Footprints of the Jesuits - R. W. Thompson

Chapter XXVI. Conclusion.

The triumph achieved by the Jesuits in the Vatican Council of 1870, by the passage of the decree of papal infallibility, inspired the most excessive enthusiasm among the ecclesiastical defenders of the temporal power. They vainly supposed that it was a special intervention of Providence to drive back the revolutionary tide and overwhelm the Italian insurgents who were seeking merely to establish their right to enact such laws as bear upon their temporal interests, leaving the ancient faith of the Church, as their fathers had maintained it for centuries, entirely undisturbed. Pius IX was present in the Council, and when the event was announced, excitedly exclaimed, ” Consummatus est,” considering, says the impulsive narrator, that Peter had spoken! The same author, as the historian of the Council, continues: “At that instant a terrific thunderstorm burst over the Basilica. It was occasionally enveloped in profound gloom, and the forked lightning darted through and made darkness visible, and peal after peal of thunder rumbled over the Council hall and towering dome. All were awestruck at the convulsion of the elements, and at the mysterious breathings of the Holy Ghost, whispering, The pope is infallible!

If, at the seemingly inauspicious moment here described, when nature exhibited herself in frowns rather than smiles, the excitement had subsided sufficiently for calm deliberation, some fear of the Divine displeasure might have been kindled in view of the blasphemous pretense that a mere man, with all the impulses, passions, and ambitious vanities of other men, was the equal of God in all spiritual and temporal matters which concern the moral conduct of society and Governments, and the eternal welfare of the human soul. No body of men ever assembled before, in the course of all the ages, had ventured to announce so palpable a perversion of the teachings of Christ, whose whole intercourse with mankind was designed to teach meekness and humility as the distinguishing characteristics of a Christian life. Nearly nineteen centuries of the Christian era had passed without the consummation of such an infringement upon the primitive faith; and minds not filled with strange infatuation would have been likely to see in the thunder, the lightning, and the clouds, the manifestation of Divine displeasure rather than to have compared the scene—as this writer does— to that in the mount when the tables of the law were delivered to Moses. But no such deliberation then existed, nor did it attend the proceedings of the Vatican Council. The decrees were prepared beforehand under the dictation of Pius IX—like those made ready by Innocent III for the Lateran Council in 1215, assembled to condemn the pretended heresies of the Albigenses, to give renewed strength to his temporal power, to gloss over his usurpations, and give papal sanction to the horrible persecutions of the Inquisition. No amendments were allowed. An attempt was made to strike out the anathema, but as that would have been a surrender of the coercive power, it failed. The Council—as heretofore stated—was far from being full when the final vote was taken, many members having voluntarily withdrawn to signify their opposition to the decree, after having failed in every expedient to defeat it. Apart, however, from this want of unanimity, it is pretended that this doctrine of infallibility has been concealed, in some mysterious way, in the deposit of faith for all the years since the time of Christ, and not revealed, notwithstanding the untiring exertions of the ambitious popes to obtain its recognition! And all this, without seeming to realize that to say of this doctrine, as well as that of the Immaculate Conception, that belief in both is absolutely necessary to salvation in the next life, is equivalent to alleging that the millions who have died without the belief of either, and the other millions who have expressly denied and denounced both, have been, and will be forever, excluded from the presence of God!”

This is a practical age, and the people of the United States, considered collectively, are conspicuously a practical people. They have become so by virtue of the fact that their political institutions have been so constructed as to require the personal participation of each citizen in the management of public affairs. But if the pope is, in fact, infallible, and possessed rightfully of the jurisdiction over faith, morals, and conduct, which that doctrine assigns to him, then the popular supervision over their affairs ends at the point where the papal and Jesuit supervision over them begins. Then, instead of continuing in the forefront of the progressive and advancing nations, we shall occupy an inconspicuous place among those by which progress is condemned as infidelity. The pope himself, who has sent Mgr. Satolli here to instruct us, seems to have forgotten—and there are multitudes of his obedient followers who care not to know—that the most that his ambitious predecessors, Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII, could accomplish by virtue of their assumption of infallibility, was to divide the membership of the Church into rival and infuriated factions—the Cisalpines and the Ultramontanes. The former adhered to the religion of the Gallican Christians by limiting the pope’s supremacy to spirituals alone; while the latter, as he now does, extended it to absolute spiritual sovereignty to such a degree over the world, as includes all temporal matters concerning the interests of the Church and the papacy. The Ultramontanes traced this absolute sovereignty back to the lines of policy pursued by several of the most distinguished of the popes, but particularly to the bull “Unam Sanctam” of Boniface VIII, while the Cisalpines repudiated the authority of that bull. This issue gave rise to a protracted and angry controversy, which continued up till the Vatican Council of 1870, when Pius IX, more successful than any of his predecessors, was enabled to profit by his alliance with the Jesuits, and secure the triumph of the Ultramontanes. This he accomplished by causing the Council to revive the dogmas.of all the popes who had gone before him, including, of course, Gregory WII, Innocent HI, and Boniface VIII, in so far as they concerned faith, morals, and all religious duties and obligations. In the “Dogmatic Constitution,” which authoritatively announces the infallibility of the pope, and was issued under the immediate personal auspices of Pius IX, special pains are taken to declare that this doctrine rests not only on the “testimonies of the sacred writings,” but on “the plain and express decrees” of “the Roman pontiffs, and of the General Councils,” notwithstanding no previous Council ever passed such a decree, and those of Constance and Basel expressly decided the exact reverse. Here, it will be observed, the popes are grouped together by the use of the word pontifs in the plural, leaving the present to be compared with the former faith, by searching among the numerous constitutions, decrees, encyclicals, allocutions, and bulls of all the popes enumerated in the calendar of the Church. Thus the Ultramontanes and the Jesuits find their faith in the bulls and policy of Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII, but especially in the bull “Unam Sanetam” of the latter; and as they, with Leo XIII at their head, represent the victorious party in the Church, there can be no excuse for not knowing the religious doctrines of that party as they are embodied in the infallible utterances of that celebrated bull, and are now employed to justify the restoration of the pope’s temporal power, and the enlargement of his spiritual jurisdiction in the event of their success. There has been an evident disinclination among the papal writers to publish this bull entire, so that its precise purport may be understood by the average reader. As an excuse for not doing so, De Montor, the authorized historian of the popes, says, in his biography of Boniface VIII, that “neither at Rome or elsewhere” is it “any longer officially mentioned.” Although this was said before the Vatican Council decreed the infallibility of all the popes, of course including Boniface VIII, yet the concealment of the plain and obvious meaning of this bull was not excused even then; for the reason that its whole object was to define the relations between the spiritual and the temporal powers; and, consequently, furnishes the highest official and ex cathedra evidence of the faith of the Church as then maintained by its chief functionary, whether he was or was not infallible. If, however, he was infallible, as the Vatican Council of 1870 has decreed, then it is conclusively proved that the bull “Unam Sanctam” sets forth the true faith as recognized by the Ultramontanes, the Jesuits, and all those who accept the popes as infallible teachers and guides. The suppression of the most material parts of this bull by De Montor and other papal defenders, is but a feeble attempt to disguise the censure commonly visited upon its author; although what he did was openly and boldly to avow what Gregory VII, Tnnocent III, and other popes had substantially proclaimed before, in the regular execution of their pontifical functions. De Montor follows De Maistre, and is content, like the latter, to state some of its conclusions, omitting the most prominent and important. Among the concessions he has made is an enumeration of those who are subject to excommunication, as follows: “All hereties;” “All who appeal to future Councils”—that is, who deny the pope’s infallibility; “Those who cite ecclesiastics before lay tribunals;” “Those who usurp the territory of the pope’s sovereignty;” and, although he ventures to say, “The rest of the bull is unimportant,” the plain fact is, that both he and De Maistre have omitted any reference to its most prominent parts, made now more prominent by the solemn decree of the Vatican Council that he was infallible. Whatsoever may have been the object of this suppression previous to the action of the Vatican Council—and that there was some special object there can be no reasonable doubt—the conditions have since changed, so that Boniface VIII, when announcing the faith to the whole Church, was as much infallible as Pius LX, or Leo XIII, or any of their predecessors. We have seen that the decree of infallibility, by its express terms, embraces all the “pontiffs,” among whom Boniface VIII played a most important and conspicuous part. Therefore, what he said concerning the relations between the spiritual and the temporal powers, which necessarily involves the faith, all who assent to the doctrines of the Vatican Council are obliged to recognize as infallibly true. Consequently, all modern peoples—especially those of the United States—are interested in understanding what have been the doctrinal teachings of those popes whose potential influence, like that of Boniface VIII, has shaped the course of the papacy. If it could once have been said, with seeming propriety, that each one of the popes spoke and acted for himself, and with reference to the period of his pontificate, that time no longer exists; for, since the decree of infallibility, the faithful are obliged to recognize each one as having defined the faith by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, no matter whether it concerns the conduct of nations, peoples, or individuals.

The bull “Unam Sanctam” was specially intended to define the faith, and, therefore, what it contains concerning the relations between the spiritual: and the temporal powers should be scrutinized with the utmost care by those who think that the popular form of government is conducive to human prosperity and happiness. Especially should this be done by the people of the United States, who attribute their wonderful growth and development to the separation of Church and State, and the subsequent escape from the multitude of ills inflicted upon the European nations by papal and ecclesiastical dominion, not the least of which were justified by this celebrated bull of Boniface VIII, to say nothing now of like assumptions of power by other equally ambitious popes. The learned and impartial Gosselin has given this bull in these words:

“The gospel teaches us that there are in the Church, and that the Church has in her power, two swords—the spiritual and the temporal—both in the powers of the Church; but the first must be drawn by the Church, and by the arm of the sovereign pontiff; the second, for the Church, by the arms of kings and soldiers, at the pontif’s request. The temporal sword ought to be subject to the spiritual; that is, the temporal power to the spiritual, according to these words of the apostle, “There is no power but from God; and those that are, are ordained of God.’ Now the two powers would not be well ordained if the temporal sword were not subject to the spiritual, as the inferior to the superior. It can not be denied that the spiritual power as much surpasses the temporal in dignity, as spiritual things in general surpass the temporal. The very origin itself of the temporal power demonstrates this; for, according to the testimony of truth, the spiritual has the right of appointing the temporal power, and of judging it when it errs; thus also is verified in the Church, and the ecclesiastical power, the oracle of Jeremias: “Lo, I have set thee this day over nations and over kingdoms.’ If, therefore, the temporal power errs, it must be judged by the spiritual; if the spiritual power of inferior rank commits faults, it must be judged by a spiritual power of a superior order; but if the superior spiritual power commits faults, it can be judged by God alone, and not by any man, according to the words of the apostle: “The spiritual man judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man.’ This sovereign spiritual power has been given to Peter by these words: ” Whomsoever thou shalt bind,’ ete. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth this power so ordained by God, resisteth the order of God.”

It is not necessary to a correct understanding of this extraordinary official proclamation that its language should be closely scanned. It is an emphatic and obvious assertion of complete pontifical jurisdiction over nations, and everything connected with their measures of internal policy which pertains to the interests and faith of the Church, or places the least limitation upon the powers and prerogatives of the popes. It reduces all peoples into a condition of absolute inferiority, and recognizes the pope as the common arbiter of all human affairs, and not responsible to any human tribunal. Its main purpose was to weld Church and State so closely together that they could never be separated, so as to render any form of popular government, like that of the United States, impossible. It has been locked up among the secret archives of the Vatican for six hundred years, along with other pontifical bulls of like import, where it might have remained in oblivion had not the Vatican Council of 1870 decreed its author to have been infallible, and thus dragged it into the full light of day, to guide and direct the footsteps of other infallible popes. It does not require a vigorous imagination to conceive of the joy experienced by the Jesuits when they witnessed the efficient support thus given to the cause of monarchism, and with what bright hopes they looked forward to the time when the papal dominion shall become universal, and no other form of religion be tolerated, except that proclaimed by Boniface VIII, when “he declared it to be heretical to say that any Christian is not subject to the pope.”

All the Jesuits accept as absolutely true the doctrines announced by the bull “Unam Sanctam;” otherwise they would not be true disciples of Loyola. But whether or no others of the faithful consider it binding upon them as an act of infallibility, depends, of course, upon the teachings of the Church, or of the pope, who, in his single person, represents the Church. About three years before the decree of infallibility was passed, and in order to mold opinions in its favor, a work, emanating from the oratory in London under papal auspices, was published, wherein the subject was discussed with thoroughness. Its title was, “When does the Church Speak Infallibly?” and the answer was given with satisfactory clearness. In 1870—the year the decree was passed—a second edition of this work was published for-general instruction. The author is very explicit, and has undoubtedly expressed the belief maintained by the papacy with entire correctness; for if he had not done so, his work would not have been printed and circulated under Church approval. He does not hesitate to maintain his propositions by pontifical proofs as far back as Leo I—more than eight hundred years before Boniface VIII—from which, of course, it may fairly be inferred that no matter when a pope may have lived, his ex cathedra definitions of faith are to be considered infallibly true, independent entirely of the late decree of the Vatican Council. He lays down the general proposition that infallibility “extends over all truths which have a bearing upon the faith, and upon the eternal welfare of mankind,” and enforces it by showing that Pius IX declared that infallible teaching was not confined merely to “points of doctrine,” but embraced also whatsoever “concerns the Church’s general good and her rights and discipline.””Besides these, he enumerates as within the papal jurisdiction, the “general principles of morality;” ” dogmatic and moral facts;” “the precise sense of a book, or passage of a book,” and its conformity to truth; ““ discipline and worship;” “the condemnation of secret and other socities;” “education;’ “particular moral facts;” “political truths and principles;” “theological conclusions;” and “ philosophy and natural sciences.”

Within this broad and almost unlimited range of subjects pretty much everything is included which concerns either individuals or society—even matters which pertain to nations and States as such. As regards the special subject of education, every system is embraced, because that involves dogmatic and moral facts, which gives to the Church the “right to judge them;” and “the faithful are bound to submit without appeal to her judgment upon these systems.” As to political truths and principles the doctrine is equally plain, that so long as the nation or State isin harmony with the Church, acting in obedience to its commands, the latter will not interfere with it; but when it is not, and contravenes the divine law as the Church interprets it, “that moment it is the Church’s right and duty, as guardian of revealed truth, to interfere, and to proclaim to the State the truths which it has ignored, and to condemn the erroneous maxims which it has adopted;” that is, to condemn it as heretical and illegitimate. And in order to make it clear that this power over the State is unlimited, he refers to the Syllabus of 1864, of Pius IX, to prove that the Church has “the right to distinguish error from truth in the domain of political science.” And before concluding he deems it necessary to caution the faithful against any appeal to their own intelligence upon ““so abstruse ” a subject as infallibility, by admonishing them “that none but a professed theologian hasa right to an opinion upon it;” that is, that absolute and uninquiring obedience to authority—even if it reduces mankind to the condition of stocks and stones—is the highest Christian duty. Unquestionably the decree of infallibility runs back to the earliest ages of the Church, going behind and including the whole period of the Middle Ages, which Leo XIII calls the “blessed ages” of faith and obedience. Therefore, the bull ” Unam Sanctam” was within the infallible jurisdiction of Boniface VIII, and must be recognized as expressing the true papal faith; that is, what the Vatican Council intended should be so considered. If papal infallibility means anything, it means that he was as incapable of sin or error in the administration of his office as Pius IX or Leo XIII, and, consequently, that his doctrines were absolutely true when announced, and remain so to-day. “Semper eadem ”— always the same—is the papal motto. It must mean also that his doctrines are as much a part of the faith, as maintained by the papacy, as was the decree of the Immaculate Conception by Pius IX, or any other act or decree concerning the faith, of any of the popes. It can make no difference that the decree of the Immaculate Conception was approved by the Vatican Council, because it took effect before that Council met, by virtue of the recognized power and authority of the pope. And, besides, its approval was not necessary to its validity if Pius IX was infallible, because arly ex cathedra act of a pope is considered so binding that even the dissent of a Council will avail nothing against it. Hence, the faithful everywhere are held obliged to accept as part of the faith whatsoever any pope has declared, or shall hereafter declare, within his infallible jurisdiction, relating to the Church, the papacy, States, or Governments, and especially to the important subject of education. Without this, the doctrine of the pope’s infallibility would have no practical meaning.

It remains, consequently, for those whose minds shall be impressed by the foregoing well-attested facts to consider, with all possible seriousness, the relations which the infallible pope must, from necessity, sustain toward our civil institutions, so long as he shall insist upon the extent of jurisdiction over them which is now claimed to be conferred by that papal pretension. If this consideration shall be given by a Roman Catholic citizen of the United States, sheltered and protected by our laws, he will surely discover that he is now required to abandon the ancient faith of the Church he has venerated through life, and substitute for it a new faith which hitherto his conscience has rejected, and which required more than a thousand years of controversy within the Church and close alliance with the revived Jesuits to accomplish. If it be given by one “native and to the manner born,” whose instinct and education attach him to the form of government which separates the State from the Church, and makes the people the primary source of political authority, he will find himself confronted by the proposition of a foreign power to change the character of our institutions, so that Church and State may be united, and the latter made subordinate to the former. And this will devolve upon all such as duly appreciate the benefits of civil and religious liberty, the obligation—not to practice intolerance or to deprive any of the just rights of citizenship—but to defend, with the necessary firmness and courage, all the fundamental principles which were consecrated by the lives and labors of those who laid the foundations of our Government. We can not afford to have this country ruled over either by Leo XIII, who was the pupil of the Jesuits in early life, or by the Jesuits themselves, who worship Loyola as a saint. We have multitudes of Roman Catholics among us, both native and foreign born, whose Christian integrity and conduct commend them to our confidence and fellowship, and many of these are intelligent and instructed enough to see that if Jesuitism were eliminated from the faith they are required to accept, there would be no cause of disturbing strife left between them and their Protestant fellow-citizens, but each individual would be left to worship God according to his own conscience, and no human authority would “dare molest or make him afraid.”

We can not and must not permit the followers of Loyola to enforce here the principles of Gregory VI, Innocent III, Boniface VIII, and other popes, who dethroned kings and released their subjects from the obligation of obedience to the Governments under which they lived, upon the pretentious claim that, by virtue of their infallibility, they were the sole representatives of God upon earth, and had the divine authority “of appointing the temporal power.” We can not and must not consent to be included within the circle of any foreign temporal jurisdiction, or within such spiritual jurisdiction as the papal doctrine of infallibility stretches out over the temporal affairs of all the nations. We can not and must not allow the Stars and Stripes to be removed from the dome of our national Capitol, and the papal flag, with its cross and miter and without a single star, to be floated in its place. We can not and must not mix ourselves up with the affairs of the European nations, either to restore the temporal power of the pope, or change the relations which the Italian people bear to their Government. For we can not do any of these things, or suffer them to be done by others, without breaking down the barriers and removing the landmarks left by the fathers of the Republic, and thereby changing our own bright national inheritance into an inglorious bequest to our children.

We must not forget the claim of jurisdiction over the people of the United States which the pope now makes by virtue of his assumed infallibility, and which has caused him to send Mgr. Satolli to this country—without diplomatic recognition and without our knowledge and consent—to instruct us that our form of government is heretical, and may for that reason be removed out of the papal pathway, like other heresies; and that our common schools are nurseries of vice because they do not teach that Protestantism is also heresy, with the curse of God resting upon it. To comprehend the nature and character of this jurisdiction and the claim of pontifical supremacy out of which it grows, it is only necessary to remember that the Council of Trent assumed authority over Protestants as well as Roman Catholics, and thereby established a precedent which Leo XIII has not been slow to follow. That assemblage held all baptized persons, no matter by whom the ceremony was solemnized, to be within its ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and although Protestants are considered as rebels and apostates against the authority of the Church, they are regarded as amenable to her laws, and may rightfully be required to obey them—peaceably if possible; but if not, then by coercion when it shall become expedient to attempt it. They are likened to sheep who have strayed from the fold, and as belonging to the Master they have left; and to soldiers who desert their flag, and are subject to arrest and punishment by their superiors.

The Protestant people of the United States are, therefore, in the papal sense, excommunicated heretics, and their Government is heretical because it has separated the State from the Church. Consequently, the Jesuits maintain, by their peculiarly subtle method of reasoning, that both the Government and the Protestant people of the United States are within the circle of pontifical jurisdiction, and, therefore, that the pope has the divine right, as the only infallible representative of God, to deal with this country according to his own discretion.

Both they who teach this and they who accept it as an essential part of religious faith, lack the true American spirit, whether native or foreign born—that spirit which presided over the councils of “the fathers” when they framed our Government, and which has given it strength and vigor, as well as beauty, for more than a century of time. They are manifestly prepared to see the world turned back toward the Middle Ages, when the destinies of all the civilized nations were subject to the arbitrament and will of the popes; when the State was held in subjugation by the Church; when kings were dethroned and their subjects released from the obligation of allegiance to them, in order to bring all the nations into conformity with the principles and policy of the papacy; and when the masses of mankind were regarded as mere “animals,” possessing neither the capacity nor the right to govern themselves by laws of their own making. To accomplish these results they insist that there shall be absolute “unity of faith,” and that everything which stands in the way of this is heresy and must be destroyed. In order to this they claim, as a dogma of faith, that the popes shall have free and uninterrupted access, through their hierarchy, to every nation and people in the world, so that heretical Governments may be destroyed and heretical people brought under papal dominion. Herein they indicate a desire to see revived in the United States the discord, strifes, and wars which scattered ruin and desolation over the fairest portions of Europe, which constrained France not to permit the bull ” Unam Sanctam” to be published within her borders; Spain to modify it, and the leading nations—especially those acknowledged to be Roman Catholic—to eliminate from all papal bulls such features as threatened encroachments upon their rights and independence.

The Protestant people of the United States can not imitate these latter examples by resorting to harsh and severe measures of defense and protection. The civil and religious freedom they have established, as the foundation of their institutions, must remain universal. No man’s conscience must be restrained, and no man’s just rights invaded or diminished. Freedom of thought, of speech, and of the press, must remain the chief corner-stone upon which the national edifice shall rest. But in order to perpetuate these great rights, so essential to each and every citizen of the Republic, our common-school system, as now prevailing, must be sheltered and protected from Jesuit assault. We should even go further, and heed the counsel of Madison—one of our wisest and best Presidents—when, in one of his messages to Congress, he invited attention “to the advantages of super-adding to the means of education provided by the several States a seminary of learning, instituted by the National Legislature,” whereby the feelings, opinions, and sentiments of youth may be assimilated, and thus constitute a wall of security against foreign influences which can never be removed. And whether this shall be accomplished or not, duty to both the present and the future requires us to remember what the great Pope Clement XIV said in his-bull suppressing the Jesuits by absolute extinction “forever,” that “care be taken that they have no part in the government or direction of the same”—that is, the schools—because “the faculty of teaching youth shall neither be granted nor preserved but to those who seem inclined to maintain peace in the schools and tranquility in the world.” He knew the Jesuits far better than it is possible for us in this country ever to know them; and whether his act suppressing them was or was not one of infallibility, it constitutes a lesson of history which ought not to be forgotten. And while, in our treatment of them, we can do nothing at war with the liberal and tolerant spirit of our institutions, or unbecoming to ourselves, we should remember that

“Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.”