Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1879-03-27
Papal NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
of its Morals.
Eugene Lawrence in Harpers Weekly, 1872.


Eugene Lawrence in Harper's Weekly, 1872.
The prevalence of the most violentsect
of the Roman Catholics in the councils of
their Church, and the enforcing of the
theory of papal infallibility by the SEN
tence of accommodation, make it desir-
able for heretics to know what must be
their fate should the papacy recover its
control of Middle Europe or be enabled
to punish those who fail to recognize its
The Pope is now the final
judge of morals and faith of all the mil
lions of the human race who admit his
authority, and the decisions and the acts
of all the preceding pOpes have been rat
flied and adopted by the Roman Church
as the result of the direct agency of in
spiration. This is the doctrine upon
which DIR. Manning insists, and which all
his devout followers are compelled to &C
cept. The papacy he asserts, has always
been infallible. There was no pope
through all the long line of Roman bish-
ops who has not been the proper guide of
the human race in forming the characters
of Christians. Protestants may lament
and avow the many errors of their early
teachers, philosophers may discern the
follies of their predecessors, but the pa
pacy is Interchangeable, and all that has
been done in the past must be its guide
for the future. Whoever doubts this is
pursued with such terrible maledictions
as must necessarily alright the least timid
whoever carries out the doc
trine to its extreme results is rewarded
with the boundless bliss of paradise. And
it may be well to examine, therefore, to
what this extraordinary fanaticism may
lead, and what must be its effect upon the
morals of mankind. For this we turn to
history. There is no doubt as to what
morals the pope has inculeated in the past
both by precept and example, nor of their
influence upon the manners of their con-
temporaries. Nor does DIR. Manning or
his American associates ddsire apparently
to escape from any of the most repulsive
and fatal results that have flowed from the
doctrine of infallibility. They admit them
all with a smile, and entertain their the
ory without a deduction,
The chief element in the moral system
of the papacy has been its intense fnhu-
manity. No temporal rulers or civil gov
ernments have ever devised such meas
ures of fearful and widespread cruelty
as have come from diseased and disordered
brains of the popes of Rome. The Plan
tagenets and Tudors were merciful, Moro
and Caligula tolerant, compared with the
authors of the Inquisition and the disci-
pies of the Jesuits. The source of all
modern progress and the slow elevation
of men from barbarism has been the COM
mon desire to throw off the savage ele-
ment of cruelty. The offenses against hui
man life and personal security are those
against which all civilized governments
struggle incessantly. It is to Danish the
very conception of murder that philan-
thropy labors, that knowledge is spread,
and that all society tolls onward toward
a higher form of existence. TO drag it
down again into the excesses of barbaism
has been the fatal aim of the infallible
popes. Born amidst the malarious atmos-
phere of Rome, of a decayed and blasted
race; often the sport of guilty passions,
the victims of undying remorse; shut out
from all liberal knowledge by a narrow
education3 temporal rulers of petty
principally, whose necessities drove them
into constant wars and ceaseless chicane-
ry and fraud; the sport of bad counsel
ors and selfish followers, ignorant, pu-
Grille, passionate-there is no class of men
ho aI0l +o
teach a humane morality, there is none
that has so excited and kept alive the
cruel passions of mankind. The present
Pope is sometimes thought to be an ex-
ception to the general traits of his order.
He whose feet DR.. Manning and our
American prelates kiss so devoutly we
might hope was at least free from the
stains of blood. But it is not so. The
reign of Plus TX, we are assured, was
marked by a frightful severity that no
temporal power ever equaled. In his
small principality of about three millions
of inhabitants, not much more than one
half the present population of New
York, murder, rapine, bloodshed, impris.
| onment, tyranny of every form and
crimes of every grade, shocked the boldes
heart and touched every conscience bu
that of monk or priest. Iquote from the
appeal of the people of Romagna to Piui
TX, in the year 1857. 'Holy Father,
they cry, Gin the year 1850 you accom-
plished your return to Rome, and re-es
tablished your government by the aid o
foreign arms; but what misfortunes wer
rained down upon your people !-perhap
without your knowledge, but all in you
name, Holy Father. Martial law was de
clared in all our cities, and shooting an
blows became the lot of all ages and ranks
The prisons were full; large army wa
fastened on the impoverished people; il
nocent men were shot down without
cause and scarcely trial; thousands {
mothers wept for their sons In exile {
dead by the hand of the executioner; tt
poor perish assassins and brigands pluI
/ der our cities and destroy our peace.
T. Such was the government of Plus TX
1857. Nor did it ever change. The L
QUESTION was revived, and men we
thrown in prison for blaspheming tt
Virgin and the saints. Rome was a ci
: of sorrow, where countless parents we
in secret over their dead children, al
covered before the rage of the par
court. The Pope persisted in vain
tempt to defend his temporal rule.
Montana the youth of Italy fell thick
before the French Chassepots, and Lou
Napoleon obeyed the mandate of his sp
itual guide. 1t was only when Louis \
:. poleon fell that hideous cruelty W
hanished from the Eternal City, and
papal government ceased to teach its
q sons of barbarism and tyranny to the
tions.
For a thousand years the predecess
of Plus TX had inculcated the same DR.