The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-14 00:00:00

AUSTRIAN LIBERALISM' AND THE
PAPAL ALLOCUTION.

The Presse of Vienna asserts that " Rome
assumes rights over Austria, as if it were
some State belonging to the Patrimony of St.
Peter." A glance at the Pontifical Allocution
is enough to show that Rome does not claim
any special right over Austria, and that the
Pope does not speak as temporal Sovereign,
but as Sovereign Pontiff. The language ,held
by Pius IX. is the same his predecessors held
when they had no temporal sovereignty, and
it is the same that his successors will, hold to
the end of time, even should triumphant revo-
lution succeed in their complete spoliation,
and reduce them to the state of the early
Popes under the Emperors. Whatever may be
the state of the world—whatever the circum-
stances of the Papacy, owing to the a,postacy
and malice of men, he will always be the
Head of the Church, and in that capacity the
guardian of her rights, the interpreter of the
law of God, the infallible oracle of truth and
justice,. the supreme judge of error and its
conclusions, whether uttered by the mean and
weak, or by the great and powerful. The
Presse is indignant, because the Pope declares
the new Austrian laws null and void. If
these laws are wicked, are they not null, and
void of force in conscience ? Will the Presse
assert that wicked laws do bind or will it say
that a Government never makes or can make
such laws ; that every Government must be
accepted as an infallible interpreter of the law
of God—a sovereign arbitrator of truth and
justice ? This is the theory of the most abso-
lute despotism, and we doubt whether the
Presse itself would dare to profess it. It would
then be in contradiction with itself, for every
day it assumes the right to judge and condemn
—to declare the most just and holy laws null
and void in conscience. The Presse ranks with
free-thinkers, and free-thinkers claim for every
man this right. How, then, can it be refused
to. the Church and to the Pope ? The fact
is that the Pope possesses authority, and men
in millions obey his decisions. The decisions
have therefore an importance absolutely diffe-
rent from those of certain journalists and cer-
tain philosophers, and it is but natural that
Governments should attend to them. We are
far from denying—on the contrary, we hold
—that Governments which pay such attention
to free-thinkers should give much more to the
Catholic Church and its head : that instead of
wronging and persecuting her, their interest
and duty is to live in peace with her. But the
Governments of Europe, like the free-thinkers,
no more admit the Divine right of the Church
to teach than they accept justice and truth;
in other words, modern Governments are no
longer Catholic. The fact is indisputable, and
what follows from it ? It follows that for
free-thinkers and for such. Governments there
is no spiritual authority on earth=-no authority
established by God to teach truth and jus-
tice, for if such an authority did exist, it is
evident that its decisions would be binding
upon every one, on the heads. of Government
as well as on other men, unless th 3y pretend
that they have been privileged with a special
exemption from the law of God—that they are
dispensed from knowing truth and practising
justice—that the only law for them is their
good pleasure. In such terms, who would
dare to sustain this monstrous doctrine ? But
whilst our free-thinkers reject it in word, they
admit it in reality. They reject all authority
in the spiritual order; they claim a complete
independence for every man, the right to be
his own ruler and lawgiver—then how can
they refuse this supreme independence, this
essential and inalienable, right, to emperors,
kings, heads of republics, and their ministers ?
On their own showing, governors have autho.;
rity to do whate*er seems right to themselves,
and their power has no other limits than such
as their own wisdom sees good to impose upon
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