The Express.
London, England, 1866-09-15 00:00:00

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4

ARCHBISHOP NANNIN
TIOG ON THE PAPAL
QUESN.

The additions made to Mount St. Mary's Roman
Catholic Church, Leeds, which include a transept, chan-
cel, and side chapels, from designs by Mr. K W. Pugin,
ROM " opened " on Thursday with great ceremony.
Archbishop Manning preached the sermon, choosing as ha
text the from the book of Daniel, " kiagdem
shall nottugSvered to another people." The archbishop
contended that the significance of the vision the prophet
bad, in the MUSS of which the stone out oat
of the mountain filled the whole earth, tore.
shadowed the universality of the sovereignty and the per-
petuity of the holy catholic Roman church, which from
the sun-rise to the sun-set expands he circumference and
bag its centre immovable in Rome. Gladly, on such a day
as that, when they rejoiced together at the opening of so
magnificent a sanctuary, would he have spoken of topics
that breathe of peace rather than of that which the events
of the time forced at this moment upon the heart of every
catholic throughout the world. It was not to be disguised ;
it would be cowardice if they did not, with their eyes open,
contemplate the greatness of the crisis which had come
upon the Vier of Jesus Christ and on the throne from
which he reigned. The day after to-morrow, a convention
formed over his sacred head and without has knowledge,
bytwo mighty powers, would leave him without protection
and without defence. Although the execution of the
compact might be delayed for three short months, never-
theless the literal obligation would be at an end. From
the world voice* of rejoicing and exultation were heard,
boasting that the burden which had weighed
upon the world—the temporal power of the Sovereign
Pontiff—bad fallen to the ground. Only the other day
they were told by one of those public voices which guide
the opinion of Englishmen that they were hying in days
pregnant with great events ; that they had seen the fall of
an empire, and that now they should re the fall of the
temporal power of the Pope. They had been told that
that temporal power was earthly, corrupt, full of ambi-
tion ; that it tainted the hearts of men, that It insinuated
into the church of God a spirit of worldliness and pride.
It war suggested that the Sovereign Pontiffs should come
out, like the Gregory. and Leos of pest ages, a mighty
spiritual power, released and disburdened of their temporal
sovereignty. It became them, then, to face these events
steadfastly and firmly, to distinguish true fears from
causeless terror, to ascertain what was indeed the provi-
dential purposes of God as far as they aght, to
strengthen and encourage each other's faith, and
to stand confident in the words of their Divine Master,
that the gates of hell should not prevail against His
church. Let him therefore bring before them an out-
line of those great motives of confidence on which
they rested, that, come what might, dark as the moment
might be, and terrible as the antagonistic powers, the
clouds would pass away and disappear. It was not more
than four years ago since the throne of the Sovereign
Pontiff was surrounded by the bishops of the world.
Three hundred were there, and in the name of their
brethren they laid at the foot of his throne those words of
confidence:—" We believe that the providence of God, by
a very manifest interposition, has clothed the Sovereign
Pontiff who reigns over the universal church with a
civil princedom, in order that be may exercise with more
perfect freedom and more perfect liberty the spirituel
office committed to him by Jesus Christ, that he may
dwell, not as a guest in a foreign country, but as a lord in
his own ; not as a stranger entertained by sovereigns, but
as ruler where he dwells ; and in order to the spiritual
good of the church throughout the world, that this
visible disposition of the providence of God has been
maintained in all ages and through all trials inviolate by
no less than a minter of Gods power." Such, in sub-
stance, were the filial words of faith and confidence
in which the bishops of the catholic world addressed the
Sovereign Pontiff, and which gave to him (the arch-
bishop) the express terms in which to speak to them.
The temporal power, which was the object of so much
animosity and so much debate, which was denounced es a
mark of ambition, as a burden, as a corruption, was hem
declared to be obtained by the providence of God by direct
disposition of the Divine will, for the spiritual liberty,
purity, and welfare of the whole church. It was to the
condition of the liberty of the church and the providential
order whereby the freedom of the bead of the church bad
been maintained since the ages of persecution ceased
and the Christian world came into relations of peace. The
liberty of the head of the church was the rums of the
liberty to the church throughout the world. The cathOlio
church was free in its spiritual office because its head was
free. The provinces of the empire of Jesus Christ had that
perfect freedom of spirit because the head of that empire
was subjected to no human power. God had thought
proper to constitute the head of His church and the
vicar of His Son in a tree and proper sovereignty. He
therefore had a two-fold sovereignty—a sovereignty over
the things spiritual, absolute, and exclusive—committed
to him as vicar of the Incarnate Word, and in virtue of
this spiritual sovereignty he had been exempted from all
powers under God. No human power had authority
over him who was head of the universal church on
earth on the one hand, and representative of the incarnate
Son of God, the head of that church in heaven, on the
other. And having given him this personal sovereignty,
God gave him also supremacy of direction and guidanft
over all other powers on earth. As Hs had constituted
him to be the fountain of the knowledge of the faith and
expositor of the law of Jesus Christ, so He had also made
him to be supreme judge and supreme guide of all men,
whether as individuals or as households, as nations or as
kingdoms. All the collective powers upon earth were sub-
ject to the law of God, of which the Sovereign Pontiff
was the supreme interpreter and the ultimate judge
among men. And this personal sovereignty com-
mitted to him as head of the church had been
secured in its external administration by the local
sovereignty which the providence of God had also
committed to him. Within the limits of that sphere he
was not a guest or a stranger upon sufferance, but master
of his own patrimony. ?Khere now was the worldliness,
where the corruption of this providence of God? It was
not given because the temporal sovereignty was good in
itself, or because it led to titles and splendour upon earth,
but because in the midst of tho order of human powers
it was needful that Le, as the head and lawgiver of the
church on earth, should deal with the princes, the
potentates, the emperors, and the kinge asin all things
equal or superior. The Pontiff now happily reigning
declared some years ago that he held his temporal power
lot for himself, not for his own ambition, not for the
splendour of any earthly state, hut as a trust for the whole
of Christendom, for the benefit of the whole church cf the
earth ; as a providential means of administering, peace-
fully and freely, the power. committed to his
hands. The patrimony of the church was given by the
faithful to the church of God, and was therefore held not
only by • human but • sacred right. It was the inheritance
of those who should oome after him, as he had inherited it
from those who went before. It was sanctioned and con-
firmed by the longest possession by which any sovereign
on earth holds his throne, and this order of his provi-
dence God has by a perpetual miracle preserved. They
had the confidence of faith, that as t;od had created this
twofold sovereignty, and sustained it until now, so He
would permit it to be always tried, indeed, but would
never permit it to be overthrown. It was the boast of the
old Empire of Rome that it never drew back its foot ; its
frontiers went onwards spreading throughout the world ;
its legions conquered every race ; its military roads pene-
trated to the most inaccessible regions of the earth—but
these boasts ended in humiliation. Its frontiers gave way
and fell back upon the centre; the provinces of conquered
races arose and turned upon Rome till it was utterly
destroyed. But these words were true of the church of
God. The catholic church from the beginning had gone on
expanding always ; it had gone on extending its frontiers,
widening its provinces, and enlarging its sway. Even
when whole nations fell from it like England, it took pos-
session of America in the North and in the South. It had
always gone on advancing, never withdrawing ; and so
long as there was a Christian world, so long as faith in
Jesus Christ pervaded the hearts of men, so long as Chris•
tian law and justice reigned over the consciences of men,
the Vicar of Jesus Christ would continue still sovereign
of his apostolic throne. The history of the past was an
evidence of what they might expect in the future. There
never had been a moment in which the church had not
unfolded itself. All the persecutions by heretics only
showed the infallibility of its voice ; all the invasions by
barbarians only showed the stability of its foundations ;
all the usurpations of the world showed only its inviolate
purity. The despotism of kings had failed to subjugate
lit ; the rising and the revolution of the world had only
made the hrque of the apostle toes to and fro like his beat
on the Lake Genesareth, but the waters had not sunk it.
There was a future before America and Asia, as there was
a past in Europe, and there was a future for Europe too,
end in that future the church of God would have its
work to do as it had had in the past. Bands of armed man
were circling round the walls of the holy city, but they
had done so a thousand times before, and had swept by as
did the swell of the sea, beating themselves into foam and
disappearing as they pared. Thirty popes had been mar-
tyred, four had been exiled, five had been imprisoned,
seven had reigned in Avignon, and had governed the
church without entering Rome ; nine had been driven
from it by the factions and revolutions of Rome
itself ; twenty had been driven from it by the injustice of
kings and princes ; and three pontiffs, within the memory
of living men—Pius the 6th, Pius the 7th, and Pius the 9tia
—Lad been compelled to go into exile. These facts
brought before them two great laws of God's kingdom
upon earth—the one that it was always to be assailed, and
the other ;bat it was always to be restored. Rome had
been held over and over again by usurper, but it had over
and over again been restored. The law of spoliation had
its way, but in the history of Christendom the law of
restoration had followed with equal certainty. They bad
confidence, therefore, that God had not forsaken His
church. What, then, was the future before them? It would
be more splendid, more luminous than the past. Through
trial, through conflict, with great hostility from the world,_
but with ever advancing extension of power ; such had
been the history of the church hitherto, and such it would
be hereafter. Three great antagonists had assailed the
church. Two of these had been broken ; the third was
now in its power and in its pride, but it would be broken
likewise. Paganism for 300 years strove to blot the
name of Jesus Christ from off the earth. Where was
Paganism now! The church had taken its revenge upon
the Pagans by converting them to God. Mahommedaniren
—the great mediaeval Antichrist—threatened to sweep
Christianity before it ; but, by the interposition of the
prayer, and the head of God, the Mahommedan power