The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-04-27
FATHER SIMPLE WRITES
 OF NEW MARRIAGE LAW
Former Montgomerian Declares That Decree of Pope Plus Will Operate as Curb
 on Divorce.

baptize. and not only to teach what He commanded. but to command them selves and to bind and to loose obli- gations of conscience. with this high commission and charter He that heareth you heareth Me. and he that despiseth Me despiseth Him that sent Me, and he that heareth not the church let him be as the heathen and the publican" A&F fa Tbe Pope's I.awms1xing Power. Ask the child that knows his cate chism why idolatry. blasphemy. disobe- dience to parents. murder. adultery. theft. false witness concupiscence and covetousness are bad, and he will an- swer: God forbade them because they were bad. And why was it a sin for Adam and Eve to eat certain fruit? This was not bad in itself. but only because God forbade it.
 And are we obliged by the fourth commandment to obey only our father and mother? Not only them, but also our bishops, pastors, magistrates and masters.
 And why is 1t a sin to eat meat on Friday. to miss mass on Sunday? etc. Because these things are forbidden by the church. are against the command | ments and laws of the church. and God who made us out of nothing and redeemed us when we were in sin or worse than nothing, told us to obey His church in the things, of our soul for the good of our soul.
 l And how can the Pope make a real law in things spiritual? Because all power is from God. and all things rightfuily ordered are ordered by God. and he who resists such an order re- sIsts God and purchases damnation to himself, and God gave power to the Pope to make real laws Tn things spir- | itual.
 Family, State and church are alike in some points and unlike in others. In | the family both the constitution and the persons who administer 1t are di- rectly fixed by God without any consent of the governed, and they are so fixed by God as the author of our nature. and we see the family's fundamental law, Honor thy father and thy moth. err not only in the writing on the stone tablets of Moses, but also in the writing on our heart or natural req son, and that by one mere glance at the grouping by God of the child, the woman, and the man; the child, led by the mothers hand or reposing in the mothers arms and the mother leaning on the fathers strength and prudence.
 In the. State the Constitution and the rulers have been specified by the consent of the people. but 1t Is God. the Creator, who makes our human na- ture essentially social and who conn- I mands us to have some government and some rulers. and the society that would do away with all government. which is as necessary to It's life as eating Is to the life of the individual body, would commit the sin of anarchy, which is a worse sin against God and His com mand to live than the individual sin of suicide by starvation.
 | Tn both the family and the State the authority in the Constitution and the officials is from God, the author of nature. Tn the church the constitution Lis from God. as the author of the su- pernatura1, in an order above what we T need or can do or know by our rational nature, and this constitution is from God for. all time without provision for revolution, SO that the church can new | CT have a new form of government up \ to the day of Judgment. And the per- I sons in whom the powers are vested sI may. be designated by men, but the ex- sl tent of their fundamental powers has \ been fixed by God directly. And one of I these powers Is to make laws in things I spiritual. And these laws bind the con- sciences of the baptized members of the church with the same Divine au- kthority by which the rulings of the 4 Estate or family bind subjects and chil" dren..
 obedience of Catholics.
 How is it then that the Pope can l. Edo. things which are so new and nigh land deep and wide. and the Catholics lot all conditions and races on all the tcontinents take these things as an larny takes an order from It's great tcaptain? And the answer is that the ffaithffui know that the Pope shares Gods majesty in things spiritual. as the heads of the family and State share the same majesty of things domestic and temporal, and our homage to the Pope is reasonable as being founded ultimately on our homage to God.
 But granting to the church and to the Pope as it's organ the power to make laws in things spiritual is mar riage a thing spiritual. Yes, if this marriage affects a party who is bap- tzed and who thus by the law of God has been born a child and subject of the church. "ouid mini de ilis qui forfs sunt judicare. What business of mine is 1t to judge of those who are uotside?" This axiom of St. Paul Is the axiom of canon law and the Popes. Christ as God made His church cath ollie for all, and commands each one of His creatures of the human race to enter 1t, and the Pope Is truly Christ'e vicar on earth. But until the creature does enter by baptism he Is not placed
 by God within the Pope's spiritual forum or Jurisdiction. But if he has been baptized he has been born a child of the church and of the Pope, who is the father of the Christian family. He may be ignorant and faultlessly ig- norant that the Pope Is his father. but this ignorance does not change the fact, and the Pope may not urge his right over ali who are baptized, but the right still exists.
 But even though I am baptized and subject to tn C Pope in spirituals. how Is marriage q thing spiritual? It is one