The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-05 00:00:00

THE T.E3IP ORAL P Oa ER OF TEE POPE,

The crisis which has come upon the Roman
Church is one for which she is obviously wholly
unprepared. She never can believe that every one,
even the Emperor of the French, is against her
temporalities, and that it would be a relief to every
one if the Pope quitted the Holy City. We see
this in the tone taken by her advocates and cham-
pions everywhere. If any one wants to see a great
Power grovelling in the dust ho has only to cast
his eye over the comments of the Romanist party
upon the Italian movement, showing the most
wretched, impotent, blind rage, and nothing more.
This is the way in which the Roman Church takes
a great trial. She does not know what to do ; she
has no view, no plan, no line of action before her,
,no policy to meet this new state of things; she is
simply taken aback, and storms at her invaders.
As if it were of any use to be in a rage, and as if those
whom she complains of were the people to be at all
moved by it ! Rome has great credit for versatility,
for seeing her way under altered circumstances,
and finding ;
but itthleoo k
s properna w treatment
.f she had
a tod o s
I give
t e
events all
herself,
and were dizzied and thrown
off her balance; as if
her head were gone
past and the future ;as
were'f ashdeae could only think the
everything was a blank to her when the triple
crown once went.
This is the more astonishing, because the Roman
Catholics cannot point to a single part of the scope
and system of their Church which requires the tem-
poral power of the Pope for its support. Their
theory is quite complete without it ; they confess
that it is; they boast that it is. They would be
ashamed to show their faces in the presence of
Christendom and say that they needed the tempo-
ral power, and had not a perfect, complete, and
efficient basis without it. They have, therefore,
always been particular and earnest in telling us
that their ground is a spiritual one, and a spiritual
one purely and exclusively, and that any temporal
position connected with it is a mere accident, which
has nothing to do with the life of the Church, and
can be thrown off, like the most superficial drapery,
without the least loss to the substance of the Church.
They have always told us that their Church wields
no fleshly weapon, but the sword of the Spirit ;
that she rules by moral power only, and that her
one sole instrument for the support of her authority
is spiritual censure, whereby she exercises the
right, which belongs to all religious bodies as such,
of removing from her pale the dissentient and the
disobedient. If this is their ground, then, what
harm does the fall of the temporal power of the
Pope do to the Roman Church ? She can go on
just the same, and do all the acts which she has
done. The whole ground of discipline is open to
her ; the whole ground of doctrine is open to her.
She can excommunicate right and left as much as
she pleases, there is nothing to prevent her; she
has still the sword of the Spirit, and can brandish
it as she likes. She can go on "developing" Chris-
tian doctrine to her satisfaction ; she added one
doctrine to the faith a year or two ago, she may
add twenty more, if she likes, within as many
more years • whether Rome is under Papal rule, or
French rule, or Sardinian rule, there will be
nothing to prevent her. She is not likely to meet
with any opposition to her creed-making either
from Napoleon 111. or from Cavour, who are pro-
bably not much interested in this invisible depart-
ment; but if she did she has it all in her own
hands. She can make and unmake, plant and pluck
up, pull down and build, and work all her will and
pleasure in the whole world of spiritual discipline
and doctrine. What more does she want ? She
has the perfect command of a complete spiritual
machinery, extending in every direction over the
four quarters of the globe ; she can summon every
Bishop of her communion, from Mexico to Macao,
to her central tribunal; she can hold any Coun-
cil she likes, the Propaganda can go on, the
Index Expurgutorins can go on, the Cardinals can
go on, Consistories can goon, Conclaves can go on,
St. Peter's can go on, the Vatican can go on. What
is there that cannot go on all the same ? What is
there to dread, then, in this loss of a temporal king-
dom, and why cannot the Pope throw himself upon
the inalienable spiritual power of his office, and
take his stand upon his claim to be the spiritual
centre of Christendom ? That is his natural course,
his politic course, the only course which religious
honour leaves him under such circumstances as the
present. The temporalities go whether he will or
no; why, then, not, at any rate, make a virtue of
necessity, and say that he can do without them
when he cannot keep them? Such a course would
be sure to awaken the highest enthusiasm of the
whole Roman communion ; it would kindle a flame
in the whole Roman Catholic world; the signal
would be given and the note struck, all would
know that a new order of things was commencing,
and the result would be that a new line would be
marked out for the Papacy by general consent. A
fresh start would thus be gained, and the basis of a
new eareer would be laid down, and the new course
of events would receive that treatment which every
Roman Catholic would wish for it. The new course
of events would have the suitable interpretation
put upon it, and would be stamped in the most
favourable way as the inauguration of a new era of
the Papacy.
But this is not the idea of the Roman Church,
or at any rate that party in it which surrounds the
Pope. It clings to an old state of things with
desperation, because it has not the least notion
how to deal with a new state of things. The whole
future is a blank to it if the Pope be not a temporal
Monarch. They look forward to it with simple
confusion and dismay, and know not what will be-
come of the Church. It is without a view and
without a policy. But this is imbecility ; it is
drivelling. The Pope is all that St. Leo was if he
is deprived of every foot of land in Italy. He is a
great deal more than St. Leo was, for even the
spiritual supremacy made many long strides after
St. Leo's time. Why cannot he fall back upon the
spiritual supremacy, and throw up the adventitious
secular addition which is grudged him, and which
is the fruitful source of the most awkward relations
and collisions ? But, instead of this, what is the
present hope of the Roman Catholic world ? A
Iwar ! " A war," says Archbishop Cullen's organ,
i" will cool this raging fever; grape shot will expel
these evil humours." The Gallivan Prelates
sre-
echo these sentiments. An European war, th_oernih is
to be the Heaven-sent remedy and restoratgiet
i s the
Papacy; that is the last resource, and
t
party. A
last chance which now consoles Papaltheebishop
suitable consolation indeed
to a
Christian
istendom, who,
and the professed head
of
Co
hrthink war the most
ac-
cording to his creed, ought
t the Roman Court can-
not divest itself of the , hateful of all things !
Butbelief that this is merely a
assin danger from a particular quarter, which a
general
convulsion
v put aside. It will find
maypresent move against the
itself mistaken. The
Power is no mere passing
Papacy as a temporal
accumulated growthof thought,
stir, it representsa
an auI
to •
ts a prznop e which the whole of
it represen I
is committed.
modern policy But the Roman
• sunk in an obsolete dream, Court is stillthinking of
Salerno and Avignon, though not perhaps of
Jerusalem, and of passing squabbles of crowned
beads, A war is to set everything right, and no
new Papal view or policy is wanted. We shall
see whether we have not had 'war enough, and
whether the Pope may not,after-
lose his s temporalitiein a peaceful way.—Times,