The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-09-05
VIEWS OF POPE GREGORY xv. EXPRESSED IN ARTICLE BY
 MONSICNOR CYRIL s. N. FAY

his own dominions. England once had tremendous autocrat in the person of Henry VIII, and he de- stlOyed the Pope's authority in Eng land. France had a great autocrat in Louis XIV, and he reduced the Pope's authority in France to an almost negligible thing. Austria had once potent autocrat ia the person of Jo- seph II, and but for the French Rev olution he would have done in Aus t!1a what Henry VIII did in England.
 The German Emperor has acted to- ward the Holy See in truly auto cratic manner. Several years ago, the i Pope made a new law in regard to clanIestine marriages This law was published and enforced throughout the | Catholic world, except in Germany,
 where it was forbidden by the Elm
 peror. A few years after that, dur
 ing the Modernist troubles, the Pope
 required an oath against Modernism
 from all clergymen who were public
 preachers or professors in the Cath ohc universities; the oath was taken
 everywhere except in Germany, where
 the Emperor forbade the clergy to
 take it, and the year after, when the
 Pope published an Encyclical on the
 subject of St. Carlo Borromeo, the
 Empe:0r, on the grounds of it's not being sufficiently respectful in regard
 to Martin Luther, forbade it's publi- cation in the German Empire.
 These instances make strong claims
 on the Holy Fathers attention, and
 it is small wonder that, when he sees
 his authority lessened day by day in
 Germany, he should throw his entire
 influence against the Kaiser, and not
 helm him in any way to Germanize
 the world Otherwise the Pope would
 be instrumental in seeing whatever
 papal authority that remains in Ger
 many utterly taken away. There is
 only one hypothesis which I would
 emphasize, and that Is this---we must
 suppose that the Pope, who is the spiritual head of many million human
 beings, is possessed of at least ordi-
 nary intelligence.
 The Pope has had one salient chance to show on which side his
 sympathy lay, and that was wher jerusalem was captured by the Brit.
 ish. At the very moment, when by } his special order, the church bells ' were ringing with joy that Jerusalem ] had passed into Christian hands, the ' Pope was being maligned and scornet , for wishing to prevent the Holy City's 7 remaining in Christian hands. Int ) Papacy is very old. It saw the Ro : man Empire go to pieces; it saw the modern states of Europe arise---in l deed it was their nursing mother; i l warred with an empire of the pagans 7 HTrifh ha II al ET l pire. It was the one power in tht Middle Ages which supported democ racy, and it's whole history has showr ) that the religion over which it pre- ) sides is most successful when 1t l. t free from any state control. It ha! l been proven that the Catholic religion = can exist better, with more healtl f and more vigor in free atmosphere 3 than in an atmosphere of desp1tism s In despotic Byzantium it disappeared g in despotic Russia 1t was driven out = in England of the Tudors 1t wa
 beaten to the earth; in France o 7, Louis XIV 1t was bound hand ant l foot. These are all incontrovertibl ,, reasons why the Pope should not de e sire to give over the world to an auto d crat who does not even profess tn y Catnonc relglon---put on the othe = hand professes to be the religious fol O l0wer of the deadliest enemy tn e Catholic church has ever had, an s who presides over that religious so q ciety which Martin Luther left behin h him in opposition to the Church c n Rome.
 # We have forgotten our religious dis e putes in the crisis of this war, an d for this many thanks. We are all try e ing to act together for the safety C