The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-05-24

SUNDAY, MAY a., 1868.
/; Tho Pope's Temperatures e,ja
F Our attention has been attsscesd 10 al
artiole which appsarsd, some time since, in
ono Of our cotemporaries, in which this
question seems to be as mach misunder-
stood a. though It had not been elucidatsd
in a Thousand ways, and ON thousands Of
occasions during the last three hundred
years Gf wilful and unintentional misrepre-
sentation. The prospective abandonment
of the Irish Protestant Church IL made the
occasion Of abiding to the forcible dismem-
berment of the l'apal States as being also
disendowment. 1t is argued that the
principle Is the same in both cases.
The endowment of Church, a. under
stood in the case of Ireland, il the support
and revenue secured to it by the Govern
ment in virtue Of it's being the established
Church. In various countries the Catholic
is the established Church, and is endowed
by the Government. In all these cases it
win be remarked that the Church is distinct
from the State. The Church authorities are
recognized by the State, but they do not
govern the State. In England, indeed, it
is contended that the queen is the head of
the Church, but it is because abe is queen
that she is Popess, if at all, and not because
she is Popess that she is queen.
In Rome it is not SO; the Church is not
distinct from the State in regard to govern
ment; the two are in that respect identical.
And this is not q distinction without diff
ference, for the Roman system is totally
flee from the evil effects which always
ensue when the Church Government is de-
pendent on the State Government, and not
identical with it.
Without going into an elaborate argu-
ment, it is obviously indecorous that the
Church of God should stand toward the
State in n position of recognized inferiority
and dependence. Such relations are close
and familiar, and they may be exercised, on
the part of the State, by men who are enc
mics of religion. The indignities that can
then be safely heaped upon the Church are
but the legitimate fruit of an unnatural con-
dition. Not only is this dependence undig-
nitied, but it is impolitic. The State is
constantly endeavoring to influence the
ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and even its
communications with the centre of unity,
if that be abroad.
1t is precisely to avoid such consequences
that the Pope has been striving to retain
his temporalities.- 1t is that the See of
Rome should not become an endowed
Church-the " establishment of some ma
Eonal Government. He has been cOntendipg
against the principle of endowment, and
his enemies have been strenuously endeav-
oring to force it on him.
Yet, we see one of our ablest and most
impartial journals ignoring the distinc-
ton between domination and endowment.
The Pope, according to that journal, seeing
the Irish Church about to be disendowed,
greets that event with "grim SMILE
because the said Church has been most &C
tive in its efforts to disendow him. Hence,
according to our usually polite neighbor,
the venerable Pontiff, whom Protestant
visitors announce to the world as model
of benignity and gentleness, if not of sane
tity, glares upon his enemies with the bar
barrie triumph of an old soldier, and grim
satisfaction lights up his weather-b beaten
visage as he sees the misbegotten brood OF
his prosecutors go home to roost.
No! The. cases are totally different. II
is fndecorous that the Church of God should
be ruled or influenced by a 1ayman, and it is
therefore, Objectionable but it is not inju.
rious to the dignity of the Church that one
of it's princes should rule State. Robbine
the Pope, therefore, of his temporalities, i.
not justified by the same principle which
frees a Church from the slavery of endow
ment. In the one case, you deprive tn,
Church of it's dominion over o State; in tn,