The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1869-11-07
DR.. Manning and the Pops's syllabus.

q large congregation in the Pro-Cathedral,
High street, Kensingten, selecting as his text
John vi. and Goth, Many. of His disciples,
when they heard this, said, This is hard
SAYING, who can bear ipPn
DR.. Manning, who was habited in purple and
ermine, commenced by observing that our Lord
had been speaking of the great mystery of the
body and blood of the incarnate Word of God
which He would give for the life and for the
food of the soul. They did not understand
Him. They counted it q hard saying, and
The enunciation of the truth had always two
effects-those that believed were strengthened
and those that would not believe stumbled at
the truth. He should have preferred taking
up and continuing the beatitndes of our Divine
Lord where he broke off when he last spoke
from that place. but the times, the moment,
and the day, he might say, imposed on him the
subject on which he was about to speak. To-
day was the festival of the holy Rosary-a day
marked in the hstory.of the church by one of
the greatest events in Christian history, the
destruction of the anti-Christian power of Ma
hommedanism, by the great battle of Lepanto,
VIXEN the Christian world was threatened by,
the enormous supremacy of that vast inkdef
empire, SO that Christian Europe must have
been ravaged had it not been oyerthrown.
They also commemorated to-day another great
victory by land over that same Mahommedan
power; and these two great blows dealt by tho
Christian world against the Mahommedan An
tiehrst forever broke it's power and dominion !;
50 that to this day Christian powers, so far
from being menaccd by its existence, were
themselves propping it lest it should fall.
And these two great contests were under the
direct sanction and direction of the Roman
>Pontiffs, who, as the heads of the Christian
world-the most illuminated to know its dan
gers, and the most powerful to prevent them
combined, organized, and directed those two
great defepces of christendom, calling together
the princely chiyalry of Christian Europe to
defend its existence. They always thatday
ascribe these two great events to the infinite
mercy and providence of the Heavenly Father,
and to the prayers of their Immaculate Mother,
for it was while the holy Rosary was being
cited in ten Thousand centres, and i'll the streets
of thousands of cities that the two great vic
tories were gained. But there was another
Antichrist and another menacing dominion
pressing upon the Christian world in the face
of which the church and the Pontif, still stood
For 300 years power vigorous, subtle, organ
lied; and menaclng had hung round about the
unity of the church, or indeed had found its
entrance within it, in the subtle form of intel
lectual error, against which the Roman Pontif
stands now as he stood then. These intellect
ual errors reached to the very basis of Chris
tian society they undetermined the founda-
lions of the Christian world, and against them
the Sovereign Pontif at this hour opposed
himself as St. Plus v, did 800 years ago, and
had dealt blow which had been felt through
out the whole Christian world, by those Nffo
and by those who would not believe for their
scandal and dismay. And what was that blow
Lut that on which he proposed now to speak
he meant the Syllabusf In order to be per-
rate the meaning of the word and the origin
from which it came. In the year 1864, and on
the 9Th day of December-the feast of the Inn
maculate Conception-the Holy Father pub
lished two documents, the one called an Ency-
clical circular letter addressed to all pa
triarchs, primates, archbishops and hishons
throu ghout the whole Christian world the
other called the Syllabus. Now the word Syl-
labus" simply means collection or gathering
together of certain propositions which, In the
eighteen years of his Pontiticate, he had
already published. During the eighteen years
preceding he had in numerous documents and
numerous acts condemned a multitude of the
intellectual errors of the day, and the Syllabus
was nothing more than collection from all
the documents and acts of the eighteen pre-
ceding years of those errors which he had al
ready condemned. 'Ihlt Syllabus contained
eighty errors with their condemnation, and
reference to those formal acts and documents
in which their condemnation had been already
made. Now, these eighty errors were partly
iii at faith niafIers moIA4s
in both of which, they knew, the Catholic
Church, and the head of the Catholic Church
also, by Divine assistance, We're lnfalllple-
that is, they were the ultimate Interpreters oil
the faith, and the ultimate eXposltOrs of the
law of God, and that not by thelight of human
learning only, but by tire liz ht of Divine assist
ance which secured from error Under morals
we're also included a number of errors relating
to the political state of the world; and he be-
lieved if the Holy Father had confined himself
simply to faith aud to morality IN the ORDINARY
person al sense of the word, very little would
have been heard of the Syllabus. But under
the head of morals he had-for his duty de-
manded it of him as the universal teacher of
the Christian world, as the pastor of the uni
versal floek-pointed out and condemned all
those errors in political philosophy which lay
at the root of morals. Therefore the world has
been in uproar. Whole nations had declared
that the Sxilnbns had laid the axe at the root
of their political society; but if it did so, so
much the worse for those nations, for 1t must
be constituted on an anti-Christian basis. Now
he mi ght be asked, why should the Holy Father
touch on any matter of politics at allf For
this plain reason--because politics were a part
of morals. What the moral law i'll the Ten
Commandments was to the individual, politics
were to society. Politics We're no more than
the morals of society-the collective morality
of Christian men united together under social
law They might well find fault with him
for instructiug consuming penitent in the
confessional or for correcting aud condemning
the errors of the congregation, as eensure the
Holy Father for extending those combinations
from the errors which affected the private lives
of men to those which affected the public life
of Christian society. Politics were nothing
but morals on the widest scale. Now, to make
clear what was the matter of the Syllabus, he
would say it contai med ten chapters. The first
four chapters w6fe on Atheism, Pantheism,
D. and ('OmmuniDuiaIu.