The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1870-11-13
The Fall Of the Temporal Power and the
Future Of the Papucy.


| important historic event Of this very eventful
year. The history Of the Roman Catholic
| Church joins together the two great ages OF
human civilization. AS one has well put
1T, it carries us back to the times when the
smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and
when cameleopards and tigers bounded in the
Flavian amphitheatre. 1t is long leap back
wards from Pope Plus the Ninth to Pope
Stephen the Seconds but during that long
PERIOD extending over more than twelve cen
turtles, the temporal power has been fact.
The right to temporal authority OF the
yesterday when compared with the right 10
certain territorial possessions of the Supreme
Pontiff. II long continued possession gives
O claim it is not much to be wondered at tnat
the Pope, the Roman Curia, the dlgnitaries Oh
the Catholic Church all the world over, ana
even the mere members of that Church,
should rebel against the spoiation OF the ter
ritory which, from date almost lost In the
obscurity of the past, has been attached to
the chair of St. Peter.
Tradition has it that Constantine founded
Constantinople for no other purpose than to
enthrone Sylvester, the then Bishop of Rome,
as the temporal and spiritual monarch of the
West; and according to the Isidore Decretals,
the genuineness Of which has never been
generally admitted, the gift of the first
Christian Emperor to the Roman See included
not Rome only, but the whole Of
It.l, p,;t 4 &c ~
however, until the days of Pepin, or rather of
| his son, Charlemagne, that the temporal power
Of the Papacy becomes a historic fact. When
| Pope Stephen the Second placed the crown Of
Childeric, the last and the latest of the long
haired Morovingians, on the head of Pepin,
in the Church of ST. Denys, Pepin, out of
| gratitude, went to Rome and bestowed on the
Pope much of the territory which for twelve
centuries has been known as the States of
the Church. In the bestowal Of this territory
Roman Catholic writers claim that the origi-
nal gift of Constantine was recognized.
Another Pope was in trouble, and Charlie
magne having crossed the Alps and rede-
lvered the Holy See, Leo Ill. crowned him
Emperor Of the Romans, Charlemagne for
mally and with becoming solemnity confirming
the gift Of Pepin. Then, on Christmas day,
in the last year of the eighth century, was re-
stored the Roman Empire of the West, and on
| the same day the successor of st. Peter
became temporal prince. In the anarchy
and amid the chaos which followed the death
Of Charlemagne and which continued under
60 81 I, 10
the Papal territories could not yield any very
substantial revenue but the right was more
or less recognized, nor has it ever since been
relinquished. Later, when the Western, or
as it was now called tho German empire, was
| re-established under the First Otho-an en-
pire which, amid much vicissitude Of fortune,
lasted until the year 1S06-Pope John the
Twelfth was reinstated in his territorial rights
and privileges. 1t would be tedious and un-
interesting to follow the history of the tenn.
poral power of the Papacy from Stephen and
Pepin, from Leo and Charlemagne, from John
and Ohio down to Plus the Sixth and the First
Napoleon or to Plus the Ninth and Victor
| Emmanuel. Suffice it to say that dur
ing the whole of that long interval
the temperatures have remained, and
| that while princes and emperors have
| alternately frowned and fawned, while popes
have been imprisoned or compelled to govern
| the Church in foreign countries, while rival
authorities have set up rival popes, and while
| rival popes have Numbered anathemas against
each other, the territorial possessions of the
houa a1x haop cd mi niota in
interests and for behoof of the Papal chair. II
was one of the biggest boasts of the First
Napoleon that, as he was the successor OIL
Charlemagne, SO he might, if he chose, with
draw the grants which Charlemagne had
made.
| As we have said before, it is not wonderful
that the loss of these ancient possessions should,
on the part of the Holy Father himself, on the
part of the principal ecclesiastical dignitaries
and on the part of the great mass of the men,
bers, intelligent and non-inteligent, of the
| Roman Catholic Church, be unwillingly sub
mitted to. 1t would not, however, be difficult
to show that what seems loss is an actual gain.
The temporal power of the Bishop of Rome
naturally grew out Of the alliance of Church
and State, which was inaugurated by Constan-
tine and which was confirmed by Theodosius
The alliance of Church and State had from the
outset taken its most offensive and dangerous
form when the representative of Jesus Of Naza-
reth and the successor of the fisherman O
Gallee was invested with the prerogatives O
temporal sovereign. ''My kingdom is not O
this world, was the language Of the Master
''Silver and gold have none," was the proud
confession of Peter when he bestowed his
priceless blessings. ''Give thysef wholly te
these (spirituaD things, was the exhortatior
of Paul to his youthful disciple Timothy. ''Tc
Caesar the things that are Caesars; to God the
thinys that are Gnds. our KINGDOM Ia not n