The Portland daily press., 1870-01-14
DAILY PRESS.
PORTSLANI,
Friday Morning, January ID, 1870.
The Ecumenical Council

The Ecumenical Counch
A feeling prevails among Protestants In
| this country that the Ecumenical Council has
nothing to do with them. 1t is looked upon
as an anair confined to the Catholic church,
just as presbyterian synod is confined to
Inc 5resDyteridn church, and having as
| little direct connection with us Americans as
| the festival of Juggernaut. This is is dan
| gerous mistake. The council at Rome is an
| event IN which we each one are interested.
| 1t holds nearer connection with us than
any convention of any Protestant church in
| Christendom. 1t will be looked back upon
! by our children, as the most important event
| of this century.
We deplore bgotry; we look upon those
pages which tell of the millions OF men and
women who have been butchered in religious
wars as the most melancholy human history.
Our beliefs, our instincts, our hearts and
souls are every way knit into firm faith in
religious liberty. We would look upon all
sects in the Christian church as but different
branches of the same tree. We would re-
gard the Catholic church as the mother of
Christianity, its rites, its laws its councils, as
woven in our faith, firmly and inextricably.
We would look on it with tenderness and
with reverence; but nevertheless with ap-
prehension.
While it is the church which has saved for
us all that remained of Christianity, it is the
institution which has repressed the liberties
of half of Europe. 1t has put back the ad-
vance of civilization and of human welfare,
irrecoverably. Its bloody history, its perver-
sions OF truth, its inquisltion, its penetrating,
eye looking into the hearts of the people, spy
ing out every human aspiration for freedom,
and tearing it out by the roots when discov-
cred, its conservation of bigotry, and of hor-
rble enthusiasm for falsehood, have made it's
history one of warning to us. While we re-
we're and love it for what it has been in some
ages, we shudder at what it has been in 9TH
ers, and tremble at what it may become in
the future.
The present Ecumenical marks an impor-
tant era in the history of the church. A
longer period has elapsed since the last coun-
Gil than has ever intervened before. The
Council of Trent was the nineteenth one
that had occurred in twelve centuries. Since
that three hundred years have elapsed and
no council has been called or needed. The
power of the Pope, deriving its origin from
the humble pre-eminence OF the Galilee fish
erman among his brethren, has grown from
the days when the master was servant of ALL
until now the successor of Peter has become
master and dictator over the lives and con-
sciences oil all. He sits upon throne, wears
crown, governs state, commands an army,
his income is enormous; his will is supreme;
and he neither needs nor desires the help of
a council to show him the path of duty, for
he is master even of The councils. To such
a degree of absolutism has the Pope arisen,
that he lacks but one thing to clothe him
with the power OF being god, and that one
thug is the acceptation by the church OF the
Dogma of his Intallibity. And to obtain
this last supreme object of desire, he, coun-
selled by his Jesuit subordina tes, has broken
over the custom of three centuries, and cali
ed into being that which historians had told
us was forever obsolete,-an Ecumenical
council.
The history of the council is briefly this:
Since the days of Gregory VII. the papal pow
er had been growing more and more supreme
up to the time just preceding the Reforma-
tion, when it had become not only the power
of hi erarch, but that Of civil despot and
tyrant, with all the bloodthirstiness and the
RIGHTEOUSNESS that has ever characterized des-
potism. 1t was necessary of course that such
excess must find its check; and the Reforma-
tion sprang up carrying the new reaction over
every obstacle, until it had swept away over
halt the dominion of the church; all Europe
was mostly turning Protestant, except Spain.
But from Spain came Loyola and his Jesuits.
They halted at neither pains nor sacrifices, to
win back the ground gained for Reformation.
They were successful. They regained one
half of the lost field. They snatched whole
countries away from the new pcstilence of
Professionalism. They went to Rome, and out
of their eageIness for the triumph of the
church, reformed and renewed the papacy.
| In place of the bloody Leo and the Borgias,
| they created Pope who walked barefoOted, /,
| clothed himself in sackcloth, won back the
| devotion OF the people to himself, by his own
| devotion to the cross. Thus the Jesuits re-
| newed the church and took possession of it;
| and they have never fully relaxed their hold.
| To-day they appear as the Pope's intimate
| and trusted advisers. They believe that the
enis of the Society of Jesus and its power
will be promoted by having the Pope declared
| infalible. They have therefore called through
| him, and of course he is willing instrument
| in the aggrandisement CT himself, a council to
publish, not to elect, his infalhbiity. Through
the Pope they control the council, and will
cause it to accomplish what they will, and
viii then dismiss 1T and ali other councils,
forever.
The principal subject for the council to pro-
nounce upon is Papal infalliblity The plan
is, that Archbishop Manning of England
shall propose and defend the dogma, and ii.
nally pass it through the council. Of the
success of the scheme there can be no doubt.
1t may, in fact, have been pronounced already
in the secret sittings of the council, for all
that the world knows to the contrary. 1t is
almost impossible for the council not to de-
cree this dogma if the Pope urges it. He has
the bishops completely in his power. Each
above all other powers. He has already, in
public orders, taken them in hand like chill
dren, assigned them seats in the council, put
them in quarters in Rome to suit himself in
structed them how to act, down to the last
detail. From instructng them to remove
their caps in his presence, up to debating the
method of discussion, he has taken them
completely in his own power. They are not
allowed even free discussion. His order pro-
vides that on all disputed points, the subject
shall be referred to Committee presided over
by one of his own cardinals, and the council
at large shall not be allowed to discnss it un-
til it has thus been settled upon. Nor is any
bishop to be allowed to introduce any new
matters. All the subjects were prepared by a
committee before the arrival OF the bishops,
and they have nothing to do but to assent
No provision has been made that when vote
has been taken, a majority shall decide. Plus
decree simply says that after the vote is taken
he will declare his own supreme opinion
and will announce his decree, stating at the
same time how many fathers have voted for
it and how many against it. There is, in
short. no liberty-no freedom. The council
will do as it is desired by the Pope or else will
do nothing.
That the doctine of Infallibility will be de-
creed is very probable. The majority of the
devoted Catholics wish it. Those who do not
desire it have no power in the council. 1t
has even been announced in some quarters
that it will be adopted without discussion.
The power given by this dogma is to be SIM
ply fearful, 1t will mt to rest forever as to
doctrines. A simple word from the Pope will
settle all things. No other authority need be
sought for any doctrine, but that of single
Pope. No matter how profligate, how terri
BILE the man, his will is divine law throughout
the Catholic church. There have been popes
who were the worst of human rulers, whose
courts were the constant scene of treason, of
licentiousness, cf murder; there bave been
others like Leo Y, who were absolutely athe-
lists, vet all alike are to he infalhble, their
word is to be supreme law for human action
and human conscience.
This, then, is the object of the present
council. Ii we had no other evidence, the
single fact that book, written by Catholics,
taking ground against iniallibility, has been
prescribed in Italy, and placed in the "expurga-
torious," is enough to prove that this is the
single dogma which it is desired shall prevail.
Besides this one main object, the Council is
to apopt the syllabus. This is list of eighty
errors which prevail in the world, in the opin-
ion Of Pope Plus TX, and which he desires te
have the council condemn as errors. There
is very little doubt that it will do so. 1t has
been SO arranged that the council must adopt
the syllabus.
1t is here we come to see what practical
bearing the council has upon ourselves, living
in America, cherishing free institutions, free
dom OF religion, free schools. The Syllabus
declares (Art III that it is an error to be-