The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-10-18
Does tho catholie Church Oppose Civil Liberty.

| From an exceedingly able article in
Brownson's Reuie,o for October, entitled
"The Outlook at home and Abroad" We
take the following extracts:
We do not count the popular demand for
| civil liberty, or even for repnblicanism or
democracy, by lawful meana, as q popular
error. Religion has no necessary assacia-
| ton with monarchy and Louis Veuiiiot's
| ideal, that of absolutism under a pious
king, rs a literary friend in the Tyr0i ex.
presses it. is not iptriusicaIly more Catholic
than Gambetta's ideal, the sovereignty of
the people. The error of the European
movement party is not in demanding popu
| lar government, but in demanding it by
unlawful means and on false principles, as
we'll as in surprising it can be sustained
without religion, or.by an atheistic or
heretical people. The spiritual order lie
and must be absolute, for it represents the
divine Sovereignty but the absolute sov
ereiRnty at God, with all Difference to La
Ciuiita Cattoiica aud ! Unirers, negatives.
not firms, the absolutism of the king or
the Srate, and therefore laundering Pro-
testants maintain that the Church Ia in.
compatible with civil liberty or popular
government, because she asserts it. They
have not learned that the prime mover must
itself be inmovable. They, like the commoa
herd of revaluGi9nists, seek to establish
FIRE ed"m by destroying the very means and
| conditions of it's existence. Catholic alb
soIutists agree perfectly with them only,
while the reveutionists seek to destroy
the absolute authority of God so as to be
| able to assert popular liberty, the Catholic
absOlutists deny popular liberty 80 as to be
able to assert the absolute sovereignty of
God. Both agree in this, that the divine
| sovereignty and popular liberty mega
tive each the other, and rUnirers and the
Methodist play into each others hands.
Pubiic,sts, whether Catholic or non Catho
lie, are far from being infallible, and
journalists sometimes write dogmatically on
| subjects of which they are profoundly ig-
nOrant.
The Pope has on several occasions sew.
erely censured so called Liberal Catholics,
especially in France yet, in no instance
| that We have seen, has he done SO because
they demand popular government, but
solely because they seek to carry their
liberalism into the Church, that is, into
the divine government, and limit the di
vine sovereignty by the pretended rights
of man. As if the creature could have any
| rights against the Creator, or man any
F.! rig hts against God We have never heard
that the Pope has condemned the American
Constitution, OF that he censaEes the lib
erty it was intended to secure to American
citizens. The Church has never declared
that the law of God commands Catholics to
| be monarchists, or maintained that in any
country the interests of religion are bound
| mp with absDiutism under pious king.
For our part, we believe they nave lar
surer protection under a free, but believing
and pious people, than they have ever yet
had under the most pious of kings. however
absolute. The UniUerS and its adberents
have done not less to iDjure the Church
and suppress the rights of religion in France
and Europe, than have the Liberal Catho-
| lies. We identify the interests of Catho-
| licity neither with monarchy nor with re-
! pubiicanism, neither with democracy nor
| " it'll absolutism, and we venture the as
| surance that till our Catholic friends in
Europe learn to separate in their own
minds the Catholic cause from that of poll
restored. Louis VeuiIlots advocacy of the
Count de Chambord has tended only to
restrict Catholicity to the Legitimist party,
and to pave the way for return of the
| Imperialists to power, or for the triumph of
| the Communists. Neither monarchy nor
CathoIicity is SO strong in France az either
was year and a half ago. We cannot
conceive what infatuation has led some Of
our Catholic friends seriously to believe
| the restoration of the Legitimists to power
possible without q miracle. They are the
most unpopular party in France, and the
most impractlcabie.
We see nothing encouraging either for
religion or society in the-outlook abroad,
| nor shall we, till we see Catholics ceasing
| to put their trust in princes, and find them
understanding that the world has escaped
them and relapsed into panganism. They
must understand that their only hope, I'M
der God, is in recovering the nations, in
recovering them to the Catholic faith. In
this, diplomacy will not avail them. The
apostles did not resort to it and it is their
example that we must follow, if we mean
to succeed, or to secure the blessing of God
upon our labors. We care nothing for
monarchy OF democracy bat we believe
that Catholics must turn to the people and
begin at the bottom of SOCIETY. A king
surrounded by wealthy and powerful
nobility may make an imposing show, but
king aud nobility count for less in the work
now before US than the poor servant-girl,
or the humble laborer and artisan. 1t is
these who have in this country built our
magnificent churches, supported our clergy,
and maintained the splendor of Catholic
worship. The prosperity of religion does
not depend on the patronage OF princes,
th, ha hauohtV. the noble. the