The Fremont weekly journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio) 1867-1877, 1875-05-21
THE PAPAOY AND UNIVERSAL
WAR.


A poet and Humanitarian, J. G.
Whittier, has recently pointed to the
priest as the stimulating cause of war
fare in Europe, and to form of Chris
tianity that seems constantly summon.
ing the nations to arms; nor can any
one fail any longer to see that but fol
the imperious interference Of the papacy
one-half of the world might lay aside
armameuts and give itself to the happy
tolls Of peace, and that one word from
the Vatican would still the fears that ag-
itate all civilized races, and soften the
burdens of millions of the suffering
poor Had PIUs TX. hidden his bish-
ops and his people submit to the laws of
their country, and suffer with patience
whatever might befall them, he would
have proved his descent from the benev-
olent Peter by humility and a tender
ness more effective to convert than a
hundred anathemas, or the most logical
chain of argument from a doubtful text,
and by meekness and mercy might have
won the sympathy of mankind. He
need but speak to the bishops of Posen
and of Ermland, and Germany might
sink at once into repose. A generous
surrender Of the tabled patrimony of
Peter would relieve Italy from all fear
of foreign invasion. A gentle sugges
ton to the ultramontane faction in
France would leave its people republi-
can and free. One word of peace and
resignation would soften the lot of half
mankind. But that word Plus TX. will
never speak. He forbids his people to
obey any law that he has not sanctioned,
covers with maledictions those rulers
who have repelled his arbitrary interfer-
ference, fills Germany with religious
discord, excites the rising and vengeful
hopes of France, and is as merciless and
as restless in extreme old age as when
he shot down Roman patriots at Menta-
ma, or filled the prisons of Bologna with
the noblest of the Italians. Priestcraft,
indeed, was never used for more unwor-
thy ends or with such malevolent energy,
and it seems that even many German
Catholics are shocked and grieved at the
persistent malice of their spiritual head. |
Deputy Jung, in the Prussian House,
said recently that thousands of his Cath
olic fellow-subjects of the Rhenish prov
inces were heartily opposed to the ex-
travagant claims of the papacy, and
would be rejoiced to see them repelled
by still more stringent measures, and he
added that in Prussia the Roman Cath
olics had always been treated with an
excessive hberality, which they had re-
paid by cruel ingratitude; that they
had been well used, and behaved like
spoiled children; had been enriched by
the iberality of Berlin, and had replied
by conspiring against Prussia at Rome.
Nor can any one doubt that the practice
Of the Papel Church has always been to
return the favors of the civil govern
nents by new aggressions and fresh
Nothing apparently but war
will now satisfy this new form of medi-
eval superstition, and already Cardinal
tells us that Europe is on the
brink of fierce religious convulsion,
more terrible than any it has in three
hundred years, and both Mr.. Gladstone !
and Mr.. Disraeli seem to share in his '
opinion, while Prince Bismarck is never
weary of asserting that the only disturb
ers of the public peace are the Pope and
the Jesuites, and that they are resolved
to envelop the new empire in the flames
of civil discord and in a chain offoreign '
foes.
tits, therefore, with no peaceful pur-
pose that the Pope has annulled all the
recent Prussian legislation against his
own pretensions, and it is not without
reason that Germans hear with q deep
and extraordinary attention, if not alarm,
the anathemas of the Vatican against
their fathsr-land. If New York were
surrounded by chain of enraged and
hostile States, if half the world around
it were in arms, if the Pope were on the
side of its enemies, should declare its laws
invalid, and excite its ultramontane pop
ulation to rebelling, if an envenomed
France hung ON one side and an ambi-
ious Austria on the other, we might
form some conception of the painful
with which our people would
listen for each note of warfare, and sigh I
for that repose which could possibly
only be won by total change in the
form and constitution of the Papal
Church, Such is the real condition of
Germany. The war between the North
and the South, between the Spanish and
Italian elements and the German, is far
from its end; sudden reverge might
destroy for century the free schools,
the churches, the iberality and the
progress, of three hundred years, and
lay Northern Germany low before the
unity of a Roman Catholic coali-
alton.
In this moment of suspense the most