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

Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Page 368,

press must have been seized with consternation at finding themselves in the presence of such a sovereign-so august and irresponsible. They, doubtless, supposed that duty to their own consciences and to the public enjoined upon them the obligation to deal fairly and frankly with their patrons, by laying before them such opinions as they honestly entertained, and such reasons in support of them as really existed in their own minds. These are the legitimate fruits of the liberty of the press, as is shown by the fact that in countries where this liberty is maintained, there is no class of people more independent than public journalists, or whose views, on that account, are more appreciated and influential. It is not stated that those who assembled in Rome, "from all countries," to seek advice from Leo XIII were of a different class. We are told only that to their inquiries he returned "a severe rebuke," and commanded them not to "presume to decide in their own right and by their own light" anything concerning the papacy, but to employ their journals in communicating to their readers the opinions expressed by himself in such manner as not "to seem to have opinions" of their own!

Here we are furnished by the present pope himself a practical example of what papal sovereignty and dominion mean; that is, the preservation to himself of the right of doing and saying whatsoever seems proper in his own eyes, and the denial of it to all others. Does anybody need to be told whether this is tolerance or intolerance; whether it means intellectual liberty or bondage, a free or a muzzled press? This absolute censorship over the press was intended to be universal; not only because, in his opinion, what he does and says must be so by virtue of the universality of his spiritual power, but because he was addressing public journalists from all countries," who were expected to take home with them, and obey, his pontifical commands. Unquestionably he intended to avow a general principle, alike applicable everywhere and to all-whether in Europe or America-so that wheresoever a pen of the faithful shall be employed in conveying intelligence to the public, "bearing

on the circumstances" and condition of the papacy, there is but one possible legitimate use to which it can be applied; that is, to announce what the pope does as infallibly right, and what he says as infallibly true-censuring and condemning all else. He who uses it must not "presume to decide" anything or any question for himself, or appeal to his own conscience to ascertain its convictions, or seem to have opinions" of his own; but must consider himself as surrounded by Egyptian darknesss, until a ray of light shall break upon him from Rome. Until then he must remain deaf to any appeal for information, and "like a lamb, dumb before his shearer." This would undoubtedly give to the pope the liberty for which he is striving, but it would enslave all others brought within the circle of his spiritual jurisdiction.

That which can not escape observation in these opinions of the pope, is the extent to which he carries the doctrine of papal infallibility. In common acceptation among the bulk of Christians who accept the teachings of the Church at Rome, that doctrine is regarded as applying only to matters concerning religious faith, and not to matters of fact. These differ from the Jesuits, who insist that it includes both faith and fact; that is, everything spiritual in its nature, and such temporals also as pertain to the spiritual. Leo XIII takes the Jesuit ground, for facts would be necessarily mingled with faith in the politico-religious matters submitted to him by the Congress of editors and writers. When, therefore, he commands that all he shall do and say concerning the restoration of the temporal power and the interests of the papacy, shall be accepted as infallibly right and true, not to be called in question by any, he conclusively shows the effect of his early Jesuit education and training. And since he expects all Roman Catholics to accept this doctrine as a necessary part of their faith, it is specially important for the people of the United States to understand the extent to which he expects it to be carried wheresoever his spiritual authority shall reach. We are plainly and expressly told that it in

cludes "politico-religious questions," and this is affirmed by him in the incident related by his biographer. The Jesuits themselves could say no more, and are careful not to say less in their definition of papal infallibility, for fear that some inquisitive minds might discover loopholes in the doctrine through which individual opinions might escape, and thus give approval to liberty of thought, of speech, and of the press, and to the forms of popular government which they underlie.

The pope does not intend to be misunderstood, and therefore takes pains not to leave the least doubt with regard to his opinions upon the great question of the right of a people to establish and maintain a government separated from and independent of the Church-as was done by the people of the United States when they formed their Government, founded upon their own will. He well knows that all gov ernments of this character have been the result and are the fruits of the Reformation, and therefore, when he found it necessary for him to address a letter to the Archbishop of Cologne, touching affairs in Germany, he denounced them as "socialistic," or, in other words, as threatening to the peace and happiness of society. That he might not be misapprehended with regard to the character and forms of government he intended to condemn as of this character, he assigned "the sixteenth century" as the period when the seeds out of which they grew were sown, well knowing, as all intelligent people do, that the right of the people to govern themselves by laws reflective of their will then began to take root. That period is specially odious to him on account of the results foreshadowed by it, and because he sees in it the germs of those measures of public policy which have acquired such growth and strength as to undermine the pope's temporal power-without which the world seems to him to be given over to the dominion of evil. Intending therefore to show-what is manifestly a fixed purpose in his mind-what he regards as the source of the ills which threaten to overwhelm modern society with ruin, he availed himself

of the occasion of his episcopal letter to the Archbishop of Cologne to say: "Hence, an impious thing never dreamed of even by the old pagans, States were formed without any regard to God or to the order by him established. It was given as a dictate of truth that public authority derives from God neither its origin, nor its majesty, nor its power to command-all that coming, on the contrary, from the multitude; and that the people, deeming themselves free from all divine sanctions, consented only to be ruled by such laws as they chose to enact." And following these opinions to their logical consequences, he pictures the condition into which society has been thrown by such institutions as the people have created for themselves by separating Church and State-as in the United States. He thus draws the sad and deplorable picture: "By spreading such doctrines far and wide, such an unbridled licentiousness of thought and action was begotten everywhere, that it is no wonder if men of the lower classes, disgusted with their poverty-stricken homes and their dismal workshops, are filled with an inordinate desire to rush upon the homes and the fortunes of the wealthy; no wonder is it that tranquillity is banished from all public and private life, and that the human race seems hurried onward to ruin.":

In contemplating the picture of modern prosperity and progress-that which is to be found mainly, if not only, where monarchs have been dispensed with or their hands tied by constitutional checks and guards-he imagines nothing discernible but "unbridled licentiousness of thought and action"-nothing but desolation, decay, ruin, death! In this way he accounts for his anxiety to regain the temporal power which the Italian people took away from Pius IX, so that by obtaining perfect liberty for himself as both a spiritual and a temporal monarch, he may disperse his ecclesiastical forces throughout the world, and so reform it as to get rid entirely of that "impious thing" called popular government, and teach the people that by assuming to make their

Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Pages 371 to 374.