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tions 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—includ ing 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 every

where, must recognize and obey it; for obedience is necessarily implied, inasmuch as his commands would not have "free course "9 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 beas 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 pub

lic 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,

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