The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1871-12-31
InfalIibility Again.

We heartily approve Of Christmas holi-
days and their celebration In o proper
style, but when folks grow riotous and
baechaualisn in their reyelries it is pushing
the fun too far. We fear that something
of the kind must have happened to our
neighbors of the Presbyterian. That jour-
nal has decidedly come out Of the celebra-
ton with . headache or some other ner-
vous affection, which makes it as cross as
a bear. It commences by pretending to
enter upon the question of Papal Infalli-
kinds of personalities and asperities that
have NO manner of connection with that
point. Whether, for instance, the writer
in the STAR to whom it is responding 10
Irish, or priestly, or inexact in his QUOTA
ton of Scripture, makes no manner of diff
ference in the issue, and it would be total
loss Of space on our side and an equally
impertinent obtrusion of immaterial mat
ter upon public attention for us to 60 On
and show that the Presbyteriaa was totally
in error as we'll as decidedly i'll bumored on
all those points.
. We drop them, therefore, and come to
what seems to be our neighbours principal
stumbling block in the way of reconciling
Papal Infallibility with Civil Liberty. 1t
has twice before referred to the same diff
Guilty, but we had hoped that it was not seri-
ously. Another repetition of it seems to
show that the intellectual darkness which
could obscure any thing 30 plain must be per-
manent. The amount Of it is this. If the
Pope is infallible in faith and morals, he is
infallible on all questions, even
upon the STARS theory that there are
many questions which do not enter the field
of either morals or dogma, because he
coxld sag that each and every question was
q moral one, and none would dare gainsay
it. All he would have to do, therefore, to
assume dictatorship over any question of
national policy or private business would
be simply to announce first that it was o
question of morals OF of dogma.
Now there is a certain amount of truth
in this. The Pope is infallible not only in
deciding questions of faith and morals, but
also in deciding what are such questions
and what are not. The Pope may, there
fore, undoubtedly say whether any par
ticular question of national policy or pri-
vate business, is also one of faith or NOR
ais. But does this power of the Church
show that there is no such thing as Civil
Not in the least.
Our divine Saviour was undoubtedly in
fallible in the precise manner in which the
Church as His representative claims to be
through the power Of the Holy Ghost. He
was the infallible Head of the Church, and
yet when the Pharisees came to Him tempt
ing Him with the question, SIS it lawful to
give tribute to Cesar 2" He showed them a
coin with the effgy of the Emperor on it
and said, " Render, therefore, unto Cesar
the things that are Cesar's and unto God
the things that are Gods" Caesar was
but another name for the State, aud
this was q clear recognition %of the right
of the State within its province, this is of
Civil Liberty. 1t was clear constitution
of two powers, the spiritual and the tenn
poral, and refusal on His part to inter-