The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-04-04
Germany and the Pope-Chureh and
STATE.


for all the ever recurring dispute between
temporal and spiritual powers if it could be
brought to the definite basis of the case IN
which Jesus laid down the precept ''render
to Caesar the things that are Cesar's, and to
God the things that are Gods !" but the
essence of the difficulty in our own times is
that the dispute turns on o more troublesome
point. All agree upon the propriety OF
rendering to God and to Caesar what is re-
spectively theirs but the difference that
divides men bitterly is as to what is God 8
and what is Caesars. Certainly that is the
point Of the dispute throughout Europe-in
Germany against the Pope directly; IN Eng
land against "Vatcanism" as q phase of
religious thought; in France, in Spain, in
Italy and Austria And even the little whiffs
of the great storm that occasionally stir our
more tranquil atmosphere are solely due to
want of perception of the real limits of
politics on the one hand and religion on the
other.
In the story told by the evangelists Jesus
is represented as seeing through the ruse of
the Herodians, who came to entrap him into
some declaration regarding the sovereign
authority, into claim of some other than
purely Immaterial power. Indeed, this sug-
gestion that he should assert an authority
that might put the spiritual in collision with
the temporal power is not presented with the
dignity Of a temptation. 1t stands only as
the foolish device of some shallow enemies,
who were readily put aside. Ii seems scarcely
necessary to say that if the Church
held to-day the attitude taken by the Saviour
on that occasion it would not come into col
lision with the political authorities in any
civilized country. But in the meantime, that
character Of great temptation, but the head
of the Church, founded by him who rejected
the functions of Caesar, succumbed to the
temptation ages since, and has sat in Caesars
place and worn his purple. 1t is out of this
historical fact-not out Of his proper ecclesi-
astical character--that the dispute of
the Pope with Germany arises. The
power which His Holiness claims to ex-
ercise in Germany at this moment, and against
which the German Premier fights 50 despe-
rately, is not simply the power of the Shep-
herd of Souls, but the power of o sovereign
pontiff; q shadow only, but still a shadow of
the power once legitimately exercised by
great many successive Popes, when the Pope
of Rome was practically Roman Emperor.
Now, Prince Bismarck is precisely the sort of
man to carry out his quarrels logically. He
very evidently takes pride in being the man
TO go step further in quarrel than he ian
cies any one else dare go; and he is the first
to recognize in a case of this sort that if you
are troubled with shadows you must apply your
remedy against the substance.
At the present time the Pope assumes to
nullify some regularly enacted laws of the
German Empire. BE instructs the bishops
and priests OF the Catholic Church in Ger
many to refuse obedience to these laws-to re-
fuse to recognize them as laws-and to use
their spiritual authority over the people in
order to deprive the obnoxious enactments of
the respect and obedience due to laws; and
the priests and bishops have in many cases
acted on the instructions with singular devo-
ton. This, therefore, is resistance to the con-
stituted authorities by overt acts; and its pro-
priety or improperly, which will be judged
ultimately by its success or failure, will be
judged IN the meantime in different quarters
upon the opinion that may be entertained as
to whether the political authority has in max
ing the laws, gone beyond the true sphere Of
the law-making power, and concerned itself
with points of morality and faith rather than
with government It is claimed in Rome that
a. = ~l..k ~. 49, Il Al
reason the enactments are without validity as
law. In short, the position of the Church
party in Germany is analogous to that of the
ahigher law party" Of which we have had
some experience in our own country. Rome
makes claim now that it never made in any
country where the political authority was sub
ject to its viii or in harmony with its will
1t assumes the unusual attitude Of champion
Of religious liberty. II holds for the time,
with Constant and the political philosophers,
that there is part OF the life of every human
creature into which government can only come
as an intruder where it is without right and
cannot Justly exercise any control; and-here
it does not agree with the Philosophers
in this sphere the Church alone is supreme.
Are the German laws that have led to this
dispute such as come within the claim made
by the church, DO they invade that sphere
in which only the religious authority should
be supreme? They regulate how and by
whom certain salaried Offices Of the German
Empire shall be filed, and they recite the
reasons for which in defined cases the salaries
shall be withheld and the Offices become va
can't Inasmuch as these laws relate directly
to the disbursement of money raised by taxa
ton in the German Empire they would seem
TO be as clearly within the exclusive compe-
tence Of the German government as laws on
any conceivable subject But the persons
whose salaries are thus touched by the ''eccle-
oiastioal lawa'' ara r,rieata and pedaoooueq.