, 1875-05-19
The "AVIS"
GERMANY AND THE POPE
CHURCH AND STATE.
(From the New York Herald.l
Is PUBLISHED
EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.

1t might be easy enough to determine
once for all the ever recurring dispute be-
tween temporal and spiritual powers if it
could be brought 20 the definite basis Of
the case in which Jesus laid down the pre-
cept "render to Caesar the things that are
Caesars, and to God the things that are
Gods " but the essence of the difficulty
in our own times is that the dispute turns
on a more troublesome point. All agree
upon the propriety of rendering to God
and to Cesar what is respectively theirs;
but the difference that divides men bitter
" is as to what is God'sand what is Caesars.
Certainly that is the point OF the dispute
throughout Europe-in Germany against
the Pope directly in England against
"Vatlcanlsm" as a phase of religious
thought in France, in Spain, in Italy and
Austria. And even the little whilfs 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 a claim Of. some
other than a purely immaterial power.
Indeed, this suggestion 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. 1t 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 COLI
sion with the political authorities in any ci-
vilized country. But, in the meantime,
that device of an enemy has not only as
sumed the character of a great temptation,
but the head of the Church, founded by
him who rejected the functions Of Cesar,
%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 ecclesiastical charac-
ter-that the dispute Of the Pope with
Germany arises. The power which His
Holiness claims to exercise in Germany at
this moment, and against which the Ger
man Premier fights 50 desperately, is not
simply the power of the Shepherd OF Souls,
but the power of a sovereign pontitf: a
shadow only, but still a shadow of the
power once legitimateIy exercised by a
great many successive Popes, when the
Pope of Rome was practically a Roman
Emperor. Now, Prince Bismarck is pre-
cisely the sort of man to carry out his
q%uarreIs logically. He very evidently
takes a pride in being the man to go a step
further in a quarrel than he @fancies 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 APP
ply your remedy against the substance.
At the present time the Pope assumes
to nullify some regularly enacted laws of
the German Empire. He i~nstructs the
bishops and priests of the Catholic Church
in Germany to refuse obedience to these
laws-to refuse to recognize them as laws
and to use their spiritual authority over
the people in order to deprive the OBJ
noxious enactments of the RESPECT and
obedience due to laws; and the priests
and bishops have in many cases acted OF
the instructions with singular devotion.