PRESENT ATTITUDE OF THE PAPACY.
The opinions 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; and _we
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 great
_international_ peacemaking 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 an _international_ peacemaker?
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 popular liberty. 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's
temporal 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 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:
[Footnote 199: Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Pages 365-366.]
[Footnote 200: Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Page 368.]
[Footnote 201: Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Pages 371 to 374.]
[Footnote 202: Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Page 377.]
[Footnote 203: The preface to the Life of Leo XIII is dated at Rome,
where the work was submitted to him. His cardinal vicar, in a letter to
the publishers, says it had "the encouragement, the approbation, and
the blessing of his holiness," and was prepared "from authentic and
authorized documents, with the concurrence and the direction of persons
high-placed near the sovereign pontiff." It has also the special
approval of Cardinal Gibbons. See introductory letters.]
[Footnote 204: Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Page 378.]
[Footnote 205: O'Reilly, p. 471.]