The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-11-08

are irreconciliable. One stands for a
system which has been natural to man
from the beginning and can be made
| perfect through Christian evolution, as
laid down in the labor encyclical of
Leo XIII. The other would cut loose
entirely from all tried methods, destroy
the forces which create and maintain
them, and ultimately drift into an
archy. So it is that the Catholic party
is on the side of the government in
Germany, while the socialists are
against it. At one time their posi-
! tons were reversed, and the socialists
We're on the side of the government
and the Catholic party against it. This
was while the Kulturkampf hung over
the heads of Catholic Germans, during
Bismarcks time and after. The Kul-
turkampf is responsible for the Catho-
lie party.
These causes for political alignments
and party divisions in the German par
lament excite the material rather than
the spiritual nature of man; hence En-
perOr William would be the last per-
son in the world to seek a monastery
for political advice. He may be erratic
at times, but fool never. To become
a convert to the Church merely be-
cause of the attitude of the Catholic
party is no conversion at all. 1t would
be no better than the pretended con-
version of the czarina of Russia to
the Greek faith. His religion would
be only skin deep, and Catholics, as
we'll as non Catholics, would ever re
gard him with distrust. If the kaiser's
conversion is ever brought about, as
some think probable, such change of
heart will not spring from motives of
state, but in spite of those motives.
1t can only come through the way that
the humblest sinner is received into the
true fold
2. His emperor William's) views
and the views of the church are one,
that royalty is divine institution
The church is not responsible for the
views of Emperor William, and we
doubt if he seriously entertains any
such notion as the divinity of royalty.
he does, is he justified in his convic-
tions by any act of the church as
teacher of doctrine and morals? Can
he produce any encyclical from pontiff,
any definition of creed from ecumeni-
cal council, teaching that God decreed
obedience to law and authority but
such command could only be reflected
of n
historical proof can the News or any
other Protestant paper bring out to
substantiate such a statement? The
question is not answered by naming a
score or more of bishops and cardinals
who were courtiers rather than church
men, and who condoned the evil acts
of sovereigns so long as they were in
the pay of the state. Such conduct
only exhibited the human side of the
church and is as far removed from the
divine element as the pharisee is from
the publican, related in Christ's par
able.
Catholics do not hold the doctrine Of
the divine right of kings, which was
so strenuousiy, advocated by James
of England, and which was so ably re-
futed by Bellarmine and Suarez, both
Jesuits, and by Cardinal Duperrin in
his mastery discourse in the assembly
of the states general of France in 1914.
We believe in the divine origin of pow
er, but we do not believe that it ever
becomes the private property or estate
of any man, of any family, or of any
set or class of men. Let who will be
invested with it, it is trust, trust
from God for the nation, and, like all
trusts, liable to be forfeited by abuse.
This is the doctrine, says Brownson in
his Civilization" taught by all the
great doctors of the church, and es-
pecially by st. Augustine and st.
Thomas, and the Jesuit Suarez. In
none of the early Christian states
formed by the northern tribes on the
ruins of the Roman empire was the
principle even of hereditary monarchy
acknowledged. In all these states
formed under the auspices of the
church, not excepting England and
France, monarchy was elective, and
whenever it has become hereditary
from father to son, it has been by a
slow and gradual usurpation.
9 @ @
But it is not impossible that he
emperor William) may bring about
close alliance between the throne and
Rome, since it must be evident to him
that the ultimate goal of Professionalism
must be popular government, while
that of Catholicism can be only i'm
perialism," says the News, in conclud-
ing this part of it's editorial.
Professionalism stands for popular gov
ernmentl Catholicism can be only inn
perialism! This is not the first time
such language has appeared in print
as well as shouted from non Catholic
pulpits. All this, too, while the Latin
races of America rise UP in contradic-
ton of such wild statement. 1t was
not so very many years ago that a
revolution in Brazil exiled the last SOW
ereign in the western hemisphere, and
we doubt if a change from
the mild rule of Dom Pedro to a re-
publican form of government has adj
vanced the material interests of Bra !
ziPs people, nevertheless the change
exhibited the hostility of the Latin
races of South America to what the
News calls imperialism.
If our contemporary will look upon
a map of Italy published before the
king of Sardinia struck down all the
kingdoms and principali-
ties of the peninsula, along with the
states of the church, and united them
into one kingdom ruled only by one
king, he will perceive wedged in on the