Daily American organ. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1856, 1855-03-07
NUMBER 95.
From the Philadelphia Bulletin.
The Pope's Temporal Power.
LETTER FROM rRoTEssoR MccLrsrocK TO HON. 10
sEPH n. CHANDLER.


/ sEPH n. CHANDLER.
To tho honorable Joseph n. Chandler:
| DEAR SIR; beg leave TO offer few remarks
upon your speech made In Congress on the llth
| instant. IL has been widely circulated among
the people," and Is therefore, open to criticism
from the humblest citizen. Permit me to say, in
| the beginning, that can sympatze with no eff
| tort, made or to be made, either by " secret
combination" or by an open political party, to
deprive Roman Catholic citizens, as such, from
any political rights which other American citizens
do or can enjoy. belong to no secret political
organization, whether called " Know -Nothingn or
ortherwise; shall belong to none, for have as
profound sense OF their dangerous tendencies
| as you can possibly have. / do not write to you
in the interests of any party, but solely to vindi
cate the truth Of history, which you have q trust
unwittingly) violated.
i You deny to the Bishop Of Rome any I" right re-
sulting from his divine office, to interfere in the
| relations between subjects and their sovereigns.
between citizens and their governments" Had
you confined yourself to this denial, expressing it
merely as your own private and personal opinion,
or even as that of many jurists, theologians, and
doctors of your church, you would have shown
only that you and they were bad Papsts, nothing
more. But the very aim and essence, so to speak,
OF your speech Is, that your pieU "a that Of The
roman Catholic Church !; that it is maintained by
all her authorities, from layman to priest, from
priest to bishop, from bishop to archbishop, and
from archbishop to Pope and that the contrary
opinion, If held in the church at ALL Is held only
4 by "certain weak persons" individuals Of less
discretion than zeal, and is taught only 'in the
careless writings Of some Catholic scholars
| In maintaining such thesis as this before tho
| American people, you have shown yourself either
exceedingly disingenuous, or else thoroughly ig-
norant OF the history of the question, and OF the
state OF opinion In your own church. For many
| years have been accustomed to rely upon your
integrity. AIN still willing to give you credit for
candor, and therefore nothing remains for me ex-
cept to conclude you ignorant, and to offer YOU
some information. Certainly, had you been well
informed on the subject, your selfrespect (not
to speak Of the risk of detection and exposure)
would have required you to tell your auditors that
there are two parties in your church on this uues-
ton; one (the Ultramontane partly affirming, and
the other 1.-THE Galcan or Liberal party) denying
that the Pope, by reason Of the spiritual poper,
has also supreme power, at least indirectly, even
| in temporal matters."f (Some of the Ultramon-
tame writers even go further, and assert direct
| temporal power, as well as an indirect, but YOU
and the Gallicans deny both)
You would have told your hearers also, that the
Ultramontane party isa vast majority, including
the Pope, all the Cardinals, all the Jesuits, and
large part of all the Bishops while the GaHcan mi.
nority is considered and declared by strong Papists
to be the halfway house TO Protestanism," to be
"stngy, narrow-minded, and frozen-hearted al
ways studying to split the difference between Peter
and Caesar God and the Devil" Had you made
this statement clearly and distinctly, and had you
then avowed yourself one Of this despised Gallican
minority, your position would have byen an nteli.
gible and manly one, consistent at once with the
truth of history and with your own high reputation
as man of culture and of integrity. Instead of
this, your speech seeks to substitute Gallcanism
for Romanism, the doctrine Of a small and con.
stantly- diminishing faction for the doctrine of the
church. II Is as ifa Baptist should deny that his
church holds TO the practice of "close comm.
nion," because Robert Hall and other eminent men
have written against IT, ~
."H by any providence, the Bishop of Rome,
should become possessed ofarmies and q feet and,
in a spirit Of conquest or any other spirit, should
invade the territory OF the United States or assal
the rights Of our country, be would find no more
earnest antagonists than the Roman Catholics
And for myself IL not here m this Hall TO vote sup
plies for defending army, or If too old to take
part In the active defence should, II alive be at
least In my chamber OF at the foot of the
altar, implorng God for the safety of my country
and the defeat of the INVADERS ~
The anticipatory criticism on this eloquent
passage" you will find In a review edited by the
ablest Roman Catholic writer In America, and en-.
dorsed on its cover by nearly every bishop Of your
church in the country:
I" II has been customary here Il. Q. among Catho-
lies in Great Britain and America) TO deny In the
most positive terms all authority of the Pope in
temporals ex jure dvino and to indulge IN no little
abuse Of the sovereign pontif alphabetically. We
have read in Catholic Journals, and heard from the
rostrum, and even from the pulpit expressions
with regard 10 buckling on ones knapsack and
shoulderfng ones musket and marching against
the Pope, in he should do so or so, that have
made our blood run cold--expressions which we
should hardly have yentured on ourselves even
when Protestant. The writer's or speakers knew
very well that the case they supposed could never
occur and that therefore they were safe but they
little considered, We mnst, believe, the impression
they conveyed, or the effect they were producing
on the minds Of the simple Catholic public or
that they teaching, or at least favoring that
very doctrine Of courtiers and demagogues which
creates so many difficulties for the Holy See, and
which apparently justifes the non-Cathoic world,
in It's war against the Papacy.n--Bropnson's Re.
viep, Aprii, 1854, p. 214.
So much for your rhetoric; now for what logic
and history can be found In your speech You adj
nit that the Pope has proceeded 10 dethrone kings
and thus TO release subjects y but at the same time
you deny that this was lever done under claim Of
divine right" You sdduce as a crucial instance,
the case Of Gregory VII (not Ganganelli, as you
unfortunately style him, but Hildebrand,) that
great, and in many respects good man, whose life
spent In efforts TO correct abuses IN the Church
anda the same time to consolidate the Papal power.
Your startling assertions about Hildebrand are
enough TO disturb his mighty bones in their grave.
He "deposed Henry w" you admit; but "he did
not claim that his action ia deposing the Emperor
of Dipine righf' This is sufficiently explicit
You shall be held TO this declaration. True, you
qualify the assertion little in other parts of your
speech, by such words as merely, solely" &c,
in connexion with I" Divine right !" but have too
much confidence in your native American honesty
to think that you mean to use evasion in this mat
ter. 1t might do for jesuit but not for Joseph
r. Chandler. Indeed, you have bound yourself
still more strongly by asserting that II ,cas Di
vine right right inherent in the spiritual Office
Of the Bishop g Rome, as successor OF Saint
Peter then IL oda nscer, " s.,, sss, La,,,s. Now
sir, | mean to show that not Only = .--, hut
many Of his successors did claim this power jffs
diviao that the Popes have condemned the con-
trary doctrine; that this condemnation has never
been retracted; that consequently the power has
never lapsed = and that you, Joseph X. Chandler,