Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1857-11-11
RoMANIsM AGAINST FREEDOM.

the encourager OF free thought, Tree opinio"'
| and free expression and there are some favor
ite examples quoted to maintain this mon
strous proposition. The Magma Charta, the
very groundwork of freedom, is held up as the
fruit of Catholic liberality. Unfolding the
page of history, we find that John, king OF
England, engaged in controversy with the
Pope, which resulted in the king yielding up
his possessions to the Holy See-and receiving
them back as vassal. The proud Barons,
who at the time possessed no defined rights,
could not brook the insults and degradation
which were heaped upon them through the
weakness of their king, and solemnly demand
ed, for their protection, what is now known as
the Magma Charta. In the struggle between
the lords and the crown, the Pope took part
with John against the Barons, and brought the
whole of his temporal and spiritual power to
defeat their demand, and from the Council of
Lateran, Innocent Numbered against them his
bulls of accommodation.
The example of France, which has several
times shaken off tyrannical monarchy and
made approaches towal DIS republican institu-
tions, has been held up as a testimony that Ro-
manism favors liberty. The French people al
ways resisted, more perseveringly than those
of any other Catholic country, the assumptions
of Popery to France, the world is indebted,
| not only for catholics imbued with true spirit
of christianity, but for some of the most pow
erful writers against the assumptions of the
Holy See. The Kings of France ever con-
| tended for the right of appointing their own
! Bishops, and it was only under monarchs most
deeply imbued with Romanism that France
fous.d her greatest tyrants. OF late years,
the light of true liberty has made encroach-
ments upon the domain of despotism, it has
modified the illiberality of darker times, and
one of the first fruits of the late popular revo-
lutions in that country was the separation of
| Church and State, and protection to-every re
ligious belief. But France, liberal as her peo-
pie naturally are, is yet too much under the
influence of Roman supremacy to be quoted
as an example of religious liberation.
1t seems but yesterday that Rome herself
woke from her long night of slavery, and de-
claring herself free, her spiritual and temporal
despot, the Pope, fed from her walls, and took
refuge in Gaeta. The regenerated Romans
offered to receive the Pope as their spiritual
| head, but resolutely insisted on the abolition
=
nical cardinals. The overture was scorned,
and the work of their subjugation to despot-
| ism was assigned to France, and, in spite of
| her Repubicanism, the lingering slavery Of
pricstcraft was wrought into the blood and
bones of her rulers and her soldiery, that she
accepted the work, marched her armies on
Rome, bombarded and carried the city by
| sault, and crushed the new Republic and the
liberals of Italy in the dust.
In the United States federation is claimed
as Papal virtue, because it is known to be
harmonious with public sentiment. Upon the
Continent of Europe all is different, and Ro-
manism becomes the strong right arm of des-
potism, and the enemy of everything that is
free. Not the supporter of tyranny by infer
| ence of its enthusiastic devotees, but by the
powerful precepts of its written laws, sane
toned by all the solemnities of tradition, and
all the massive machinery of the Church.
The establishment of the Inquisiton in the
sixteenth century was for the avowed purpose
of putting down free thought, free expression,
and free opinion. Under its sway, enormities
were committed which make humanity shud-
der. Under its administration, John Louis
| Vivis, Spaniard of great learning and repu-
tation, bewails the fate of moderate and char
liable Catholics even in Spain what must
have been the fate of avowed Protestants who
came under its condemnation? Says Fivis,
in letter to Erasmus, dated May 18th, 1884
"We live in hard times, in which we can nei-
| ther speak or be silent without danger" In
the forty three years of the administrations of
the first four Inquisitors-General, which closed
| in the year 1924, they committed eighteen
thousand human beings to the flames, and in
flicted inferior punishments on two hundred
| thousand persons more, with various degrees
of severity. 1t was this work of the Inquisi-
ton in Spain, with knowledge that the Span
| ish and French monarchs meditated the extern
sion over all Christendom of the Inquisition,
that seated Elizabeth firmly on the throne of
England, and secured that political toleration
that led to the brightest triumphs of the Ref
ormation.
The fact that the Romish Church assumes to
be intalible, of necessity makes her intoler-
| ant. He arrogant claim of supremacy above
all governments of the earth in things sPirltu-
al, must also of necessity make her an enemy
to free thought and action. The hhemlsh
Testament urges that ssthe blood of feretics
is not called the blood of saints, no more than
the blood of thieves, man-killers, and other
malefactors, for the shedding of which, by Or
der of Justice, no commonwealth shall suffer-
Cardinal Bellarmine says, ssexperience teaches
that there is no other remedy for the evil but
TO put heretics to death,'' the Church having