The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1877-05-23

THE PHILADELPHIA Press makes an instruc.
tive comparison Of the views advanced by
Secretary Thompson in his book, ''The Pa
pacy and the Civil Power" and those held by
the French Republicans in their conflict with
the Ultramontanes. The Secretary of the
Navy uses almost precisely the arguments
that were so freely used by the French orator,
Gambetta, in condemning the despotic move
ment of President MacMahon. Gambetta
said on the 4th of May that "The question
was whether the State was in the Church, or
the Church in the State. Was France to
spend her blood and treasure to crush the
fruits of the Italian revolution, to destroy the
unity OF the italian people, that on its ruins
might be built Papal supremacy? IT was in.
tolerable that clerical deputation dared de-
mand such enormities of French Ministry
in this nineteenth century. In the midst of
grave troubles that menaced the peace of all
Earope, the representatives of spiritual des-
potism were asking liberal government to
light the fires of international war, to open
contest that would deluge the fairest part of
Europe in oceans of blood, and to revive the
sectarian feuds that for centuries had covered
Europe with gloom, that had created the in
quisition and given birth to the horrors of st.
Bartholomew's day." Secretary Thompson
fears that "the Jesuits of Prussia and Italy
will flock to America to teach their doctrines"
which would, in his view, substitute other in
stitutions for ours. The Catholic priest, he
says, is a practical dsunionist, trying to
overthrow the Republic. The will of the
people being the power of the Republic,
when the Catholics become majority
that will must be the will of Rome. He
quotes Brownson to show that Catholics
consider the Church of Rome as the su-
preme judge of both religious and tenn
poral laws, and that Brownson wished
this country to come under the Church of
Rome The Secretary then goes on to say
that while Professionalism leaves the citizen
free, the Church of Rome, as represented in
the United States. requires that the Catholic
citizen shall not obey the law where his
Church tell him not to do so. He throws
hand-grenade at the Catholics by saying that
while the Catholics are willing to concede
that the Republic is divine government,
they will, if they have chance, define the
divine authority for its Interpretation, as well
as for its very existence, to come from the
Pope of Rome, and that we might have Re-
public by the grace of Pho Mono. The Prot
estand Bible would be obnoxious, he saws,
He quotes largely to show that the Church
claims the right to prescsibe political duty.
While Doctor Weninger claims that the Con-
stitution of the United States was based upon
Magna Charta, the work of Catholics, Secre-
tary Thompson claims that it was "based
upon the principles of the Reformation, which
the Catholics oppose" From which it will be
seen that Richard w. Thompson, the Repub-
lcan American Secretary of the Navy, and
Leon Gamhetta, the French Republican pat
riot, occupy precisely the same ground, with
the difference that what the first prophesied
as to the United States has since been at
tempted in France by the DISCIPLES of the
Catholic power at Rome.