The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-01 00:00:00

Archbishop Manning on the Temporal Power

The following pastoral letter was read yesterday
in the churches and chapels of the Archiepiscopal
diocese of 'Westminster :

Henry Edward, by the grace of God and the favour
of the Apostolic See, Archbishop of Westminster, to
the clergy, secular and regular, and the faithful of the
said diocese, health and benediction in the Lord.
Reverend and dear Brethren, and dear Children in
Jesus Christ,—The Cardinal Archbishop and the
Episcnpate of Ireland having invited us to unite with
them in a public and solemn intercession in behalf of
our Holy Father the Sovereign Pontiff at this mo-
ment of danger, we have with the greatest readiness
and joy assented. Two reasons make us prompt to
do so. First, that we may ask your filial and fer-
vent prayers for our beloved and august Pontiff ;
and next, that we may give to the bishops and faith-
ful of Ireland a public testimony of our love and
veneration for a people who have suffered beyond all
example for the faith and for the Vicar of Jesus
Christ. We gladly seize this opportunity to draw
more and more close the bond which binds us toge-
ther. The Catholic Church of Ireland and of Eng-
land is not united, but one. It has one faith, one
heart, one will, with all the affections and sympathies
of joy or sorrow in the mystical body of Christ.
Neither cart we forget that our flock in England is
by birth and by blood, to so great an extent, the off-
spring and gift of Ireland. We derive from them the
catholic fervour and fidelity of their race, and we
desire to manifest our intimate union of heart and
will by the closest co-operation in all that is for their
welfare and for the service of our common faith.
We should have been glad, if it had been possible,
that the pastors and faithful of England and Ireland
should have united in this act of intercession for the
Holy Father on the same day, viz., the Feast of the
Holy Name of Mary. But as the invitation did not
reach us in time to make the needful preparations we
have fixed on another feast of our blessed mother,
that is Rosary Sunday. There is a special fitness in
that day. It is a festival on which the Church cele-
brates, year by year, the power of intercession in
behalf of the Sovereign Pontiff and of Christendom.
On Rosary Sunday we commemorate the two great
and decisive victories of Christendom over the Ma-
hommetan power, the one by sea and the other by
land, whereby the civilisation and Christianity of
Europe were delivered from the destruction which
has overwhelmed the Christians of Asia and of
Africa. These great victories were won in the
hour when the confraternities of the-holy rosary
were making public intercession throughout the
catholic unity to obtain the intervention of
the power of God. To that same power, and
with the same prayer, and with the same assured
cona.lence, we turn once more. It is fitting, then,
that we should explain, in a few words, the inten-
tion with which you are now asked to pray. And
first, that the church is free from all temporal sub-
jection in the discharge of its Divine office is the
axiom of the faith. But this freedom is contained
in and vindicated by the freed Din of its head. The
Vicar of Jesus Christ is independent of all earthly
power, both in his person and in his office ; and this
independence is a security of the purity of doctrine
and of discipline throughout the Catholic unity.
While the world was Pagan the Pontiffs vindicated
their independence by martyrdom. When the world
became Christian it was secured to them by the pos-
session and sovereignty of Rome. It was necessary
that they should possess a sphere in which they might
exercise their apostolic office in perfect freedom.
The possession of Rome and of its sovereignty was
the providential means to this end. Two sovereign-
ties cannot co-exist in the same place, and the pro-
vidence of God so ordered the event. The departure
of the emperors to Constantinople left the pontiffs
sole and supreme, and this arrangement of Divine
Providence has continued through all ages and trials
to this day. In a word, then, to the spiritual free-
dom of the church the personal independence of its
head is necessary ; to the peaceful exercise of this
personal independence a sphere and a throne are ne-
cessary. For he who is independent is sovereign ; and
sovereignty excludes all superiors. But such is the
order which the will of God has ordained for the
Vicar of Christ in Rome and its provinces ; and this
is what men call his temporal power—a providential
order to secure in peace his personal freedom and
supreme direction over the whole church on earth.
Next, you will remember that 18 years ago the So-
vereign Pontiff was driven by the revolution from his
throne and city. Catholic and Christian France was
at the same moment likewise in the confusion of poli-
tical change ; and yet its own sufferings and disorders
could not make it unmindful of the Holy Father. It
was France in the moment of its freest expression,
when the popular will was in the ascendant, when it
spoke and acted, not as a monarchy or as an empire,
but as a republic, that sent its armies to Rome. If
the people of France ever spoke for themselves, they
spoke then ; and yet it was not France as an isolated
European Power, but France as the first of Catholic
Powers, and as the mandatory and representative of
them all, that undertook in behalf of Catholic Eu-
rope the restoration of the centre of its unity and the
source of its spiritual order. To France has been
conceded in these 18 years the high dignityandgrace
of protecting the Vicar of Jesus Christ from the
anti-social, anti-Christian power of modern revolu-
tion. A noble task which other Catholic Powers
would rejoice to fulfil ; but by a traditional privilege
and a kind of Catholic primogeniture, it is the inhe-
ritance and glory of France to execute the will of the
Catholic world in the protection of Rome. To
those who believe that the Christian Church
is the source and the sustaining principle
of Christian Europe this Catholic mission
of France will at once appear in its true light,
namely, not as a French interest, or a diplomatic
scheme, or a political enterprise, or an intrusive in-
tervention in another state, but a duty of a higher
order, in behalf of the whole Catholic unity and of
the Christianity of the world. Every Catholic na-
tion has a right in Rome, for Rome is Catholic, not
Italian. The mission of France is a witness against
the revolutionary and schismatical nationalism which
has been for centuries striving to undo the work of
Christianity. The Church of Christ fused and sus-
tained all nations in a higher unity ; and in that
unity, all Christian nations have a universal citizen-
ship and equal rights. And yet some men have lost
so utterly the consciousness, and even the first out-
lines of Cristian unity, that they believe, and would
have us believe, the ultimate and sole support of
the Pontifical throne to be what they are pleased
to call foreign bayonets. But what Christian power
can be foreign in the centre of Christendom? Those
bayonets could not remain in Rome if it were not
the will of the great Catholic people of France that
their armies should protect the Vicar of Jesus
‘-'lirist- But France, with all its military power,
would not be able to execute this office if the uni-
versal sense of the Catholic people of the world
were not consenting to its act. And whence comes
this universal consent of the Christian. instincts and
sentiments of Catholic nations—thatis of Christen-
dom—but
from the light of faith and the Spirit of
God, who rules the heart of men? In the last ana-
lysis, then, it is the Divine Providence which has
already intervened in these last turbuNenethlB years
to protect the city of Rome. While v
looking out for intervention, God has intervened
been
long ago, and holds His hand upon Rome at
this hour. The arms are the arms of France,
but the will is the will of Christendom, and the
power is the power of God. Two years ago a con-
vention was made between the sovereigns of France
and Italy, without the knowledge of the Sovereign
Pontiff, who of all men ought first to have been
possessed of that knowledge, to the effect that after
two years the armies of France should be withdrawn
from their Christian mission, and should abdicate
the traditional office which Charlemagne bequeathed
to his successors. It was agreed that the Vicar of
our Lord should be left weak, isolated, defenceless,
in the midst of the revolution. That convention
expired on the 15th of this month, but its execution
is not to be completed until next December. This
interval of time therefore is full of expectation. There
is not a Christian power in the world to stay its
execution, or to come between the contracting
parties in this abandonment of the Vicar of Jesus
Christ. The principle of human non-intervention
has its full development. Treaties, contracts, en-
gagements, rights of justice, all international laws