Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1875-07-08
The Catholic Claim of Spiritual
Supremacy.

Catholic World, Vol. Xf., No. 81, P. s.
The nineteenth century may not be
able TO understand it, or, if understand
ing it, to accept it; yet it is true that
the spiritual is the superior, and the law
of the TEMPORAL. The supremacy be-
longs in all things of right to GOD, re-
presented on earth by the Church or
the spiritual order. The temporal has
no rights, no legitimacy save as subord-
mated to the spiritual-that is, to the
end for which man is created and ex-
ists. The end for which all creatures
are made and exists is not temporal,
but spiritual and eternal; for it is God
himself who is the final cause as we'll as
the first cause of creation. The end, or
God as the final cause, prescribes the
law which all men must obey, or fail OF
attaining their end, which Is their su-
preme good. This law all men and
nations, kings and peoples, soverigns
and subjects, are alike bound to obey;
it is for all men, for States and Empires,
no less than individuals, the supreme
law, the law and the only law that
binds the conscience.
Now, religion is this law, and in
cludes all that it commands to be done,
and all the means and conditions of its
fulfilment. The Church, as all Catho-
lies hold, is the embodiment of this
law, and is therefore in her very nature
and constitution theological. She
speaks always and everywhere with the
authority Of God, as the final cause Of
creation, and therefore her words are
law, her commands are the commands
OF God. Christ, who is God as well as
man, is her personally, and therefore
she lives, teaches, and governs in him,
aud he in her. This being so, it is clear
that religious liberty must consint in
the unrestrained freedom and indc-
pendence of the Church to teach and
govern all men and nations, princes
and people, rulers and ruled, in all
things enjoined by the theological law
of mans existence, and therefore in the
recognition and maintenance for the
Church of that very supreme authority
which the popes have always claimed,
and against which the Reformation
protested, and which secular princes
are generally disposed to resist when 1t
crosses their pride, their policy, their
ambition, or their love of power. Man
ifestIy, then, religious liberty and
hlO
tic. each warning against the other.
The Protestant experiment has de-
monstrated beyond question that'-the
very things in the Catholic Church
which are most offensive to this age,
and for which it wages unrelentiug
war against her, are precisely those
things il most needs ior its own prOtec-
ton and safety. 1t needs, first Of all,
the Catholic Churchffinay, the papacy
itself-to declare and apply the law of
God to States and Empires, to sover-
eigns and subjects, kings and people,
that politics may no longer be divorced
from religion, but be rendered subsidi-
ary to the spiriaual, the eternal end of
man, for which both individuals and
society exist and evil governments are
instituted; to take charge Of
education; and, most of all, to
exercise vigilant censorship over
ideas, whether vented in books, journ-
ais or lectures, and to keep from the
public those which tend to mislead the
mind or to corrupt the heart, as pru-
dent father strives to keep them from
his children.