The Express.
London, England, 1862-03-06 00:00:00

111. WATU AT 10/11011 MUD S&

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LONDON, THURSDAT, MANCE! 6.

Tim great system of ecclesiastical franchisee,
which a Committee of the Reichsrath at Vienna

for enactmeut, will be hailed

throughout the empire for very different, and
even for opposite reasons. In the eyes of many,
one of its greatest merits will be that it deposes
the Church of Rome in Austria from a privileged
position which is in itself invidious, and which has
been abused for purposes of persecution. It is im-
portant to see clearly how and to what extent the
Bill does this. For it differs essentially from those
numerous acts of the civil power with which the
student of mediaeval and modern history is familiar,
and the object of which was to establish
an independent and national system of legisla-
tion in ecclesiastical affairs. This, indeed, follows
almost inevitably, from the fact that the idea of
a National Church is expressly abandoned. Accord-
ingly the Concordat of 1855, so far as it was a
recognition of the independence of the Roman
Catholic Church in Austria of the civil power, is
scarcely touched. There is no struggling of the civil
power for a share in the government of the Church,
no trace of that jealousy which Kings and Emperors
in England, France, Spain and Germany have felt
it their duty to cultivate because a particular reli-
gion was the religion of the State. Constitutions
of CLARENDON, Statutes of Priemunire, Pragmatic
Sanctions, are all left far behind. To the Roman
Catholic Church, as to every other, the fullest
liberty is granted. The reduction of its power must,
therefore, be sought in other directions : it consists
very much in the limitation of its action to
those who may voluntarily subject themselves to
its rule. There can be no more BORCYNEEI perse-
cutions; for as soon as a person, whether priest at
layman, signifies his withdrawal from any ROW
munion, he is protected by law from the exercise
of its authority. By the Concordat the whole
course of instruction in public and private schools
intended for Roman Catholics was consigned to the
care of the Bishops ; and, thus, the entire system of
education was rendered strictly ecclesiastical. The
Bill limits the share of ecclesiastics in education
to the department of religious instruction, and
even over this the State reserves a right of super-
vision. The Concordat bound the Empraoa not
to suffer the faith and institutions of the Church
to be slighted either in words or writing ; in-
deed, it was declared that the Prelates of the
Catholic Church might, propria (9,lCt"ritate,
forbid whatever publications displeased them,
and before the instrument had been signed
six months an Austrian Archbishop had no-
tified to the printers and booksellers of his
diocese that if they did not observe the sacred
rules of the Index he should call upon tl.e civil
government to suspend them from the exercise of
their trade. The new Bill, whoa leaving the
ministers of religion free either to recommend or
denounce published works, abolishes every kind
of ecclesiastical censorship. Without tra:ing
further the bounds which are set to the direct
intervention of the Church in matters not inure-
&Medi religious, we may say generally that the
State, by adopting this Bill, would on the one hand
assert in the fullest manner its own power and
right to give society rules for all the princpsl con-
ditions of civil life, and to protect its members
from molestation for their religious belief, but
leave all religious communities free to enlighten
the public conscience. It would decline, however,
to interfere with the internal admir,stration of
voluntary associations, under the pretence of safe-
guarding the social freedom of those to whom it
gives now and henceforth the means of protecting
themselves.
In the eyes of another and very large class the
principle of the equality of religious societies be-
fore the law will be a favourite feature. Among
these there may be some who will mistake
such a condition for what in this case it cer-
tainly is not--an assertion of the equal title of
religious doctrines to reeeption. A State which,
like France, subsidises all religious alike, pays the
Rabbi for denying the divinity of Csinisr, and the
Bishop fur denouncing Him as a blasphemer, is
justly chargeable with propagating this anarchical
and atheistic error; but the equality o: religions
in a State which confines itself to protecting the
members of all alike signifies no more than—but
signifies grandly—the respect which eve' man
owes to the conscience of his neighbours, and
rests on its most profound basis when it is referred
to the responsibility of the individual to his MAKER
for the use of his reason.

e share the satisfaction of both the classes of
persona just descnbed. Our fullest sympathies,
however, are reserved for another class—those
who wish well to the new Bill am a system of com-
mon liberties. A much smaller class, we fear ; for
bow slowly do we all learn that our own
freedom Us not secure unless our neighbour is
free also. Individual liberty may be considered
a permanent conquest of modern society. But it
is not enough. Liberty of association for reli-
gious purposes is its indispensable complement. We
see this in the struggles which now rend some of
the greatest nations of Europe. A sixret, and
in the face of history, we must say a just suspi-
cion of governments underlies the desperate tena-
city with which devout Catholics cling to the
temporal power of the Pore. The knowledge
that the State cannot be trusted to respect the
independence of Christian societies makes Catho-
licA, and even some Protestants, as we see in the
case of M. GulLeT, feel the need of some power
on which the ministers and members of that Church
may fall back for support. Governments are
naturally afraid of great forces that may easily
escape them, and will try to silence by corrup-
tion, or gain over byibribes, or destroy by oppres-
sion, the leaders of those religious societies
which are important enough to act on the
mind of the nation. In the end all these means