This is the continuation of The Papacy and Civil Power – R. W. Thompson

Roman Catholics in the United States. Their Schools under Foreign Priests and Jesuits. They Accept the Pope’s Infallibility. The Hierarchy and Laymen. The Government of the United States. It is Opposed as Usurpation, because not Founded on Religion. The Roman Catholic Church must Rule in both Spirituals and Temporals. The People Need a Master.— Their Whole Duty is Obedience.— Infallibility : the Old and New Doctrine. The Encyclical and Syllabus of Pius IX.

MANY persons now (in 1876) living will remember when there were very few Roman Catholics in the United States, compared with the bulk of the population; and none at all in some of the oldest and most densely populated parts of the country. With the exception of the descendants of the Maryland colonists, and of those who had settled in Louisiana before its purchase, they were to be found only upon the frontier, in the large cities, and with here and there a church in the interior. They were not sufficiently numerous to have attracted any especial attention, and were generally and generously accepted by Protestants as co-workers in the cause of Christianity. They were not disposed to invite any antagonism with the prevailing Protestant faith, and when such antagonism was known to exist, were prompt and emphatic in rebuking it. Their priests appeared to be humble and unpretending men, professing only the single object of serving their Divine Master, and seemingly ready, when stricken upon one cheek, to turn the other. Humility was one of their most prominent characteristics.

It is otherwise now. There are seven archbishops, fifty-three bishops, six vicars apostolic, priests whose numbers it is impossible to compute, and a membership variously estimated by the official organs of the Church at from six to eight millions or about one-sixth of our whole population. It is asserted that there are over four hundred educational institutions in the different States and Territories, besides many private schools, under the immediate and exclusive government of the papal hierarchy. In these schools, without any exception, it is made absolutely and indispensably necessary that the dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church shall be taught to all the pupils, as the beginning and end of all necessary education; that it shall be fixed in their minds, as a sentiment of religious faith, that, since the decree of papal infallibility, they owe, within the domain of faith and morals, a higher allegiance to the Pope of Home than to the Government of the United States, or that of any State; and that any violation of this allegiance will bring upon them the severest censures of the Church, and inevitably lead to their eternal punishment in the world to come. There were recently eleven hundred and thirteen teachers in charge of these institutions. They have been selected for this particular duty, on account of their submissive obedience to the pope and his American hierarchs. And besides these, it is said that there are two thousand three hundred and eighty-three sisters of various orders, who have in their hands the training and education of the aggregate number of thirty -three thousand eight hundred and fifty-three female pupils. *

In a late work the following reference is made to the rapid growth of Romanism in the United States:

*” Catholic Family Almanac,” 1872, p. 79.

“For the year 1875 the following estimate is made in Sadlier’s ‘Catholic Directory.’ Archbishops and bishops the same as in 1872; priests, 4873; churches, chapels, and stations, 6920, of which 4800 are churches; theological seminaries, 18; studying for the priesthood, 1875; colleges, 68; academies, 511; parish schools, 1444; asylums, homes, and refuges, 215; hospitals, 87; and the Roman Catholic population, exclusive of Baltimore, Charleston, Erie, and Brooklyn for which no estimates are given is placed at 5,701,242. By this same statement it appears that in 1814 there ware only 85 priests in the United States; in 1834 the number had increased to 808; and in 1887 there were 1 archbishop, 14 bishops, 390 priests, 300 churches, and 148 stations.” —New York Tablet, January 2, 1875.

PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC STATISTICS.

“But it is in our own country, above every other, that the recent gains of Romanism upon Protestantism are the most remarkable. At the close of the two centuries and a half that elapsed from the first settlement of Virginia to the year 1859, the number of Catholics in the United States had run up to two millions and a half only; but at the end of the nine years that succeeded (namely, in 1868) that number had doubled. Twelve years ago they were but a twelfth part of our population; today they constitute, probably, more than a seventh.”

In the same work a compilation is made from a source considered entirely reliable, as follows:

Number of Protestants in the United States in 1859…….. 21,000,000
Number of Catholics in the United States in 1859……….. 2,500,000
Number of Protestants in the United States in 1868…….. 27,000,000
Number of Catholics in the United States in 1868……….. 5,000,000

—Showing that the Catholics had increased, in the nine years from 1859 to 1868, one hundred percent, while the Protestants had increased in the same time less than twenty nine percent.”

Then, commenting upon these important and startling facts, the author continues :

“Those who will verify the calculation of future increase, supposing it to continue at the same relative ratio for four terms of nine years each, commencing with the year 1868, will find that in 1904, that is, in thirty-three years from today, there would be eighty millions of Catholics to less than seventy-five millions of Protestants in the American Union.”

While it is not by any means certain that the relative ratio of increase here assumed will be borne out by future developments, and exceedingly probable that it will not be, yet the facts stated show so great and rapid an increase of the Roman Catholic part of our population as to render it an important and necessary inquiry, whether or not there is any thing in the demands and teachings of the papacy which requires that so large a body of the citizens of this country shall put themselves, either now or hereafter, in opposition to the principles we are endeavoring, as a nation, to perpetuate by our civil institutions. No matter if there are thousands of them who would refuse to do so, if required even by the pope, this does not diminish the importance and necessity of the inquiry. Institutions of the popular form require, more than those of other forms, to be guarded by ceaseless and untiring vigilance.

There is no way of ascertaining with precision what proportion of the Roman Catholic educational institutions in this country are under Jesuit direction and management. That the number is large may be inferred from a boast made, not long ago, by the editor of a newspaper zealously devoted to the interests of that order. With extraordinary vehemence, and with some talent for the dogmatic and declamatory style of writing, he has industriously employed his columns to advance the cause of the papacy in the United States; to bring about the destruction and overthrow of Protestantism; and to elevate the pope to an equality with God, in the government of all human affairs! With an air of self-satisfied pride and arrogance, he announced that these, followers of Loyola, who have, in the course of their history, been driven out of every Roman Catholic country on account of the enormity of their offenses against society, have now twelve colleges under their charge; and that “it is clear that the Catholic intellectuality of the land depends almost entirely on these institutions. Had they never been opened here, there had been a dense state of darkness over us all; were they closed tomorrow, an eclipse would set in which it would be impossible to dissipate; and if decay should attack them, the brightness of the Catholic name in the United States would be soon a dissolved glory.”

THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE UNITED STATES.

In a subsequent number of this same paper, it is stated that “there are about three hundred Jesuit priests in the United States” that, in addition to the above colleges, there is “one immense scholasticate, or house of studies, for all North America,” located in Maryland, with “about one hundred and fifty young Jesuits within its walls;” and where “at length the Jesuits of this country have commenced to educate their scholastics according to the time-honored rules of the society. Hitherto,” it is said, “the demand for professors and priests has been so urgent that this could not have been easily done; but the long-wished-for beginning is now at last made, and nothing will be suffered to interfere with the scholastic in going to his studies at the proper time, and in completing them in all their extent, variety, and rigor. …. The result in a few years will be seen all over the land.”

We may reasonably expect that the numbers of this celebrated society in the United States will now be rapidly increased by emigration. Their suppression by the Prussian Government, their like fate in Italy, their difficulties in Bavaria and Switzerland growing out of their resistance to the public authorities, their expulsion from Guatemala, and their probable expulsion from all the countries where they have been longest and best known, and where the obnoxious principles of their order, and its insidious workings, are understood, will probably cause them to seek refuge in this country; where, under the license of our Protestant and tolerant institutions, they may hope to give new life to their organization and perpetuate its existence. The field is an inviting one rich in every thing that attracts and we must not suppose that they will be slow to occupy it; for even the Jesuit, when driven away from the Roman Catholic nations and covered by them with obloquy and reproach, can find shelter under our Constitution and laws. The only price he is expected to pay is fidelity to the fundamental principles upon which our Government has been founded. With less than this we have no right to be content; and must not be.

There are very few thoughtful minds that have not been impressed by the fact that these educational influences are, with only occasional and rare exceptions, under the immediate direction of foreigners of men educated and trained by the papacy for the express purpose. Why is this? Why is it that only those who are thus prepared for the work with all the peculiar opinions, prejudices, and habits of thought which grow out of and belong to the papal system, as understood at the Vatican in Rome are specially and almost exclusively chosen to teach Roman Catholicism in the United States? Unquestionably, there is some reason for it. And it would seem to be the only satisfactory explanation of such a fact, that, in the opinion of the ecclesiastical authorities of Rome, there is so direct an antagonism between the papacy and a popular form of government like ours, that they do not suppose it possible for both systems to exist permanently together; and, therefore, have selected these foreigners as the most suitable and competent agents to carry on the work of substituting other institutions for ours institutions more congenial to them, and more in harmony with the papal views of government.

A SEVERE BLOW TO POLITICAL FREEDOM.

This precautionary measure of ecclesiastical policy, carefully designed for the achievement of future results, has borne some fruits already. We see this in the fact that the members of the Roman Catholic Church in the United Status appear today to be more formidably and compactly united in supporting and defending all the pretensions of the papacy than are the Roman Catholic populations of any of the nations of Europe. Among the most intelligent of the latter those who have become familiar, from long observation and direct intercourse, with the papal system the foundations of that system have been destroyed, papal concordats have been indignantly and contemptuously revoked, papal bulls of anathema and excommunication have been defied, and the ecclesiastical right to proclaim and enforce the decree of papal infallibility has been courageously and successfully resisted. And yet, in this country, we are furnished almost daily with renewed evidences of the enormous increase of hierarchical power, and of a blind and humiliating submission to the mediaeval doctrines of the Encyclical and Syllabus of Pope Pius IX.; and the extreme demands of the Jesuit and Ultramontane royalists of Europe. Many thousands of the Roman Catholics of Europe, although living under monarchical institutions, have the intrepidity to disavow the tame utterance of Augustine: “When Rome has spoken, that is the end of the matter” and to assert their right to break loose from papal oppression and cling to the old Church of “the Fathers.” But the bulk of those in the United States, while shielded and protected by free institutions, seem so trained in this passive and slavish school of Augustine, that they do not yet realize how surely and inevitably its tendency is to make them the mere tools of an imperious and exacting hierarchy, whose professions of moderation are both delusive and insincere. They seem either incompetent or unwilling to understand how completely their manhood is forfeited by a compliance with the requirements of this ecclesiastical system ; while, in other respects, they exhibit commendable intelligence and some of the best qualities of citizenship.

The decree of papal infallibility was a severe blow at the cause of personal as well as political freedom; and by now consenting to make it the chief corner-stone of their ecclesiastical polity, they avow their readiness beforehand to acquiesce in whatsoever shall be demanded of them, no matter how enormous it may be and to what degree of humiliation it may reduce them. There is no king now upon any throne who sets forth his pretensions in more imperious tones than Pope Pius IX.; yet they crouch at his feet as submissively as the slave at the feet of his task-master. When he insists as other popes have done before him that God has given him “full power over the whole world, both in ecclesiastical and civil affairs,” and that to maintain the contrary is impious and heretical, they give their open assent, or tame acquiescence to this odious doctrine, though it may do violence to their most cherished and preconceived opinions.

It is wonderful that such men do not profit more by that experience which comes from intercourse with the world; that they do not realize that multitudes of their brethren, who once supported the cause of the papacy, have abandoned it, on account of the very things to which they submit; and that the governments hitherto most obedient to the pope have passed out of his hands and from under his control. How is it possible for them to shut their eyes so completely as they seem to do to the movements of the modern nations?

Spain, formerly the most devoted of all of them to papal supremacy, has, within a few years, made her queen a fugitive, because she was the mere creature of an insolent priesthood; has weakened the power of that same priesthood, because it had been trained in the school of the infamous and despised Inquisition; and has advanced so far toward a higher national development as to excite the hope in all liberal minds that she may be ultimately able to throw off entirely the leaden weight of ultramontanism (the clerical political conception within the Catholic Church that places strong emphasis on the prerogatives and powers of the Pope).

France withdrew her military support from the papal throne, in order to humiliate a rival Protestant power, and she and the papacy both went down into a common wreck; and if she rises again under the papal flag, it will be only to dig still deeper the grave into which all her aspirations of national glory will be buried.

Austria has set aside her concordat with the pope, and proclaimed entire freedom of religious belief, and has made herself the ally of the bitterest enemies of Pius IX.

Bavaria has refused to permit the dogma of infallibility to be proclaimed in her dominions, because it is opposed to the fundamental articles of her constitution, “and would place in jeopardy the rights of the non-Catholics of the country.”

The open collision between Teutonic and Latin ideas has consolidated the Germanic states by the triumph of the former; and left no hope for the papacy throughout all Germany, unless reaction could be won by the impossible ascendency of the odious principles of Jesuitism. Even Italy, at the very door of the Vatican, has snatched the sceptre of temporal dominion from the hands of the pope, invited Protestant churches and schools to be opened in Rome, confiscated the property of the rich monastic orders, and appropriated the Quirinal and other papal palaces to the uses of the state.

PAPAL OPPOSITION TO POPULAR GOVERNMENT.

There is not left in all the earth a single government with either the inclination or the power to defend the papacy, nor a single square mile of territory over which its temporal sceptre can be wielded. And while all these things are consummated facts in history, and others of kindred import are rapidly transpiring ; while these Roman Catholic populations of Europe are beginning to breathe more like free men, and are preparing for higher degrees of progress than they have yet attained, the followers of the papacy in the United States, with creditable
exceptions, are concentrating their exertions with wonderful unanimity, in order to reforge the discarded fetters of papal tyranny, and to manacle with them the limbs of the freest and happiest population upon earth! Do not these events teach a philosophy which it becomes the American people to understand? Manifestly, they will fail in duty to themselves, their country, and the age, if they do not endeavor to understand it.

(Note: This pretty much confirms in my mind why the USA has so many problems today. The Jesuits are behind the liberal woke leftist socialist agenda to lead the nation to accept a so called “Christian Nationalism” or union of Church and State with Rome in control to stand against the evil. Perhaps in the beginning it will be not appear to be overt control with the Pope at the head. Christian J. Pinto of Noise of Thunder Radio has a lot to say about this subject.)

ENDEAVOR TO SUBVERT OUR INSTITUTIONS.

We should not fail to keep in mind the distinction, which undoubtedly exists, between the hierarchy and the laity. Among the latter there are, beyond all question, a large number of pious and sincere Christians, who follow the teachings of their Church with honest and pure intentions, and who are equally honest and sincere in their support of our republican and popular institutions, because they think they see nothing in either incompatible with the other. During the late rebellion (the American Civil War) many of these went into the national armies, willingly and promptly, and were as brave and zealous as any others in defending the nation’s life and the integrity of the Union. But it can not be honestly denied that the direct tendency, during that same crisis, of all that came from Rome was to give “aid and comfort” to those who were endeavoring to overthrow the Government. And it is equally true that the open avowals of the pope, in so far as they were designed to have political significance, had also the same effect. In no other way can the fact be accounted for, that so large a number of Roman Catholic priests in this country sympathized with all the measures which were designed to break up the Union and destroy our institutions. All their ecclesiastical training is so conducted as to prepare them for opposition to a popular form of government, and for giving preference to monarchical principles. They exhibit abundant proof of this at all times when collisions occur between the people and their monarchs who profess to govern by “divine right,” always opposing the former and taking sides with the latter. They could not pay obedience to the desires and commands of the pope in any other way. Nor would he consider their obedience to him complete, such as their ecclesiastical obligations impose upon them, unless they were always and everywhere ready to go to this extent. He measures their fidelity to him by the readiness with which they adopt and promulgate these sentiments.

Pius IX., since he threw himself into the arms of the Jesuits, has so frequently avowed his hatred of a government of the people, and his fondness for monarchy, as to leave no doubt upon any properly informed mind about the condition in which he would place the nations, if he possessed the power to regulate their affairs and construct their forms of government. He would “pluck up” and destroy every constitution or law which gives the people the right to frame their own institutions so as to reflect their own will, and would require the whole world to recognize and adopt the doctrine of the “divine right of kings” to govern all the nations in obedience to the pontifical mandates. He demands of his hierarchy and all the officers of the Roman Catholic Church, in every country and under all circumstances and conditions, not merely that they shall maintain these sentiments themselves, but shall carefully instruct all the faithful to do the same; conceding to them only such a degree of discretion as allows them to regulate their utterances by expediency.

From both these classes— both priests and laymen— the pope exacts implicit obedience, without inquiry or any appeal to their own reason. If it shall be yielded by the Roman Catholic population of the United States, and if it is really the design that the papal exactions shall be carried to the extent of interfering with their obligations as citizens, there is no difficulty in seeing that they may be ultimately led into an attitude of antagonism to our form of government.

At this point lies the danger most seriously to be apprehended by the people of the United States a danger which underlies many, if not all, of the questions by which the nation is periodically excited. While we may not now be able to anticipate the precise time or form of its appearing, we should not be unprepared to meet it, if, by any possibility, it shall be hereafter precipitated upon us.

By our form of government all the laws have their source, both theoretically and practically, in the will of the people ; and are, therefore, of human origin. The Constitution of the United States was ordained and established by the people,”in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” (Preamble to the Constitution of the United States) Considered collectively, these objects include every thing necessary to the happiness, prosperity, and elevation of a nation; and, with the supreme and sovereign authority of the American people to preserve them for nearly a century, they have, thus far, proved to be much more conducive to these ends than any of the forms of government where kings, or popes, or potentates of any name or rank, have been regarded as the only “fountains of justice.” This belief can not be delusion, in view of the present condition of the world and of the practical results before us. If it is, it is a delusion which the people of the United States have cherished, and will, it is hoped, continue to cherish, with all the fervor of the intensest patriotism. It would be unjust to say that among the number of those who do cherish it there are not many Roman Catholic laymen, and now and then a priest, who have found shelter under our institutions from European misgovernment and monarchical oppression.

There are, undoubtedly, many of this class who do not believe, when told, that <the papacy is now endeavoring, by the most active and persistent efforts, to substitute an ecclesiastical government for this government of the people a grand “Holy Empire” for this free and popular republic which it has cost so much blood and treasure to establish and maintain. Restrained by the sincerity of their own intentions from suspecting others, they never stop a moment to inquire to what probable or possible point they may be led by the uninquiring obedience to their hierarchy which is demanded of them. And the hierarchy, taking advantage of their silence, and construing it into acquiescence, let no opportunity escape to build up an ecclesiastical power, comprehensive enough to absorb all those powers of the Government and the people which the pope shall consider to be in opposition to the law of God!

These foreign-born ecclesiastics have moved forward in work with great caution and circumspection. Whenever they have been enabled to employ the pen of a native citizen, they have done so, in order that, while secure in their own reticence for the time being, they could observe the effect produced.

DR. BROWNSON’S INTOLERANCE

As early as 1849, Dr. O. A. Brownson— who had abandoned Protestantism under the pretense that it was necessary to human happiness that the whole world should be subjected to ecclesiastical government did not hesitate to utter, in behalf of the papacy, such doctrines as would, if established in this country, upheave the government of the United States, and that of every State in the Union, from their foundations. In an article on “Authority and Liberty,” he pointed out the absolute and plenary authority of God over all things spiritual and temporal; and denied that any body or community of men, as men, “has any rightful authority either in spirituals or temporals.” As a consequence, he insisted that “all merely human authorities are usurpations, and their acts are without obligation, null and void from the beginning.” In other and more practical words, that the authority of the people of the United States over the Government is usurpation, and that all the constitutions and laws they have ordained and enacted by this authority “are without obligation, null and void from the beginning!” All “right to command,” whether of parent, pastor, prince, individuals, or communities, he centers in the pope, as “the vicar of God ” on earth, and in him alone. He insists that, through the pope and by virtue of his authority, “religion must found the state;” and that the only “absolute and unlimited freedom” consists in “absolute and unconditional subjection to God;” that is, to his vicar the pope, who alone is authorized to declare his will. Every thing contrary to this notwithstanding the Constitution of the United States and that of every State in the Union are contrary to it he pronounces to be “nonsense or blasphemy.”

This author is so much dissatisfied with the structure of the government under which he was born, and by which he is allowed the liberty of speech and of the press, even to the extent of assailing its most cherished provisions, as to insist that the papacy alone possesses the only Divine authority, ever conferred upon an earthly tribunal, to make laws for the government of mankind ; and that in submitting to it we submit to God, “and are freed from all human authority;” because whatsoever it teaches and commands, in reference to all spiritual and temporal things, must be and is infallibly true. Therefore, “in the temporal order,” according to him, the authority of the papacy “is nothing but the assertion over the state of the Divine sovereignty,” which it represents. And, hence, all the authority derived from the people which does not bring the state into this condition of obedience and subserviency to the papacy “is despotic, because it is authority without right, will unregulated by reason, power disjoined from justice.” And, further pursuing the same idea in opposition to the fundamental principle of all popular and representative government, he continues thus:

“Withdraw the supremacy of the Church from the temporal order, and you deprive the state of that sanction; by asserting that it does not hold from God, and is not amenable to his law, you give the state simply a human basis, and have in it only a human authority, which has no right to govern, and which it is intolerable tyranny to compel me to obey”

He then pursues another method of reasoning which, under color of a single concession, brings him to the same conclusions; the main object, that is, the absolute and universal power of the papacy, never being lost sight of. Agreeing that the state has some authority within the limits of the law of nature, he concedes to it the right to act “without ecclesiastical restraint or interference,” when and only so long as it confines itself within the scope of that law. But he puts such limitations upon even this restricted right as to render it of no avail for any of the purposes of an independent government, by insisting that as the papacy holds its authority directly from God, and exercises it under his revealed law, which includes the law of nature, it is, therefore, the only competent judge of infractions upon both the revealed and the natural law. Speaking of the Church—and since the decree of papal infallibility he, of course, means the pope, who represents and absorbs all the authority of the Church—he says:

“She is, under God, the supreme judge of both laws, which for her are but one law; and hence she takes cognizance, in her tribunals, of the breaches of the natural law as well as of the revealed, and has the right to take cognizance by nations as well as of its breaches by individuals, by the prince as well as the subject, for it is the supreme law for both. The state is, therefore, only an inferior court, bound to receive the law from the Supreme Court, and liable to have its decrees reversed on appeal.”

These sentiments were not uttered from mere impulse, or in the heat of animated discussion; they were carefully formed and elaborated in the closet, and sent forth, with full deliberation and hierarchical sanction, to prepare the minds of the Roman Catholic part of our population for events which have since transpired, and which were then, doubtless, anticipated. They had, undoubtedly, the full approval of the highest authorities of the Church in the United States; for so wonderfully perfect is the plan of papal organization, that their author would not have acquired the distinguished position he has since reached in the Church, if he had ventured to commit the papacy wrongfully upon questions of so much delicacy and importance. Dr. Brownson had prepared himself for the adoption of these views by previous study of the papal system, and was, therefore, as a native citizen, the most fit person to give them public utterance; it being very naturally supposed, no doubt, that the people of this country would silently submit to harsh criticism upon the principles of their government when made by a native, when the same criticism made by a foreigner would arouse their just indignation. An intelligent and educated mind like his could not fail to see that the principles he enunciated were diametrically opposed to the whole theory of American government, and that the logical consequence of their supremacy in the United States would be the end of popular government, by the substitution for it of one in the ecclesiastical form.

RELIGION WHICH IS “TO COMMAND.”

He had, but a few years ago, announced that “the Roman Catholic religion assumes, as its point of departure, that it is instituted, not to be taken care of by the people, but to take care of the people; not to be governed by them, but to govern them;” and from this stand -point of deadly hostility to the institutions under which he was born, and which allowed him the liberty he was so unpatriotically abusing, it was but a single step to such bold and audacious avowals as the following:

“The people need governing, and must be governed. ….They must have A MASTER.... The religion which is to answer our purpose must be above the people, and able to COMMAND THEM…. The first lesson to the child is, obey; the first and last lesson to the people, individually and collectively, is, OBEY ; and there is no obedience where there is no authority to enjoin it…. The Roman Catholic religion, then, is necessary to sustain popular liberty, because popular liberty can be sustained only by a religion free from popular control, above the people, speaking from above and able to command them ; and such a religion is the Roman Catholic…. In this sense, we wish THIS COUNTRY TO COME UNDER THE POPE OF ROME. As the visible head of the Church, the spiritual authority which Almighty God has instituted to teach and govern the nations, we assert his supremacy, and tell our countrymen that we would have them submit to him. They may flare up at this as much as they please, and write as many alarming and abusive editorials as they choose, or can find time and space to do they will not move us, or relieve themselves from the obligation Almighty God has placed them under of obeying the authority of the Catholic Church, pope and all.”

When Pope Gregory XVI., some years ago, uttered the saying, “Out of the Roman States, there is no country where I am pope, except the United States,” he undoubtedly cherished the idea which filled the mind of Dr. Brownson when he penned these extraordinary sentiments; that is, that popular liberty, in its true sense, can only exist where the people are reduced to a condition of political vassalage, and where there is a power superior to them, with authority sufficient to command and govern them! With both of them, as well as with many Roman Catholic writers who have similarly expressed themselves, such sentiments grew out of the existing condition of the nations, and the decaying fortunes of the papacy. In all the countries professedly Roman Catholic, the Church was restricted and hampered in what were asserted to be its rights, on account of its close alliance with despotism; while in this country, owing to the liberality of our institutions, it is “legally free,” and is left without the interference of the law, to the uninterrupted pursuit of its ecclesiastical policy. Manifestly, it is because the nations of Europe, hitherto Roman Catholic, have taken away from “the vicar of God” the power to subordinate the laws of the State to the canon laws of the Church, which have been constructed with sole reference to papal supremacy, that the hope of rebuilding this power in the United States has been excited.

Paralyzed by the defensive policy of the nations where the oppressive character of the papal system has been long observed and understood, and where its opposition to the rights of the people has been most keenly felt, all these representatives of the papacy cultivate the idea in their own minds, and are endeavoring to instill it into the minds of their followers, that they may avail themselves of the tolerance of our institutions to reconstruct their repudiated system of ecclesiastical absolutism in this country. The present pope, Pius IX., pressed much nearer to the wall than was Gregory XVI., and, doubtless, flattered at the thought that the bold utterances of Dr. Brownson and others have yet received no popular rebuke, has allowed the same hope to obtain possession of his mind.

When at his command, the defenders of the papacy speak of the Church as being “legally free” in the United States, he and they understand it to mean that it is free, under our form of government, to concentrate and vitalize all its efforts and the best faculties of its priesthood, to consummate the ends and objects they aim at. They do not mean that the people here are to be converted to the Roman Catholic faith by free discussion and appeals to reason — these are methods of procedure forbidden to them. But they do mean just what Dr. Brownson has averred; that the pope, without any human authority to challenge or arraign him, shall be at liberty to build up a hierarchy, irresponsible to the laws enacted by the people, with authority and powers above those of the National and State governments, and sufficient to compel passive obedience to all papal decrees and to the canon laws of the Roman Catholic Church, in such form as he, with the crown of the Caesars upon his brow, shall promulgate them from his papal and imperial city of Rome!

INSIDIOUSNESS OF A FOREIGN-BORN PRIESTHOOD.

These matters are of sufficient import to arrest public attention; and it is time that the people of the United States understood the manner in which a foreign-born priesthood, educated for the purpose, are employing the freedom granted them by our institutions what they mean when they write and talk about the freedom of their church and what the end may be if they shall quietly and unresistingly submit to have replanted here the papal imperialism which has been expelled from every enlightened nation in Europe. When a Protestant talks of freedom, he means the self-government of the people in all their civil affairs; when the papal hierarchy talk of it, they mean the freedom of the papacy to govern the world, through the pope and themselves, as his agents and auxiliaries. And when, in this country, we speak of the “liberty of conscience,” we mean that every man shall be permitted to worship God as his own personal convictions of duty shall dictate. But the papal hierarchy have no such meaning, and intend nothing of this sort. With them “liberty of conscience” consists merely of “the right to embrace, profess, and practice, the Catholic religion” in a Protestant country; not the right to embrace, profess, and practice the Protestant religion in a Roman Catholic country! And why do they not concede this latter right, while demanding the former with such steady persistence? The answer with them is always at hand, when it is expedient to make it: because “infidelity” is “the last logical consequence of Protestantism;” and, therefore, Protestantism, being thus opposed to the law of God, can not be tolerated or compromised with without sin, and must be exterminated!

These ideas are so plainly and emphatically expressed by The Catholic World of New York, that the article in which they are found entitled “A Plea for Liberty of Conscience” is well worthy a careful examination and serious reflection. While it apologizes to those of its “Catholic readers” who may take offense at its defensive tone as if it were an act of indiscretion to defend the Roman Catholic Church otherwise than by the dogmatic assumption of its exclusiveness and supremacy it exhausts its ingenuity in the discussion of the question, ” What constitutes a violation of just and rightful liberty of conscience?” To such of its readers as presuppose “the Catholic religion to be the true one,” it addresses this expressive and violent language:

“Of course, in the last analysis, we must come back upon the fundamental principle that the law of God is supreme, and must be obeyed at all hazards, let come what will. No matter what human law, what private interests, what dreadful penalties may stand in the way, God must be obeyed, conscience must be followed, duty must be done. The authority of the state must be braved, human affections must be disregarded, life must be sacrificed, when loyalty to truth and to the will of God requires it.”

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY NOT A NEW DOGMA.

These sentiments, when uttered, might have seemed comparatively harmless to the casual reader; and they were probably thus considered by many of the uninitiated laymen of the Roman Catholic Church. They are seemingly full of loyalty to the Christian faith, and yet that they were designed to have a covert and latent significance well understood by the priesthood, there can be no reasonable doubt, in view of what was then transpiring at Rome. Preparations were making for the decree of papal infallibility; and it was, doubtless, considered necessary, by such utterances as these, to put the minds of the faithful in a fit condition to accept, without murmur, this radical change in the doctrines of the Church. At that time, infallibility was no less a dogma of the Church than it is now; but it was differently deposited. It was the infallibility of the Church, when acting through and by means of the representative authorities it has recognized for centuries; that is, councils and popes conjointly. Whatever opinions contrary to this may have been expressed elsewhere, and have generally prevailed among the hierarchy, this was, undoubtedly, the belief of a very large majority of the lay members of the Church in the United States. They both felt and expressed for the pope a feeling bordering upon reverence, but had never yet been brought to the point of accepting him as possessed alone of all the infallibility they had been accustomed to assign to the Church; in other words, they had never consented to accept a church organization entirely deprived of all ordinary representative features. With them, the old faith was sanctified by centuries of time; and they associated all ideas of invasion upon it with heretical teachings. Feeling assured that a deposit thus sacred would be preserved with fidelity by its custodians, and having no dread of any antagonism to it from within, they exhibited their confidence by the most deferential obedience. Whatsoever came to them with the stamp of authority was willingly accepted; but they had not yet learned to regard this authority, in so far as it affected the fundamentals of their faith, as lodged elsewhere than in the collective body of their bishops, acting conjointly with the pope, in the general councils of the whole Church. Any accusation that they did so usually excited their resentment; at all events, their unqualified denial. And when this is taken into account, when it is considered how few there were who pretended to believe the doctrine of papal infallibility, it may well be supposed that these avowals of the Catholic World passed unobserved by the ordinary reader, at the time. Although the article may have been read by many Roman Catholic laymen, it is not probable that they perceived its ultimate bearing or design; or, if they did, they did not suppose it possible that any harm could be done by it to the theory of popular government, so long as the faith and doctrines of their Church were subject to interpretation only by the whole body of the episcopate, gathered together in general council from all parts of the world, and representing the entire Church. This view of it would have naturally arisen in the minds of the honest and unsuspecting members of the Church of that large class who are made credulous by the excess of their fidelity, and who are no more inclined to suspect others of duplicity than they are to practice it themselves. Yet it can not now be seriously denied that the hierarchy of the Church, or those among them who occupied the most commanding and influential positions, fully understood the import and meaning of the principles of church polity so boldly proclaimed by the Catholic World. The prelates and priests knew that they were expressed in response to the pope’s Encyclical and Syllabus of 1864, in order to prepare the whole membership of the Church, gradually but cautiously, for the decree of papal infallibility; for the ultimate concentration of all the authority of the church in the hands of the pope alone, at the expense of the representative feature in the church economy; and for the substitution of his orders, decrees, and commands, for such as heretofore for over eighteen hundred years except when papal usurpation made it otherwise have been considered the law of the Church when proceeding from the whole body of the Church. In no other sense can these principles be now interpreted.

Indeed, The Catholic World did not, at the time of their utterance, intend to leave much doubt about its meaning in the minds of the initiated. It intended to place itself in advance of others who were slower to move in the direction indicated by the pope. Therefore, with the Encyclical and Syllabus to dictate the sentiment, it was announced, in the next number, that the pope, “as the head and mouthpiece of the Catholic Church, administers its discipline and issues orders to which every Catholic, under pain of sin, must yield obedience.”

THE CHURCH OF ROME TO INTERPRET OUR LAWS.

These are not loose and idle sayings; nor are they expressed by ignorant and irresponsible men. The Catholic World is edited with great ability, and possesses very high literary merit. It is issued from “The Catholic Publication House,” in New York, manifestly with episcopal sanction. And when such a publication, with such high indorsement, solemnly and under all its responsibilities announces it as the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, that disobedience to the “orders” of the pope is “sin” against God, what should interest the American people more than to inquire whether it is contemplated, or is even possible, that any of these “orders” should be directed against, or shall threaten the existence of, any of the principles which enter into the structure of their government? As the prosecution of this inquiry progresses, much will appear well calculated to startle those whose avocations lead them into other fields of thought and investigation.

In the light of the teachings thus far announced, and of the further fact that the pope’s infallibility is now almost universally recognized in the United States, either by open approval or silent acquiescence, there is no other logical conclusion than that the papal hierarchy in this country entertain the desire to make our government and laws conform to the laws of God, as they shall be interpreted and announced by the pope. They profess to have been appointed to this mission by Almighty God, and, stimulated by the zeal engendered by this conviction (the honesty of which there is no occasion to impeach), are undoubtedly arming themselves for the work with all the weapons which can be drawn from the pontifical armory. And The Catholic World, in order to incite the courage of the assailants, and bring about this result with all possible expedition, declares in advance that all “human laws” must be resisted when they stand in the way of the grand achievement; that all “private interests” must be sacrificed; that the most dreadful “penalties” must be incurred ; and that “the authority of the state must be braved, human affections must be disregarded, life must be sacrificed, when loyalty to truth and to the will of God requires it” as the truth shall be declared, and the will of God shall be announced, by the infallible and unerring pope!

To be continued!

All chapters of The Papacy and Civil Power