The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1900-04-21
I'LL RARAL SYLLABUS :
With Recitation Of the Errors Which It Condemns
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Apostle speaks here of a criminal &C
ton and it is therefore evident that
there were even in those days tribunals
/ especially clothed with the duty of try
ing and furnishing ecclesiastiCs.
The sons of the king are not held to
pay tribute, said Christ to st. Peter;
the same holds good of those who serve
within the temple. And although
Christ did actually pay the didrachma
for Himself and Peter, He did so only
in order that those who knew Him not
might not be scandalized in Him In
like manner the Church must behold
her ministers dragged before tribunals
which are not her own, by those who
are ignorant of her divine character.
and are ungratefuI for the benefits they
have received at her hands.
When peace was restored to the
Church by Constantine, her civil immu-
nifty was recognized, not conceded. This
is evident from the very language EN-
ployed by this Christian emperor in the
law which he promulgated declaring
the clergy exempt from all laical bur-
dens. God. Theod. l. Is t. 2. liber septi-
mus) And in a letter to Anolimus,
Project of Africa, which letter is quot
ed by Eusebius q. 10. Cap. -. The
same emperor wrote as follows: "Cler-
icos alb omnibus omnino pubicis func-
tionibus immunes volumous. Conser-
vari, ne errore aliquo, aut casu sacri-
Iege a culta summae divinitates debito
abstahantur."
Constantine, therefore, regarded the
violation Of clerical immunities as a
wrongful and sacriligiously malicious
act, and as he was not himself compe-
tent to impart to such violation the ma
ture of a eacrilege, it follows that ne
merely recognized and did not institute
those immunities.
Hence it is that the Council of Lat
eran, held under Leo. x could affirm
(Sess. 81 that neither by divine nor by
human right were laymen vested with
authority over ecclestical persons. and
the Council Of Trent teaches that the
immunity of the Church and her clergy
was instituted by divine ordinance and
divine sanction.
This reverential regard for persons
consecrated to the service Of the Di-
vinity is so natural to man that all
nations have considered them sacred
and beyond the reach of profane power.
Domitan, himself, in condemning the
Vestal COrnelia, acknowledged that he
could pronounce sentence upon her only
in his capacity of supreme Pontif.
If, therefore. the immunity Of eccles-
iastics, springs from the right which
the Church has to conduct souls to eter-
nal life and the consequent right to
make use of success prOpOrtioRate to
the end in view; if the persons employ
ed for that purpose are chosen by q
special call Of Almighty God; if st.
Paul supposed the existence Of an &c
cIesiasticaI tribunal; if our opponents
are unable to indicate when, how or
by whom the right inquestion was first
accorded; if Constantine himself brand
ed as a sacrilege the subsection Of the
clergy TO any laical burden whatsoever
it is evident that this immunity did
not derive its origin from the civil law,
but that it is, on the contrary, some
thing Divine, explained and sanctioned
from time to time, as occasion offered,
in the Holy Caucus, as we were espec-
tally taught by the Council of Trent
the age and mournful the
conditions of that society in which the
exaltedness of such a principle is not
felt, in which there is no trace of that
sentiment of Catholic faith and
truth which surrounds the ministers OF
our holy religion as with a halo OF
light.
(To Be Continued)