The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-03-14
The Papacy.

/ II
Pope Leo XIIIs twenty-fifth an
niversary as Supreme Pontiff o
the Catholic church has called fort
many comments from the religious ant
secular press of the entire civilized
world. These comments on the presen
successor of st. Peter are favorable
Referring to his successful career il
plotting the bark of Peter the Congre
gationalist says:
Marvellous among the old men Of
the world is this aged Pontiff He
has steered the Church over which he
presides right shrewdly amid the rocks
and shoals during a quarter of cen
fury, in time when the task of pilot
! has not been a sinecure; and when he
dies the Papacy will stand before the
world far higher than it did when he
entered the Vatican as Pope
The history of the Roman Pontiffs
has been always an interesting sub
ject, and has engaged the attention of
the most brilliant writer's and profound
thinkers of the past nineteen hundred
years. Their history has been so in
terwoven with that of Christianity that
both are inseparable. For the last 400
years they have been the chief object
of attack both by Protestant and in
fidel writer's, because of their close re-
lation to the workings of religion and
civilization, to society and the Catholic
church,
In the war that has been waged cal
umnies and SANDERS formed no small
part of the charges made by hostile
writer's. who to crafty personal spite,
or national antipathy, and sometimes
disappointed ambition, have not
scrupled to paint the Popes in the
worst possible light. Swayed by anti
Catholic prejudice, not only novelists,
but pretended historians, have stated
as facts what Cardinal Newman termed
1.-The Protestant tradition" Their per
sonal faults were so exaggerated by
sectarian fanaticism as to make them
entirely unworthy of their exalted
position as spiritual rulers of the Cath
olic world. Catholic truths were dis
torted to lend coloring to the charges
made. Impeccability was substituted
for infallibility. 1t is no article of
Catholic faith that the Pope is i'm
or even infallible in matters
# mere human prudence. The personal
conduct of a few may not be all that |
vas desirable, but unless they Of
icially taught error in doctrine, or en-
oined an immoral practice on their |
spiritual flock, it is a matter of small !
concern. In the long list of Roman |
oontiffs there is no historical record |
# any Pope having done this, that is, |
# teaching an enjoining vice for virtue,
II error for truth. Has any Pope from
Peter to Leo XIII officially sanctioned
false principle or a false motive of
ction? All her defined articles of
aith from the first to the last in the
apostles Greed have their foundation
n the sacred Scriptures, are sanctioned
" the tradition of twenty centuries,
nd. when not perverted or distorted,
will be found to be reasonable and in
with the teachings and ex-
mple OF the Savior. The Churchs
eaching is not, however, the vulner-
BILE point or the chief cause of re-
gious animosity, but the Papacy.
lore than all other churchmen have
ne popes been illuminated and their
istory perverted. Being the successors
f st. Peter, on whom Christ built his
hurch, it is but natural that hostile
-riters should vent their spleen
gainst the Papacy, and that the
opes should bear the brunt of the
attic. The kind feelings expressed I
rom all quarters toward the present
= Leo XIII = denotes a
ea1thy change in the religious at
of the civilized world. 1t ;
nows that religious intolerance is on {
lie wane and that the Supreme Pom
IF can be judged, like other men, on
is personal merit, and not by big
ty and hatred of his exalted posi-
on.