learned biographer of Leo XIII is a conspicuous example. He not only exhibits his own zeal in behalf of the restoration of the temporal power in defiance of the expressed will of the Italian people, but ventures to speak for the whole body of the Roman Catholic population of the United States. With unflagging eloquence he says: "For we Catholics from every land, thronging to the tomb of the holy apostles and to the home of our common father, bear back with us to our own land the memory of the humiliation he endures, of the restraints put upon his liberty, of the rudeness and insults offered to ourselves; andwe resolve that the day shall come when the pope shall be again sovereign of Rome." And addressing his appeal to our Protestant people, he continues: "Even in our own great Republic will not the quick American sense, and the instinctive love of justice, and the passion for freedom of conscience, soon be made to perceive that the dearest religious rights of our millions of Catholics, the dearest interests of civilization among the heathen, demand that the pope, the greatinternationalpeacemaking power of the world,should be sovereign in the city where he has reigned for eleven hundred years?"[199]

This appeal surpasses in extravagance and hyperbole anything we are accustomed to hear: it would constitute an admirable exhibition of word-painting if recited from the rostrum. We, in the United States, have made the toleration of all forms of religious belief a fundamental principle of our civil institutions, and the present Constitutional Government of Italy, by the abolition of the temporal power of the pope, has, in imitation of our example, done the same thing. When, before that, did religious toleration exist in Rome? What pope ever gave it the sanction of a papal decree, or recognized Protestantism as worthy of anything higher than his fiercest anathemas? Let the millions of persecuted victims of pontifical and inquisitorial vengeance—Albigenses, Waldenses, Huguenots, and Netherlanders—answer from their graves. And yet the American people are appealed to, because they maintain "freedom of conscience" as inseparable from their national existence, to plot against the present Government of Italy—established by the Italian people for themselves—in order to restore the temporal power of the pope, so that he may again possess authority to condemn this same freedom of conscience as heresy, in order to bring about the unification of religious faith throughout the world! We attribute our marvelous advancement—which has no parallel among the nations—in an essential degree, to the separation of Church and State. But Leo XIII has told us that because of this we are in rapid decay; and that unless we reunite ourselves with the Holy See of Rome, and obey him and his successors—occupying the place of Christ on earth—our ultimate ruin is inevitable. What does this reverend biographer mean when he invokes the aid of our tolerant spirit to re-establish an authority which, for centuries, has been exercised in behalf of religious intolerance? Are the followers of the pope the only people in the world entitled to freedom of conscience? It is abundantly secured to them and all others in the United States and in Italy as well. Nevertheless, in the face of this, we are invited to aid in restoring the temporal power of the pope in Rome, so that he may be empowered to turn back the modern nations from their present progress toward the "blessed" Middle Ages, and thus secure ultimate triumph to the spirit of religious intolerance! Can those guilty of such inconsistencies be serious? Or is their seriousness merely simulated, as means to an end?

What have we to do with the pope as aninternationalpeacemaker? Why does he become so merely by wearing the crown of a temporal king in Rome? There is but one answer, which was undoubtedly present in the mind of his reverend biographer; that is, because, by means of his imperial authority as the head of the Church, he may extend his spiritual jurisdiction and dominion over such temporal affairs in any part of the world as relate to spiritual matters, as he at his own will and discretion shall decide. In order to understand this we need go no further than to Leo XIII himself, whose Jesuit training is easily discernible in all his doctrinal teachings. His idea of the temporal power which shall give full liberty and independence to his spiritual power, is this: that wheresoever, among all the nations, he shall consider it necessary to interfere with and direct the course of temporal affairs in furtherance of his spiritual duties and obligations, he may do so at his own discretion; and where they impede the freedom of his pontifical policy, he shall have the divine right to resist or disregard any constitution, law, or custom which shall stand in his way. To a mind like his—with its faculties developed under Jesuit supervision, and filled with the metaphysical subtleties of the Aristotelian philosophy, the sophistries of Thomas Aquinas, and the scholasticism of the Middle Ages—this, doubtless, appears plain, simple, and conclusive, in so far as his spiritual relations to mankind are concerned. It may possibly be that he supposes himself not to have mistaken his relations to the United States and to the Roman Catholic part of our population. This may be, in view of the fact that he can have no other but an imperfect knowledge of our form of government, our laws, and civil institutions. His learned biographer, however, can not shield himself behind this same plea of ignorance. As a citizen of the United States he must know that any conspiracy formed in this country to procure the restoration of the pope's temporal power in defiance of the Constitutional Government of Italy and against the expressed will of the Italian people, would violate our neutrality laws as well as the law of nations, be offensive and insulting to the kingdom of Italy, a disregard of our treaty of amity with that power, and a flagrant cause of war. He does not seem moved, or willing to have the papal car arrested in its course, by any of these considerations, manifestly considering them as mere trifles when weighed in the scale against the triumph of the papacy over popular government. Ignorance of our institutions may excuse Leo XIII; but a citizen of the United States, whether native or naturalized, should understand better the duties and obligations of citizenship.

When the "Holy Alliance"—as explained in a former chapter—conspired to prevent the establishment of popular government upon the American Continent and in Europe, and to secure the universal triumph of monarchism, the President of the United States announced that if these efforts were extended to the Spanish American States, they would be forcibly resisted by the military power of the nation. It has hitherto been supposed that this met the full approval of our people, and that this approval has neither been withdrawn nor modified. Yet, in the very face of this, we now find ourselves confronted by the proposition—boldly and authoritatively made—that a portion of our citizens shall organize themselves into a party, under religious sanction, for the sole purpose of forcing an absolute temporal monarch upon the Italian people against their consent, thereby upturning the Constitutional Government they have established, and placing the United States on the side of the "Holy Alliance," and in direct opposition to the popular right of self-government! To say the least, this proposition insults the national honor; and, accompanied as it is by the assertion that it involves religious duty, and that everything contrary to it is heresy, it involves, upon our part, the obligation to guard well all the approaches to our popularliberty. It puts the spirit of toleration to a hard trial when our "freedom of conscience" is made the shelter for papal or other intrigues against itself; and when it is availed of as the means of entangling us in alliance with the papal temporal power, which, during the thousand years of its existence—with exceptions too few to change the general rule—has maintained the absolutism of monarchy as a religious necessity, and has never ceased its demand for universal spiritual sovereignty and dominion. Is it to be forgotten that we are living in the nineteenth century, in the foremost rank among the advancing nations, and that there are obligations imposed upon us by that fact we have no right to disregard or disobey?

An incident is related by his biographer wherein Leo XIII indicated the imperiousness of the papacy and his own ideas of individual freedom, as well as that of the press. It exhibits him in the attitude of denying the right of individuals either to entertain or express opinions of their own concerning the papacy, its rights, duties, or prerogatives. He alone, among all mankind, is divinely endowed with this authority; and when his opinions are made known, "every knee shall bow" in humble acquiescence and submission. This is the kind of faith which prevailed in the Middle Ages, and to which we are invited by Leo XIII to return, in order to be rescued from the yawning gulf into which the modern nations are hastening as punishment divinely inflicted upon them for having impiously dared to separate the State from the Church! At the height of papal imperialism it was expressed by the saying: "When Rome has spoken, let all the world be silent."

When a little more than a year of the pontificate of Leo XIII had passed, "a Congress of Catholic writers and journalists" assembled in Rome. They are represented to have come "from all countries," with the desire "to take advice from the Holy Father on the line of conduct to be followed by the Catholic press in treating of politico-religious questions," including, of course, the restoration of the pope'stemporal power. Whilst, of course, other matters might have been included in the conference, that to which it had most direct reference was the course which the public press should pursue with regard to this great question, which absorbed all others; that is, whether the kingdom of Italy should be accepted as an accomplished fact, and the loss of the temporal power acquiesced in, or the power of the press should be employed to agitate the question of restoration, and to demand it as a right divinely established. Those present were not all united in opinion. Some "insisted on coming to terms with the revolution;" that is, upon not involving themselves in traitorous plottings against the Government of Italy. What was said by these we are not informed, but whatsoever it was, the pope must have been highly incensed, for it is related that he gave them "a severe rebuke;" in other words, that he indignantly disapproved of their suggestion. This was done by telling them they had no right to entertain individual opinions at all upon such a subject, but were bound to obey and execute his commands, without the least inquiry whether they approved or disapproved them in their own consciences; that is, that they were not allowed to think for themselves, but were bound to implicit and submissive obedience to him. He expressly told them they "must not presume to decide in their own name and by their own light public controversies of the highest importance bearing on the circumstances of the Apostolic See, nor seem to have opinions in opposition to what is required by the dignity and liberty of the Roman pontiff." The reason he assigned was the entire and absolute sovereignty which the temporal power, added to the spiritual, gives the pope over all Governments, peoples, and opinions, because "there is no power on earth which can pretend to be superior or equal to it in the legitimacy of the right and title from which it sprang."[200]

This was a "rebuke" indeed! These writers for thepress 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, "bearingon 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 himselfof 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 thepeople, 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 theirown 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 faithfulare 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 theblessedperiod of the Middle Ages should berevived, 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: "Theinequalitywhich 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.

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