THE CHURCH AND THE STATE.
No injustice should be done to Leo XIII. If his position as the
official head of a great Church were not sufficient to shield him
against unfairness, his eminent Christian virtues should do so. Before
his election to the pontificate he had acquired the reputation of being
conspicuously great. He was, undoubtedly, the ablest defender of the
prerogative rights of the papacy among the entire body of cardinals;
and this distinction was well deserved. His arguments were then
addressed mainly to ecclesiastics, and were designed to encourage them
in their efforts to extinguish the revolutionary spirit which pervaded
the Roman Catholic populations of Europe.
Now that he has become pope, the circle of his influence is enlarged so
that it reaches the whole body of the Church of Rome through the medium
of his hierarchy and priesthood; of whom it may rightfully be said,
without intending offense, that they have no other spiritual work to
do but what he assigns to them. That they may be fitted for this they
have been deprived of all share in the responsibilities which pertain
to the conduct of human affairs--all participation in the active
operations of society and all those domestic associations which excite
generous and kindly emotions and give to life its greatest charm. They
are, consequently, molded by him into a compact organization, held in
cohesion by the power of a common purpose, with the special design of
assailing, in every part of the world, whatsoever he shall decide to
be under the ban of his pontifical displeasure. With such a force at
his command--unitedly resisting what he shall direct them to resist,
and defending what he shall direct them to defend--he constitutes
such a power in the presence of the nations as exists nowhere else.
Reaching, therefore, vaster multitudes of people, and possessing more
potential influence than any other man in the world, nothing should
be permitted to impair our obligation to become acquainted with his
present pontifical opinions and purposes, as well as with the habits of
thought which prepared him for his present eminent position. It can not
be rightfully complained that his pontifical opinions are interpreted
in the light of those previously entertained and expressed by him--more
especially since his biographer has made such liberal use of them to
prove his fitness to become the potential head of the Christian world.
While cardinal, he availed himself of frequent opportunities to
denounce the Italian Revolution as sinful, and supported all the
measures designed to suppress it. He aided Pius IX by his advice
and counsel, and defended the entire series of his pontifical
measures--condemning as heresy every professed form of Christianity
that did not recognize the obligation of obedience to the pope as a
divinely-appointed temporal sovereign. He regarded all other Churches
besides the Roman as impiously pretentious--having no legitimate
right to exist--and consequently as under the Divine displeasure. As
he considered unity of Christian faith essential to the unity of the
Church, and the temporal dominion of the pope as absolutely necessary
to both, he employed much of his time as cardinal in supplying the
clergy of Perugia with arguments against the revolution, and in
pointing out both its spiritual and temporal consequences. As part of
his pastoral work he insisted that the destruction of the temporal
power of the pope would necessarily and inevitably lead to infidelity
and atheism, because it would open the door to the toleration of other
religions besides the Roman. This, in his opinion, would inaugurate the
reign of "irreligion and libertinism," for the reason that there was
no middle state between obedience to the pope as an absolute temporal
monarch, with complete authority over the faith and consciences of his
subjects, and the ruin of society. He divided society into two classes:
one faithful to Christ, and therefore obedient to the pope; and the
other representing Belial--that is, Satan--because of the refusal of
that obedience. Upon all these points his meaning was plainly expressed
in eloquent and faultless style.
Although differing from Pius IX with regard to the duration of the
temporal power--fixing it at "eleven centuries," and not as obtained
at the fall of the Roman Empire, several hundred years previously--he,
nevertheless, considers it a "divine institution," conferring upon
the pope the "supreme and governing power in spirituals." Before
explaining, however, what he intends by "spirituals," he insists
that whatsoever they are, they can not become subject to any human
interference or limitation in any part of the world, but must be
everywhere complete and plenary. Upon this point his biographer assumes
to assist him, by interjecting between his sentences, as a key to his
meaning, the idea that the temporal power is "incarnate in a manner in
the Roman pontiff;" that is, that in some strangely mysterious way, it
so permeates the pope as to be made providentially inseparable from his
personal as well as official existence! But, seeming not to realize the
ridiculousness of his bold hyperbole, he omits to explain why this same
power was not incarnate in the popes before they placed crowns upon
their own heads at the fall of the Roman Empire. Perhaps he imagined
that the incarnate principle was in its germ during the first ages
of the Church, and that the process of its development into absolute
imperialism was not complete until the peaceful alliance between
the Eastern and the Western Christians was sundered by the invading
armies of Pepin and Charlemagne, when these sovereigns imparted a
portion of their royal prerogatives to the popes and protected them
by military force. Whatsoever meaning may have been intended, it is
manifestly designed to convey and enforce the sentiment as part of
the doctrinal faith of the Church, that because the temporal power
"maintains in their unity and integrity the Church and religion,"
therefore it is divine, and confers superhuman authority upon the pope
over the sentiments, opinions, and conduct of mankind. "Besides," said
Leo XIII, while yet Cardinal Pecci, "can it be intelligible that the
living interpreter of the divine law and will should be placed under
the jurisdiction of the civil authority, which itself derives its own
strength and authority from the same will and law?" To this question
he attempts no specific answer, but his meaning was well understood
by those to whom it was addressed; that is, by the ecclesiastics
whose minds had been molded by the same training as his own. It is
this: That as the authority of the pope and that of the State are
both derived from the same divine law, and as the pope alone is the
"living interpreter" of that law, therefore the State must accept
and obey what he shall declare as "the voice of God." Continuing,
however, he embraces this same meaning in equally expressive terms.
Happiness in this life he considers the only means of procuring
higher happiness hereafter, and therefore the pope as "high priest"
has "received from Christ the mission of guiding humanity toward the
everlasting felicity;" that is, there is no other true religion than
that announced and maintained by the pope; that all other forms are
false and heretical; and that those who do not profess it will, in the
great and unknown future, be cast into utter darkness, to weep and wail
and gnash their teeth forever. And then, basing his conclusion upon
this hypothesis, he breaks out in this ejaculation: "See, then, what
upsetting of ideas it would be to make the high priest of the Catholic
Church, the Roman pontiff, the subject of any earthly power;" as if God
had so endowed all the popes--even Alexander VI (!)--with the faculty
of inerrancy, that they alone, of all the ages, have had the mysteries
of nature and revelation revealed to them! He never permits this idea
of universal papal sovereignty to escape him without so expressing
its meaning as to show that wheresoever or into whatsoever country
he shall assert it, it can not become subject to any other law than
that which the pope himself shall prescribe. It requires but little
scrutiny to see that what he intends is, that when the pope sends
his ecclesiastical representatives into any part of the world, his
instructions must be to them a code of laws which they must obey at
every hazard, although it may become necessary to violate whatsoever
conflicting laws the civil authorities may enact. If the people of
the United States were to submit to this, from the moment they should
do so they would cease to exist as an independent nation, and their
progressive prosperity would wither and die under the spiritual tyranny
of papal Rome, as other republics have hitherto withered and died
under the temporal tyranny of imperial Rome. And thus that ancient
city which, by its iniquities, became the Babylon of the apostolic
times, would again acquire the power to rebuild by unrewarded labor
the monuments upon her seven hills, and to exult at the decay of the
present progressive nations, as her great prototype did when she looked
out upon the miserable but obedient populations who swarmed throughout
the valleys of the Tiber.
Leo XIII lays down his premise with such assumed authority as not to
admit of challenge, and logically argues from it certain satisfactory
conclusions, without pausing to inquire whether the premise itself is
true or false. In this respect he imitates some logicians who seem not
to realize the difference between assumption and proof. For example, he
insists that Christ established an independent Church and a dependent
State, so that the former does not exist in the latter, but the latter
must exist in the former, in its condition of dependence. He overlooks
the fact that States existed before the Church, and that instead of
interfering with their temporal affairs Christ paid tribute to them,
and recognized the independence of each in its own proper sphere--the
one spiritual and the other temporal. The spiritual obedience he
exacted was to the divine law, in order to promote the spiritual
welfare of individuals and consequently of society; the temporal
obedience was to make secure the political rights of citizenship,
including those of person and property. He did not consider States
as capable of rewards and punishment in another life, but as mere
aggregated communities who could bring them to an end by abandoning
their territories. Therefore, he left the State to its own temporal
government, independently of the Church, and not only obeyed its laws
himself, but enjoined the obligation of the same obedience upon his
disciples and followers; that is, of rendering "unto Cæsar the things
that are Cæsar's." He gave equal independence to the Church, so that
by administering to the spiritual welfare of individuals the temporal
welfare of the State would be advanced and the common prosperity the
better secured. And thus, by also rendering "unto God the things that
are God's," the general welfare of the State would rest upon firmer
foundations.
History, during all the ages since Christ, well attests the character
of his plan. For more than five hundred years the Church and the State
acted independently of each other, neither encroaching upon the sphere
of the other, and Christianity progressed until paganism disappeared
before it. When the ambitious popes brought on a conflict that
separated the Western from the Eastern Christians, and accepted the
crown of temporal dominion from Pepin and Charlemagne in consideration
of the pontifical ratification of the former's treason to France, the
world was plunged into the darkness and stupor of the Middle Ages,
and they became enabled to employ their power of absolute monarchism
to compel obedience from the State to the Church and the Inquisition,
to produce unity of religious faith. When the cloud of popular
ignorance became so dense as to be scarcely penetrable, and such popes
as Alexander VI could assert their own infallibility with impudent
impunity, and burn at the stake those who denied it, the necessity
for reform became so urgent that the period of the Reformation was
ushered in with such violence that the papacy, aided by the Jesuits,
was powerless to arrest it. And when the Reformation gave birth to
Protestantism, and enabled it to culminate, through the influence
of free religious thought, in the civil institutions of the United
States, such impetus was given to the liberalizing spirit of progress
that monarchism in both Church and State would be hastened to its
final decay, were it not that Leo XIII has thrown the great weight
of his Christian character into the scale in favor of it and against
the progressive spirit which has advanced the world to its present
condition of prosperity and happiness. Those who advise us to turn
back from this prosperity and happiness toward the Middle Ages, under
the pretense that they are produced by the triumph of irreligion and
licentiousness over Christianity, are, to say the least, counselors of
evil.
Leo XIII reasons within a narrow circle; or, rather, within a number
of circles, reaching always the same conclusion, that whatsoever is
adverse to the papacy must be opposed until it is put out of the way.
His spiritual power must be as comprehensive as he desires to make
it--including whatsoever of temporals he shall decide necessary to
its free exercise, or to the interests of the Church; and within this
circle his jurisdiction must be so full, complete, and independent,
that neither Governments nor communities nor individuals can place
any limitation upon it, or violate the rules and principles he shall
prescribe, without heresy. He is always explicit upon questions
concerning the relations between the pope and Governments--never losing
sight of the idea that he must be absolutely independent of them; so
much so that while they must obey him when he shall think proper, in
behalf of the Church and religion, to command their obedience, he
shall be under no obligation to obey any of their laws which he shall
consider in conflict with his pontifical plans or the interests of the
Church. "He must be free," he says, "to communicate without impediment
with bishops, sovereigns, subjects, in order that his word, the organ
and expression of the divine will, may have a free course all over
the earth, and be there canonically announced." Here, again, he gives
prominence to the idea that he is the only interpreter of the divine
will, coupling with it the additional one, that not only bishops, but
sovereigns and peoples everywhere, must recognize and obey it; for
obedience is necessarily implied, inasmuch as his commands would not
have "free course" without it. No Government must possess the power
to prohibit this, because he acts canonically; that is, his decrees,
being an embodiment of the divine will, become part of the Canon law,
which, having thus the stamp of divinity upon it, must be universally
recognized and obeyed, no matter what Governments may do or say to the
contrary. Practically it is the same as if he had said that the laws of
all the Governments, touching matters embraced within his pontifical
jurisdiction, must give way to the Canon law, because they are human
and it is divine.
There are many methods of illustrating the effect of this papal
doctrine which will occur to intelligent minds; but at this point one
is sufficient. In the United States we have separated Church and State,
and based our civil government upon the principle of toleration for
differences of religious faith. But by papal decrees and the Canon law
all this is declared to be heresy, and placed under the pontifical ban.
Hence, the sovereign spiritual power claimed by Leo XIII, as pope,
gives him the divine right, in the face of all our Constitutions,
National and State, to anathematize the heretical form of our
institutions, and to impose upon all who recognize obedience to him the
obligation to oppose this heresy, and to eradicate it whensoever it is
expedient to undertake it. Involved in this there is, also, the claim
of additional power to reconstruct our Government so as to unite Church
and State, and subordinate the latter to the former, by putting an end
to all religious differences, and establishing the religion of the
pope--whatever that is or may be--as the national religion.
But Cardinal Pecci--now Leo XIII--expressed himself more plainly and
emphatically upon these points, in assigning the reasons why the pope
should possess, and exercise throughout the world, this extraordinary
spiritual sovereignty. It is necessary, he said, in order that the pope
may be empowered "to keep off schism; to prevent the spread of public
heresies; to decide religious disputes; to speak freely to rulers and
peoples; to send nuncios and ambassadors; to conclude concordats; to
employ censures; to regulate, in fact, the consciences of two hundred
millions of Catholics scattered all over the earth; to preserve
inviolate dogmas and morals; to receive appeals from all parts of the
Christian world; to judge the causes thus submitted; to enforce the
execution of the sentences pronounced; to fulfill, in one word, all his
duties, and to maintain all the sacred rights of his primacy."
Having thus enumerated these extraordinary powers of the pope--such as
exist nowhere else in the world--he goes a step further by defining
the relations between the papacy and those Governments and peoples
that have taken away, or refused to recognize, the existence of these
powers. In this he refers, primarily, to the kingdom of Italy, which
had committed the offense of abolishing the temporal power of the
pope and separated Church and State; and, secondarily, to all other
Governments throughout the world where the union between Church and
State is forbidden; that is, where Governments of, and for, and by the
people have been established. "Here, then," says he, "is what they
are aiming at by taking from the pope his temporal power: they mean
to render it impossible for him to exercise his spiritual power."
This goes to the bottom of the question, and states plainly the idea
present in his mind; that is, that the spiritual power, being superior
to the temporal, necessarily includes it to the extent he shall think
proper to assert--limited only by his pontifical discretion--so that
the latter must to that extent be kept in subordination to the former,
and obey its commands. For example, the pope considers it his duty to
send an army of ecclesiastics to all parts of the world, and to exact
from them implicit obedience to himself, so that wheresoever they
shall find temporal laws forbidding them to perform their spiritual
functions as he shall define them, he and they must be endowed with
sufficient spiritual power to enable them to disobey those laws and
set them aside when it becomes expedient to do so. He assumes that
"every Catholic"--no matter where he is--accepts this as part of his
religious faith, being instructed that the pope must possess such power
over both spirituals and temporals as shall make him independent of
every Government upon earth in all such matters as he shall declare
to be within his spiritual jurisdiction. Quoting some obscure "lodge
of Carbonarism in Italy," in order to show that where the pope does
not possess the power he claims for him, irreligion, infidelity, and
immorality must, of necessity, prevail, he declares that "it is no
longer matter of policy; it is matter of conscience" to remove out of
the way all impediments to papal supremacy, and that every Christian
must stand by the pope in order to put down the enemies of religion,
who are designated by him to be those who have taken away from the pope
or deny to him any or all of the above enumerated powers.
He does not fail to make his denunciation as comprehensive and sweeping
as possible, by characterizing as "irreligion and libertinism" the
progressive advancement of modern nations, which prevails where Church
and State have been separated. He attaches this character to all
these, because, according to him, they are not faithful to Christ,
or the Church, or the pope. He denounces the revolution in Italy as
"the result of conspiracy, deception, injustice, and sacrilege,"
merely because it abolished the temporal power of the pope, without
the least impairment of any single principle of religious faith that
can be traced back to Christ, to the apostles, or to the primitive
Christians. What seemed to him to be one of its deplorable and most
odious consequences was the loss of power by the pope in consequence of
the provision which placed the clergy upon equality with other citizens
in regard to civil duties and rights, and made them responsible to the
laws of the State, precisely as they are in the United States. This is
a point upon which neither the pope nor the clergy will compromise,
otherwise than upon compulsion. With them there is no heresy more
flagrant than compelling the clergy to comply with any law requiring
them to do what the pope forbids as prejudicial to the Church. The
right of the pope to require of them disobedience to any such law,
and their right to disobey it, is what they call independence, which,
according to them, can not be impaired without violating the divine
law. They submit to this in the United States, and wheresoever Church
and State are separated, but always with the unchangeable purpose of
securing, in the end, complete triumph for the law of the Church over
that of the State. Hence, when, as the result of the revolution, the
law of Umbria placed the clergy upon an equality with other citizens,
and made them responsible to the laws of the State, as they now are
in the United States, it was denounced by the present occupant of the
papal chair as a sacrilegious violation of the divine law. Is this
requirement any less "sacrilege" in the United States than in Umbria?
The degrees of latitude and longitude do not vary the meaning of the
divine law; but the difference in conditions may account for simulated
acquiescence in the one case and open protest in the other.
He saw also, in the "diffusion of pestilential books, of erroneous
doctrines, and heterodox teachings" another cause for the pontifical
curse, inasmuch as it impaired the power of the pope to place
restrictions upon the freedom of the press, which has opened the way
to liberalism and made the crowns of kings insecure. But that which
he condemned more than all, and considered the source of innumerable
ills, was the fact that Church and State were separated, and each
confined to its own distinct and independent sphere. Referring to the
law of Umbria which required the clergy to accept this--as the clergy
in the United States are required to accept it--he said: "They are
offered, as the basis of reconciliation, to accept _the condemned and
false system of the separation of Church and State_, which, being
equivalent to divorcing the State from the Church, would force Catholic
society to free itself from all religious influence." He manifestly
intended to impress the minds of all who acknowledged obedience to
the pope, whether in Europe, the United States, or elsewhere, with
the sentiment that the only true religion in the world required, as
a matter of faith, that Church and State should be united, with the
latter subordinate to the former in whatsoever concerns faith and
morals, and that where they have been separated their union should be
restored. Having thus made this the solemn religious duty of "every
Catholic" throughout the world, he has thereby placed himself, and
is preparing them to be placed when the proper time shall arrive, in
direct hostility to the principles which prevail in all modern liberal
Governments, including that of the United States.[206]
In all this there is no disguise--nothing equivocal. Nor is there
any reason why there should have been, inasmuch as these admonitions
were addressed to a population reared and educated in the faith of
the Church at Rome, for centuries obedient to the commands of the
pope and his clergy, and in whose minds there was supposed to linger
such sentiments of reverence for the papacy as would, if vigorously
appealed to, stimulate them to demand the restoration of the temporal
power. Therefore, the foremost man among the clergy--he whose eloquence
stirred the heart and whose virtues were universally acknowledged--was
chosen as the champion of the papal cause. But for events which
have subsequently occurred--more especially his election to the
pontificate--and the tolerant spirit which pervades our institutions,
it is not probable they would ever have reached the people of the
United States. And even now, since they have done so in the pope's
biography, there are scarcely five out of every hundred thousand of our
population who will ever read them, or, if they do, will turn aside
from the multitude of their pursuits to investigate and scan them
closely enough to discover their true meaning, plainly and fairly as it
is expressed. By such investigation and discovery they would see that
Leo XIII considers the following propositions irrevocably settled as
religious dogmas: That God provided for the Italian people a form of
civil government subject to the absolute dominion of the pope, as the
only one that can be religiously tolerated; that revolution to set it
aside and establish a popular and constitutional form of government in
its place, violates the law of God, and is heresy; that self-government
by the people is an abomination which can never obtain the sanction
and approbation of the papacy; and that the people of Italy, in order
to remain faithful to the Church, should continue forever obedient
subjects of this imperial absolutism, no matter how severe its
oppressions may become, or how much they may desire to rid themselves
and their children of it. And it will be observed that the condition of
Italy, in rebellion against the temporal absolutism of the pope, serves
him to illustrate the principle which lies at the bottom of all his
reasoning; that as God governs the world in equity, and has provided
this imperial absolutism for that purpose, with the pope to preside
over all that is spiritual and whatsoever temporals shall involve
spirituals, therefore all other forms of government are founded upon
"irreligion and libertinism," especially such as make the whole body of
the people the source of civil power.
The integrity of Leo XIII is not questioned by any one. But he might
be liable to the suspicion of insincerity if he had been personally
enabled to contrast the present improved condition of the people of the
United States, which has been reached within little more than a century
of time, with that of the peoples who have for more than twelve hundred
years been compelled to submit to the authority and spiritual dominion
of the papacy. At all events, it is difficult, for minds impressed
by the influences of free popular government, to appreciate either
the force or merits of his arguments, when he attempts to make the
temporal indispensable to the spiritual power, and asserts the divine
right to maintain it when possessed, and the duty of acquiring it when
not possessed, as equally indispensable parts of religious faith.
The fact that the Italian people--otherwise devoted to the Church of
Rome--repudiated this doctrine both politically and religiously,
should have impressed his mind with its want of adaptability to the
present condition of the world, distinguished as it is either by some
form of progress or the popular desire for it among all the nations.
Yet, instead of coming to some terms with this progressive spirit
among the Italians--which needed only acquiescence in the loss of
the temporal power--he was constrained by the united pledge of the
College of Cardinals, at the time of his election, to persist in the
protesting and aggressive policy of his immediate predecessor. And as
he could not turn back without an entire abandonment of the temporal
power, he has been likewise constrained to define the extent to which
this power, if restored, must be recognized, as a matter of religious
faith, beyond Rome and the States of the Church. Without this, the
faithful would have been left to suppose that the restoration was
designed only to force an absolute temporal monarch upon the people
of Italy without their consent, and, therefore, that no religious
motive for it existed. Consequently he defined the universal faith
to be that, by the restoration of the temporal power, the pope would
become again so absolutely sovereign and independent of all Governments
that he could not "be placed under the jurisdiction of the civil
authority" anywhere in the world, so that whatsoever he shall command
in his "mission of guiding humanity," he must be obeyed, no matter
what any civil authority may provide to the contrary; that is, that
the laws of every State, in conflict with such religious dogmas as he
shall announce, must become void and inoperative in so far as they
may impede the measures directed by him. Entering upon particulars,
he does not shrink from the responsibility of declaring, as we have
seen, that the pope must have power to prevent schism and heresy, which
includes the means necessary to suppress them; that is, to put an end
to Protestantism and all that it has produced. He alone must decide
"religious disputes," and every question involving dogmas and morality,
and what he shall determine concerning all these must direct and guide
the consciences of all "the faithful" throughout the world. And he
shall have the right "to enforce the execution" of whatsoever judgment
he shall pronounce, no matter whether against Governments, communities,
or individuals. The word "enforce" is his own, evidently employed with
a full understanding of its import; for the completeness of his style
shows that it is not his habit to waste words, or to use them without
deliberation. He could not have intended a resort to force as a primary
remedy against heresy, but probably considers it justifiable when
circumstances render it necessary, as in the cases of rebellious and
obdurate heretics whose defiance of papal authority becomes flagrant.
It is desirable, however, to follow him further, in order to become
entirely familiar with the practical working of his doctrines, as
he himself applied them to the state of affairs with which he was
directly concerned, in carrying on the battle with "irreligion" and the
revolution.
When the Archbishops and Bishops of Umbria deemed it proper to protest
to the Piedmontese Government against its infringement of papal
rights, Cardinal Pecci was chosen by them as specially fitted for that
delicate and important work. As the population of Piedmont were Roman
Catholic, and there had been no attempt on the part of the Government
to interfere with what they considered the established faith of the
Church upon strictly religious points, this protest was mainly intended
to express opposition to the laws which regulated the relations of the
clergy to the State, by requiring them to obey the public statutes, as
they are required to do in the United States, and in such countries as
have disunited Church and State. Up till that time they had been an
exclusive and independent class, with privileges and prerogatives not
enjoyed by the mass of citizens--such as exemption from taxes and from
the support of the Government--and to the change in these relations
this protest was intended to apply. The laws then existing were
considered an irreligious invasion of the liberty of the clergy; that
is, of their right of exemption from all governmental obligations.
Consequently the feeling upon the subject became very intense among
the clergy, as was to be expected after so many years of license and
indulgence; and it furnished Cardinal Pecci with the opportunity of
making an admirable display of his intellectual powers and eloquence.
Without preface, he came to the question directly in these words: "It
is a grievous error against Catholic doctrine to pretend that the
Church is the subject of any earthly power, and bound by the same
economy and relations which regulate civil society. The Church is not
a human institution, nor is it a portion of the political edifice,
although it is destined to promote the welfare of the men among whom
it lives. It affirms that from God came directly its own being, its
constitution, and the necessary faculties for attaining its own
sublime destiny, which is one different (from that of the State), and
altogether of a supernatural order. Divinely ordered, with a hierarchy
of its own, it is by its nature _independent of the State_."
He makes the whole superstructure of his argument rest upon the
foundation that as the constitution and all the faculties of the Church
came from God, therefore it must of necessity have a "hierarchy of its
own," and entirely "independent of the State;" that is, the clergy
must be bound to obey the pope, and released from all obligation to
obey the laws of the State, unless they also shall be approved by the
pope. To require from them this obedience to State laws, "invades,"
according to this protest, "the sacred province of the priesthood,"
as well, also, as "the rights and liberties of the Church," because
it tempts them "away from the due subjection to their superiors," who
are governed only by the pope and the Canon law. And, in order to
show that the Church can not tolerate liberalism in the form of the
freedom of religious belief or of the press, this protest deplores
the "licentiousness of the theater and the press, and the continual
snares laid to surprise pious souls, to undermine faith by circulating
infamous pamphlets and heterodox writings, and by the declamations of
fanatical preachers of impiety;"[207] in other words, by Protestantism
and Protestants.
Cardinal Pecci dealt more directly with the "irreligion and
libertinism" of the present age in a Lenten pastoral "on the current
errors against religion and Christian life." He here expressed himself
with severe intolerance against those who proclaim that "_man is free
in his own conscience; he can embrace any religion he likes_;" that is,
he condemned the freedom of religious belief. He could not have done
otherwise without causing his fidelity to the papacy to be suspected.
Consequently, he made his meaning perfectly clear, so that none of
the faithful could mistake it, and doubtless because the freedom of
conscience is necessary to popular government, which, in serving the
pope, he was obliged to condemn. Nevertheless, he was driven to the
necessity of admitting that man is created "free and gifted with
reason," but sought to break the force of the admission by insisting
that this natural freedom must be subject to restraint, because God
has imposed obligations upon him and dictated laws for him which he
is bound to obey. He, however, gives no latitude to the individual
and makes no allowance for his private conscience, but considers him
incompetent to decide for himself within the scope of religious laws,
and as fit only for obedience to authority; that is, the Church at
Rome, and the pope who may, for the time being, preside over it. In
setting forth the manner in which God has made known his laws for
the direction and government of individual consciences, and how he
requires them to be obeyed, he insists that they are only such as the
Roman Church has announced, and that the natural right of the human
reason to its freedom must be restrained into obedience to them, so
that the only liberty of thought or conscience to be allowed must be
that which centers in this obedience. To him any other freedom than
this violates the divine law, and is heresy. But he plainly involves
himself in the absurdity of supposing that to be freedom which is the
very reverse of it; for there can be no proposition more palpably
true than that a man has no freedom of thought or conscience when
constrained, by a force he is powerless to resist, to exchange his own
opinions for those of others. It may well be doubted whether opinions
formed under the dictation of authority are in fact such. Fear of
consequences may induce acquiescence in them, or even their avowal;
but as the laws which govern the mind and conscience have no agency
in their production, they are simple utterances of the lips which are
not responded to by the heart. This must be the case with enlightened
minds, except where pre-existing opinions are changed by the force
of argument and new enlightenment. The papacy understood this, and
therefore kept in ignorance the populations within the circle of its
influence and jurisdiction; and Cardinal Pecci, instructed as his mind
was upon general topics, was unable to conceive any other methods
of human thought than those instilled into his mind by his Jesuit
education, and which his official position made it necessary for him to
maintain.
Controlled entirely by the idea of unresisting and uninquiring
obedience to authority, without any regard for the dictates of
individual conscience or the suggestions of reason, he announced the
logical result of his own and the papal teachings in these words: "Nor
is it left to the free will of man to refuse it, or to fashion for
himself a form of worship and service such as he pleases to render."
It does not require a man of learning to understand this; it is plain
and palpable to any ordinary mind. He could have chosen no words more
expressly condemnatory of the freedom of conscience; nor could he have
more formally arraigned the people of the United States for having
asserted the right of every man to worship God as his own conscience
dictates, and having made that fundamental in their institutions and
necessary to their existence. According to him this is heresy, because
it draws the people away from obedience to the pope; and no man has
the right to refuse this obedience, or "to fashion for himself a form
of worship or service" which the pope shall condemn! He is immeasurably
shocked at the idea that men should be permitted to entertain and
express different religious opinions, and to reject the teachings of
the pope, to whom alone implicit obedience is due! He had too much
character at stake to disguise anything upon this point--leaving that
to others in free countries, where the pretense of toleration may be
maintained with the hope that it may ultimately pave the way to papal
intolerance. Continuing, therefore, the same undisguised denunciation
of the freedom of conscience, he says: "It would be not only impious,
but monstrous, to maintain every form of worship is acceptable and
indifferent, that the human conscience is free to adopt whichever form
it pleases, and to fashion out a religion to suit itself." It is not
necessary to comment here upon this bold and defiant assault upon our
civil institutions. But it is well to remark that it ought to tinge the
cheeks of those in this country who, in one breath, profess obedience
to the pope who uttered the language here quoted, and in the next talk
glibly about their advocacy of the freedom of conscience, which he has
condemned as "impious" and "monstrous"--as an unpardonable offense
against God!
He then proceeds to speak of the relation of the State to the education
of the young, by saying that it is "not called upon to discharge this
great parental duty, but to keep the natural educators in their work,"
by permitting it to "be carried on under the direction of the Church,
the depository and teacher of religious doctrines." This is as if he
had said that the State shall be forbidden to participate in the work
of education even to the extent of teaching patriotism to its youth,
for the reason that such State education has the tendency to substitute
love of country for fidelity to the pope; and for the further reason
that all education that can be tolerated should "be carried on under
the direction of the Church" and confined exclusively to "religious
doctrines." He expresses the same idea more fully by insisting that
all other kinds of education are "devoid of all the external practices
and duties of the Christian faith, and calculated to familiarize young
people with 'freedom of conscience' and indifferentism;" that is, to
encourage them in the belief that popular freedom is worth striving
after, and that people are more prosperous and happy when governed by
laws of their own making than by those dictated by the ambition of
those who claim that they alone are divinely chosen to govern mankind.
He sees nothing in such religious liberty as our institutions establish
but "irreligion and libertinism," to which it has given rise, and
against which he strives hard to enlist all the supporters of the
papacy.[208]
From the papal standpoint his arguments are sound and logical, because
the general enlightenment of the mind, which enables it to investigate
and understand the causes of things, and makes it competent to form
conclusions of its own, tends to create self-reliance and opposition to
oppressive laws; and has, on these accounts, been odious to the popes
ever since they acquired temporal power and made the Church, by means
of it, the most potent instrument in maintaining monarchism. Therefore
the student of history finds that the papacy has grown weaker as the
world has increased in enlightenment. But from the standpoint of our
free institutions, both his positions and reasoning are radically wrong
and indefensible, because they assail the freedom of conscience which
our institutions guarantee to every individual, and our common-school
system, which is more responsive to the public sentiment and will than
any other measure of our public policy. The plain and manifest import
of what he has said is this: That if he were allowed full liberty in
this country to dictate what shall and what shall not be regarded as
true religion, we would have neither freedom of conscience nor public
schools. And this, by his subsequent elevation to the pontificate,
constitutes to-day, the greatest if not the only danger which threatens
our free, popular form of government.
By his election as pope, Leo XIII occupies a different position from
that filled by him as Cardinal Pecci. In the latter he defended
the papal doctrines and recommended them for strict observance by
the faithful; in the former he dictates and commands, allowing
no discretion and submitting to no disobedience. Therefore it is
manifestly proper, as well as necessary, that we in this country
shall know to what extent the religious doctrines of the cardinal are
embodied in the authoritative teachings of the pope. In this latter
capacity he has undoubtedly flattered himself, as Pius IX did, that
he has at his back and subject to his command, two hundred millions
of obedient subjects throughout the world, and has, consequently,
availed himself of his first consistorial allocution to prepare them
for submission, by announcing that he has been chosen "to fill on earth
the place of the Prince of pastors, Christ Jesus!" He must have known,
when these words were traced by his pontifical pen, that Christ was
never the pastor of an organized Church with a constitution of either
spiritual or temporal government; that when the primitive Churches were
established by the apostles, they were independent of each other; that
none of these ever had a bishop or a presbyter with temporal power in
his hands; that this power was not acquired until after the fall of
the Roman Empire, according to Pius IX, and not until several hundred
years later, according to himself; and that even then it was wrenched
from the people by the aid of ambitious monarchs and their armies,
and maintained by the false and forged "donation of Constantine," the
pseudo-decretals of Isidore, and other means long since repudiated
in all parts of the world, and not now defended except by the most
mendacious. Yet, with this knowledge in his possession, he strangely
complains that the "Apostolic See" has been "violently stripped of its
temporal sovereignty" in disobedience of the divine law--pretending
thereby that Christ exercised and possessed such sovereignty when upon
earth, and that he, as his only representative, is his legitimate
successor!
His mind must have been overflowing with exhilaration, when, giving
full play to his imagination, he fancied himself thus elevated above
and superior to all other human beings. But, like many others who
indulge in similar flights and "build castles in the air," the excesses
of his fancy were checked by the conviction that the world was, at
last, a practical reality in what concerns its welfare, and that the
Italian people, who had for many centuries submitted to papal dominion,
would not permit him to place the crown of temporal royalty upon his
head. Seemingly saddened by this melancholy conviction, he found
himself constrained to announce to his "venerable brothers" of the
episcopacy that the papacy had been "reduced to a condition in which it
can in no wise enjoy the full, free, and unimpeded use of its powers,"
well knowing that it had not been deprived of any of its spiritual
authority except that involved in his right to wear a temporal crown
and govern the people arbitrarily as a temporal monarch. And then,
under the stimulant of hope, he imposed upon them the religious
obligation to labor for the restoration of this lost temporal power,
by reminding them how gloriously Pius IX had served the papacy by his
efforts "to re-establish the episcopal hierarchy" in Scotland, in
the face of the Government of England and the religious sentiment of
the Scotch people. Under the influence of these mingled emotions of
despondency and hope, his pontificate commenced. What fruits it is
destined to bear are hidden in the womb of time. What he intends to
accomplish, so far as he can, it is the duty of the civilized world to
understand, not by what any cardinal, archbishop, bishop, or priest
shall say, but as he himself has chosen officially to announce it. No
other man upon earth besides him has the right, according to the papal
theory, to prescribe a single tenet of religious faith, because he
alone occupies the place of Christ upon earth!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 206: Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Pages 200-214.]
[Footnote 207: Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Pages 219 to 222.]
[Footnote 208: Life of Leo XIII, pp. 230 to 239.]