The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-10-24

But conceding all authority IS from God"
asked y Conner, why may mot God have made the
spiritual society supreme I'm ~pirihaI- and the
state or secular society iii secuar5 Both would
then hold from him. and he compatible with fine
assertion Of his exclusive dominion.
God can do, answered Wiu-Iow. -wl.tevcr IS
not Incompatible with his own eternal being ANY,
thing but deny auuihiiatc himself But ha cam
found no order III which the spiritual is NOT -,r-
preme in authority. because he Is himself the ,ur-
itua IN itself and as the dominion is his alone tl,
supreme authority Is and must ucce--arii. d.. ~uir-
ltual. lie cannot make the division of authority
contended for, because the spiritual rcprcscutu.c
him, the distinction between IL and the secular
must copy or initiate in the ordcr of second causes
his creative act. The sovereign Lord is enc and
indvisibe, and as his authority Is by its own us-
ture spiritual. he spiritual which represents him
must include oil the authority he delegates and by
its nature extend to all creatures I'M all their
acts words and deeds. It. if it represents the di-
vine authority at ALL must then represent it i'm its
universally and exclusiveness. and stand to- tho
secular representing the relation of creator and
creature"
But even that rcioined O'Couuor Comedies
q radical distinction between the spiritual and the
secular. for the distinction between creator and
creature Is radical If then God can delegate power
at all to b. creature why not to the secular society
rs well to the spiritual since the secular society
Is no less his creature than the spiritual society
Secular society Is the creature of God indeed
spiritual society, and therefore he can delegate
power 20 ii only through the medium of that so-
cicty III power is spiritual, and the secular holds
from God through the spiritual"
That denies all original secular power said
De Bonneville. "and makes the secular the mere
creature of the spiritual 1t supposes the prince
does not receive his authority Immediately from
God but receives it from God only through the me
dunn of the Pope-the theory of Gregory VII and
Boniface VIII but which the Christian world has
rejected"
(Which temporal princes and their lawyers and
courtiers have rejected NJ de Bonneville should
say" replied Winslow. But if the two great
Popes named asserted it. they asserted it not as =
theory of their own but as the law of Christ whose
vicar they were, and to oppose 1T Is to oppose
Christ himself. The Pope is the highest authority
for declaring what is or IS not the divine order
But the church herself" replied C'Couuor
"has always recognized two societies and two dis
tinct powers. Pope Gelasius asserts it in writing
to the Emperor Anastasius. and admOnishes thaG
prince that as the spiritual does not encoach
the rights of the secular power. the secular must
not encrOach on the rights of the spiritual power.
In all her relations with temporal princes. the
church has recognized distinct secular authority
Independent III It's province, and all she has
ever claimed has been her own freedom and indie
pendence in spirituas."
''The church." reioined Diefenbach, "has al
ways recognized the two powers, l grant, but never
as two mutually Independent powers. In the let
ter of ST. Gelasius referred to- the Pope repre-
sents the spiritual as having to answer to God for
the secular which could not be if the spiritual had
not power over it, for where there is power there
is no responsibility There are two orders, and the
one is not absorbed in the other; but the secular
depends ON the spiritual and is sustained by it.
as power in relation to the spiritual, but
power in relation to the secular, the creature,
created second cause, is power in relation to its
own acts"
(To be Continued)