Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1866-12-18
CHANGES 6 y THF CATHOLIC
"Sweet are the uses of adyersity,

Sweet sang the poet, and so may each
and all Of us say in turn. Adversely
often brings reformations that lead to
ultimate strength and improvement.
The loss Of temporal power now threat
ening the Pope, seems about to be COM
pensated for by an extension of his spir-
itual dominion, and an alteration of the
discipline Of the Church of very i'm
portant character. Such was the ulti-
mate result to the Catholic Church after
the breaking of at the Reformation by
Luther and his followers. After the
first outbreak, the Church lost nothing
te%rritorially, but gained so much in an
extension to new territories and TO dis
cipline and missionary zeal, that it, on
the whole, rather gained than lost its
numbers, and in the nations to which it
extended. In India, in China, in ia
pan, and in fact throughout the world,
Ignatius Loyalo established Il discipline
as powerful and centralizing rs that Of
John Wesley, while Francis Xavier la
bored with an JUNCTION and zeal and ell
| oquence much like that of Whitfield.
Mr.. Gladstone, u distinguished En-
glish statesman, has just been to Rome
to explain to the Pope the necessity OF
giving up the temporal dominion which
he has held in part for a thousand years
or more. He has probably offered the
Pope a prospect of regaining to the bo-
som and unity Of his fold the whole of
the Greek Church in the Levant, which
is all Of it except the Russian portion,
thus healing the schism Of ten centuries
at a stroke. 1t seems that England and
France, jealous of Russia and the amaz-
ing influence that nation was exerting,
through religious sympathies with the
members of the Greek Church through
out the East, have conceived the idea of
healing the deadly breach between the
Roman and the Greek Churches, and
putting the Pope at their head.
No doubt, this shows the continuance
of the policy of mixing up Church and
State. Ever since the time Of Mohamed
the Greek Church has been declining in
vital as well as political power, the
Turkish rulers have, in fact, appointed
the most ignorant and inefficient men
possible to the Patriarchite Of C~onstan-
tinople, and sold out the offices of the
church, careful Of n thing, never to
let the Greek religion become a danger
Gus power to the Sultan. For the last
two hundred and fifty years the Russian
Church has formed a perfectly independ-
ent division of the church, that has
grown with the growing power of the
Russian Empire, until at last it aspires
to protect and rej~uvenate the parent.
This is, no donbt, intended to favor the
plan of an extension of the Russian En-
pire through the East. But the Empe-
ror Napoleon, fond Of compensating
disappointed hopes as well as he can,
has proposed, and now about arranged,
automatically, probably, with the Turk
ish Empire, as well as the Pope, the
terms by which the Greek Church shall
be restored to the communion with that
Of Rome.
The chief difficulty was found to be in
the matter Of celibacy, which the Pope
much insisted on, while the right to
marry ouce has never been allowed to
incapacitate the Greeks from becoming
Priests. Even this point has been man
aged by much diplomacy; indeed a
precedent was found for it in other
branches of the Greek Church, recon-
ciled with the Pope three hundred years
ago, and that portion of the church will
still be allowed to follow the Greek rule;
none higher than simply priests, how
ever, being allowed to live in wedlock,
by this concession. The political OBJ
ject Of all this, will, no doubt, be to
keep the Russians from exciting discon-
tent among the Greeks, but the effect
will probably be elevating to the Greeks
themselves. The further effect Of it on
the Catholic Church itself will be to
modify its discipline, as well as to ex-
tend its numbers.