The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1873-07-20
CATHOLIC SUNDAY

tnet fflnce Won bismark, VINO mas fneTitSo
tie title Of stprince Of this world ," evidently
adopts as his Fl xed policy, that Of sufferer
ing NO authority, not even spiritual, to
subsit In Germany not subject to the
state or the national will. Grant that the
pope has broken, or has difficulties, with
all the governments the National Zeitung
nance, whose 10 the fault In the first
place, let it be understood that the pope
does not deal in curses, and has not as yet
placed single kingdom, empire, state, or
nation under tho ban Of the church, not
even the so-cslled Kingdom of Italy, nor
accommodated 60 nomiae, q single prince
or ruler. In the second place, the difh,
entities that exist between the pope and
che several secular governments have been
caused BY their acts, not by his. In every
instance they have been the aggresscrs,
and he has acted only ON the defensive, in
defence Of the divine rights of the church,
and rights acknowledged and guaranteed
cordats agreed on between them and the
pope, her supreme chief. The pope has
done nothing that he has not the right to
do, even by the Acknowledgment Of the
atate itself, If it holds itself bound by the
Concordats to which it has assented and
duty to do "a chief of the church, or king
dem of God on earth, if the spiritual power
is, by its own nature, above the secular,
Because the pope protests against the
breach of faith on the part of the secular
governments, they have no right to lay
own perfdiousness, or of breaking the
peace, which they themselves by their
! own perfidy have broken. Yet this is pre-
cisely what the article does, and what the
| secular power in Germany, Austria, Swift
zerland, Italy, and Spain, persist in doing.
We honor tie noble bishop of Cleveland
for his bold and pneqnivocal assertion of
the Catholic principle, the basis Of all right,
of all ethics, of all laws, of all liberty, and
OF all civilization, and the condemnation
Of all tyranny, despotisay rbarism, that
God is above man, and the church above
the state. Not many years ago the Review
incurred great odium, in high Catholic
quarters, for asserting aud defending, in
Its war against politica! atheism, rt,e same
principle and its necessary c0rr,llari.s
From our entrance into the Catholic Church.
or at least very soon after, we saw, as clearly
as " 10 Tow eeen, that the great enemy which
we had az Catholi; reviewer to fl ,ht,
was political atheism, or statolatry, "a
some of our French friends called IT, We
found bishops and priests, who believ ed
the pope, loquens er cathedra, to he infaili-
BILE In faith and morals, and yet made no
bones of swallowing the first three of the
four Gallican Articles. Since Bossuet and
Louis Quatorze, or rather the Minister
Colbert, the Prince Won Bismark of France
in the seventeenth century, there has
been, down to our day, great canton
power or in asserting the supremacy
of the church as the kingdom of God
on earth, the kingdom of Him who
has engraven on his thigh, KING OF
KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. 1t had
been forgotten, or judged imprndsnt, to
ely for maintaining the divine government
on earth for all men and nations. 1t SEEM
ed to the wise and prudent hardly safe to
assert the supremacy of the spiritual over
the temporal, and therefore Of Peter1Qyer
Caesar.
Tie result in this case, as in that Of pa
pal infallibilisy, has been to confirm in
the conclusion, that. the faithful at least
should be taught their religion in it's full
strength, and that, just in proportion as
we Withhold OF slar over the points supposed
to be the most offensive to the secular
powers, do we weaken the faithful, and
prepare the world to gain terrible victories
over them: There is no gainbay ing the
fact that for two centuries the majority of
Catholics have been prepared, neither by
instruction in the principles of their faith,
nor by the public opinion. of Catholic ma.
tions, to meet, without fearful loss, such
a conflict as the present between the two
powers, or between the church and the
world. It isIlseless to look back bu. this
lesson we think is forced upon us for the fu-
ture, that the highest prudence is courage
and uuwavering confidence in truth, or cou-
rage in teaching the faithful the full suprem,
acy of the church, as it was asserted by the
Gregorys, the Iunocents, the Bonifaces,
and other great medic val popes. We
do not say that, in the altered state of the
world, the pope should attempt to exercise
in the same way the same spiritual aut-
hority, over professedly Catholic sovereigus
that these ;great and glorious pontiffs ez-
faithful should understand that the power
they claimed and exercised is inherent in
the sovereign pontiff, who is Judge of the
time, manner, and conditions of It's exer-
else. The power has not lapsed.
We are claiming here no temporal power
for the pope, and never have claimed any
temporal power for him out of his own tenn
poral principality, of which he has been
despoiled. The power we claim for him
is not the power which he formerly held as
feudal suzerain. of various European states,
nor the power he sometimes exercised as
the chosen or recognized arbitrator in dis
putes between sovereigns or between
sovereigns and their subjects, though
wiser or more impartial arbitrator