The Daily Nashville true Whig. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1851-1855, 1855-09-04

and some Catholic congregations in this coun-
try. The controversy seems to involve mainly
the right of the Spanish Government to limit
and qualify at discretion, the privilege of the
Church to accumulate property in real estate.
ln consequence of the action of the Govern
ment, applying and enforcing as to the Church
the general rule of the Spanish law, that no
property can be hello in mortmain, the Papal
Nuncio at Madrid, demanded his passports
got then-and went home in q great rage.
Thereupon the Holy Father, in due exercise of
the general supervisory powers he claims to
exercise over the Spanish nation, every
other nation, for that matter, that will put up
with it,)-issues what is called an ALLoCUTIoN
IL "Pronunciamento," y setting forth the
grievances which moved the Papal Representa-
tive to this extreme step. And very melan-
choly enumeration it is. In the first place, we
are told Spain has outraged and violated stip-
ulation she made at some not particularly def
mite period, in time gone by, that the proper
ty of the Church should be inviolable. Then,
again, no says, various government DEGREES
have been published, by which bishops are in
terdicted from comforting sacred orders; by
which virgins consecrated to God are prohb-
tied from admitting other women into their
institutions, and by which lay chaplainces and
other pious institutions are to be completely
secularised. The protests presented against
these measures had, he says, been disregarded
by she Spanish Government, and some bishops
who had opposed them had been forcibly re-
moved from their dioceses. He had, there
fore, deemed it necessary to order his Charge
d'Affaires to leave Madrid; and moreover,
says His Holiness
Raising voice in your assembly, we CON-
pain of all that the lay government has done and
is still doing, in Spain unustly against the Church.
The patrimony of the Church has been usurped, in
| spite of all Divine and human laws. We there
fore, in virtue of our apostolic authority, censure
abrograte and declare Without vaIue and aCiLhout
force, null and Of no effect, for the past and the f4
ture the said Ld,Os and degrees"
There are in this country political writers
and speakers who would fain make the people
believe that the Pope claims to exercise no
temporal power or authority outside of his
own temporal denominions. Can they explain
this E" allacution +" upon Spanish laws and de-
crees consistently with such proposition 2
Certainly not. 1t is nothing more nor less than
formsl attempt to mullty by his Papal dc
tum, these "laws and DEGREES" passed by the
Spanish Government for and in the name of
the Spanish people. If the United States had
been as much Catholic as Spain the Church
property bill of New York would doubtless
have been in like manner "ARBoGATED and
declared WITHOUT VALUE AND WITHOUT FORCE,
NULL AND OF NO EFFECT, FOR THE PAST AND FOR
THE FUTURE" We earnestly invite the atten-
ton of the American public to this plain state
ment of facts.
We beg the readers attention also to the
dignifed and most respectful answer, which
the Spanish Government has just made to this
Papal Allocution, and copies of which have
been sent to all the Catholic powers of Eu-
rope. 1t is denied that Spain has broken any
treaty which exists, or may have existed, be-
tween the Courts of Madrid and Rome, and
proofs in abundance are cited, to show that
the Nuncio and the Pope, both, have been
straining point of veracity. 1t is denied,
furthermore, that the Spanish Government has
interfered with the faculty to confer holy Or
ders Bishops" it says, "may ordain as
many priests as may be necessary for public
worship, and as public worship can maintain, |
but they cannot make numbers Of idle, useless,
miserable elergymena-they cannot, and ought |
not to be lavish of holy orders beyond what |
necessity and public convenience require"
Again, it is denied that any treaty has been
infringed upon in the Bill ordering the sale of
church property. The church, it says,
"May acquire all that is given in donation, or
bequeathed to il in public Rentes; It may also ac-
quire all that is bestowed or bequeathed even in |
real property. But what the church is prohibited |
from doing is to keep possession of this last de-
scripton of property, and the prohibition is not |
merely because it is the church that possesses it,
but because the church is a mortmain, and the prn-
cple is established and promulgated that no real /
property can be held in mortmain in the Spanish |
territory"
The memorandum defends at some length |
this principle, and shows that the church is
not, and ought not to be made, an exception
to the general rule on this head. 1t terminates
thus:
''The Government cannot conclude without ex>
pressing its deep regret that country so sincerely
Catholic should be engaged with the Holy See in
struggle in which, even granting all that is pre-
tended, the only question is one of material and
mundane interests"
Material and mundane interestsl" There
lies the rub The church wants power, and
money-the means of sustaining power. And
as land is usually the most secure investment
of money interests, she desires to accumulate
as much landed estate as possible. "The ques-
ton in spain," says the New York Express,
from which we collate most of these facts, sis,
in plain terms, just what It was here-one of
filthy iucre-worldly interests-one on which
the followers of the poor fishermen of Galllee,
and of Him, their Master, who had not where
to lay his head, ought never to have anything
whatsoever, for Christianity's sake, to d.
Christ's kingdom Is not of this world; but
these modern, so-called followers of Christ,
are all for this world, and but little else. The