SPOKESMEN of the Catholic church look upon the Pope as the representative of the Prince of Peace and declare that without the guidance of the Vatican no lasting peace can be established. Dr. Leo F. Stock of the Carnegie Institute in Washington, D. C., has boldly proclaimed this sectarian conviction as follows:

Behind this Catholic conviction lie the dogmas of papal infallibility and salvation only through “the one true church” of Rome. This infallibility pertains not only to questions of faith but also, under the guise of morals, to principles of government and social welfare. Jesuit Father Joseph Husslein in his book, The Catholic’s Work in the World, page 200, arrogantly declares, “Catholics, therefore, have the only absolutely true, universal and perfect social program.” Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno, teaches the same thing:¹

So much for Catholic propaganda. When we turn to the record of past centuries, we find that the “perfect social program” of Catholicism is an historical farce. Far from ruling medieval Europe justly and efficiently, the Papacy was a corrupt and grasping institution, indulging its lust for power at the expense of the ignorant, deluded masses. In nature and purpose it was essentially a political system that aimed to carry on the world dominion of the Roman empire from which it sprang. The great English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, said:

The theocratic aim of Catholicism, to conquer and rule the world in the name of God and religion, is clear from the formula used at the crowning of a Pope:²

Just what kind of a hand the Pope would play at a present-day peace conference can best be judged by the way the Popes have always acted when powers of government lay in their hands. A glance at conditions in Catholic Europe of the Middle Ages, when the Vatican was the maker of kings and governments, will suffice.

Church Government In Medieval Europe

The most striking aspect of the Papacy’s attitude toward secular government was its contempt for it. Beyond the dictatorship of the Pope it knew no law and willingly tolerated no independent government. This has been emphasized by the renowned Lord Acton, a Roman Catholic and former Regius professor of modern history at Cambridge University. On page 27 of a book entitled Lord Acton on the States of the Church he says:

In medieval Europe the Papacy owned “fully one-third” of all land and property according to the Cambridge Modern History (I, 662). Where it did not rule through subservient kings and princes, it at least constituted a “state within a state.” Even Father William Barry, writing in the Cambridge Modern History (I, 621), says of the Papacy: “It kept its jurisdiction intact, its clergy exempt, and held its own Courts all over Christendom… It had revenues far exceeding the resources of kings, to which it was continually adding by fresh taxation.”

In the same volume of this work, page 672, it is rightly pointed out that “Rome had become a center of corruption whence infection was radiated through Christendom… In 1490 Rome numbered 6,000 public women — an enormous proportion for a [total] population not exceeding 100,000.” Quoting from the Diary of Burchard, which it terms “unimpeachable,” it goes on to say:

In those days of Catholic political supremacy the Pope himself was usually a tool in the hands of stronger relatives. Of Pope Innocent X the Cambridge Modern History (IV, 687) says:

The Papacy itself was purely a political machine. No king or feudal noble was deceived by its religious trappings. The Cambridge Modern History (I, 644) pointedly observes:

In the late Middle Ages Europe seethed with disgust at Papal abuses and tyranny. Then came the Protestant Reformation. Later, in 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia put a legal end to religious intolerance, which was the groundwork of the Pope’s political power. Pope Innocent X, mentioned above for his subservience to his sister-in-law, was infuriated at this threat to Catholic domination, for he knew that it could not withstand open competition. He penned an “apostolic denunciation” that is best described in the words of the Cambridge Modern History (I, 688):

Some may discount the historical facts recorded above and fall back on the old Catholic alibi that the Popes of the Middle Ages were forced into these abuses by the evil influence of unscrupulous kings and nobles. They may argue that, where the Popes were unimpeded by secular powers, their rule was a model of justice and of efficient administration. A study of the Papal States, where the Roman pontiffs were sole and sovereign rulers, shows how poorly this Catholic defense stands up under factual analysis.

Origin Of Papal States

The origin of the Papal States lies in deceit and forgery. Catholic Lord Acton in the opening pages of his above-quoted book admits that the Roman church started out by concentrating on increasing its wealth and property “even under the pagan emperors, when the Church, not being recognized by law, was not legally entitled to hold property… and at the close of the 6th century we find the Popes the richest landowners in Italy.”

But this early deceit of the Roman church is only a shadow of the brazen frauds it perpetrated after it became more paganized. Professor Cadoux, in his book on Catholicism and Christianity, p. 482, well summarizes the forgeries on which the Papacy’s political power was built:³

Speaking of the false ‘Donation of Constantine,’ the most daring of these gigantic frauds, perpetrated by the Papacy 400 years after the death of the emperor Constantine, Gibbon in his celebrated work, Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire (ch. IV, p. 740) makes this penetrating observation:

Development Of Papal States

With its Temporal Power firmly established on the forged signatures of personages dead for hundreds of years, the Papacy used wars and further trickery to consolidate and expand its territorial gains and political power, especially the Papal States that were sanctimoniously known as the ‘Patrimony of Saint Peter.’ The Cambridge Modern History (I, 220) says:

The Papacy not only seized neighboring duchies and states but also the wealth and property of individuals, under one pretext or another. The most revolting of the methods used for this purpose was to lay hands on everything that belonged to a person who had been arrested and condemned without trial by the Inquisition, even when this meant, as it invariably did, that his wife, family and descendants would be reduced to beggary. It is unnecessary to point out how the loot received was an impetus to further condemnations, or how the racket was promoted by giving a ‘cut-in’ to those who informed against others, even their own relatives.

Lord Acton, on page 26 of his book mentioned above, says of the Popes that “the unity of their States was completed by force of arms, first by Cardinal Albornoz and at last by Caesar Borgia, illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI, who made him a cardinal at the age of 18, and Pope Julius II.”

Papal States Of The Last Century

The ideals and policies of Papal government are best studied by examining in detail the rule of the States of the Church in the last century, a period of democratic progress and general enlightenment in the rest of Europe.

The Papal States were entirely dominated by clerics. Every office of any importance was in charge of a cleric or prelate, from Secretary of War to chief of police. “Cardinal Rivarola remarked that in the States of the Church the laity should be only ‘tolerated by the generosity of the Clerics.’”⁴

A passport to go to a foreign country could not be obtained without permission of one’s parish priest.

René Fulop-Miller calls the Papal States “an artificially preserved remnant of the Middle Ages” and in his book, Leo XIII and Our Times, p. 45, describes them in this way:

Papal Tyranny

So reactionary and absolute was Papal rule in the States of the Church that even the severe program of Cardinal Consalvi was considered so liberal that not long afterwards Cardinal Antonelli revoked it.⁵

‘The motu proprio of July 6, 1816, proclaimed the program of Cardinal Consalvi for the centralization of the government… the customs, laws, and the privileges of towns and provinces were abolished. The Papal territory was subdivided into 21 ’legations’ under cardinals… To them the Governors, who were selected from the prelacy, were subject, and only exercised inferior jurisdiction. Over all were the ordinary courts, the court of appeal, and last the Rota Romano, and the Vatican congregations… Cardinal Consalvi agreed that every province should have a council of laymen, but even these were nominated at Rome. They had no executive power, and could only give advice on prescribed topics. Consequently the whole bureaucratic system rested upon the priesthood and the prelacy.