The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XXII. The Papacy Always Exclusive

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XXII. The Papacy Always Exclusive

Continued from Chapter XXI. Disputes About Papal Authority.

The Laity and the Church.—They once aid in Election of Popes.—Gregory VII. takes away this Power, and vests it in the College of Cardinals.—His Object is Universal Dominion.—The Papacy necessarily Intolerant.—Never satisfied with Freedom of Conscience.—Condemned in Syllabus of Pius IX.—Denounced when introduced in Austria.—He excommunicates all Heretics.—Magna Carta.—Religious Toleration in Maryland.—The Colony Part of Virginia.—English Supremacy established by Law in Virginia.—The Law extended over Maryland.—Lord Baltimore in Virginia.—He cannot take the Oath as a Roman Catholic.—Obtains Grant from Charles I.—It provides for Religious Toleration in the New Colony.—This is a Necessity to Lord Baltimore.—He cannot settle a Roman Catholic Colony without it.—Charles I. favors the Papists.—Roman Catholic Emigrants to Maryland.—Make War on Virginians found there.—They suppress the Protestants.—Efforts to establish the Royal Authority of Lord Baltimore.—Oath of Allegiance to him.—Offices filled by Roman Catholics.—All Writs run in his Name.—Those who refuse Fidelity to him forfeit their Property.—Their Lands to be seized.—Colonists under Control of Jesuit Priests.—Their Claim of Church Immunities.—Opposition to English Law.—Jesuits never in Favor of Religious Toleration.—The Condition of the Papacy at that Time.—Completely allied with the Jesuits.—Gregory XV.—His Persecutions.—His Influence over Louis XIII. of France.—Urban VIII.—Terrible Persecutions under his Reign.— Cardinal Richelieu and Olivarez.—Persecution of Galileo.—Bank Debt collected by Bull of the Pope.—All the Teachings of the Church opposed to Religious Toleration.—The Legislation in Maryland is only in Obedience to the Charter.—May have had the Assent of Laymen, but not of the Priests or the Church.—Could not have the Assent of Pope Pius IX. now.

IT has abundantly appeared in the preceding chapters that the theory upon which the papal system has been constructed requires all Roman Catholics to be exclusive, intolerant, and aggressive. To say that they are not all so, is only to say what everybody knows; but it is no answer to the allegation against the system itself. Those who constitute these commendable and praiseworthy examples are mostly single individuals; but sometimes communities as is frequently found to be the case in the United States. They are, however, generally influenced by their special surroundings, and have never acquired sufficient prominence to impress their sentiments upon those who mold the principles and direct the course of the papacy. The popes have never been influenced by them in any degree since the papal power reached its culmination; but, on the contrary have simply borne with them on account of their general acceptance of the fundamentals of the Roman Catholic faith, and their habit of nonresistance.

For a number of centuries the laity had a voice in the election of the popes,(“Antiquities of the Christian Church,” by Bingham, vol. i., p. 132.) which, of course, made those elected, or desiring to be elected, somewhat circumspect in their conduct toward them. This did not give the people any direct influence over the faith, but rather indirect, by means of that representative feature in the Church constitution which provided for general councils. There was no change in this mode of procedure until the emperors and kings of France, Spain, and Germany, from political motives only, arrogantly asserted the imperial right to select popes obedient to themselves, and to dispossess such as were not so. And when, after severe and long—continued struggles, the popes were enabled to wrench this usurped power from the hands of royalty, they felt themselves under no obligation to restore the ancient authority of the people; because, by that time they had become so inoculated with the sentiments of imperialism themselves, that they did not consider the people as having any rights whatever in matters of so much importance. Insisting that the episcopal order was established by direct appointment of Christ, they claimed for it the power of self—perpetuation; and therefore it became an established principle of the papacy that, even when the people aided in the election of a pope, they had no right to assume that he derived any authority from them. (“Universal Church History,” by Alzog, pp. 396, 397, 659, etc.)

From this principle it was easy for so ambitious and talented a man as Gregory VII., surrounded by the prevailing superstition of the eleventh century, to deduce others which have since become necessary to the life of the papacy. Engaged as he was in consolidating a vast spiritual despotism, he was sagacious enough to know that his success would be in proportion to the removal of its power and authority from the people. Therefore, he employed his vigorous mind, not only while the confidential adviser of four popes, but more especially after he became pope himself, “to render all authority, civil and religious, dependent on the fiat of the Holy See; to place thrones and miters alike at the papal disposal; and to realize what had long floated dimly before the eyes of preceding pontiffs, an object of desire rather than of hope, the scepter of the universe swayed by the successor of St. Peter as vicegerent of the Almighty.” (“Church History,” by Baxter, p. 211.)

Chiefest among the means of consummating this object was the removal of all popular influences from the election of the pope, so that the ecclesiastical constitution should provide for a pure theocracy, with imperial powers. This he accomplished by vesting it exclusively in the college of cardinals, designated and appointed by the pope; by compelling all prelates and laymen to bind themselves, under the most solemn obligations, to the See of Rome; and visiting them with curses, anathemas, and excommunications in the event of their disobedience. So powerful was the influence he exercised upon his age, and so indelibly did he impress his principles upon the constitution of the papacy, that those of his successors who have imitated his usurpations have sheltered themselves behind his great name. And this has been done so frequently, with the apparent acquiescence of the laity, that at last what was originally the conception of overweening ambition has come to be considered as the infallible teaching of God—as an essential part of his eternal truth.

If some of these successors did impair the strength of the system he had constructed by vices which outraged the Christian sentiment of the world, the present pope (Pius IX.), by his exemplary life and piety, has been enabled, in some measure, to will back their losses. He has, at least, done so to the extent of being enabled to turn all his papal artillery upon the liberalizing and tolerant opinions of the nineteenth century, and of finding multitudes of followers who agree with him in the pretense that Hildebrand, no less than himself, was the infallible representative of Christ on earth.

We must no longer look, then, to the laity of the Roman Church for its faith or discipline. They have nothing to do with either, except to obey whatsoever is prescribed to them. And this obedience is required to be so comprehensive and unlimited as to include all that has been in the past, now is in the present, and may hereafter be in the future. Their whole duty is involved in the simple act of submission. Consequently, if there are here and there some of them, or even many, who are liberal and tolerant, and therefore not aggressive, they either hush up these sentiments in their own breasts, or, if they express them, have not authority sufficient to make them felt, if even known, at Rome. The papacy is reached only through the hierarchy, and they are sworn to obey the pope implicitly, and to preserve and extend his royalties. He imparts a portion of his infallibility to them in the execution of their theocratic functions, and through them to the laity in the single act of obedience. The strength of the papacy is by these means left unimpaired, and, in so far as the claim of universal supremacy is concerned, it is set forth as boldly and defiantly as when Gregory VII. hurled his thunders of excommunication and anathema at the head of the German emperor.

What government has ever existed which has recognized freedom of religious belief and worship while submissive to the authority of the papacy? In all history there is no account of any such. Wheresoever it has been done, the popes have considered it an act of disobedience to them, and dealt with it accordingly. In all the forms of bulls and briefs they have condemned and denounced it as heresy. Pius IX. has done so in his Syllabus and other official papers. When the Austrian Government, in 1855, abolished the Concordat, allowing liberty for all opinions—liberty of the press, of faith, and of instruction in the schools—he characterized the act as inimical to the Church, as “in flagrant contradiction with the doctrines of the Catholic religion;” and, by virtue of power which he claimed to have derived directly from Christ, he declared all the acts and decrees in that respect “null and powerless in themselves and in their effect, both as regards the present and the future.” And he threatened all engaged in their execution with the censures of the Church and with excommunication. (*)

* See the pope’s allocution, delivered June 2d, 1855, in consistory at Rome, Appletons’ “Annual Cyclopedia” for 1868, pp. 675, 676.

These threats have been executed by the proclamation of excommunication, in 1869, of all heretics, “whatever their name, and to what sect soever belonging, and those who believe in them, and their receivers, promoters, and defenders;” (Ibid., for 1869, p. 619.) so that the pontifical curse is now resting upon all the institutions of Protestantism, and upon all liberal and tolerant opinions, wheresoever they are to be found in the world.

When, therefore, we talk about what the Church of Rome teaches and allows in reference to freedom of religion, of the press, and of speech, such as is secured by the Constitution of the United States, we must look, not to what is done and said by exceptional individuals, or even by communities of liberal tendencies, but to the pope alone. He is the Church, and absorbs in himself whatsoever power it possesses, in all its height, depth, length, And breadth. The pen of inspiration has instructed us that “God is not a man,” but the pope tells us that he, of all the earth, possesses the attributes of God, and must, therefore, prescribe the faith, reward the faithful, and punish the disobedient.

There are two memorable events in history which are sometimes referred to by defenders of the papacy to show that such accusations as the foregoing are unjust and unmerited: the granting of Magna Carta; and the introduction of religious liberty into the Colony of Maryland. If this defense were designed only to show that there had been, and yet existed, numbers of Roman Catholics who approved the principles involved in these great measures, it would be perfectly legitimate, and nobody could object, for that is an undoubted fact. But it is not so limited. On the other hand, it is placed to the credit of the papacy, which is not in any sense entitled to it.

As to Magna Carta, we have seen that the barons of England incurred the displeasure of Pope Innocent III. for extorting it from King John, and that he excommunicated them for doing so; and that he released the king from his sworn obligation to observe it, as he also did several of his successors. We have seen, too, the direct conflict between the principles it expressed and those which pertain to the papal system. The other inquiry—whether the papacy is entitled to any credit for religious toleration in Maryland—comes more directly home to the people of the United States; which makes the investigation of it of more immediate concern to us.

The Colony of Virginia was settled under several royal charters. That which erected it into “a corporation and body politic” was dated May 23d, 1609, and was granted by James I. The district of country included within the colonial limits extended “from sea to sea, west and northwest,” and included all of what afterward became the Colony, and is now the State, of Maryland. One of the purposes expressed in this charter was “the conversion and reduction of the people in those parts unto the true worship of God and Christian religion.” And inasmuch as the true worship was at that time in England considered to be that provided by the Established Church, in opposition to that of Rome, King James further said,

“We should be loath that any person should be permitted to pass that we suspected to affect the superstitions of the Church of Rome.”

It required also that the English oath of supremacy should be taken by all the colonists. By these provisions of the charter, therefore, Roman Catholics were positively prohibited from settling in any part of the colony. Other and subsequent provisions were designed to enforce this exclusion. By royal instructions issued to the governor in 1621, the colony was required “to keep up the religion of the Church of England as near as may be.” In obedience to these instructions, the General Assembly of Virginia—the first that ever met in the United States—enacted a law providing

“that there be uniformity in our church as neere as may be to the canons in England, both in substance and circumstance; and that all persons yield readie obedience unto them under paine of censure.” (Old spelling of some words.)

This was also repeated in 1629 and 1631, before the charter to colonize Maryland had been granted to Lord Baltimore. (“Henning’s [Virginia] Statutes at Large,” vol. i., pp. 97, 98, 114, 123, 149,155.)

The condition of things existing in the Colony of Virginia was not at all satisfactory to the king. The first legislative assembly had met at Jamestown in 1619, each borough sending a representative. The impulse given to popular freedom by this means excited his apprehension that the monarchical principles he desired to plant in the New World might be endangered. He manifestly feared that if the right of representation in the Colonial Legislature were granted to the people, it would, in the end, result in organizing a formidable opposition to his own authority. And being a monarchist in the strictest sense, he therefore resolved at once to bring the colonists into complete subjugation. For this purpose he resorted to several wrongful and oppressive measures. He commanded that a number of felons, unfit to remain in England, should be transported to the colony; and also made the most grinding exactions upon the people in order to draw off their wealth, and thereby to supply his own treasury. This injustice, which violated the chartered rights of the colonists, they could not endure without remonstrance; and when they did undertake to set forth their grievances, and to appeal to the settled principles of the law of England for protection, they were regarded as seditious.

This furnished a pretext, in 1622, for an attempt to destroy the charter. The first step to this end was to establish in England the entire governing power of the colony, and thus deprive the people of all agency in making their own laws and managing their own affairs, which was secured to them in the charter as pertaining to “the privileges, franchises, liberties, and immunities” which belonged to all Englishmen. This scheme of government, as a substitute for the charter, was laid before the colonists, who were told that if they did not accept it, they would be crushed by the power of the king. Not at all intimidated by this threat, they rejected the proposition with indignation, being resolved to cling to their chartered rights. The king, therefore, found it necessary to resort to a more direct measure. He caused a writ of quo warranto (Latin meaning, “by what warrant?”) to be issued from the Court of King’s Bench in England to declare the charter forfeited. The colonists could not, of course, make any successful defense to this, for the king could easily find the means, in those days, to bring the judges over to the royal side if they were otherwise inclined.

The English law gave the court no jurisdiction over the whole body of colonists, and they rightfully decided to treat whatever judgment should be pronounced against them as null and void. The judgment of forfeiture was arbitrarily rendered in 1625, just before the death of King James, but no steps were taken toward its execution before that event. Charles I., who succeeded him, took up the matter where his father had left it, and in one of his proclamations assigned all the misfortunes in the colony to what he called “corporate democracy.” His principal effort, therefore, was to destroy entirely the representative form of government inaugurated in 1619. To this end he appointed a governor and council with powers as royal as he himself possessed. But the people were determined not to give up their General Assembly, and it continued to meet at regular periods, passing such laws as we have seen, in strict conformity to those of England. They cherished the rights of Englishmen too fervently to surrender them at the mere dictation of the royal power, or in obedience to the illegal judgment of a court subservient to it.

In 1628, Lord Baltimore visited Virginia. This nobleman was a monarchist both from inclination and education. He was so devoted to the interests of the king as to have become a special favorite of both James I. and Charles I. He had many excellent and ennobling qualities, which made him exceedingly popular. In 1624—only four years before—he had become a Roman Catholic. When he reached Virginia he found the English Episcopal Church established by law, and also a legal requirement that, in becoming a citizen, he should take the English oath of supremacy. This he could not do consistently with his new religious convictions. He was willing, as all the papists in England were, to take the oath of allegiance, which involved merely the support of the kingly prerogative, but not that of supremacy, which denied the authority of the pope. Consequently he did not unite himself with the colonists. But being delighted with the climate, soil, and scenery about the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River, he formed the design of obtaining a charter from King Charles authorizing him to make a settlement there, in entire disregard of the rights of the Virginia colony. Upon that question, being a monarchist, he, of course, took sides with the king—both having an equal disregard for the rights of the people when they came in conflict with the prerogatives of royalty. He relied manifestly upon his well-known devotion to these principles for his success with the king. And in this he was not disappointed; for Charles was not only disposed to oblige him personally, but was resolved upon punishing the seditious colonists of Virginia, notwithstanding they rigidly maintained the religious worship established by the laws of England.

The charter to Lord Baltimore was granted in 1632; but in consequence of his death it was transferred to his son, who took his title. It granted the tract of country lying on both sides of the Chesapeake Bay and north of the Potomac, up to the fortieth parallel of latitude—the whole of which was within the limits of the Virginia colony. (*)

* “History of Virginia,” by Howvison, vol. i., p. 270; “History of the United States,” by Bancroft, vol. i., pp. 238-241.

This charter contained the celebrated provision that while Christianity was made the law of the colony, yet no preference should be given “to any sect,” but “equality in religious rights, not less than in civil freedom,” was secured. (Bancroft, p. 243.) This constitutes the groundwork of the Roman Catholic claim of toleration in the United States. A critical examination of it will demonstrate not only that this claim is groundless, but also what was understood by Charles I. and the elder Lord Baltimore by giving security to civil freedom in Maryland—in other words, by granting the right of legislation to those Roman Catholics who should emigrate to the colony.

The English oath of supremacy had been established one hundred years before the date of this charter. This oath required that every subject should recognize the king as the supreme head of the Church of England; that the Pope of Rome had no more jurisdiction than any other bishop; and that obedience to him should be renounced. (“History of England,” by Rapin, vol. vii., p. 480.) This was not only the law in England, but it was also the law in the Colony of Virginia. It was because of this that Lord Baltimore could not become a citizen of the latter colony. Now when this, and the further fact that the territory granted to him was within the limits of the Virginia colony, are observed, it will be seen that he could have accomplished no possible object designed by him without a provision for religious toleration in his charter. He was about to undertake a settlement in a region of the New World where there was an existing form of religion established by law, which, in his conscience, he entirely repudiated—which he had renounced only four years before as contrary to the law of God, and which, if he remained true to his religious convictions and papal obedience, he would feel it his duty not merely to oppose, but to exterminate. Like other papists of that day, and the advocates of the pope’s infallibility now, he favored religious toleration in a Protestant country that is, such toleration as would enable him to maintain the cause of the papacy in the midst of Protestantism as the means of rooting out the Protestant religion, and securing the establishment of the Roman Catholic by law. His only means of getting rid of the oath of supremacy in the Colony of Virginia was to get the king so far to set it aside, without authority of law and by his royal will alone, as to allow him to colonize part of the territory with Roman Catholics—this being, at that time, the only possible means of introducing that class of population into the colonies. Hence, the provision for religious toleration was a matter of necessity, not choice, with Lord Baltimore.

On the part of the king there was one principal object to be attained by the establishment of the new colony. As Lord Baltimore was a thorough monarchist, it was expected of him that he would check the tendency among the Virginia colonists toward popular liberty, and so employ the right of legislation granted to the Maryland colonists as to preserve the monarchical principle; which Charles well understood to be an established feature of the papal system. This object was so near the heart of Charles that he was quite willing that the established religion should be sacrificed, if it could be done in no other way. Although he had no power by the law of England to set aside the oath of supremacy, yet he could even venture to defy the authority of Parliament in order to punish the Virginia colonists for daring to assert their just rights as Englishmen.

He may, indeed, have had, and possibly did have, another motive beyond this: the subversion of the English Church in the colonies and the establishment of the Roman Catholic by law. It is very well known to the readers of English history that both Charles I. and his father, James I., while professedly Protestants, were inclined to favor the papists as far as they dared to go. During the reign of Charles the laws were not executed against them, and they were allowed to go unpunished for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, whenever they consented to swear allegiance to him. (Rapin, vol. xi., p. 89.) By this latter oath they assured themselves of his royal favor to such an extent that they contributed greatly toward the general policy of his administration. They were allowed publicly to celebrate mass at Somerset- house, especially under the royal protection.

A papal nuncio resided in London, and his house was their general rendezvous. The queen was an acknowledged and fanatical papist. It is, therefore, quite certain that they materially aided the convocation and Archbishop Laud in implanting in the mind of Charles an intense hatred of the Presbyterians and Puritans. (*)

* Ibid., vol. x., p. 435; “History of the Rebellion,” by the Earl of Clarendon, Oxford ed., vol. i., p. 243.

And as the influence of the latter was beginning, about that time, to create a sentiment in the Plymouth colony, like that in Virginia, in favor of the principles of popular government, it was probably an easy matter for Lord Baltimore to obtain from Charles the charter of 1632. Both of them thought alike upon the political questions likely to be involved in the settlement of the new colony; and these were considered by—Charles as of more consequence than the religious worship established by the English law.

Thus, when all these facts are taken into account, the conclusion is a natural if not unavoidable one—that the insertion of the provision in favor of religious toleration in the Maryland charter was alone for the objects and purposes already suggested. So far as Lord Baltimore himself was concerned, it was undoubtedly a necessity with him. He did not take it in that form because he favored religious toleration in a broad and liberal sense, even if he did so favor it, but because it was the only mode by which he could maintain Roman Catholicism in opposition to the existing law of the Virginia colony. By precisely the same process of reasoning as may have influenced him, Pope Pius IX. is in favor of religious toleration in the United States, but not at Rome; and so with his hierarchy all over the world.

The second Lord Baltimore did not accompany his colonists to America. They were placed under the care of Leonard Calvert, his brother, who arrived in Virginia with two hundred Roman Catholics in 1634. They visited Jamestown, where they were notified by the governor and council that their grant was considered as an encroachment upon the rights of Virginia. (Howison, vol. i., p. 270.) They then sailed up the Chesapeake, and established a colony which they called Maryland, in honor of Henrietta Maria, the Roman Catholic queen of Charles I. Upon Kent’s Island, near the present city of Annapolis, they found a settlement of Virginians, already made under the authority of the Virginia charter. They demanded of these that their jurisdiction and authority at Kent’s Island should be immediately recognized. The Virginians not consenting to this, which they considered an invasion of their colonial rights, hostilities were commenced. Their leader was seized by Calvert and his party, tried, and convicted of sedition and other crimes, and would doubtless have been executed if he had not succeeded in making his escape to Jamestown, where he demanded the protection of the governor, who was then Sir John Harvey. No effective steps were taken by him; and he was suspected of favoring the views of the king, and of Calvert also. On this account he became so odious to the Virginia colonists that he was removed by the General Assembly, and sent back to England. But he was restored by the king, who was not disposed to listen to any popular complaints, or to do anything to protect the Virginians. (Howison, vol. i., p. 273.)

The facts thus far stated may be found in the general histories of those times; but any careful student of them will readily perceive that many things are omitted which are necessary to a perfect understanding of the early history of the Maryland colony, especially in so far as religious toleration was concerned. One reason for this is found in the fact that hitherto it has been deemed expedient by Protestants to permit the claim of Roman Catholic toleration to go unchallenged, as there was nothing to be gained by controverting it, and its evident tendency was to keep alive that sentiment in the minds of the multitude of Roman Catholic laymen to whom it is most acceptable. But now, when this claim is set up with such apparent candor, and so much is demanded on account of it, it has become necessary that it shall be more particularly examined and accurately understood. And it is fortunate that we are not entirely without the means of doing so.

In 1655, soon after these events occurred, there was published in Westminster Hall, London, an account of the settlement of the Maryland colony, wherein it was shown, by facts and arguments which could not be easily overthrown, that the patent of Lord Baltimore was illegal, and that under it the younger Lord Baltimore had usurped royal jurisdiction and prerogatives in violation of the laws and liberties of the English nation, and of the just rights of the Virginia colonists. In order to demonstrate this, a relation was given of the leading incidents connected with the rebellion of the Roman Catholic colonists against the existing government organized under the Virginia charter. Some years ago, this account, along with many others connected with our colonial history, was put in an accessible form by a gentleman who, during his life, was greatly esteemed for his erudition as well as for his painstaking in collecting together the materials of our early history. From this source the facts now to be related have been obtained. (*)

* “Historical Tracts,” collected and printed by Peter Force, Washington City, 1838. See tract entitled “Virginia and Maryland; or, The Lord Baltimore’s Case Uncased and Answered,” etc., vol. ii.

After speaking of the seizure and confiscation of vessels belonging to the Virginians who had been trading with the natives of Maryland for a number of years, under proper and legal authority derived from their Colonial Government, and the invalidity of the Maryland charter, which it was alleged Lord Baltimore had obtained by falsely representing the country as unsettled, it thus speaks of the Roman Catholic colonists:

“And professing an establishment of the Romish religion only, they suppressed the poor Protestants among them, and carried on the whole frame of their Government in the Lord Proprietaries name; all their Proceedings, Judicature, Trials, and Warrants, in his name, Power and Dignity, and from him only; not the least mention of the Sovereign Authority of England in all their Government; to that purpose, forceably imposing Oaths (judged illegal in a Report made by a Committee of the Council of State, 1652), to maintain his royal Jurisdictions, Prerogatives, and Dominions, as absolute Lord and Proprietary, to protect chiefly the Roman Catholic religion in the free exercise thereof; and all done by yearly Instructions from him out of England, as if he had been absolute Prince and King.” ( Ibid., p. 5.)

There is no difficulty in seeing the object and precise nature of the oaths prescribed by Lord Baltimore for all officers and citizens, when it is considered that both by the laws of England and those existing in the colony at the time of his settlement, the English Episcopal was the established Church. And while the practice of religious toleration was compulsory, being provided for in the charter, it is undoubtedly true that these oaths were specially designed to give undue preference to the Roman Catholic colonists—a preference destructive of the equality which the charter was designed to establish. This is one of the requirements:

“And I do further swear I will not by myself, nor any other person directly, trouble, molest, or discountenance any person whatsoever in the said province professing to believe in Jesus Christ, and in particular no Roman Catholic, for or in respect of his or her Religion, nor his or her free exercise thereof within the said province, so as they be not unfaithful to his said Lordship or molest or conspire against the civil Government established under him.” (“Historical Tracts,” collected and printed by Peter Force, Washington City, 1838, pp. 23, 24, 26.)

We must necessarily look to the character of the civil government established by Lord Baltimore, in order to as certain the obligations imposed by this oath. The oath of fidelity to him required that he should be acknowledged “to be the true and absolute Lord and Proprietary” of the colony; that “true faith” should be rendered to him and his heirs, and that his and their “Right, Title, Interest, Privileges, Royal Jurisdiction, Prerogative, Propriety and Dominion over” the colony should be maintained. (Ibid., p. 25.)

Here was a manifest attempt to substitute his own royal power for that of the king,, to whom all the original colonists were ready and willing to pay obedience. But the same is further shown by the commissions, writs, and processes that were issued. The law of England required all these to issue in the name of the “Keepers of the Liberty of England;” but, in disobedience of this requirement, they were issued in his name—a clear usurpation of royal jurisdiction and dominion. (Ibid., p. 10.)

The plan of government constructed by means of these usurped powers and prerogatives became such that the Protestant inhabitants of the colony who were loyal to England could not conscientiously take this oath, because it imposed the obligation of violating the law of the mother country. Whether that law was right or wrong is not now necessary to be inquired into; it was in accordance with the spirit of that, though not of the present age. It prescribed the line of duty for all English citizens, whether at home or in the colonies, and these Maryland colonists by violating it would have been subjected to prosecutions for sedition and treason. All this Lord Baltimore knew perfectly well, and therefore he prescribed an oath of fidelity to himself of such a nature that a loyal Protestant could not take it, being well assured, at the same time, that the Roman Catholics would all do so. And to show the little favor he was disposed to exhibit toward those who should refuse—if, indeed, he did not design to drive out the Protestants entirely—he caused a proclamation to be issued to the effect “that all such persons so refusing shall be forever debarred from any Right or claim to the Lands they now enjoy and live on;” that is, their property should be confiscated; and “his Lordship’s Governor” was instructed “to cause the said lands to be entered, and seized upon to his Lordship’s use.” (“Historical Tracts,” collected and printed by Peter Force, Washington City, 1838, p. 35.)

As might well be supposed, the results were just what Lord Baltimore designed they should be, and are fully set forth in this tract. “Papists and Priests and Jesuits” flocked into the colony. “Papist Governors and Counselors, dedicated to St. Ignatius,” filled the offices. The Protestants were “miserably disturbed in the Exercise of their Religion.” A number of “illegal Executions and Murders” occurred. There were “Imprisonments, Confiscations of many men’s Estates, and of widows’ and orphans’, to the destruction of many Families.” Those who would not take the oath were disarmed and plundered. “Popish Officers” were appointed, “outing those” who were previously in office. “Lands and Plantations” were seized and confiscated. And it cannot fail to arrest attention that all these persecutions were visited upon Protestants, while not one Roman Catholic suffered from them! (Ibid., pp. 12, 13, 16, 30, 31. ) As for these, they were so favored that if one of them was called “Papish Priest, Jesuit, Jesuited Papist,” etc., the offender forfeited a penalty of “ten pounds!” (Ibid., p. 27.)

The inferior position occupied by laymen in those days should relieve them from any responsibility for these measures. The civil authority of the colony was entirely in the hands of those appointed by Lord Baltimore, who, as it appears, selected Roman Catholic agents exclusively. At that time, in England, the papists were chiefly under the influence of the Jesuits, whose vigilance was too sleepless to permit this opportunity of planting their society in the New World to escape them. How far they had the sympathy and support of Lord Baltimore is, of course, not known; but it is undoubtedly true that they were the authors of all these measures in the Maryland Colony, and that they had pretty much their own way there. This appears from a narrative preserved in the Jesuit college at Rome, which is also found among the “Historical Tracts” above referred to. It was prepared by the Jesuit fathers appointed by the superior general of the order at Rome, to superintend the first emigration of Roman Catholic colonists who left England in the fall of 1633.

They went, as it is declared, to “carry the light of the Gospel and of truth where it has been found out that hitherto no knowledge of the true God has shone “—that is, where neither the pope nor popery had been heard of. History has amply shown the kind of light they throw upon the pathway of nations as well as individuals, and the events in the Maryland Colony show that they acted there, as everywhere else, under instructions from Rome. “Bulls, letters, etc., from the pope and Rome “—that is, from the pope and the general of the Jesuits— became familiar to the colonists. (Historical Tracts,” collected and printed by Peter Force, Washington City, 1838, p. 12.)

By means of these the Jesuits became omnipotent in the colony; and in the tract last named they show how successfully they exercised their power. Then, as now, the first object of the order was the acquisition of wealth, with the right to govern and control their property without any reference or obedience to the laws of the country in which they reside. On this subject Father White, one of these Jesuits, reports that when they set tip this claim in Maryland, they were met by those who insisted that the laws of England, which bound the colony, forbade it; and he speaks of them as those “who, too intent upon their own affairs, have not feared to violate the immunities of the Church by using their endeavors that laws of this kind formerly passed in England, and unjustly observed there, may obtain like force here, to wit: that it shall not be lawful for any person or community, even ecclesiastical, in any wise, even by gift, to acquire or possess any land unless the permission of the civil magistrate first be obtained.

Which thing, when our people declared it to be repugnant to the laws of the Church, two priests were sent from England who might teach the contrary.” And then, in order to show his superior what admirable success he had in resisting this unjust English law, and how all—powerful the order had already become in America, he continues:

“But the reverse of what was expected happened; for our reasons being heard, and the thing itself being more clearly understood, they easily fell in with our opinion, and the laity in like manner generally.” (*)

* “A Relation of the Colony of the Lord Baron of Baltimore,” by Father Andrew White, “copied from the Archives of the Jesuit College at Rome by the late Rev. William M’Sherry, of Georgetown College,” etc.; “Historical Tracts,” by Peter Force, vol. iv., last tract, p. 42.

And thus the Jesuits won their first triumph in the United States. The two priests sent over from England to demonstrate the necessity of obeying the English law were easily converted; the laity were unresisting; the law was trampled under their feet; and they were allowed to acquire, hold, and govern their own property with impunity, and without any responsibility to the civil power. This is precisely the claim now set up by the American hierarchy at the Second National Council at Baltimore, who have again revived, and upon the same soil, the old Jesuit demand of nearly two centuries and a half ago.

If the simple narration of the foregoing facts were not sufficient of itself to prove that the Jesuits in Maryland were only in favor of religious toleration as a means of extirpating Protestantism—which is acknowledged to have been the chief object of their organization— the game they were then playing throughout Europe sufficiently removes all doubt upon the subject.

Those were the days of Popes Gregory XV. and Urban VIII., both of whom strove hard to establish papal omnipotence. Gregory XV. canonized Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. He organized missions to every country in the world. He founded the society of the Propaganda. He formed an alliance with Roman Catholic sovereigns for the extirpation of the Lutherans and Calvinists. He sent into Bohemia “cohorts of Dominicans, Augustines, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Jesuits,” under Cardinal Caraffa, with a subsidy of two hundred thousand crowns, who attacked and murdered Protestants wherever they found them; who “burned the farm—houses, murdered the farmers, violated girls, polluted young children, sparing those only who called themselves Catholics.

“He sent Cardinal Stein to Moravia, with like cruel and rapacious soldiers, who drove fifteen thousand Moravian brothers from their homes. His Jesuit missionaries, in Bavaria and Saxony, terrified twenty thousand people with the axe of the executioner, until they renounced Protestantism. He prohibited Protestant worship in the Palatinate, and forced the inhabitants to submit to the Church of Rome. His emissaries penetrated to Upper Baden, to Bamberg, Fulda, Eichsfeld, Paderborn, Halberstadt, Magdeburg, Altona, and threatened Denmark and Norway. He made Duke Maximilian of Bavaria Elector of the Palatine, as a reward for his heartless persecutions, which, he said, filled his heart “with a torrent of delight,” because it gave him assurance that “soon will all the enemies of the throne of the apostle be reduced to dust.”He stimulated Louis XIII. of France to make war upon the Huguenots. Everywhere they went, his legions of Jesuits, Franciscans, and Capuchins preached the extinction of heresy. With the heartlessness of a fiend he wrote thus to Louis XIII., on account of his cruelties to the Calvinists:

“My dear son, the ornament of the universe, the glory of our age, march on steadily in your holy path; cause the power of your arm to be felt by those who know not God; be pitiless toward the heretics; and merit to be seated one day on the right hand of Christ, by offering to him as a holocaust all the children of perdition who infest your kingdom.”

He wrote to the King of Spain “to have no pity on the heretics; to order his governors to establish the Catholic religion by force in the provinces dependent on his crown; to light up the stake; and to leave the Calvinists no alternative but the mass or death.”

Dreading the power of the English people, he changed his tactics in that country, and sought to win James I. by flattery, and by favoring the marriage of his son Charles to the daughter of the King of Spain. He conceived the idea of bringing the whole world into dependence upon Rome by the instruments he was then employing, and of sending these desolating missionaries to the Indies, China, Japan, all Asia, and Africa. It was his fertile and inventive brain which first conceived the thought, just before the Maryland charter was granted to Lord Baltimore, of planting Roman Catholicism in North America by means of Jesuit missionaries. (Cormenin, vol. ii., pp. 295, 297.) And to notify the world how it would be governed if he had the power, this infallible pope issued a bull, Contra Haereticos in locis Italioe, whereby he ordained that no heretic, under any pretense whatever, should reside in Italy, or the islands adjacent. (“Religion and Policy,” by Clarendon, Vol. ii., p. 530.)

Urban VIII. was a fit successor to Gregory XV. in some respects, while in others he was not. The condition into which Europe was thrown by the violent measures and remorseless persecutions of Gregory was one of convulsion and uncertainty. The Protestants were everywhere seeking places of refuge; and the princes who were obedient to Rome were emulous (ambitious to equal or surpass) of each other in the adoption of measures to extirpate them.

There was no valley in the Alps or the Pyrenees so remote as to furnish them a hiding—place. Spain had almost worn out its strength during the forty odd years of the tyranny of Philip II. by the expulsion of more than a million and a half of Jews and Moors, and the murder of untold numbers of Protestants. Ferdinand II. of Germany had swept over the Protestant settlements of Bohemia as with a besom of destruction. The bloody and unrelenting Alva had desolated the Netherlands. The fires of the Thirty Years’ War were blazing all over Germany. Lutheranism was forbidden in Austria. Hungary was subdued, impoverished, and paralyzed. The indomitable but treacherous Wallenstein was crushing out the spirit of civil and religious liberty with his mighty army. The tramp of soldiery was heard everywhere. James I. and Charles I. were concerting plans, under the dictation of Buckingham and Laud, to turn over England to the papacy. The minor princes everywhere were intimidated.

Nowhere, in all Europe, was there to be found a single conspicuous Roman Catholic, except the great Richelieu, who dared to defy the thunders of Rome; and even he was so impressed with the teachings of the queen-mother, Mary of Medici, that he was as remorseless as his royal master, Louis XIII., could desire, in spreading consternation and dismay throughout the ranks of the Protestants. He used their swords to further his ambition, but punished them for their heresy. He added them to his armies in order to strike terror into the mind of Urban VIII., and then struck them down to keep within the pale of the Church. He would brook no rival to the king in) France, and with his strong arm snapped every cord with which the infallible pope tried to bind him. Olivarez of Spain was a puppet in his hands. He played with kings as with toys. As there was no check to his ambition, so there was no limit to his power. His mighty genius displayed itself in the grandest measures of state policy; and finding that the greatness and glory of France lay through fields of blood, his cardinal robes were not sacred enough in his eyes to cause him an instant’s pause in the task of achieving them.

Surrounded by men and events like these, Urban VIII. would have had an insignificant existence had he not possessed the papacy. This position required him, not alone to carry on the persecutions against the Protestants, but to mix himself up with the contests of the princes. Spain was trying to hold Portugal with one hand, and to keep France in check with the other. Urban, afraid to offend either, courted both. He dreaded the perfidy of Olivarez as much as he did the power of Richelieu. Necessity, therefore, not choice, kept him from reaching out the papal arm over the nations as boldly as his immediate predecessor had done; but, nevertheless, he quietly left at work, whenever he was not prevented, all the instruments of papal vengeance which Gregory XV. had sent out. Italy was the only place where his infallibility was recognized, and there it was conceded only from dread of his power. It having been charged against him that he reached the pontificate only by causing some of the cardinals who had opposed him to be poisoned, (Cormenin, vol. ii., p. 299.) and by intimidating others, the Italians were kept in silence by fears of his cruelty.

Hence, in this limited field of ecclesiastical jurisdiction—where his mastery was undisputed, he felt authorized to show, to the fullest extent, what an infallible pope could do when undisturbed in the exercise of his power. The first measure by which he distinguished his pontificate was to set aside a bull of Sixtus V. by inaugurating a shameless system of nepotism, in making cardinals of his brother and two of his nephews, and in rewarding his own family with gifts of money and power. He caused Galileo to be thrown into prison and persecuted because he violated the faith of the Church in teaching the earth’s revolution, according to the theory of the heretic Copernicus. He disgracefully converted the papal power into an instrument for extorting money from an orthodox prince, to oblige his nephew, Cardinal Francisco.

The Duke of Parma was largely indebted to the Monte, or Bank, of Rome, as security for which the revenues of the Duchy of Castro were pledged. Cardinal Francisco, desiring to obtain possession of Castro, prevailed upon the pope to summon the duke before him and command the payment of the debt to the bank. The duke was notified that if he did not appear within a fixed time, he would be excommunicated, and the revenues of Castro be sequestered for that purpose. The notice was disregarded, and the duke, knowing the character of Cardinal Francisco and his great influence over the pope, commenced the erection of fortifications to defend his territory in the event of forcible invasion. This the pope held to be an offense amounting to “crimen laese majestatis,” because it was done without his consent, and he proceeded to pronounce a solemn judgment against the duke. This consisted in fulminating a formal bull, excommunicating him, forfeiting all his dominions, and absolving all his subjects from their oaths of fidelity. (“Religion and Policy,” by Clarendon, vol. ii., pp. 548-550.)

In this act Urban VIII. went a bow-shot beyond any of his predecessors. With them the practice of excommunicating heretics, releasing their subjects, and taking away their dominions was familiar enough as the exercise of their divine power; but Urban was the first pontiff who employed this extraordinary power to compel an orthodox prince, as faithful to the Church as himself, to pay a debt to a banking corporation! What other than an infallible genius could have originated the idea of converting an ecclesiastical bull of excommunication into a capias ad satisfaciendum?

When forced, at last, to experience the mortification of defeat in consummating this nefarious scheme, in consequence of the combination of princes to protect the Duke of Parma, he gnashed his teeth in anger, like a madman, and died a miserable and ignominious death; “blaspheming the name of God, and confounding in the same curses the Doge of Venice, the Dukes of Parma, Modena, and Tuscany, the French and Spaniards, Protestants and Catholics.” (Cormenin, vol. ii., p. 317.)

The events heretofore related, immediately preceding and connected with the colonization of Maryland, occurred during the pontificates of these two popes; and there is nothing more certain than that neither of them did anything up to that time to counteract the influence of the Jesuits, or to check their career of conquest. Suarez, and Sanchez, and Emanuel Sa, and Bellarmin, and other fathers, had just died, leaving immense volumes of defense as a legacy to the order. Neither the “Augustinius” of Jansen nor the “Provincial Letters” of Pascal had yet been published. The heavy artillery of Port-Royal had not yet been opened upon them. They were holding “high carnival” among the nations; crowding around the courts of kings to subjugate them by their intrigues, bending popes to their will through such generals as Acquaviva, and lighting the torch wheresoever there were victims to be found.

But a few years before, the accursed and infernal Inquisition had been declared “holy” and “universal” by Pope Sixtus V., and no monarch had yet been powerful enough to succeed in mitigating its cruelties. John IV. of Portugal was the only one among the Roman Catholic sovereigns who, at that time, dared to incur the pontifical displeasure by denouncing its ferocities and seeking to destroy it.

Under all these circumstances, it is absurd—the very height of absurdity—to suppose that these Jesuit fathers, White, and Altham, and Brock, and others, who accompanied the first Roman Catholic colonists to Maryland, came over with the purpose in their minds to plant religious toleration and freedom of conscience in the New World. The idea is preposterous; and he who is credulous enough to believe it, is also ready to believe that Gregory VII., and Adrian IV., and Alexander III., and Innocent III., and Boniface VIII., made the service of God the sole motive of their lives, and undertook no efforts to seize upon the temporal scepters of kings.

Whatsoever, then, was done in the Colony of Maryland in favor of religious toleration was done only in obedience to the charter, and against the known and steady policy both of the Church of Rome and the Jesuits. Nobody can justify the intolerance of the Episcopalians of Virginia or the Puritans of New England; and while we may now congratulate ourselves that counteracting influences were planted in Maryland, it should not be forgotten that those who brought them accepted toleration from compulsion, and employed all the arts and cunning of Jesuitism to get rid of it.

Intolerance, it is true, accorded with the spirit of that age, and some allowance—but no apology—is to be made for it on that account. But the first influences that set in against it were Protestant exclusively, not Roman Catholic. Nowhere in the Roman Catholic world could religious toleration obtain a foot—hold. Although great men and laymen of the Church gave it their support, Rome would not permit it, and her fiat was the law of the Church: “when Rome has spoken,” said Augustine,” that is the end of the matter.”

The first legislation in Maryland in favor of freedom of conscience was in 1649, fifteen years after the colony had been planted. Earlier assemblies had enacted laws, but they were not approved by Lord Baltimore, and were, therefore, lost. It was necessary in passing all these that the colonists, while preserving the legal rights of the Proprietary, should, at the same time, be careful to express their allegiance to the English monarch. They had the example of Virginia before them to teach them how necessary it was that their legislation should conform to their charter, in order to avoid a forfeiture. This conformity to the charter was the expression of their allegiance. Without it Lord Baltimore could not legally have approved of their legislation, and the displeasure of the king would have been incurred.

In any aspect of the question, then, the legislation of 1649 was a necessary duty imposed by their fundamental law, and was almost in the language of the charter. It was an act of legal obedience, nothing more. If, apart from this, it had the hearty assent of the Roman Catholic laymen of the colony, that only goes to show, what has often appeared elsewhere, that liberal-minded men of that Church have had courage enough to defy the papacy, in their advocacy of the inalienable natural rights of mankind. To these, if such were the fact, all possible honor is due, and we should not be slow to render it. And even now, in the present aspect of affairs, it may well be left unchallenged; for neither then nor now could religious toleration obtain the sanction and approval of the papacy. It could not have done so then, because Innocent X. was pope, and he, in a pontifical bull, ex catthedra, denounced the Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War by restoring peace to Germany, and placed every religious sect on an equal footing; declaring it to be “prejudicial to the Catholic religion, to divine worship, to the safety of souls, to the Apostolic See,” and “null, vain, iniquitous.” (“History of Germany,” by Menzel, vol. ii., p. 395; Cormenin, vol. ii., p. 321.)

It could not be done now, because Pius IX. has announced, in his Syllabus of 1864 and elsewhere, that it is in violation of God’s law and the faith of the Church; that Innocent X. and all other intolerant popes were infallible; and that unqualified and unresisting obedience is due both to the doctrines set forth by them, as well as to those which have been set forth by him.

If the Roman Catholic laymen of Maryland, in 1649, were so far removed from the immediate influence of Innocent X. that they dared to give expression to their honest sentiments in favor of toleration, let us cherish their memory with affection. But the immediate question which concerns us now, and which is practical in all its bearings, is this: Are the Roman Catholic laymen of the United States at this time sufficiently removed from the immediate influence of Pius IX. to stand firmly by the honest sentiments of their own hearts, and defend religious toleration at the hazard of incurring excommunication and anathema? If they are—if our free institutions have given growth and strength to their natural love of liberty, and they cherish the hope that they may be preserved as an asylum where Protestants and Roman Catholics may mingle together in harmony, and enjoy whatsoever forms of religious belief their consciences shall approve, then to them also should appropriate honors be given.

And this is the great question to which all our inquiries tend. How it is to be decided, and what shall be the character of the struggle through which a decision shall be reached, is known only to the Searcher of all hearts. The head of the pope no longer wears a crown, but he will tolerate no subjects whose submissive obedience is not the same as if he did. With him there can be no religion without this obedience; there can be no service of God without serving him. If this is to be the religion of the Roman Catholic population of the United States, then the obligation of self-protection will require measures of defense against it. What these shall be it would be premature to discuss until this preliminary question shall have been decided. And this cannot be put off much longer. It is crowding upon us every day, and each demand from Rome increases its proportions.

Continued in Chapter XXIII. The Papal Theory of Government




The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XXI. Disputes About Papal Authority

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XXI. Disputes About Papal Authority

Continued from Chapter XX. Papal Infallibility

The Condition of the Church at the Time of the Councils of Basel and Florence.—Council at Pavia fixed by that of Florence.—Approved by Martin V.—Transferred to Basel.—Meets there, and is presided over by Legate of Eugenius IV.—It is Ecumenical—Agrees with that of Constance about its Power over the Pope.—Eugenius IV. endeavors to defeat It.—His Proceedings against It.—Organizes a Factious Assembly at Ferrara.—Proceedings of the Council against Him.—He pretends to yield, and approves its Decrees.—He violates his Pledge.—He draws the Greeks to Florence, and calls the Meeting there a Council.—It is not Ecumenical; the Council at Basel is at first, when its Decree against the Pope’s Infallibility is passed.—It represents a Majority of Christians.—The Council at Florence is mainly Italian.—The Pope’s Agreement with the Greeks about his Primacy.—Limited by Decrees of Councils and Canons of the Church.—The Greeks reject the Agreement, and it falls.—This is called a Decree.—Its Terms.—Misrepresentation of Them.—Do not make the Pope Infallible.—Give Him the Primacy conferred by Decrees and Canons.—Primacy of Honor, not Jurisdiction.—The Fifteenth Century, after the Council of Florence. —The French Church.—Charles VII.—Council at Bourges.—Pragmatic Sanction.—Opposition of the Popes to it. Revoked by Louis XI.—Parliament resisted.—Council of Pisa.—The Fifth Lateran Council in Opposition to it.— The Former renews the Decrees of Constance and Basel—The Latter factious at Beginning.—Afterward assents to.—Concordat of Bologna agreed to by Francis I. and Pope Julius It.—Rejected by France.—French Bishops do not attend the Council.—It is not Ecumenical.—No Deliberation in it.—Submissive to Leo X.—Council of Trent.— Does not assert the Pope’s Infallibility.—Does not deny the Validity of the Decree of Council of Constance.—Concedes merely Power of Pope to interpret the Canons, not to set them aside.—Pius IV. does this only in his Profession of Faith.

IT is so positively and dogmatically asserted that the pope’s infallibility was recognized by the Council of Florence, that, in order to know whether it is to be accepted as a fact or rejected, we must understand the character of that council, the circumstances which led to it, and the nature of its decrees.

The Church at the time of the two Councils of Basel and Florence was fearfully rent by a most disgraceful schism. The Council of Constance, only a few years before, had appointed a council to meet at Pavia, which had the sanction and approval of Martin V. This fixed its ecumenical character; and when it did afterward meet, in 1423, and was attended by five legates of the pope, and by deputies from France, Germany, and England, it, of course, retained this character. It was, therefore, an ecumenical council at the beginning, according to the principles then and now universally recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. It was subsequently transferred to Basel, where it was presided over by a legate of Pope Eugenius IV.—his immediate predecessor, Martin V., having, in the mean time, died.

One of the first questions that came before it was that which had been decided by the Council of Constance, involving the relative powers of popes and councils. It became apparent, at once, to the pope that the council would decide, as that at Constance had done, in favor of its own and against his authority; in other words, that it possessed the rightful power to settle and prescribe the faith, independently of the pope, and that the pope had no such power without its consent, because it alone represented the Universal Church. To prevent this, Pope Eugenius IV. immediately began a most disreputable war against the council, intending, if possible, at whatever cost or injury to the Church, to defeat this action. He did not hesitate to inaugurate a war between the Church and the papacy; the former represented by a regularly organized ecumenical council, and the latter by the pope alone. He undoubtedly supposed that the times were favorable to the recognition of the claim of papal supremacy and infallibility; a supposition well warranted by the condition of affairs then existing.

The long residence of the popes at Avignon had corrupted the highest authorities of the Church to so fearful an extent, and the disgraceful schisms existing but a little while before had so rent the Church into factions, that it only required a bold and courageous pope to bring the bishops into obedience, especially when they were assured that they would be the sharers with him of whatsoever power he should acquire over the lay members of the Church. Therefore, Eugenius IV., in the very first step taken by him, exhibited a determination to take advantage of the times, and bring the whole Church to his feet at a single blow. He was determined to lose nothing by equivocation, and, accordingly, as if he were already dictator, commanded his legate to transfer the council to Bologna, where he could preside over it in person, and thus direct and control its action.

Acting under the protection of the Emperor Sigismund, the legate refused to obey this insolent command; whereupon the pope, greatly incensed, published a bull dissolving the council—a course of proceeding both factious and disorganizing. In the mean time, and before this bull was issued, the council had passed a decree to the effect that “every person, of whatsoever state or dignity, even the pope himself, is bound to obey it in what concerns the faith,” and another denying the right of the pope to dissolve it. The issue was thus distinctly made—the pope on one side, representing himself alone; the council on the other, representing the whole Church. One or the other had to recede, or divide the Church—separate its body from its head!

The council, backed by the emperor, sent a deputation to the pope earnestly desiring him to recall his bull for its dissolution. He refused. Whereupon the council renewed their former decrees, and declared that, as they were abandoned by the pope, it was their duty to provide for the necessities of the Church, “as the Holy Spirit should dictate to them.” They summoned the pope to attend in person. This he also refused, and was declared contumacious. He was then notified that unless he appeared at a fixed time he would be proceeded against. The council declared, also, that no prelates should attend a council at any other place, under the penalty of excommunication. It manifestly did not desire to press matters to an extremity with the pope, unless, by his conduct, he rendered it impossible for them to do otherwise. They accordingly deferred any final action several times, to give him every possible opportunity of seeing that the welfare of the Church required the restoration of the pacific relations between them. The pope, however, when he found the council resolved to treat him as contumacious, and to deal with him accordingly, solicited ten more days of delay, which were readily granted him. He thus acknowledged the jurisdiction of the council over him, and again asked for additional delay of ninety days, which was also granted.

During the third year of the council, the pope sent to it his pontifical bull, wherein he declared that the council was lawful; that it ought to continue, without dissolution; that he annulled and revoked his bulls dissolving it; that he approved it, and would do nothing prejudicial to it. Earnestly desiring conciliation, it accepted this bull as satisfactory; and admitted the pope’s legates, upon their taking an oath to approve the decrees of the Council of Constance. And thus peace was seemingly restored upon the basis of the superiority of a council over a pope—the pope having, by his last bull, proposed and agreed to this as the basis of an adjustment.

But it was only seemingly restored. The pope soon made up his mind to falsify his own promise, and to get rid of the troublesome fathers of Basel in some way, it mattered little to him how. He was playing the game for empire, and, like other pretentious potentates, considered himself entitled to do with impunity what the universal law of ethics forbids without dishonor. Accordingly, while the fathers were engaged in faithful exertions to bring about a union with the Greek Christians, he, by his emissaries, was constantly engaged in plotting against them.

He issued a bull to transfer the council, this time to Florence. Baffled again in this, he issued another transferring it to Ferrara. Here, at last, “some Italian bishops,” with a single cardinal, met and organized a rival council, which immediately proceeded to enact that the council at Basel was illegal, and its acts void. It will be seen at once that such a council as this was schismatical, unless the whole power of the Church were taken away from its legitimate and only representative body, and transferred to the pope. Two councils could not lawfully sit at the same time; and as that at Basel had been legally called and organized, this assemblage at Ferrara was manifestly irregular and factious. In so far as the pope himself was concerned, it was fraudulent; for in the act of convening it he violated the promise made in his bull sent to the Council of Basel. But the two councils did sit at the same time, each having its own representative character: that at Basel representing the Church; that at Ferrara, the pope. The former remained almost entirely unreduced in numbers, being deserted only by the pope’s legate and four prelates. These followed their master and the few other Italian prelates to Ferrara; while all the other prelates, with the ambassadors of princes, remained at Basel, representing nearly the entire Church.

The Council of Basel, driven at last to extremities by the factious and malignant conduct of the pope, proceeded with his trial. He was accused by it, among other things,, of simony and breaking his oath; and, being found guilty, a decree was adopted which “declared Eugenius suspended from all kind of administration of the papal power, as well in spirituals as temporals, which had now devolved on the council; decreed that all he did should be null; and forbade all sorts of persons to obey him, under pain of excommunication.”

Measures of resistance were adopted by the pope, who caused the prelates at Ferrara to declare all these proceedings void. And he issued another bull to that effect, commanding those at Basel to come to Ferrara, and pronouncing excommunication against those who did not. He enjoined the magistrates and inhabitants of Basel “to force them away under pain of excommunication, and an interdict; and in case they should not do it, he forbade all persons to enter within the city, under the same pains, and enjoined all merchants to withdraw from it.”

What a mild and Christian temper did this infallible pontiff display! In dealing with the Baselian fathers, who represented the Church, he exhibited that malignity which bad men always show when balked in the pursuit of unworthy enterprises. But the council at Basel was not intimidated, and retaliated by decreeing that that at Ferrara was illegal, and all its proceedings null. There seemed to be no oil of Christian charity to pour upon the troubled waters. Everything was cursing and anathema.

In the mean time, the Greeks, who had been invited by the Council of Basel to attend it, were on their way to the West, and the pope inaugurated measures to draw them away from Basel to Ferrara, upon the pretext that the prelates at Basel were schismatics because they had opposed him. In this he succeeded, and negotiations were commenced for settling the terms of union between the Greek and Latin Christians. These lasted for some time. The pope insisted that the primacy denied him at Basel should be recognized, but the Greeks refused. The controversy was attended with a great deal of violence, but no compromise was agreed upon at Ferrara.

The pope issued another bull transferring his council from there to Florence, where it could be more directly surrounded by Italian influences, and, consequently, more subject to his dictation. After it reached Florence, much time was consumed in discussions about the procession of the Holy Ghost, and the phraseology to be used in expressing the nature and extent of the pope’s power. He desired an unqualified expression of his primacy over both spirituals and temporals—the very opposite of what had been declared at Constance and Basel. His object was to have it so broadly set forth as to show that his power was plenary over everything, including councils, and even the canons of the Church. To this the Greeks were unwilling, because such a concession by them would admit the inferiority of the Church at Constantinople to that at Rome; whereas they had always maintained that each of them possessed equal authority within its own jurisdiction. They would not consent to go farther than the First Council of Constantinople had gone, more than a thousand years before, which was to concede to Rome the first rank of honor, on account of its having been the old imperial city. This they insisted would be sufficiently indicated by a decree which should provide for the primacy of the pope, within the limitations fixed by the decrees of the ecumenical councils and the canon law—that is, that in the exercise of his primacy he should obey these.

The issue was a very plain one, and required the employment of an unusual degree of diplomatic skin on the part of the pope and his adherents. He was dealing exclusively with those who had been cut off from the Roman or Latin Church by the sword of excommunication, and were therefore heretics; and his manifest object was to entrap them into an agreement as to the extent of his power, which he could fling into the faces of the Latin Christians. These latter were then regularly assembled in the council at Basel, from which he had been able to draw off only the Italian prelates and a few others, leaving the great bulk of the Church still faithful to the decrees of the Council of Constance. And the pope understood perfectly well that, if the sentiment of the Latin Christians were honestly expressed, it would remain thus faithful. Therefore he employed the utmost skill and assiduity in procuring such an act of assent from the Greek heretics as would enable him to set up some claim of right to resist this sentiment, and to disregard the decrees of Constance and Basel. In other words, he desired to employ the Greeks only for the purpose of subverting one of the fundamental principles of faith in the Latin Church, that he might be enabled thereby to bring the whole Church to his feet, and make the pope alone, as its infallible head, the sole custodian of all its authority, the sole guardian of all its rights, and the sole dictator of its faith. How far this papal artifice succeeded will appear in the sequel.

As furnishing one of the best modes of interpreting the result, it is necessary to observe that the chief action of this Council of Florence was in the nature of a treaty between the pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople, and their followers, with reference alone to a union between the Latin and Greek Christians, and not for the settlement of questions of faith. Certainly, it cannot be pretended by anybody that the Greeks had any authority whatever to decide upon matters of faith, so as to bind the Latin Christians, until they had first made such atonement as would remove the sentence of excommunication, and restore them to Christian fellowship. Their visit to the West, and all these negotiations, had this principal object; and therefore what they did or assented to cannot, in any just sense, be considered as a part of the faith, unless also assented to by such regularly constituted authorities of the Church as were then recognized as having the right to bind the Church.

The parties had no special difficulty in agreeing to such general terms as would express the primacy of the pope, and his headship over the Universal Church. They, however, understood these terms differently. The pope considered them as a concession of his infallibility, along with that degree of spiritual power which included jurisdiction over temporals; while the patriarch and the Greek Christians understood them as conferring the utmost degree of honor, but no such authority as should justify the pope in invading their local jurisdiction.

The Greeks not being disposed to make the concession in the former sense, it became necessary to insert some terms of limitation or qualification which should serve to interpret the meaning of the treaty, in order to obtain their assent. The pope proposed to insert, after the words declaring his primacy, and power to feed, rule, and govern the Church, these words, “According to Scripture and the writings of the saints.” (“Latin Christianity,” by Milman, vol. viii., p. 46 (note).) But to this the Greeks could not, of course, consent without surrendering everything. They could easily see that the proposition had the stamp of trickery about it.

Finally, however, a treaty was agreed to wherein the words proposed by the pope were so changed as to express the idea that the pope had the power, as the head of the Church, to govern it, according to the acts of ecumenical councils and the canons of the Church. To this we must refer presently, in order to see what its precise meaning is, since it is the basis of the papal claim of infallibility; but, whatever its meaning is, it was the best the pope could do. It may be fairly supposed that he was only reconciled to it in that form, because he saw the possibility of so perverting its terms as to base the claim of infallibility upon it and his own superiority to councils; especially if the Greeks should withdraw from it, and he should be left alone as the only contracting party authorized to interpret its meaning. At all events, he soon found himself in this position; for the Greek Christians at Constantinople, when they learned what had been done, disagreed to and repudiated the treaty of settlement, and thus the effort at union proved abortive, and the compact made at Florence fell to the ground. This left it, of course, entirely worthless for all practical purposes, unless the pope could secure influence enough to gather up its repudiated provisions and impose them upon the Latin Christians as the law of the Church, in opposition to the decrees of Constance and Basel; in other words, unless he could reduce the Latin Christians to such a degree of submission and obedience as to compel them to accept their faith, not from their own legally constituted and assembled councils, but from the heretical Greeks, merely because, by all sorts of art and intrigue, they had been enticed into an agreement which, if it did elevate the pope, most certainly humiliated the Latin Church.

There is nothing to justify the assertion that the Latin Christians assented to these proceedings at Florence. Those of them who attended the council held there under the auspices of the pope, were only such as he had succeeded in drawing away from Basel. The agreement made there took the form of a consular decree only because it was signed by those who followed the pope. Of the Latins, these were, besides the pope, only eight cardinals, two patriarchs (of Jerusalem and Grado), two bishops, ambassadors of the Duke of Burgundy, eight archbishops, forty—seven bishops, four heads of orders, forty—one abbots, and the Archdeacon of Troyes,(“Latin Christianity,” by Milman, vol. viii., p. 47.) only one hundred and thirteen in all; while the council at Basel was attended by the recognized representatives of all the remainder of the Latin Christians, and had the sanction and approval of the Roman Catholic princes.

Consequently, when the Greek Christians refused to be bound by the treaty, the only support it had left, in all Christendom, was this schismatical faction of the pope. The Council of Basel still represented the Church, and continued its sessions. It reaffirmed its previous decree, and that of Constance, wherein it was declared that a council was superior to the pope, and more formally than before deposed Eugenius IV. When this formal act of deposition was passed, there were thirty—nine prelates and nearly three hundred ecclesiastics present about three times as many as signed the decree at Florence! They declared him “disobedient to the commands of the universal Church; one that persists in his rebellion, a violator and contemnner of the Holy Synodical canons; a disturber of the peace and unity; one that gives open scandal to the whole Church—simoniacal, perjured, incorrigible, schismatical, heretical, etc.” This was, undoubtedly, the act of a large majority—in fact, of nearly the whole—of the Latin Christians, speaking in the only mode then known to their Church organization.

Du Pin says that at that time “some prelates” were with the pope at Florence, and we have seen that their number was insignificant compared with that of those who remained at Basel. Consequently, the Baselian fathers, after having deposed Eugenius IV., were compelled to elect a successor to him. They did elect Felix V. The combat now thickened, and bulls and other papal weapons were hurled, from side to side, with no less fierceness than velocity. Pope Eugenius flung his bull at the head of Pope Felix, declaring him heretical and schismatical, and excommunicating all his supporters—that is, condemning to eternal perdition all the Baselian fathers and the bulk of the Christian world—for daring to deny to him the right to clothe himself in the robes of deity. The Council of Basel retaliated by declaring the bull null, and signified their contempt of it by consecrating Felix as pope.

The struggle waxed warmer and warmer. Deputies from each party were dispatched to secure the approbation of the princes. The Kings of France and England hesitated, and desired a compromise. Arragon, Hungary, Bavaria, Poland, and Austria took the side of Felix and the Baselian prelates. The universities of Paris, Germany, and Cracow wrote theses acknowledging Felix, and maintaining the authority of councils above popes. Another general council was suggested, but neither party would agree to it. And the consequence was that the schism thus created by Eugenius in attempting to force the recognition of his infallibility upon the Church, and to destroy a legally convened ecumenical council, lasted until his death, which occurred after the councils of Basel and Florence had both terminated their sessions.

Nicholas V. was elected pope by those who espoused the cause of Eugenius. Being of a meek and peaceful temper, he agreed to the suggestions of the princes with a view to compromise. The final result was such an accommodation of the difficulty upon the conditions that Felix should resign and be made chief cardinal, that all the excommunications and censures on both sides should be revoked, and that “also the decrees, dispositions, and regulations they had made should be confirmed.” This arrangement was carried into effect, and Nicholas V. issued a bull accordingly, approving the decrees of both the Council of Florence and that of Basel!

What there was, in all these proceedings, indicating the presence and special direction of the Holy Spirit, it would be hard to find. The conduct of Pope Eugenius was characterized by violence, passion, malevolence, and perfidy—an entire absence of Christian charity and love. If he had lived, the schism would, in all probability, have inflicted still greater injury upon the Church. But it was healed, for the time being, by the pacific temper of Nicholas V., and comparative quiet was restored. (*)

* Du Pin, vol. xiii., pp. 28-56; Cormenin, vol. ii., pp. 118—120; “Church of France,” by Jervis, vol. i., pp. 94- 98; “Latin Christianity,” by Milman, vol. vii., ch. xii., vol. viii., chh. xiii., xiv; “Mosheim’s Church History,” by Maclaine, vol. i., pp. 416-418.

The Roman Catholic Church rejects the Council of Basel, and accepts that of Florence as ecumenical. The latter, manifestly, has no just claim to that character; or certainly less claim to it than the former, which undoubtedly represented a majority of the Latin Christians. It has been suffered to acquire this character, however, because the popes and those passively obedient to them have been permitted to make up the history of the Church; and they, favoring their own infallibility, and desirous of the power it gives them, have rejected the Council of Basel, which really represented the Universal Church, and the sentiments of the Christian world, far more than did the papal faction at Ferrara and Florence. The assembly at Florence can not be called ecumenical in any proper sense, because there is nothing to show that it represented the Universal Church.

That at Basel was ecumenical for a time, at all events, even according to the papal rule. When Eugenius solicited delay in its proceedings, and agreed, in consideration of its being granted, that he would sustain its action and approve its decrees, he knew that the decree declaring the council above the pope had been passed. He must be understood, therefore, as having by this act made that decree a part of the law of the Church, according to the recognized forms of procedure. True, he supposed he could change it, and resorted to falsehood and intrigue to do so. But having failed in this, the only course left him was to assemble a seceding faction of his own, entice the Greeks to join it, cause it to enact a new decree, and then employ all the authority of the papacy to bring the Church to accept it as an ecumenical council. Even this, however, does not help the supporters of the pope’s infallibility out of the difficulty—for Pope Nicholas V. afterward approved the decrees of the Council of Basel, which, according to their theory, makes them a necessary part of the faith, whether the council enacting them was ecumenical or not. But he also approved those of Florence, which, of course, had been also approved previously by Eugenius.

What then? There is but one common—sense view of it: if Florence decreed in favor of the pope’s infallibility and Eugenius approved it, Basel decreed against it and Nicholas approved that! Were they both infallible? If so, then the act of one was what the lawyers would call a set-off against that of the other. If neither was infallible, then the act of Nicholas, being the last in point of time, must be held to be of more weight than that of Eugenius; or else Nicholas must be put in the singular attitude of having approved two decrees directly in conflict with each other! This would certainly require infallibility— though the integrity of such an act might well be questioned.

But if it be conceded that the Council of Florence was ecumenical, and that it did regularly enact a decree in reference to the primacy of the pope, as the advocates of papal infallibility now insist, we are brought to the point of inquiring what that decree in point of fact was—whether it went to the extent asserted, or stopped short of it.

If the reader will keep in mind the circumstances already detailed explaining the difficulty the pope encountered in bringing the Greeks to enter into the treaty in reference to his primacy, it will materially aid him in satisfactorily interpreting what follows.

The Jesuits regard what they call the decree of the Council of Florence as furnishing one of the strongest arguments in favor of their theory of infallibility; and Weninger, true to their cause, gives the whole of it in these words:

“We define that the Apostolic See, that is, the Roman pontiff, has the right of primacy over all the churches of the world; that the Roman pontiff is the successor of St. Peter; that he is the very vicar of Christ, the head of the whole Church, the father and teacher of all the faithful; that in the person of Peter he was entrusted by our Lord with full power to feed, direct, and govern the whole flock of Christ. Such is manifestly the doctrine taught by the acts of the general councils, as well as by the sacred canons.” (*)

* “Apostolical and Infallible Authority of the Pope,” by Weninger, p. 148. He gives the Latin thus: “Definimus sanctam Apostolicam sedem et Romanum Pontificem in universum orbem terrarum primatum tenere, et ipsum Romanum Pontificem successorem esse Beati Petri, principis Apostolorum, et verum Christi vicarium, totiusque ecclesix caput, et omnium Christianorum patrem et doctorem existere, et ipsi in Beato Petro pascendi, ret gendi et gubernandi universalem ecclesiam a D. N.J. C. plenam potestatem traditam esse, quemadmodum etiam in gestis (Ecumenicorum Conciliorum et in Sacris Canonibus continetur.” See, also, “Delineations of Romanism,” by Elliott, London ed., by Hannah, p. 607 (note).

Weninger’s book is so full of errors and misquotations as to excite suspicion against the integrity of much that he has said; and where we find him differing with such an author as Du Pin, if the question rested alone between them, the preference should be given to the latter. There is no difficulty about that part of the decree which precedes the power to feed, etc. Du Pin makes it confer the primacy, with “power to feed, to rule and govern the Catholic Church, as it is explained in the acts of ecumenical councils, and in the holy canons;” thus confining it within the limitations prescribed by the latter. But Weninger goes further, and represents the decree as conceding the primacy as an independent and substantive power, with no limitations whatever upon it; and then, beginning with a new sentence, makes it declare that “such is manifestly the doctrine taught by the acts of the general councils, as well as by the sacred canons.”

This rendering of the decree is false at the very point upon which its whole meaning turns. The decree is in a single sentence, as the Latin in the last note will show. To be understood correctly, all its parts must be taken together, not detached. But Weninger very deliberately divides it into two sentences. He takes out the comma after the words “traditam esse,” in the original, and substitutes a period for it—thus closing the sentence. And then he translates the remainder (“quemadmodum etiam,” etc.), so as to make it mean, independently of what had preceded, that the same degree of primacy which the first sentence conceded was conferred by the councils and the canons. A school—boy ought to detect this false translation, as almost any one would with the original before him. The words “quemnadmodum etiam” mean “as also,” and cannot be tortured into such a meaning as Weninger has given them.

Retaining the comma, then, in its proper place, and leaving the decree one continuous sentence, as it is in fact, the last clause should be rendered, “as also is contained in the acts of the ecumenical councils and the sacred canons;” making the two clauses dependent upon each other, and the last referring to and qualifying what precedes it. This meaning is equivalent to that given by Du Pin, “as it is explained in the acts of the ecumenical councils and in the holy canons;” and substantially like that given by Milman, “according to the canons of the Church.” (Milman, vol. viii., ch. xiv., p. 46.)

The true meaning undoubtedly is this: that the power and primacy of the pope exist just in that degree which is expressed by the councils and in the canons. To have declared the pope infallible, and to have followed it up with the assertion that he was also so declared by the councils and in the canons, would have been false in point of fact—for the very last preceding ecumenical council had decreed precisely the reverse, and there was no existing canon to that effect outside the “constitutions” of the popes themselves. And, besides, the Greeks, who were jealous of Rome, would manifestly not have agreed to a treaty of union with the Latin Church if it—had been understood that they thereby surrendered their independence within their accustomed jurisdiction, and subjected themselves entirely to the dominion of an infallible pope at Rome.

Construing the treaty in the light of the actual relations then existing between the two churches, it must be understood that the Greeks intended to concede nothing more than they had conceded at the first Council of Constantinople; that is, that the Roman Church had the primacy of honor, and nothing more, except such authority as had been from time to time granted by the councils and the canons. (*)

* A distinguished British prelate, Monsignor Capel, in defending the Church against the attack of Mr. Gladstone, quotes this decree of the Council of Florence to prove that the pope’s infallibility was established by it. He shows the falsity of Weninger’s translation, and substantially confirms that of Du Pin, by giving the words “quemadmodum etiam” their true rendering. He thus quotes the latter part of the decree: “the full power of feeding, ruling, and governing the Universal Church: as also is contained in the acts of the ecumenical councils and in the sacred canons.”—New York Tablet, December 12th, 1874, p. 450. But he commits an error also in this: that he, like Weninger, takes out the comma, but substitutes a colon for it thus designing to show that the words which follow have no necessary dependence upon the previous part of the sentence. He does not pretend to any such translation as that given by Weninger, although, by this introduction of a colon, he evidently intends to convey the same idea, which does violence to the language of the original.

The Rev. Dr. M’Glynn addressed a large audience in the hall of Cooper Institute, New York, December 27th, 1874, in what is called an “eloquent answer to England’s fallen statesman!” After such reckless statements as, that the pope presided, by his legates, over the Council of Nice; and over all subsequent councils, either in person or by his legates, he quotes the decree of the Council of Florence in the precise words of Weninger—from whose book he probably took it, without looking to see whether it was truly or falsely given. He also refers to the language of the pope’s legate in an address to the Council of Ephesus, in 430, to show that the legate claimed infallibility for the pope, and that the council acquiesced in it; whereas the fact is that the Council of Ephesus was convoked by the Emperor Theodosius, was presided over by Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, and decided the controversy upon which it was called to act by deposing Nestorius, before the arrival of the pope’s legates!—Du PIN, vol. iii., pp. 195-201.

During the remainder of the fifteenth century, after the proceedings at Florence had ended, the popes were undisturbed both in the claim and exercise of authority, except as they brought themselves in contact with princes. But their efforts to have it accepted as universal were in no manner slackened. Under the influences exercised by them the discipline of the Church had become so relaxed that, in 1512, the Fifth Lateran Council was convened by Pope Julius II. to provide, in some effective mode, for its re-establishment. And this brings us to the inquiry whether or not papal infallibility was so decreed by this council as to make it binding upon the whole Church. This cannot be decided satisfactorily without understanding also the true character of that council, and the circumstances which led to it.

At the time of the Council of Basel the French Church occupied an anomalous position toward the papacy. Realizing that the popes were endeavoring to encroach upon its ancient liberties, and that to concede to them superiority over general councils would enable them to do so, it moved with as much caution as possible, consistently with the preservation of its boasted independence. Therefore, the King of France, Charles VII., instead of giving an open adhesion to the Baselian decrees, favored a compromise of the disagreement between the two councils— Basel and Florence rather than an open rupture. At the same time, he was unwilling to concede to the pope his asserted supremacy. Finding, however, that both parties were driven to extremities—each anathematizing the other as schismatical and heretical—no other course remained to him but independent action. Accordingly, he assembled a national council at Bourges, in 1438, by which was promulgated the “Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges,” which not only asserted the right of councils to legislate for the Church and to control the pope by its canons, but went even further, and insisted upon the authority of a national council of France to legislate for the French Church. Thus, upon the vital question out of which the issue between the two rival councils had arisen, the French Christians took the side of the Baselian fathers, maintaining the decrees of the Council of Constance; but from motives of expediency merely they refused to recognize the—deposition of Eugenius, and rejected the claims of Felix V.

These contradictory movements had their origin in state policy far more than in the necessities and interests of Christianity. These latter were of secondary consideration both with the pope and the king—the principal motive with each being the acquisition of temporal power. The pope, of course, was deadly hostile to the “Pragmatic Sanction,” while the king was determined to maintain it. The former and his adherents insisted that, by virtue of his supremacy, he had the power to revoke the authority of the Council of Basel, and that, although it was ecumenical at the beginning, all its decrees passed subsequent to his act of revocation were void. On the other hand, the king claimed that the pope’s approval of its de crees previous to the calling of the council at Ferrara made valid that which asserted the superiority of councils; and that as the council was assembled with the assent of the pope, his sanction related to all the decrees passed by it during its entire session. And hence, as the “Pragmatic Sanction” was but a re—affirmance of the decree passed at Basel, therefore it also had the implied, if not express, sanction of the pope. (Jervis, vol. i., pp. 97-99.)

The “Pragmatic Sanction” became the statute—law of France by enactment of Parliament. It was fiercely denounced by several popes in the language of denunciation so familiar to them. But all their efforts to get it out of the way were unsuccessful during the reign of Charles VII. Under that of Louis XI. they were attended with better results so far as the papacy was concerned. This arbitrary monarch, influenced by both papal flattery and threats, revoked the sanction by an imperial decree, utterly disregarding the will of the French Christians and the dignity of France.

Upon the question of his authority to do this, he and the pope were fully agreed—each maintaining the “divine right” of kings and princes to rule without regard to the wishes of the people. But they disagreed upon another point: Louis supposed that the rescission of the Sanction would give him the whole power, as king, to control the Church in France; whereas, as soon as the act was consummated, the pope claimed all this power for himself, and so exercised it as to sow the seeds of corruption broadcast all over France, and to cause both him and the king to be held in contempt by the French Christians. Parliament now interfered, and declared the king’s act of revocation illegal, which left the principles of the “Pragmatic Sanction” in force.

Yet the restoration of the papal authority consequent upon the conduct of the king had produced such results that the French Church became paralyzed by the blow. This paralysis continued until the reign of Louis XII., who formally re—established the Sanction. Julius II. was then pope, and immediately assumed a hostile attitude toward the king. This led to remonstrances on the part of the French clergy, who insisted upon a general council to settle over again the points of disagreement. To this Pope Julius would not consent, fearing a repetition of the decrees of Constance and Basel. His refusal induced the King of France and the Emperor of Germany to take steps on their own responsibility to have a council convened.

Having obtained the acquiescence of nine cardinals, these latter called a council to meet at Pisa in 1511. The pope now became both embarrassed and incensed, and, like his predecessor, Eugenius IV., immediately inaugurated measures to prevent, if possible, the re-enactment of the decrees of Constance and Basel the question what was, or was not, the true faith being of far less concern to him than the gratification of his ambition. For this purpose he called a council at Rome, which would be more under his control than that at Pisa, and summoned the prelates who had appointed the latter council to attend his, at his Palace of the Lateran, in 1512. He threatened to degrade them of their dignity, and deprive them of their benefices, if they did not attend. Disregarding both his summons and threat, they opened the council at Pisa, asserting their right to do it, under the protection of the princes at whose instance they had acted, independently of the pope. It was attended by four cardinals in person, the procurators of three others, two archbishops, thirteen bishops, five abbots, several doctors of law and divinity, and the deputies of the universities of France. This council renewed the decrees of the councils of Constance and Basel, concerning the authority of councils over the pope, and adjourned to meet at Milan, where they endeavored to have the pope to meet with them, in order to decide upon the necessary measures of reform. This he refused, and they at last proceeded to declare him contumacious and schismatic, and to suspend him from the administration of the papacy.

The Council of Pisa then came to an end. And although it had not at any time any authority as an ecumenical council, and only serves to show how large a portion of the Christians of Europe refused to admit the supremacy claimed by the pope, yet its decree suspending the pope was accepted in France, where the king, Louis XII., forbade his subjects any longer to regard Julius II. as pope, or to pay any attention to his bulls. The pope replied by excommunicating the king, putting France under an interdict, and releasing his subjects from their oath of allegiance. And thus the contest between these royal representatives of the “divine right” waxed to an exceeding degree of warmth. (Du Pin, vol. xiii., pp. 17-19; Jervis, vol. i., pp. 100-103; Fleury, livre cxxii., 115—117; apud Jervis. )

The council called by Julius II.—the Fifth Lateran—met in Rome in 1512. It was certainly not ecumenical at the beginning, having no juster claim to be so considered than the assemblage at Pisa, unless the pope’s claim of supremacy is primarily conceded. The word “ecumenical” has but one meaning—that of universal. Ecumenical councils are designed to give expression to the universal faith, and, therefore, in all the early ages of the Church, they constituted “the highest courts of judicature in all dogmatic discussions.” (Alzog, p. 677.) But they obtained that character only by virtue of the fact that they represented the entire Church; that is, included all the episcopate. If they did not do this, they had no just jurisdiction over matters pertaining to the Universal Church; or, in other words, could not decide questions of faith.

Measured by this rule, the Fifth Council of Lateran was certainly not ecumenical at its commencement, because the whole Church was not represented there. There were no prelates from England, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, or any other part of the Christian world outside of Italy; and only those who lived alone upon the favor and patronage of the pope. Du Pin says they were “all Italians,” except some abbots. Thus far, then, it was entirely factious, like that at Ferrara; both factions having their origin in precisely the same motive. Did it afterward become ecumenical? Its original character was not changed during the life of Julius II., although, with it that time, it had declared annulled all the proceedings at Pisa, confirmed the bull against the King of France, and fiercely attacked the Pragmatic Sanction. It had also summoned all its supporters to appear and show cause why it should not be revoked.

At this point, the death of Julius II. occurred, and Leo X. became pope. Being of the princely family De’ Medici, of Florence, he entertained more enlarged views than Julius II., and the King of France was encouraged by hopes of a satisfactory reconciliation with him. Accordingly, he sent his ambassadors to the council, and renounced the proceedings at Pisa. The King of Spain and the Emperor of Germany did the same; and the prelates who had assembled at Pisa also attended the council. The French bishops had not yet done so. The king stipulated that they should, but the time was postponed tin the latter part of the year 1516, when the council was to hold its eleventh session. Before that time arrived, Louis XII. died, and Francis I. became King of France. With him and the pope the question now became one of diplomacy, the interests of the Church still remaining secondary.

A diplomatic ambassador was sent to Rome, and finally came to a compromise with Leo X., by abrogating the Pragmatic Sanction and substituting the celebrated Concordat of Bologna in its place. Each of the parties to this arrangement supposed himself the gainer—the king by being made the head of the Church in France, and the pope by being enabled to collect annats or imposts in France, which had been denied by the Pragmatic Sanction. The pope exchanged a share of the spiritual right claimed by his predecessors for this temporal advantage.

But France was not as easily reconciled as the king. The Parliament resisted the Concordat, and adhered to the Pragmatics Sanction. The University of Paris did the same. An appeal to a general council was insisted on—that at Rome not being so considered. The king, becoming incensed at this resistance to his royal will, denounced these proceedings as seditious, and undertook to enforce the Concordat by despotic power.

In the meantime the period fixed for the eleventh session of the Lateran Council had arrived, and the session was held without the attendance of any of the French clergy. Nothing had transpired to give it universality, inasmuch as many parts of the Christian world yet remained unrepresented in it. It still retained its original Italian character, and was, to all intents and purposes, the pope’s council, and not that of the Church. And yet it was at this eleventh session of the council that a decree was passed which, it is now claim ed, recognizes the pope’s infallibility. The foregoing facts show, if such a decree was passed, that it was not binding on the Church as a part of its faith; and the fact that it was not so considered by the Church is fully established by subsequent events.

But no such decree was, in point of fact, passed by the Fifth Lateran Council. The facts are these: the pope issued a bull abrogating the Pragmatic Sanction, affirming the Concordat, and declaring that he had authority above councils, and full power to call, remove, or dissolve them at will. He also renewed the bull of Boniface VIII called Unam Sanctam, which asserted the supremacy of the pope over the world, both in spirituals and temporals. When this bull was read in the council, it was “approved by all the bishops” except one, says Du Pin. (Du Pin, vol. xiii., pp. 22-25; Jervis, vol. i., pp. 107, 108; Maclaine’s “Mosheim’s Chutirch History,” vol. ii., p. 9.)

There was no freedom either of discussion or of will. It was simply a strong man, as Leo X. was, commanding and exacting obedience by the superiority of his own will. There was no decree about it—nothing but the simple approval of the pope’s bull. And, consequently, this is to be taken merely as the assent to it by those prelates who were present; which was in no way binding upon those who were not present. The Church, as such, was not represented in the council, and consequently did not assent to its action, whatever it may have been. The French Christians resisted the whole thing, continued to adhere to the Pragmatic Sanction, and to resist the Concordat. And therefore the defenders of the pope’s infallibility can not, with any propriety whatever, insist that the Fifth Lateran Council made it a part of the law of the Church. What was done by the Ecumenical Council of Trent upon this subject is more readily disposed of; although this was the most important of all the councils, and its various sessions were held from 1545 to 1563. In its decree for general reformation it is provided that “they will be obedient to the constitutions of the pope, and of councils, determining that all constitutions of general councils, and of the Apostolic See, in favor of ecclesiastical persons and liberty, shall be observed by all.”

In another decree, which was held back until the final session, and was “never mentioned in any congregation,” it was provided that in all the decrees of reformation made in the council, under the three previous popes, “the authority of the Apostolic See is excepted and preserved.” (“History of the Council of Trent,” by Sarpi, pp. 756, 757.) That this council intended to enlarge the power of the papacy to the utmost extent there is no sort of doubt.

Its final action was mainly controlled by Italian bishops from Rome—the tools of the pope; and they would listen to nothing that limited his power. The French ambassador present, writing to the king, said, “They will give ear to nothing that may hinder the profit and authority of the Court of Rome. Besides, the pope is so much master of this council, that his pensioners, whatsoever the emperor’s ambassadors or we do remonstrate unto them, will do but what they list.” (Ibid., p. 783.)

But it will be observed that neither of these decrees asserts the doctrine of the pope’s infallibility. The most they do is to assert that the Church is to be governed by the constitutions of the popes and the canons of councils. They do not decide, nor did the Council of Trent at any other time decide, which of the two should prevail when the constitutions of the popes and the canons of councils came in conflict. The general terms employed embrace all the councils. And as one canon of the Council of Constance declared that the pope was inferior to a council, and no ecumenical council, as we have seen, has repealed that canon, therefore it is included in the decree of the Council of Trent. Besides, it is said that the faith never changes—that it never can change. This being true, the canon of Constance was a part of the faith after that council had adjourned; and must have continued so up to the Council of Trent, and could not be changed by it. Therefore, the Council of Trent, while it went as far as it dared to go to give supremacy to the pope, must be considered as denying his infallibility, because they did not affirm it. If they had intended to affirm it, they would have required obedience to him alone, as the late Lateran Council has done, and not to him and the canons of councils conjointly. Requiring the faithful to look to the constitutions of popes and the canon sof councils is almost an express denial of the pope’s infallibility.

Yet it is true that the Council of Trent did not expressly place any limitation upon the power of the pope. It left it as it found it, but somewhat augmented in strength by the failure to place a curb upon it. While it conceded to the pope the power to interpret its canons, and thereby gave him great control over the faith, yet it did not give him the power to set aside existing canons, or to make new ones. Therefore it stopped short of declaring him infallible. And so Pius IV. understood it when, in 1564, he promulgated the creed, founded upon existing canons, which has been since re-proclaimed by Pius IX. and remained as the faith of the Church up to the late Lateran Council.

That creed requires that interpretation of the Scriptures to be accepted which has “the unanimous consent of the fathers;” and, while it enjoins “true obedience to the Roman pontiff,” it does not concede to him the power to set aside this “unanimous consent” and substitute his own interpretation for it. That remained for the late council, which has so changed the creed as to require it now to mean that the “true obedience to the Roman pontiff” which is now enjoined is to accept that interpretation of Scripture which he, and not the fathers, shall give! Does not this change the old faith, and substitute a new one for it?

Now, it is undoubtedly true that those who, by this change of faith, have elevated the pope above the fathers and all the great councils of the Church, by assigning to him equality with God on earth, have done so because they hope thereby to be able to bring the world back again into that condition in which it was when the popes did exercise the utmost plenitude of power by usurpations they were strong enough to maintain. Every intelligent reader knows what that condition was; but it is nowhere more graphically portrayed, in so far as the popes were concerned, than by the greatest of Italian historians, who was a personal observer of the passing events just preceding the Council of Trent. After enumerating some of the usurpations by which the popes had obtained their ascendancy over princes and peoples, he says:

“Being raised by these steps unto earthly power, they laid aside by little and little the care of souls and of divine precepts: so that setting their affections wholly upon earthly greatness, and using their spiritual authority only as an instrument of their temporal, they seemed rather to be secular princes than priests. After this their care and business was no more sanctity of life, increase of religion, love, and charity toward their neighbor, but armies, and wars against Christians, handling the sacrifices even with bloody hands; but heaping up wealth; but new laws, new arts, new snares to scrape money from all parts. For this end they used their spiritual weapons without respect, and sold things, both sacred and profane, without any shame at all. The popes and the court thus abounding with wealth, there followed pomp, riot, dishonesty, lust, and abominable pleasures: no care of posterity, no thought of maintaining the perpetual dignity of the papacy; but in place hereof succeeded ambitious and pestiferous desires to exalt their sons, nephews, and kindred, not only to immoderate riches, but to principalities and to kingdoms; bestowing their dignities and benefices not upon virtuous and well—deserving men, but either selling them to those who would give most, or misplacing them upon ambitious, covetous, and impudently voluptuous persons.” (Francis Guicciardini, from the fourth book of his “History;” apud Sarpi, pp. 781, 782.)

Continued in Chapter XXII. The Papacy Always Exclusive




The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XX. Papal Infallibility

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XX. Papal Infallibility

Continued from Chapter XIX. The Claimed Rights of the Papacy Over Governments.

Infallibility formerly in General Councils and the Popes conjointly.—Efforts made to prove this in England and the United States.—Books published on the Subject in both Countries.—Extracts from Several of Them. Doctrine of French Christians on that Subject.—They deny the Infallibility of the Pope.—Proceedings in England to obtain Catholic Emancipation.—The Doctrine denied both in England and Ireland.—The Pope’s Infallibility a new Doctrine.—Denied in the Catechism.—Distinction between the Church and the Papacy.—Infallibility in the Church during the Early Times.—The Greeks never admitted the Infallibility of the Pope. The First Seven Councils mainly Greek.—They concede Primacy of Honor, not Jurisdiction, to the Pope.—The Council of Nice.—The First Council of Constantinople.—The Council of Ephesus.—The Council of Chalcedon.—The Second Council of Constantinople.—The Third Council of Constantinople.—The Second Council of Nice.—The Fourth Council of Constantinople.—Subsequent Councils held by the Latins.—The First Lateran Council.—The Second Lateran Council.—The Third Lateran Council.—The Introduction of Papal Constitutions.—Adding them to Decrees of Councils.—More Effort to make Law for the Church by the Force of Precedent.—The Fourth Lateran Council.— Blindly obedient to Innocent III.—The Primacy of the Church, not of the Pope, established. Constitutions of Heretical Princes not Binding.—Part of the Canon Law.—The First Council of Lyons.—The Second Council of Lyons.—The Council of Vienne.—None of these Councils declare the Pope Infallible.

IT ought not to be considered as asking too much of those who support the absolutism of the papacy, when we insist that they shall address themselves to our consciences in furnishing a solution of the problem involved in the claim of the pope’s infallibility. It concerns the present age of the world too much, to let it rest upon the mere assertion that because it has been dogmatically avowed by a number of popes, therefore it is true. Such persons as have been trained in the school of submission, and accept whatsoever is told them by their superiors, may be satisfied with this; but to those who recognize no obligation of this nature, something more is due if they are expected to acquiesce in it. “No man,” said Archbishop Tillotson, “can be under an obligation to believe anything who hath not sufficient means whereby he may be assured that such a thing is true.”

Yet, when the objection is urged that this dogma places the papacy in direct antagonism to the domestic policy of the progressive nations, we are told—as if it were a complete answer—that there is nothing new in this; that it is a part of the ancient faith, descending from Peter, and which has known no variation from the beginning. Thus the whole question is rested; and we are required to give our assent, or remain under the pontifical curse if we do not. (*)

* The whole substance of Archbishop Manning’s reply to Mr. Gladstone is centered in his second and third propositions, set forth in his letter to the editor of the New York Herald, to wit, “that the Vatican Council announced no new dogma, but simply declared an old truth,” and that the civil allegiance of Roman Catholics, “since the council, is precisely what it was before.”—New York Tablet, December 21st, 1874, p. 405.

It has been elsewhere asserted that before the late council the infallibility of the Church was generally recognized by its lay members, especially in the United States, as lodged in the whole body of the Church, acting, according to the unvarying custom, through general councils and the popes conjointly. Even if the hierarchy thought otherwise, they studiously avoided any open declaration to that effect, leaving those to whom it was their duty to teach the whole truth in ignorance and delusion. There were even some of them who were not only guilty of this unpardonable sin of omission, but actually misled their flocks into the acceptance of a fatal error. And others, who did not go so far, silently acquiesced in the imposture.

About twenty years ago there was published and extensively circulated in the United States a work devoted to the discussion of the question of “Church authority”—the precise question involved in the dogma of papal infallibility. It was written by a former clergyman of the English Church, who had gone over to the Roman, as an explanation of his reasons for so doing. Starting out by defining the word ecclesia to mean any combination of men, he insists that in that sense the Church was established by Christ with the office of deciding what is human and what divine, and of interpreting the system of which it is the depository. (*)

* The Greek word ecclesia was in use in that language before the birth of Christ. Liddell and Scott, in their lexicon, define it to mean “an assembly of the citizens summoned by the crier, the legislative assembly.” Potter says it was “an assembly of the people met together according to law to consult about the good of the commonwealth. “—Antiquities of Greece, ch. xvii., p. 81. In the “Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge ” it is said to denote ” an assembly called together upon business, whether lawful or unlawful.” Thucydides used it to signify an assembly.—Bloomfield’s Thucydides, bk. vi., viii., p. 19, and bk. lxix., p. 338, vol. iii. It occurs frequently in the New Testament, and is generally translated church. But a different rendering is given to it, both in the Douay (Roman Catholic) and Protestant Bibles, where it occurs in Acts xix., 32, 39, at both of which places it is translated assembly. In several of the earlier versions of the New Testament, the translation given it in Matthew xvi., 18, was congregation: “Upon this rock I will build my congregation.” But this was not satisfactory to the Romanists, because it did not sufficiently convey the idea of an ecclesiastical organization with external authority. They therefore repudiated this translation, and adhered to the meaning attached by Jerome to the Latin word ecclesiam, when he introduced it into—his “Vulgate” edition. When the revision was made in the reign of King James, he seems to have had some fear that the translators would introduce congregation instead of church, and thus favor the popular idea in opposition to ecclesiastical authority. He therefore caused to be drawn up a series of rules for their direction, in one of which he instructed them as follows: “The old ecclesiastical words to be kept, viz.: the word church not to be translated congregation,” etc.— History of the Bible, by Westcott, ch. ii., p. 151.

It would thus seem that the word ecclesia, though translated church, was intended by Christ to mean a body of believers assembled together at a particular place, or the whole body of Christians in general assembling by representation, as they did at Jerusalem when Paul and Barnabas went up from Antioch. To say, therefore, that it is composed of an organization with external powers, and that Christ’s design in establishing his Church was that there should be a pope and a body of privileged ecclesiastics to govern it, is a manifest perversion of its original meaning.

He then proceeds to instruct us what the Church is, where it is that the Holy Ghost is always present, and where this power of interpretation is lodged. He proves by Ireneus, Origen, and other fathers that “the divine spirit” which directs the Church “has its dwelling in the collective body,” which “is our sole guide in the things of God.” (“Principles of Church Authority,” by Wilberforce, pp. 27, 47, 61, 65.) He defines “the collective episcopate” to be “the medium of Church authority,” and insists that Christ provided for the Church,” as the law of its organization, that the same persons [the bishops] who were individually the dispensers of grace should collectively be the witnesses to doctrine.” (“Principles of Church Authority,” by Wilberforce, pp. 77, 84, 89, 92, 98.)

And then, in flat denial of papal infallibility, if not of the primacy of Peter, he declares that this principle of.Church organization “proceeds on the supposition that the gift bestowed upon the apostles, and which had been inherited by their successors, had been given to them as a body; that no bishop or bishops could possess it apart from the communion of the whole; that as grace and truth lay in Christ our Lord, and afterward in the college of apostles, so it had been inherited by the whole episcopate as a trust, in which they had a common share.” (Ibid., p. 103.)

That this principle has received the approbation of all the ages since Christ, he considers “manifest from the weight attached to general councils.” He quotes this language from Cyprian:

“The episcopate is a single trust administered collectively by many individuals.” And this from the Apostolic Constitutions: “For the confirmation of you who are put in trust with the universal episcopate.” This episcopate he calls by the equivalent names of the “one Church” of Christ, “the federal union,” and “the sacerdotal college.” And then, summing up, he says:….these principles evidently imply that the interpretation of doctrine was lodged as a perpetual trust in the episcopate, but the exercise of this function implied the co-operation of all bishops as a collective whole.” (Ibid., pp. 103, 104, 107, 108.)

It would be hard to find language more directly condemnatory of the doctrine of papal infallibility than this. Not only does it show that no such doctrine prevailed in the early ages of the Church, but that it is in express conflict with “the law of its organization” as ordained by Christ. The writer was highly complimented for the manner in which he performed his task, and for the learning he displayed. He was considered as a valuable acquisition to the Church, and, doubtless, one object in circulating his book was to influence hesitating Protestants, if they could be found, by his argument.

Another object undoubtedly was to disprove what many Protestants considered the tendency toward papal infallibility in the Church. And still another, to quiet any apprehension that might exist among the lay men of the Church in regard to the threatened concentration of all the power of the Church in the hands of the pope. It may be readily called to mind, by almost anybody, how flatly, and even spitefully, it was denied that any such concentration was designed; as it may now be realized how this denial served to mislead many who find themselves deluded. This book was only one of the many instrumental ties employed to carry on this work. Having performed its task, it is now consigned to obscure places where the dust and cobweb may settle on it; while the faithful are instructed that the very doctrine it denied and condemned has always been the doctrine of the Church!

Another book was published a few years ago, written by a priest, designed to show that “the father of lies” had circulated misrepresentations and calumnies against the Church in this country. In reference to “new additions” to the faith, he says, it would be “damnable” to believe otherwise than as Christ teaches, although it “should be defined and commanded to be believed by ten thousand councils.” And, answering the accusation that the pastors and prelates are held to be infallible, he classes it along with other “misrepresentations” of which “the father of lies” is the author, and says: “The papist, truly represented, believes that the pastors and prelates of his Church are fallible; that there is none of them but what may fall into error and heresies, and consequently liable to be deceived.” And he assigns infallibility only to “the whole Church.” (“A Papist Misrepresented and Represented,” by Rev. John Gother, pp. 44—46.)

Coming at last to the pope, he says that it is an exhibition of the “black art” which the devil practiced in paradise, to charge the papist with believing that he has taken the place of Christ, “and that whatsoever he orders, decrees, or commands is to be received by his flock with the same respect, submission, and awe as if Christ had spoken it by his own mouth,” or that he is “no longer liable to error, but is infallible.”He indignantly repels the insulting and impious falsehood, as the devil’s work, and declares that the pope is the head of the Church only as “every father of a family owns himself to be master of it under Christ;” and that, while God assists the popes in the administration of their office, no man is” obliged to believe them infallible,” because no such doctrine has ever been defined by the Church. (“A Papist Misrepresented and Represented,” by Rev. John Gother, pp. 49—51.)

There was yet another book of this same kind, published with the official endorsement of Bishop Fitzpatrick, of Boston, who certainly was fully instructed in the doctrines of his Church. The author of this book meets the question of papal infallibility squarely, and disposes of it without equivocation; manifestly intending to put it at rest, so that his adversary should have no excuse for again referring to it. That there may be no misconception of his meaning, the whole of what he said is given as follows:

“I shall therefore tell the gentleman, once for all, and in the clearest terms I am able to express myself, that when you speak of the Roman Catholic Church, and maintain it to be that infallible Church which Christ has established upon earth, and to which all his promises of perpetual assistance were made, we mean not the particular Church or diocese of Rome, which, as a diocese has its jurisdiction limited, and is no more the Universal Church than the diocese of Paris or Toledo—because a part is not the whole; but we mean the whole body of Roman Catholics, whatsoever country or diocese they belong to, professing the same faith, and living in communion with the Bishop of Rome, whom they acknowledge to be their supreme pastor, or head of their Church on earth. This is plain English; and, if the gentleman will not understand it, but persists in his real or pretended ignorance, and to impose upon his reader with a manifest equivocation, I can say no more to render him sensible of his mistake.

“I observe, fourthly, that the gentleman has sometimes a great itching to shift the state of the question from the infallibility of the Church to that of the pope. Nay, he tells his lordship in plain terms that not to place the infallibility in the pope is giving up our whole foundation.’ I am sorry he understands the doctrine of our Church no better, which he ought to have done before he wrote against it. For, as a controvertist, he ought only to dispute against articles of our faith fairly stated, and not against private opinions. Now, the infallibility of the pope is one of these. Some Catholic divines write for it, and many against it, without any breach of communion with the See of Rome. And therefore the gentleman shall have the liberty of talking by himself upon that subject as much as he pleases; for I am not bound to answer anything wherein the article of faith which I pretend to maintain is not concerned.” (“The Shortest Way to end Disputes about Religion,” by the Rev. Robert Manning, Boston, 1855, pp. 189, 190.)

Language more expressive could scarcely have been found. It will be observed that he not only lodges infallibility in the whole body of the Church, but denies flatly the doctrine of the pope’s infallibility. Some divines favor it, he says, but many oppose it; clearly signifying that the latter constitute the majority. When it is considered that all this was specially approved by a distinguished prelate of the Church, it may be regarded as a sufficient set—off against the contrary assertions now so frequently and dogmatically made.

But there is abundant evidence, equally conclusive and satisfactory, to show that this question was met and dealt with in Europe in the same way, from the very earliest efforts of the Jesuits to keep the popes on their side by its persistent and pertinacious advocacy. A thesis was published in Paris, in the seventeenth century, wherein it was claimed that Christ had communicated his own infallibility to the pope, both in questions of right and of fact. This thesis was immediately laid before all the bishops of France; it being well understood that it came from the college of the Jesuits. Another soon after appeared from the same source, not merely affirming what the first contained, but insisting that the system of Copernicus, as defended by Galileo, should be considered as battered down, because “the Vatican has also thundered against it, and the sentence delivered by the congregation of the Cardinals of the Inquisition has overthrown by its just censure the hypothesis, or rather the thesis, of Copernicus in the person of Galileo.” The avowed purpose was to carry the doctrine of the pope’s infallibility to the extent of requiring “some mathematicians, more bold than religious,” who accepted the Copernican theory and the teachings of Galileo, to “submit to the authority of this censure.” This thesis was submitted to the learned Faculty of Divinity of Paris. The Parliament of Paris also took the matter into consideration. It was thus brought directly before the whole country, and presented in such form as to invoke all the best intellects of France in its consideration. The result was a strong and decided affirmance of the doctrines set forth in the ancient decrees of the Faculty of Divinity, which were embodied in six distinct propositions.

1. It is denied that the pope has any indirect power or authority over the temporalities of the king.
2. That the king has no other superior in temporals than God alone.
3. That subjects owe such allegiance to the king that it cannot be dispensed with upon any pretense whatsoever.
4. That the pope cannot depose bishops against the rules of the canons.
5. That the pope is not above a general
council.
6. That the pope is not infallible, when he has not the concurring consent of the Church. (*)

* 1. “Non esse Doctrinam Facultatis quod Summus Pontifex aliquam in temporalia Regis Christianissimi authoritatem habeat; imo Facultatem semper obstitisse etiam iis qui indirectam tantum esse illam authoritatem voluerunt.
2. “Esse Doctrinam Facultatis ejusdem, quod Rex Christianissimus nullum omnino agnoscit nec habet in temporalibus superiorem prfeter Deum; eamque suam esse antiquam Doctrinam, k qua nunquam recessura est.
3. “Doctrinam Facultatis esse quod subditi Fidem et Obedientiam Regi Christianissimo ita debeant, ut ab iis nullo pretextu dispensari possint.
4. “Doctrinam Facultatis esse non probare, nec unquam probasse Propositiones ullas Regis Christianissimi Authoritate aut germanis Ecclesie Gallicanoe libertatibus, et receptis in Regno Canonibus contrarias; v. g., quod Summus Pontifex possit deponere Episeopos adversus easdem Canones.
5. “Doctrinam Facultatis non esse, quod Summu.w Pontifex sit supra Concilium (Ecumenicum. 6. “Non esse Doctrinam vel Dogma Facultatis, quod Summus Pontifex, nullo accedente Ecclesice consensu, sit infallibilis.”—Ecclesiastical History, by Du Pin, vol. xvii., pp. 146-150.

The opinion of these leading minds of France, so clearly and strongly expressed, shows, beyond all controversy, what was the opinion of the Gallican Christians on this subject. The Jesuits were not able to drive them from their position, and, therefore, when Bossuet, the great Bishop of Meaux, who stood at their head, undertook to define the relation between sovereigns and the popes, he said “that kings and princes are not subject in the temporal order to any ecclesiastical power by the order of God; that they cannot be deposed, either directly or indirectly, by virtue of the keys of the Church; finally, that by virtue of that power, their subjects cannot be absolved from their fidelity, obedience, and oath of allegiance which bind them to their prince.” (“Defense of the Declaration, ” by Bossuet, lib. i., s. i., ch. xvi., pp. 272, 273. Apud Gosselin, vol. ii., pp. 299, 300.)

The oath of supremacy and allegiance which the English law, during the reign of James I., required Roman Catholics to take, made it necessary they should swear that, in their opinion, the pope had no power to depose the king, or to dispose of the kingdom, or to authorize its invasion, or to discharge the citizens from their allegiance. With them it became a question whether, in view of their obligations to the pope, they could lawfully take this oath. They were not left in doubt long, in so far as the pope, Paul V., was concerned; for he addressed to them a brief which condemned “the oath as unlawful, and containing many things manifestly contrary to faith and to salvation.”

He addressed them also a second brief of the same tenor; and Innocent X., after the death of Paul, condemned the oath anew. In this perplexed condition, arising out of their divided loyalty, they consulted the Faculty of Divinity of Paris whether they could, in their opinion, take the oath without prejudice to the faith, and this after two infallible popes had declared solemnly and officially, ex cathedra, that they could not. The sixty doctors of the Faculty declared, against these popes, that they could take the oath without prejudice to the faith; and they did take it.

The Jesuits, of course, were not satisfied at this direct and powerful opposition to their favorite theory of the pope’s infallibility; and they had no difficulty in having this opinion of the French doctors placed upon the Index at Rome, so as to stamp it with pontifical condemnation and censure. (Gosselin, vol. ii., pp. 252, 253 (note).)

The same question arose afterward in England, at a period nearer our own times. When, toward the close of the last century, the question of Catholic emancipation was pending before the British Parliament, it was doubted by many whether it would be safe to confer full political privileges upon Roman Catholics because of the doctrines of the papacy in regard to their allegiance. Strong efforts were made to remove this doubt, and, as the most efficient means of doing so, the opinions of learned divines and foreign universities were solicited directly upon the questions of the power of the pope to depose monarchs, and to release their subjects from allegiance, and the obligation of papists to keep faith with heretics.

Three questions, embracing these points, were sent to the universities of Louvain, Donay, and Paris, in France; and Alcala, Valladolid, and Salamanca, in Spain. The answers were all condemnatory of the doctrine of papal infallibility. In that from Douay, taken as a specimen, it is said: “That no power whatsoever, in civil or temporal concerns, was given by the Almighty either to the pope, the cardinals, or the Church herself; and consequently that kings and sovereigns are not, in temporal concerns, subject by the ordination of God to any ecclesiastical power whatsoever; neither can their subjects, by any authority granted to the pope or the Church from above, be freed from their obedience or absolved from their oath of allegiance.” And they declared that they were bound to keep all oaths, whether pledged to “Catholic, heretic, or infidel.”

These doctrines were also asserted, in 1792, by a Roman Catholic committee in Ireland, acting for and in the name of all their countrymen of that faith. And when, long afterward, in 1826, the three Irish bishops, Murray, Doyle, and Kelley, were examined before the British House of Commons on this same subject, they also unanimously affirmed the doctrines set forth by the universities. (*)

* “Papal Conspiracy Exposed,” by Dr. Edward Beecher, pp. 36-40. Mr. Gladstone gives the evidence of Bishop Doyle. When asked by the committee whether the obligation of the Roman Catholic to obey the pope, divided his allegiance so as to interfere with that he owed to the State, he replied:

“I do not think it does in any way. We are bound to obey the pope in those things that I have already mentioned—[that is, in matters concerning “religious faith” and “ecclesiastical discipline”]. But our obedience to the law, and the allegiance which we owe the sovereign, are complete, and full, and perfect, and undivided, inasmuch as they extend to all political, legal, and civil rights of the king or of his subjects. I think the. allegiance due to the king and the allegiance due to the pope are as distinct and as divided in their nature as any two things can possibly be.”—New York Tribune, November 24th, 1874.

If the question then to be decided had been, whether or not the popes themselves had claimed and asserted their own infallibility, these inquiries would have been entirely useless. That a very large number of them had done so, directly and most explicitly, was well understood. The object of the inquiries, however, was to ascertain whether or, not the claim they set up was recognized by the Church as a part of its faith—whether or not their frequent repetition of the claim gave it the binding force of law to the whole Church. Like all other aspiring and ambitious rulers, they endeavored, at all times, to extend their power, and omitted no argument necessary to maintain it. Nor were they ever known to abate their pretensions. On the other hand, by including the deposing power in the spiritual, they had enlarged the limits of their jurisdiction so as to embrace the world. Hence, it became necessary to know to what extent the faith of the Church had been influenced by these exorbitant demands; for the plain reason that if the assertion of this enormous power, frequently repeated, by any number of popes, had ingrafted the doctrine of papal infallibility upon the canons of the Church, so that the whole membership were bound to accept it as a necessary part of the faith, then it was undoubted that the obligation of allegiance to the pope was higher and more binding than that to any nation on earth. Therefore it was necessary to ascertain whether the Roman Catholics of England and Ireland adopted or repudiated this kind of faith, so that Parliament could decide advisedly whether they should or should not be allowed to share in the management of public affairs.

It would be unjust, in the absence of all evidence to that effect, to say that they acted with duplicity by concealing their real belief. However this may have been, the answers were satisfactory, and the bill for Catholic emancipation ultimately became a law. The object they desired was accomplished. (Any body who will examine the doctrines of the Gallican Church in France will see that the opinions here expressed agree precisely with them.)

If we are to decide upon the existence of facts not within our personal knowledge, by the settled and common—sense rules of evidence, it must be accepted as established, beyond contradiction, that, at the times referred to, the Roman Catholics of the United States, France, England, and Ireland not only did not accept papal infallibility as a part of their religious faith, but positively denied it. They constituted a very large portion of the Roman Catholic world; so large a portion that it would be absolute folly to talk about the universality of any dogma of faith which was rejected by them.

In France especially, notwithstanding Protestantism was tolerated, the Government was Roman Catholic; and to say that it could remain so, and reject so important a dogma as this, would amount to the impeachment of the integrity of the pope for not condemning it, and of the intelligence and piety of those who did so.

And in Ireland, as is well known, there has been, for several centuries, such devotion to the true faith, that no shadow of doubt has ever rested upon the loyalty of its Roman Catholic people to Rome. Shall we not accept all these people, then, as denying the pope’s infallibility? If they truthfully declared the doctrine of the Church on this subject, has not the dogma of the late Council prescribed a new article of faith?

Manifestly, it has declared that to be the faith which, before its passage, was not the faith. Then it was not heresy to deny it; now it is. Then a Roman Catholic could believe it or not, as seemed fit to him; now he is anathematized if he does not believe it. It has changed his relations to the Church, and to the country in which he resides. It superadds to his obligation of allegiance to his country the obligation of a higher allegiance to the pope. It subordinates his national citizenship to his citizenship of a great ecclesiastical empire. It changes the orthodox faith into heresy. It takes away the right of individual opinion upon the very question involved, and denies any further exercise of reason. And carrying along with it all the consequences which the popes have claimed as involved in their infallibility, it requires the Church to accept, for the first time, as an absolutely necessary part of its faith, the equality of the pope with God in the government of all human affairs, within the extensive domain of faith and morals.

Is not all this new? We may readily agree that it is not so to the popes, who, like other ambitious men, are ever ready to assert doctrines designed to increase and consolidate their power. That is not the question, any more than it is now a question to decide whether kings, by the persistent assertion of the “divine light” to govern, have established a principle of law by which all mankind are to be, now and forever, held in subjugation by them. The question is, whether it is not new as the doctrine of the Church. How can it be otherwise, when the Universal Church never assented to it—when no council ever declared it as it is now declared—and when at least one ecumenical council has expressly asserted precisely the reverse? The claim is not new, for the popes and the Jesuits have repeatedly asserted it— but the doctrine is; and it is only as doctrine that it becomes part of the faith. If, then, it is faith for the first time, it is new faith, necessarily.

But is it faith for the first time? The catechisms of the Church answer this. Previous to the late Lateran Council, there was an authorized version of catechism circulated in England which had the sanction of the highest authorities of the Church, including Dr. Manning, the great Archbishop of Westminster, wherein the following question and answer are found:

“Q. Are not Catholics bound to believe the pope in himself to be infallible?”

“A. This is a Protestant invention, and is no article of the Catholic faith.” (Apud Bishop Coxe, of Western New York, in his pamphlet entitled “Catholics and Old Catholics,” p. 15.)

And confirmatory of the fact that it was not an article of faith before the enactment of the dogma to that effect, it is well understood that a considerable number of the bishops petitioned the pope not to submit to the council his infallibility as a dogma of faith. Of these there were five archbishops and twenty—two bishops from America. (*)

* While the council was in session, Archbishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, addressed to Archbishop Dupanloup, of Orleans, France, a letter, wherein he says: “The American prelates have especial reason to hesitate upon the question of pontifical infallibility. Neither Catholics nor Protestants in our country admit that the popes have the right to depose sovereigns, to release subjects from their oath of allegiance, and to transfer, when they please, the kingdom of one prince to another. Our citizens of Irish nativity, who are the majority and chief support of the Catholic Church in the United States, will have much difficulty—de la peine—in admitting that Pope Adrian IV., who was an Englishman, was infallible when he gave Ireland to Henry II., King of England; on the other hand, the bulls of the popes upon this subject are so clear and positive that the defenders of pontifical infallibility in general believe themselves forced to admit the temporal sovereignty of the pope over the universe.

“Adrian IV. said most especially:’Ad cujus (Romnane ecclesie) jus earn insulam, aliasque omines quoe documenta fidei cepissent pertinere, nemini dubium esset’—’ to which (the Roman Church) belong that island and all others which have received the faith, as no one will ever doubt.’

“That donation of Adrian IV. was confirmed by his successor, Alexander III. It is also remarkable that the modern authors who speak so high— parlent si haut—of the privilege of pontifical infallibility, preserve at present a profound silence upon the other privilege, which their predecessors estimated as important, and as well proven. Until now we have been permitted to say that the Catholic Church has nothing to do with these transactions, and that it is not responsible for all that the popes have done or may do. But if these pontifical decisions become articles of faith, the Archbishop of Baltimore will be placed in an embarrassing position, as well as all that has happened lately in the matter of the liberty of worship—de la liberte des cultes. The explanations which your lordship believed yourself. obliged to give have calmed and appeased a petite tempest which threatened the Church. If our memory does not deceive us—the proof we have left behind us in the United States—it appears to us that the Archbishop of Baltimore esteemed himself happy to be able to subscribe to your explanations when adopting them.

“The Archbishop of Baltimore tells us in his letter that he has never doubted the general belief of the Church relative to the infallibility of the vicar of Jesus Christ. In that case will it not be better to ask nothing more, and leave things where they are and where they have always been? Why does he ask for new definitions which do violence to the conscience of several of his colleagues in the episcopate? Many of us believe that ecclesiastical history, the history of the popes, the history of the councils, and tradition of the Church, are not in harmony with the new dogma, and that is why we believe that it is very inopportune to wish to define as an article of faith an opinion which appears to us to lack any solid foundation in Scripture and tradition—dans l’Ecriture et la tradition— while it is contradicted by many irrefragable monuments. It would be out of place to continue any longer a discussion which is the business of the council; but before concluding we cannot refrain from expressing our profound regret that the friends so devoted in appearance to the Holy See have raised by their indiscreet zeal many painful questions where religion has nothing to gain.”

This letter, written in French, was translated for and published in the Cincinnati Commercial of May 22d, 1870, and the above extract republished in the same paper of December 18th, 1874.

We shall fail to reach correct conclusions upon this subject, unless by observing the true distinction between the Church, as such, and the papacy. The former conveys the idea of universality, and includes the whole body of membership—the pope, cardinals, all the hierarchy and laymen. The latter excludes laymen from any participation in the management of Church affairs; and, if the pope’s infallibility be conceded, places the entire power and authority of the Church in his hands without any responsibility either to the Church as an organization, or to the lay members.

In the former sense, the Church has held nineteen ecumenical councils before that recently held at Rome; and from the opening of that at Nice down to the last—a period of over fifteen hundred years—it was universally understood, except by the popes themselves who succeeded Gregory VII., that whatever of infallibility it possessed was lodged in the whole body, acting through the episcopate assembled in general council, or through them and the pope acting conjointly. There is nothing in the early history of the Church contrary to this, but everything to confirm it. All the dogmas of faith express this idea in one or the other of these forms.

The seven first councils were almost entirely composed of Greeks, and were assembled by the Eastern emperors—not by the bishops of Rome. The aggregate number of bishops attending them at their different sessions was 1486, and only twenty—six of all these were Romans. There were only three Roman bishops in the Council of Nice; only one in each of the first of Constantinople and Ephesus; only three at Chalcedon; only six at the second of Constantinople; only five at the third of Constantinople; and only seven at the second of Nice. (Debate between Campbell and Purcell,” p. 45.)

The Greeks never admitted the primacy of the Bishop of Rome over the Patriarch of Constantinople. The most they ever agreed to was to concede to him primacy of honor, but not jurisdiction. This was a point of perpetual controversy and disagreement, which continued up to the final schism. And therefore it falsifies all history to say that any of these early councils established or recognized the infallibility of the Pope of Rome. The pretense has no shadow of foundation. The Council of Nice did not even consider the assent of the pope as necessary to the infallibility of its action, and therefore did not submit its decrees to him for approval. They were communicated to him and the other absent bishops by Constantine, the emperor, “by a letter in his own handwriting.” Constantine tells him that he is to receive them as a “divine injunction,” because “whatever is determined in the holy assembly of the bishops is to be regarded as indicative of the Divine will.” And Eusebius, in explanation of the universal Christian sentiment of the fourth century, says that the decrees of the council were confirmed and sanctioned by the emperor. (*)

* “Life of Constantine,” by Eusebius, pp. 127, 132, 135. Dr. Hefele, Roman Catholic Bishop of Rottenburg. and a member of the late Lateran Council, admits that the emperors presided “at some of the first eight councils.”He says, “Pope Stephen V. himself writes that the Emperor Constantine presided at the First Council of Nice, and the ancient acts of the synods frequently refer to a presidency of the emperor or his representatives.”—History of the Christian Councils, by Hefele, Edinburgh ed., p. 28.

He does not mention the Bishop of Rome as having anything to do with them, except that, like all the other bishops, he was required to accept them as the infallible action of the council.

The First Council of Constantinople conceded to the Bishop of Rome the “place of honor” in the council, on account of the superiority of Rome over Constantinople; but did not extend his jurisdiction or concede to him any power not equally possessed by other bishops. It defined the jurisdiction of each bishop with great particularity, confining each one to his own diocese. The Bishop of Alexandria was to govern Egypt only; the bishops of the East were to govern the East, saving the ancient privileges and prerogatives of the Church at Antioch; those of Asia, their own dioceses; those of Thrace, the churches of Thrace; and those of Pontus, the churches of Pontus. Each one was expressly forbidden to interfere with the affairs of another diocese. Each province was to regulate what concerned itself. And when a bishop was accused, the accusation had to be carried to the bishops of his own province. If they could not decide, the case was to be taken to the synod of the diocese. No appeal to the Bishop of Rome is spoken of; there is not a word on the subject. (“Eccl. Hist.,” by Du Pin, vol. ii., p. 273.) If there had existed any such idea as that he had supreme jurisdiction over all the churches and was infallible, these provisions would have been perfectly idle and useless.

Nothing can be inferred in favor of the pope’s infallibility from the proceedings of the Council of Ephesus; but directly the contrary. That council was called by the Emperor Theodosius, without any conference with Pope Celestine I. The object of it was to deal with the heresy of Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople. This prelate and some of his priests had insisted that the Virgin Mary ought not to be called the Mother of God; and the heresy having reached the Egyptian churches, Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, called a council of the bishops of his province to condemn it. After this was done the Church became much agitated, and both Nestorius and Cyril corresponded with the Bishop of Rome upon the subject. His opinion was solicited, more as an arbitrator than anything else; certainly not as a final judge. He decided against Nestorius, who appealed to a general council, which was called by the emperor. The council affirmed the decision of Celestine I. and deposed Nestorius. In this there was not a single element of infallibility recognized as being possessed by the pope. Nor was his primacy recognized. If he had possessed either, his judgment would have been executed without a general council. But it had no validity until ratified by a council, which he did not call, and over which he did not preside, either in person or by his legates, and which his legates did not attend until after Nestorius had been tried and deposed. This council reaffirmed what the first of Constantinople had done in reference to jurisdiction, by confining the bishops to their own provinces. (Du Pin, vol. iv., pp. 191-217.)

The Council of Chalcedon gives no more support to papal infallibility than any of the three preceding. Eutyches, a priest, and abbot of the monastery of Constantinople, was found guilty of heresy by a provincial council assembled in that city, and excommunicated. He appealed to a general council, and wrote to Pope Leo I. asking him not to decide the question in dispute between him and his diocesan bishop, but to give his judgment about the point of doctrine alleged to be heretical. Nor did he ask Leo to summon the council: this he solicited of the Emperor Theodosius. It was done by the emperor, who caused all the bishops, including the pope, to attend. The pope did not know of it until after it was summoned, but sent his legates. It was presided over by Dioscorus of Alexandria, by order of the emperor—the chief legate of the pope having the second place.

Its decision corresponded with that of Pope Leo in reference to the heresy of Eutyches, who had denied the two distinct natures, human and divine, in Christ; and its final result was the enactment of thirty canons. By none of these is any jurisdiction conferred upon the pope which had not already been conferred by the former councils. On the contrary, by one of them, the twenty—eighth, there were expressly conferred upon the Church of Constantinople “the same privileges with old Rome,” and jurisdiction given to it over the dioceses of Pontus, Asia, and Thrace, and the churches “out of the bounds of the emperor,” together with “the right to ordain metropolitans in the provinces of these dioceses.” (Ibid., vol. iv., pp. 218—242.)

Here, it will be observed, there is no recognition of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome over the other churches. The First Council of Constantinople had conferred upon him only “the place of honor,” without interfering with the jurisdiction of any of the bishops, except to define it. This council leaves that honorary distinction undisturbed; but, when it comes to speak of “privileges” and “jurisdiction,” places Rome and Constantinople upon a footing of perfect equality; thus absolutely repudiating the idea of the pope’s infallibility or supremacy.

The Second Council of Constantinople was called by the Emperor Justinian, to settle the controversy about “the three chapters.” Pope Vigilius exhibited some inconsistencies during its proceedings, not being inclined to go to the whole extent of condemnation demanded by the emperor, but he finally yielded his assent to what was done. It included, however, nothing concerning his jurisdiction; for, although he was present in Constantinople during the session of the council, its proceedings were directed almost entirely by the emperor. (Du Pin, vol. v., pp. 131—146.)

The Third Council of Constantinople grew out of the controversy about the two wills of Christ, and was called by the emperor, Constantinus Pogonatus, with a view to reconciling the disagreement between the Eastern and Western Christians. The emperor himself presided, although the pope had three legates present. The heresy condemned by the council had been professed over forty years before by Pope Honorius I., and, consequently, in finding Sergius, Theodorus, and others guilty of it, they included Pope Honorius by name. Its decrees were approved by Pope Agatho, who has been made a saint by the Church. So that the proceedings of this council have always been wonderfully perplexing to the advocates of papal infallibility, instead of being available to them in support of that doctrine.

How Honorius could have been infallible and yet a heretic, at the same time, is not a little puzzling. Baronius, the annalist, brought all his learning and ingenuity to bear on the question, but, as Du Pin says, his “fancy must pass for a matchless piece of rashness.” (Ibid., vol. vi., pp. 66—74.)

While the Jesuits have been taxing their ingenuity to escape the effect of this decree of a general council that Pope Honorius was a heretic, and its approval by Pope Agatho, the common sense of mankind has long since settled the difficulty by deciding that neither of these popes was infallible. Manifestly, the Third Council of Constantinople thought so.

Constantine Copronymus, the emperor, called a council at Constantinople to settle the dispute about the worship of images. It was afterward removed, and became the Second Council of Nice. The pope, Adrian I., sent his legates, to whom he entrusted a letter setting forth the necessity and orthodoxy of image—worship, which he traced back, of course, to Peter. The letter was addressed to the emperor, in the nature of a petition; and, among other things, entreated the emperor “to cause St. Peter’s patrimony to be restored to him,” and “to maintain the Church of Rome’s supremacy.”He exhibited the accustomed papal presumption in asserting his superiority. But, unfortunately for the cause of papal infallibility, his legates did not venture to lay this insolent demand before the council. Referring to these propositions, Du Pin says, “The pope’s legates durst not, perhaps, present them to the synod in which Tarasius [Patriarch of Constantinople] presided.” The council passed twenty—two canons, but none of them interfered with the jurisdiction of the churches, as previously fixed. (Du Pin, vol. vi., pp. 131—148.)

The Fourth Council of Constantinople, during the pontificate of Adrian II., was called by Basilius, the emperor, in consequence of the controversy between Ignatius and Photius, after the deposition of the former and the appointment of the latter as Patriarch of Constantinople. The pope took the side of Ignatius, and his decision was affirmed by the council. Twenty—seven canons were enacted, but one of them, however, having any bearing on the question of the pope’s supremacy. This, the twenty—first, provided, “That the pope of old Rome ought to be honored and respected in the first place, and next to him the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.”

It provides that no obloquy should be cast “against St. Peter’s Holy See, the prince of the apostles,” and that whosoever shall do so shall be condemned for heresy. Also, that he shall not be deposed by princes. And then it also provides as follows: “But if a general council being met, there happens any difference with the Bishop of Rome, he ought to be conferred with about the matter, and his answers be had, to make the best of it on either side, and no rash judgment to be passed against the supreme bishop.” (Du Pin, vol. vii., pp. 92—98.)

Careful observation of this language will show its whole import. In the first place, following the First Council of Constantinople, it assigns the chief place of honor merely to the pope; and then, in the second place, gives as the reason for it that this precedence of honor was conferred upon Peter when he was made “prince of the apostles.” But all this falls very far short of infallibility, which, besides honor, includes power and jurisdiction. And the council did not pretend, either that Peter had any superior power and jurisdiction beyond that conferred upon the other apostles, or that the pope had them in any greater degree than the other bishops. On the other hand, they, in the final clause of the canon, exclude any such idea by providing that differences existing between the pope and others may be settled by general councils, both parties being heard.

How could there be any such differences, or how could a council have jurisdiction over them if the pope was infallible? And this council, it should be observed, met in 869, long after the temporal power of the popes had begun to grow under the patronage of Pepin and Charlemagne, and just after the pontificate of Nicholas I., who had augmented the power of the papacy by means of the False Decretals. Even then the council was unwilling to surrender its supreme jurisdiction over the pope.

After the close of this council no other general one was held for nearly two hundred and fifty years. In the mean time, events of the greatest importance, bearing upon the increase of the papal power, had transpired. By the agency of Pepin and Charlemagne the popes had severed their allegiance from the emperors, and had become the acknowledged head of the Western or Latin Church, as distinct and separate from the Eastern or Greek Church. They had also succeeded in building up an immense fabric of papal power by means of false and forged decretals, which were manufactured as occasion required, to suit each exigency as it arose. And being thus separated from and independent of the Greeks, the remaining councils, covering the whole period of the Middle Ages, were held by the Latin Church, and under the immediate auspices of the popes.

True to the purpose of acquiring every possible degree of power, and of establishing their supremacy over the world, they began these Western councils at Rome, where the pope, by means of Italian influence, could generally have his own way. We shall see, however, that, with all these advantages, slow progress was made toward papal infallibility. It took all the time from 869 to 1870—a thousand years—to find a general council with so little self—respect as to place the whole power of the Church in the hands of the pope.

The First Council of Lateran, called the Ninth Ecumenical, met during the pontificate of Calixtus II., but made no enactment in reference to the power and jurisdiction of the pope. It passed twenty—two canons, having reference to other matters. (Du Pin, vol. x., pp. 33, 34.)

The Second Council of Lateran, under Innocent II., confined itself mainly to the regulation of discipline. There seems to have been, by this time, a necessity for providing, as it did, that priests who kept concubines should not hear mass. But it also secured to them immunity from public censure by subjecting to anathema those who should abuse a clergyman. (Ibid., p. 206.)

The Third Council of Lateran, under Alexander III., was professedly a reform council, designed “to reform a great number of abuses that had crept into the Church,” and also to condemn heresies. By this time the power of the papacy had nearly reached its culmination, and Alexander III. was not the kind of pope to permit any abatement of it. Not one of the twelve popes between him and Gregory VII. equaled him in ambition or strength of will; and not one among all his predecessors was more fitted than he to prepare the way for those events which were soon to transpire under Innocent III.

While this council asserted nothing in reference to the pope’s supremacy, it enacted twenty-seven disciplinary canons, some of which were pointed at existing abuses. It went somewhat farther than that immediately preceding, in the recognition of principles asserted in the False Decretals. It anathematized those laymen “who exact duties and lay taxes on the churches, and on ecclesiastical persons;” and those who should dare to “summon clergymen before their judges” in the secular courts. It relaxed nothing whatever in the work of establishing, papal supremacy, while it omitted any avowal of it. (Du Pin, vol. x., pp. 207—209.)

The practice of publishing what are called “papal constitutions” along with the proceedings of councils, seems, how ever, to have been then introduced. These consist of the briefs, bulls, and encyclical letters of the popes, wherein they asserted their own supremacy, and occasionally their infallibility. They were designed, of course, to maintain “the immunities of the Church,” by making the power of the popes, in its government, superior to all other.

The object to be accomplished by their publication in this form was, manifestly, to give to them a sort of consular sanction, in order that the Church might, in the end, be brought to the point of accepting them as of equal obligation with the canons of councils. The process was simple, and the argument plain. The False Decretals had furnished the claims of authority set up by the popes from Clement to Siricius, and these “constitutions” were such as the popes had made since then; and as they all claimed supremacy and infallibility, therefore they were supreme and infallible! Hence we find annexed to the proceedings of this council “a large collection of divers constitutions of Alexander III. and of the popes who preceded,” and, subsequently, of those also who “succeeded him,” which are published “as a sequel to this council.” (Ibid., p. 209.)

The proceedings of the Fourth Lateran Council exhibit the unbounded ambition of Innocent III., under whose pontificate it was held. There we find the celebrated third canon, which makes the persecution and extirpation of heretics a religious duty, which yet remains the law of the papacy. By this time the claim of supremacy made, and so frequently repeated by the popes, was considered to have the sanction of the Church, because there was no formidable resistance to it. Acquiescence was inferred from silence.

Innocent III. availed himself of this, in order that the practice of asserting this claim in papal “constitutions” should become ripened into the force of law. He, accordingly, is the first pope who boldly and openly struck at the independence of a general council; and he was not accustomed to aim his blows ineffectually. Seventy canons were passed without debate, which “were already drawn up” by him when the council assembled in Rome. There was no deliberation or debate about them. They were laid before the council by the pope, who “ordered them to be read;” but they were not acted on. But because the prelates did not openly resist and denounce them, “their silence was taken for an approbation;” a rule of procedure yet adhered to.

Among these canons we find it avowed, for the first time in the proceedings of a general council, that “the Church of Rome” has “the primacy over all other churches according to the appointment of our Saviour;” that they all owe “obedience to the Holy See;” and that the pall received from Rome is “the ensign of the plenitude of the pastoral power.” This bold avowal was not made, therefore, till the thirteenth century; but even then, when the world was enveloped in the thick mist of the Middle Ages, it stopped somewhat short of the claim of the pope’s personal infallibility. Innocent III. was undoubtedly ready to carry it to that extent, but, with all his daring, he was not prepared to ask of a general council a direct decree to that effect.

It will be perceived that the primacy asserted was alleged to be in “the Church of Rome,” not in the pope. It manifestly designed to consider the Church to be, according to the invariable custom, the whole body of Christians, as represented by the universal episcopate in general council; and that the pope, in asserting this primacy, should act within the limitations fixed by the Church. Otherwise, many of the canons would have been useless—especially the forty—fourth. This canon solemnly declares, “That the constitutions of princes which are prejudicial to the rights of the Church shall not be observed, whether they be for the alienation of fiefs, or for the encroaching on the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, or for any other goods.”

If the council had intended to change the deposit of infallibility from themselves, as representing the Church, to the pope alone; or if the pope had thought it expedient to have his personal infallibility distinct from that of the council openly acknowledged, there would have been no necessity for this canon. The principle asserted in the canon was considered necessary to the Church, and as requiring the stamp of infallibility upon it, in order that it should stand throughout all time. To give it this, the consent of the council was necessary; and that not having been withheld, this canon is one of those which the present pope is desirous of enforcing, and with reference to which the late council must be considered to have acted. (Du Pin, vol. xi., pp. 95—103.)

The principal object of the First Council of Lyons, under Innocent IV., was to decree a general crusade. And although much may be inferred from its silence, under the then existing state of affairs, yet it made no decree about primacy, supremacy, or infallibility. It, however, gave its sanction to the bull of the pope which deposed the Emperor Frederick and released his subjects from their allegiance; from which it is fair to suppose that both the pope and the council considered this sanction as necessary to give that act the ratification of the Church. Be this as it may, the stamp of infallibility was also given in this mode to the right of deposing monarchs and releasing their subjects from their allegiance, and that principle, with the approbation of this council, took its place among the canons of the Church, where it has ever since remained. (Ibid., pp. 6—8, 114, 115.).

The Second Council of Lyons, under Gregory X., was called with reference chiefly to a reunion with the Greek Church; which fact will sufficiently account for its silence in reference to papal infallibility, primacy, etc. Its doctrinal decrees had reference to the procession of the Holy Spirit, though it passed a number of a disciplinary character and upon general subjects. (Ibid., pp. 123,124.)

The Council of Vienne was assembled under Clement V. This pope had reached the pontificate by a corrupt bargain with Philip, King of France, by which he solemnly pledged himself that, if elected, he would cause Pope Boniface VIII. to be declared infamous. He was one of those who held the corrupt papal court at Avignon, in France, and who contributed his full share toward causing it to be esteemed the most prostituted place in Europe; so much so that Bishop Durandi said of it that it was “the retreat of dragons, the place of resort of satyrs, and the kingdom of demons.”

Clement V. called this council to avoid, if possible, the fulfillment of his promise to Philip, as he hoped to find shelter behind its unwillingness to defame a former pope. He succeeded so far as to pacify the king by issuing a bull to the effect that all the former bulls of Boniface against him should be held void. The council did nothing but pass some canons concerning the faith, and others condemning and anathematizing some heretics. With its proceedings, however, there were published a number of ” papal constitutions,” after the practice introduced by other popes, all tending to increase the power of the papacy. Some of these by Clement V. himself only go to show how entirely impossible it was for such a man to be infallible: it is scarcely possible they could ever have been accepted by the Church, or that any general council would have allowed them a moment's consideration.

Among those given by Du Pin are such as these: that as man may reach perfection in this life, when he has done so, he “may freely allow his body what he pleases;” that he is not then “obliged to obey, or tied to practice, the principles of the Church;” “that to kiss a woman is a mortal sin, but the carnal knowledge of her is no sin,” etc., etc. This latter papal precept was probably designed as a shield for his intercourse with the beautiful Countess de Foix. (*)

* Du Pin, vol. xii., pp. 95, 96; Cormenin, vol. ii., pp. 39—44. Weninger is not content with referring to the claim of infallibility made by Pope Clement V. in his own behalf, but refers also to these “Clementine enactments,” or constitutions of Clement V., to show that he was infallible!—WENINGER, pp. 143, 144.

This Council of Vienne was the fifteenth recognized as ecumenical, and the last which preceded that at Constance. Neither by any of its decrees, nor by any of those assembled before it, was there any direct averment to the effect that the pope was infallible. With all of them infallibility was lodged in the collective Church, and nowhere else. But so frequently had some of the most ambitious and pretentious popes endeavored to assert it for themselves independently of the Church, acting as an organized body, and by this means to enlarge the circle of their admitted spiritual primacy so as to make it broad enough to include jurisdiction over temporals, that it became absolutely necessary to the peace and welfare of the Church, that the Council of Constance should grapple directly with the question and put it at rest.

It did endeavor to do so, as we have already seen, by deposing one pope and declaring the superiority of a general council over all of them. This was undoubtedly the voice of the Church, declared in the only recognized mode, and was accepted as such by all but the popes themselves, and their special adherents in Italy, where their power was omnipotent. They were not disposed to rest long under this direct censure of a general council; for even Martin V., who accepted from it the place of the deposed pope, so soon as he could get away from its immediate influence, commenced a series of measures designed expressly to reverse its decisions and bring it into disrepute. In this he was sympathized with by Eugenius IV., his immediate successor, under whose pontificate the Council of Florence was held, only seventeen years after the Council of Constance.

To this council we are now referred by all the defenders of papal infallibility, in proof that this doctrine has always been recognized by the Church as a part of its faith. From that time they trace it down to the present, through the councils of the Fifth Lateran and of Trent, to show that the late council—the Sixth Lateran—did not introduce any new dogma, but only gave expression to the faith which had always and everywhere existed. This pretense requires a minute examination, somewhat more in detail; but in order to see that it is a pretense, and nothing more, it is only necessary to observe the manner in which the Jesuit writers dispose of the Council of Constance. Whether in doing this, mendacity or ingenuity prevails the most, the reader must judge for himself.

Passing by the equivocations of Weninger—from whose book repeated quotations have already been made—and his flagrant suppression of important facts necessary to a correct understanding of the Council of Constance, let us come directly to the important points of his explanation. He says that in condemning the heresy of the Wycliffites, the council “did not pronounce new ecclesiastical censures against them, but contented themselves with reminding the faithful that the sect and its infamous doctrines had been previously condemned by the decisions of the Holy See. These decisions are irrefragable, remarks the council, because it is impossible that the Apostolic See—that is to say, the pope—should err.” (“Apostolical and Infallible Authority of the Pope,” by Weninger, pp. 145, 146.)

It requires but a moment’s thought to see that it was impossible, in the very nature of things, for the fathers of Constance to have stultified themselves by any such declaration as this. It would have been as diametrically opposed to what they actually did, as darkness is to light. They had tried, condemned, and deposed John XXIII., a lawful pope, for innumerable crimes, including heresy; and to have followed such an act with the assertion that it was impossible that “the pope should err” would have made them the laughing—stock of all Europe.

But it is not necessary to argue upon general principles to show how entirely this assertion of Weninger is without any fact to support it. Du Pin says, the decree of the Council of Constance “concerning the authority of the council above the pope did plainly decide the question, and subjected the pope, as well as to faith as manners, to the judgment of a general council;” which applied not only to times of schism, or where there were rival popes,” but generally in all other cases.”And he gives the reason for this decision: “Because they deduce the authority of the council above the pope from its representation of the Church, and from its infallibility.”

And when speaking of the bull of Martin V. against the errors of the Wycliffites, he says also, that, in the forty—first decree, “the authority of the Universal Church is distinguished from that of the pope; and there it is ordained that the Universal Church, or the General Council, have a sovereign authority indefinitely; whereas ’tis only said of the pope that he hath a primacy over other particular churches, which amounts to the same thing with the decision of the council.” (Du Pin, vol. xiii., p. 15.)

This same author asserts, moreover, that, after Martin V. had been elected by the Council of Constance, and while it was yet in session, he issued a bull prohibiting all appeals from the pope to any other tribunal, and that it was approved by the council. The words of this bull given by him are these:

“It is not lawful for any person to appeal from the Roman pontiff, who is the supreme judge and the Vicar of Christ on earth, or by subterfuge to elude his judgment in matters of faith.” (Weninger, p. 147.)

This statement is untrue, or else Du Pin did not understand, or has perverted the facts—neither of which is probable. When the Council was nearly drawn to a close, a question arose about which there was so much disagreement that the ambassadors of Poland talked about appealing to a future council—a remedy in entire accord with the common sentiment of the time. Martin V., like some of his predecessors, was disposed to avail himself of every opportunity to resist this idea, so as to concentrate all the power of the Church in his own hands, and accordingly issued the bull alluded to, notwithstanding, as was then declared, it was directly contradictory of what the council had decreed. But it did not receive the sanction of the council, as Weninger asserts. On the other hand, if the council had acted upon it, there can be no reasonable doubt that it would have been not merely rejected, but sternly condemned. Du Pin says: “However, the bull of Martin V. containing the prohibition of appealing to the council was not read, nor approved, in this session of the council, but published in a private assembly of the cardinals;” (Du Pin, vol. xiii., p. 24.) that is, sent out as the popes have generally promulgated their “constitutions,” with the hope that, in the course of time, their custom of asserting universality of power would ripen into the force of law. They understood full well the nature and import of that principle of their Church organization which construes silence into acquiescence—as do also the hierarchy of the present day. And they acted upon this principle, if not with impunity, at least with courage, until at last it has come to be a part of the settled faith of the Church that no layman has any right to inquire by what authority a papal decree has been issued, or to what extent it goes, or what it commands to be believed or done, but is bound to accept it as true and obey it accordingly, without any regard to whatsoever human power and authority it may defy.

Notwithstanding the contrary assertion of Weninger and other Jesuits, no man can study the history of the Council of Constance without seeing that the infallibility of the pope was directly contradicted by it—not merely by the act of deposing an obnoxious and heretical pope, and electing another in his place, but by the enactment of a decree to that effect, which was approved by Martin V. And if it be true, as alleged, that Martin V., after approving this decree, endeavored to counteract its effect by a papal bull—of which there seems to be no doubt—he is presented to all impartial minds in the attitude of having played a double part—of having misled the council by the pretense of approving what it did, while, at the same time, he cherished the purpose of resisting it at the earliest opportunity.

But this is nothing new in the conduct of the popes, who, in building up the wonderful system of the papacy, have taken care to reserve to themselves the right of doing whatsoever they may suppose the interest of the Church requires, without any regard whatever to what they themselves or any others may have done or said. Martin V. found ample justification for his duplicity in the example of many of his predecessors, and only increased the number of those popes whose conduct has since added to the significance of the precedent.

Continued in Chapter XXI. Disputes About Papal Authority




The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XIX. The Claimed Rights of the Papacy Over Governments

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XIX. The Claimed Rights of the Papacy Over Governments

Continued from Chapter XVIII. Resistance to Civil Power.

The Rights of the Papacy not lost by Revolution.—No Legitimate Right acquired by it.—Revolutions always Iniquitous.—Christopher Columbus.—He takes Possession of the New World in the Name of the Church of Rome.—He thereby expands its Domain.—The Popes claim Jurisdiction in Consequence.—Illegitimate Power obtained by Revolution cannot destroy this Right of Jurisdiction.—Exercise of the Power in England by Alexander II., and in Germany by Gregory VII.—Defense of Gregory VII.—Direct and Indirect Power.—Doctrine asserted by Peter Dens. Bellarmine the Author of the Theory of Indirect Power.—Doctrine of St. Thomas.—That of Cardinal D’Ostia.—Infidels can have no Just Title to Governments.—The Pope may dispose of Them.—Gregory III., Stephen II., and Leo III. all justified.—Also Gregory VII., Innocent III., Adrian IV., and Boniface VIII.—The Late Lateran Council makes them all In fallible.—They claim the Direct Power.—The Doctrine of Indirect Power an After—thought in Answer to the Objection of Protestants.—The Papal Jurisdiction in America the Same under Either.—Alexander VI. divides America between Spain and Portugal.—Resumption of this Authority defended by Jesuits.—Obedience to Governments de facto not enjoined by the Church of Rome.—Effect of this Doctrine upon the Oath of Allegiance.—Doctrine of “Mental Restrictions,” and “Ambiguity and Equivocation” in Oaths.—Jesuit Teachings on this Subject.—The Object of the Second Council of Baltimore to introduce the Canon Law.—What it is.—Its Effect if introduced in the United States.—Punishment of Heretics.—Extirpation of Infidelity.—Heretics rightfully punished with Death.—All Baptized Protestants are Subjects of the Pope.—May all be rightfully punished for Disobedience.

THE author of “Protestantism and Catholicity Compared in their Effects on the Civilization of Europe” must be followed still further, in order that the full import of his teachings may be understood. His eminent ability, and his distinction as an expositor of the true faith in so far as it involves the dealings of the papacy with the nations, give an unusual degree of prominence and importance to what he says.

Assuming, as his premise, that the “American possessions” of Spain were separated from the mother country by “usurpation,” and that thereby illegitimate was substituted for legitimate authority, he reaches the next step in his argument, as a logical conclusion: that the new government thus formed can impose no absolute obligation of allegiance—it may be submitted to as a measure of prudence, but not obeyed on the ground of right. Manifestly he had a twofold meaning: first, to assert the existing right of Spain to retake possession of such portions of America as she had lost by revolution; and, second, the right of the papacy, also subsisting, to re-assert and maintain the spiritual jurisdiction and authority it once exercised in America. The application of this doctrine designed by him is readily seen.

Mexico sundered her allegiance from Spain, as the United States did theirs from Great Britain. In both cases new governments were established and became “consummated facts”—so recognized by other governments. But, in his view, these new governments became “usurpations” by the fact that they were the result of illegitimate, or revolutionary, resistance to legitimate authority. To such governments he does not consider any obedience due, as of right; because, says he, a government which has “abolished legitimate rights cannot justify its acts by the simple fact of its having sufficient strength to execute these iniquities.” (Balmes, p. 334.)

Therefore, according to the “Catholic doctrines” as announced by him, the rights of Spain and Great Britain in America are in no way legitimately impaired by consummated acts of revolutionary resistance; but remain intact—as complete and perfect as they were before the revolutions began. Therefore, also, Mexico belongs, rightfully and legitimately, to the old Spanish monarchy, under its old de jure form of government, and the United States to Great Britain; subject, of course, in both cases, to the papal claim of primacy and superior right, recognized by both countries when they had the legitimate right to do so. Neither Mexico nor the United States has acquired any legitimate and valid right, as against the legitimate authority they defied, or as against the papacy, rightfully acknowledged by that authority, by reason of the mere fact of having had “sufficient strength to execute” the iniquitous purpose of establishing revolutionary governments. Hence, he reasons that, as the original obligation of obedience to the old monarchies—the only form of government which he considers as known to the divine law—has not been impaired by “these iniquities” or “consummated facts,” and cannot be impaired by the substitution of new and illegitimate allegiance for it, the papacy, as the representative and divinely appointed guardian of the monarchical power, has the legitimate right to sweep out of existence, whenever it shall become prudent to attempt it, everything that shall stand in the way of this original and primary obedience. And hence, also, the oath of allegiance to the United States, with those who accept thy doctrine of papal in fallibility, has no other than a temporary binding force, because, being illegitimate and unjust, it is perjury, and no oath at all!

Thus always reasons the papal monarchist, who invariably argues so as to make everything center in the proposition that the bulk of mankind are fit only to be governed—not to govern. He and the political monarchist start from this same stand-point. They do not differ in their process of reasoning, except in this: that the former never fails to concentrate everything in the papacy as the legitimate source of all power, because it is the only authorized interpreter of the divine law, to which all mankind must become subject; and is sufficiently comprehensive to include the temporal or civil power, as the greater includes the lesser.

Those who defend the claim of papal supremacy in this sense see, or pretend to see, in the discovery of America by Columbus, the act of God consummated only through the instrumentality of the Roman Church, specially chosen for that purpose. They have always considered this fact as having conferred jurisdiction upon the pope to govern the new continent in whatsoever concerns the faith and the divine law including, necessarily, in their view such direction of temporal affairs as is required to make them conform to that law. These ideas, somewhat remitted heretofore from necessity and prudence, have acquired additional strength from the dogma of papal infallibility. They are now avowed with great emphasis and vehemence by the ultramontane authorities at Rome, who are, seemingly, the more pertinacious in their advocacy in proportion to the resistance of them by the progressive nations.

A new life of Columbus has lately appeared. It was written in French by De Lorgues, but has been translated, and published in this country. Anyone who will carefully read this book will see that one design of it is the inculcation of the idea of papal supremacy in America. Speaking of the preparation of Columbus for his work of discovery, by penance, prayer, and the meditation of divine things, the author says:

“His expedition takes the religious character of its origin and object: he gives the name of the Blessed Virgin to his ship, and hoists the cross in her; he departs on a Friday, and commands the sails to be unfurled in the name of Jesus Christ.

“It is in the name of Jesus Christ that he takes possession of the lands he discovers. It is to honor the Redeemer that he erects crosses everywhere he lands.” (“Life of Christopher Columbus,” translated by Dr. Barry, p. 570.)

He is described, not only as the first who carried the cross to the New World, but as “the herald of Catholicity, and the tacit mandatory of the papacy.” (Ibid., p. 571.) It is said that “he presents the Holy See with an opportunity, or occasion, of showing the spirit of infallible sagacity that perpetually inspires the Church, etc.” (Ibid.) Events are recited to establish for him “the character of apostolic legate, with which he showed himself invested in his acts and by his intentions.” (Ibid., p. 573.) It is declared that “evidently God chose Christopher Columbus as a messenger of salvation.” (Ibid.)

And treating the discovery of America as a fact accomplished in accordance with the divine decree, it is said that by means of it he “enlarges the known surface of the earth, brings nations, as it were, nearer each other, and expands the domain of the Catholic Church.” (Ibid., p. 590.) He is called a saint, even without canonization, because, as “a hero of the Gospel” and “a great servant of the Church,” the “messenger of the cross is found, as regards history,” in him. (“Life of Christopher Columbus,” translated by Dr. Barry, p. 596.) And, finally, in assigning the discovery to “the infallible wisdom of the Church,” he sums up by saying that “the history of Columbus contains the glorification of the Catholic Church; it shows the spirit of light which always guides the papacy in the government of intelligence;” (Ibid., p. 616.) which assigns all the honor and glory of the discovery to the papacy alone, and treats the agency of Ferdinand and Isabella as merely secondary to it.

The papist who by this process of reasoning argues himself into the belief that this enlargement of “the domain of the Catholic Church” conferred higher jurisdiction upon the papacy than that acquired by Ferdinand and Isabella by virtue of the right of discovery and the law of nations, because the papal rights were divine, and the royal rights human only, has no difficulty in reaching the conclusion that the pope obtained by means of it a degree of authority within the new “domain” which cannot be impaired by the employment of illegitimate power, or a resort to revolution and usurpation, which with him are convertible terms. Undoubtedly, the popes have thus reasoned in reference to the jurisdiction they acquired over all nations once submitting to their authority; and when this jurisdiction has been suspended or disturbed for a time by forces they could not resist, they have not hesitated to re-assert it when occasion offered, and to insist upon resuming it when these forces were overcome or withdrawn. They have maintained that neither time nor circumstances, of whatsoever nature, could operate in bar or limitation of their right, for the reason that it is derived from God; and that, therefore, everything in conflict with it is wrong and usurpation. They have never been known to abandon any jurisdiction, and the rights arising out of it, exercised by them over any nation, however remote may have been the period of its exercise.

In the case of Great Britain, for example, their theory supports, and in their view justifies, the claim that as Gregory I. introduced the Roman faith there, and the early Saxon kings became converts to it and submitted to the jurisdiction of the pope, and other kings did the same thing, especially John, who consented to hold the crown and country as a fief of the pope, therefore they acquired a spiritual supremacy there, which, whatsoever “consummated facts” may have since transpired, has lost none of its original validity or legitimacy. They do not acknowledge that the statute of limitations or any analogous principle of the law of nations can run against the papal rights over either nations or individuals, because they have the stamp of the divine sanction. Their reasoning is based upon the ideas that Christ entrusted to them the keys, giving to them thereby the power to bind and loose in heaven and upon earth; that this power is necessarily plenary, and confers upon them the right of spiritual government over all nations and peoples brought under the influence of Christianity.

The extraordinary nature of this claim is not more startling than the manner of its exercise, whenever there have not been sufficient means of repelling it. Examples already referred to in a different connection, as illustrating other aspects of the papal question, bear directly on this point.

It was by virtue of this jurisdiction that Alexander II. blessed the banner of William the Conqueror, and gave him pontifical permission to dispossess Harold, the legitimate King of Great Britain, and occupy the country in the name of the papacy. In support of it, he and his successors sent an army of legates and Italian monks into the country, in order to extend the pontifical dominion, and, according to the historian, “they carved and clipped ecclesiastical matters as they pleased.” (Rapin.)

It was under the same claim of authority that Gregory VII. pronounced his anathemas against the Emperor Henry IV., and stirred up against him an insurrection in favor of Rudolph, without any regard to the wishes or desires of the German people. And the papists, not being disposed to attempt a direct justification of his enormous pretensions, in an age of so much enlightenment as the present, have resorted to various subterfuges to escape the consequences of his bold and defiant demands.

An effort has been made by a learned papal writer—which has the merit of great ability—to show that Gregory VII. “did not pretend to ground himself merely on the divine power of binding and loosing, but on the laws both of God and man.” ( “The Power of the Pope in the Middle Ages,” by Gosselin, vol. ii., p. 106. ) He does not by any means make this clear. On the contrary, his shifting of position merely suggests the impossibility of drawing the line, in ascertaining the extent of papal power, between the laws of God and those of man; for if the power is divine in any sense, it must be plenary, and not dependent upon human consent.

Bellarmnine, with more ability, called it indirect power—distinguishing it from direct; the ground also taken by Cardinal Antonelli in his letter to the French ambassador, heretofore alluded to. (Ante.) What is meant by this, however, is that in the Papal States the power of the pope is direct, whereas outside their limits, and elsewhere throughout the world, it is indirect. But there is no difference in degree, it being the same wherever it exists. Thus we find it laid down by Peter Dens in these words:

“Bellarmine, Sylvius, and others say that the pope has not by divine right direct power over temporal kingdoms, but indirect; that is, when the spiritual power cannot be freely exercised, nor his object be attained by spiritual, then he may have resource to temporal means, according to St. Thomas, 22, q. 10, a. 12, et q. 12, a. 2, who teaches that princes may sometimes be deprived of their rule, and their subjects be liberated from the oath of fidelity; and thus it has been done by pontiffs more than once.” (*)

* “Bellarminus, Sylvius, aliique dicunt Pontificem non habere jure divino potestatem directam in temporalia regna, sed indirectam; hoe est, quando potestas spiritualis exerceri libere non potest, nec suum finem assequili per media spiritualia, tune ad temporalia recurrere possit, juxta S. Thom. 22, q. 10, a. 12, et q. 12, a. 2, qui docet Principes interdum privari posse dominatione et subditos a fidelitatis juramento liberari; et ita a Pontificibus non semel est praedicatum. “Theologia Moralis et Dogmatica, by Dens, vol. ii., No. 98, p. 164.

The Jesuit Bellarmine is supposed to be the author of this doctrine; but as he lived in the sixteenth century—five hundred years after Gregory VII.—the latter, of course, had no idea of any other than the direct power, and being an infallible pope, the opinions of a mere cardinal, however distinguished, cannot be set up against his. Nor do they avail much against the opinions of St. Thomas, who is regarded as one of the foremost of the fathers. As represented by Dens, St. Thomas merely refers to the exercise, but not to the origin, of the power. When, however, he does refer to the origin of it, he says, “that according to the institution of God himself, the King of kings, the pope possesses the highest degree of both powers, the spiritual and the temporal.” (Gosselin, vol. ii., p. 365, and note.)

And Cardinal D’ Ostia makes a more practical application of the doctrine when he asserts that “since the coming of Jesus Christ all the dominion of infidel princes was transferred to the Church, and is vested in the pope as the vicar of Jesus Christ, the King of kings; whence he infers that the pope can, by his own authority, grant the kingdoms of infidel princes to any of the faithful whom he may think proper to select.” (Ibid., p. 362.)

But although St. Thomas sustains the direct and Bellarmine the indirect power, they agree in its application according to the principle laid down by D’ Ostia. In justifying Popes Gregory III., Stephen III., and Leo III. in seizing upon a number of Italian provinces after the emperors of the East had separated from the Roman Church and united with the Eastern Christians—thus becoming heretics—they both “maintain that the Church and the pope could have declared the pagan emperors of Rome, and especially Julian, deposed from the empire, and their subjects absolved from all obligation toward them, if such a declaration had been consistent with prudence.” (Ibid., p. 367.)

The fact is, this theory of indirect power is an after-thought. It had no existence in the minds of the ambitious popes who laid the foundation of papal power, and under whose administrations that power was made to overshadow the world. With them—Gregory VII., Innocent III., Adrian IV., Boniface VIII., and all the rest—the pontifical power was direct, full, plenary, omnipotent, derived immediately from God. They denied that it was in any sense indebted to human grants or concessions, or that it could be enlarged or diminished by them.

When, however, Protestantism began its work, and the papacy reeled and tottered under the blows of the great Reformers, it required the genius and ability of Bellarmine to conceive and promulgate the idea of indirect power, so that the assailants of the direct power might be answered with an argument that was at least plausible. It is said that he was “driven to the theory of the indirect power by the desire of vindicating the popes and clergy of the Middle Ages against the attacks of Protestants and of the more ancient heretics,” and that he “believed that he struck the middle and proper course, between the excesses of heresy and the opinion of the direct power, which he considered to be manifestly extravagant.” (Gosselin, vol. ii., p. 368 (note).)

If the great popes who originated, maintained, and acted upon the doctrine of the direct power were infallible—and the dogma of the late Lateran Council makes them so—then this doctrine became an essential part of the faith of the Church, which it would now be heresy to deny or change. It is a vain pretense, therefore, to talk about the indirect power, as Cardinal Antonelli does, it being merely the ingenious argument of a Jesuit of the sixteenth century, not promulgated by authority as a part of the faith, but as a mere shelter for the enormities practiced under the claim of direct power. If it be that the faith of the Church is immutable, and the popes all infallible and incapable of error, then the doctrine of the indirect power is heresy. Or, if the promulgation of it from the Vatican, under the official auspices of the present pope, makes it a necessary part of the faith at this time, then the popes who maintained the direct power were heretics. Let the papist take either horn of the dilemma, and his theory falls to the ground as utterly untenable, alike opposed to the divine and human law and the best interests of mankind.

It is apparent, therefore, that Gregory VII. did not pretend to shelter himself behind any indirection, and that in asserting his primacy and supremacy he required it to be recognized as a part of the faith, that the power of the pope over both spirituals and temporals was derived directly from God, and was not susceptible of any human limitation.

This is the fair and only import of his language, previously quoted, (Ante, ch. iii.) and of all his official acts when dealing with the European kings. Even in dealing with Philip, King of France—the favorite “Son of the Church “—he forbade him lay investiture, and addressed a letter to the French bishops, declaring that if they did not obey him, and not the king, to whom by the law of France they owed allegiance, “he would, with God’s help, use every means to wrest the kingdom of France from his hands.” (Reichel, p.205.) And his labored exertions to establish a holy empire or ecclesiastical state, in the form of a revived Jewish theocracy, indicates how completely, if he had succeeded, he would have absorbed all the spiritual and political power of the world. (Ibid., p.282.)

Nor did Adrian IV., Innocent III., or Boniface VIII., up to the beginning of the fourteenth century, pretend to rest this supremacy upon any other ground than that asserted by Gregory VII. The blight of the Middle Ages was resting upon the world during their pontificates, and there was no necessity for moderation or disguise. Reason was not then free to expose or combat their errors or usurpations. There was no free thought or free press in those days. Protestantism was not then born. The iron weight of the papacy rested upon all the nations, and even kings so crouched at the feet of these great pontiffs as to cause Dante to exclaim,

    “How many now hold themselves mighty kings,
    Who here like swine shall wallow in the mire,
    Leaving behind them horrible dispraise!”

When Adrian IV. granted Ireland to King Henry II. and authorized him to subjugate the Irish people, he did so expressly upon the ground that it “belonged to the Holy See” by a divine right, and that he could dispose of it as seemed right to him; asserting, at the same time, the right in all the popes to dispose of every country where Christianity had been received. Innocent III. declared that his power came directly from Heaven, and was based “on a divine ordinance;” and that the authority of princes was derived from him; wherefore he gave away crowns, disposed of governments, and transferred peoples from one allegiance to an other, in the name of God and the Church. And Boniface VIII., in his bull Unam Sanctam— which remains a part of the canon law—set forth the doctrine that temporal governments should be conducted “for the Church,” and that “for every human being subjection to the pope was necessary for salvation;” deriving the tremendous power he asserted directly from God alone.

All the popes who at various times before the sixteenth century claimed this supremacy asserted the direct power over all nations. They universally regarded it as an attribute attached to the papacy by Christ, descending to them from the apostle Peter, and reaching out to the utmost bounds of the earth, in order that all mankind may in the end be saved. Whatever may have been said by others for them since then is no part of the original argument by which the power was sustained, but merely the invention of such limitations upon it as prudence and expediency have dictated. The original argument remains the same. If it does not, the power does. Its comprehensiveness is in no way lessened by shifting the method and grounds of its defense.

While, since Bellarmine, a vast amount of ingenuity has been displayed in the discovery of various arguments, often conflicting, to reconcile the world to its exercise, the popes themselves, even when it has been held in abeyance, have treated it as a part of the faith—unalterable and forever the same. And Pope Pius IX. is not behind any of them in asserting it to be all—absorbing, and in denouncing and anathematizing everything which stands in its way. His infallibility being now established, the Church has assigned to him the incapacity to err, and the same incapacity to all his predecessors. Hence it binds itself, and requires all its members to recognize the doctrines and principles advanced by any and all of them as the true “Catholic doctrines.” And these doctrines being true, the inevitable and logical result, from which no ingenuity can contrive a loop—hole of escape, is that the divine and legitimate authority which the pope has at any time acquired over any government or country by virtue of discovery, conquest, or compact, cannot be displaced by any act considered as usurpation, or by any illegitimate act, no matter in what way it may have been consummated.

As “the domain of the Catholic Church” was extended by the discovery of America by Columbus, acting for and in the name of the reigning pope, Alexander VI.,(*) and spiritual jurisdiction was thereby acquired over this continent in obedience to the providence of God, that jurisdiction, though disturbed for a time by revolution and usurpation, exists yet in all its original vigor! As temporal jurisdiction necessarily follows the spiritual, that also exists in a like degree, to be resumed whensoever by possibility it may be done, and it shall become prudent to attempt its recovery! The resumption of both these jurisdictions is commanded by Almighty God in order to secure the universality of the only true Church, against which “the gates of hell shall not prevail!”

* It seems little less than profanation to assign infallibility to such a pope as Alexander VI., when all history assigns to him a multitude of crimes among them an incestuous intimacy with his own daughter, Lucretia Borgia —as inconsistent with the life of a professing Christian as they are shocking to the moral sense of mankind.

It was to this pope that the kings of Spain and Portugal referred the question of boundary between the American possessions each of them claimed by virtue of discovery. If he had merely decided what was submitted to him, it might be claimed for him that he was a mere arbitrator. But he went further, and “traced a line from pole to pole, through the Azores, or Western islands, and decreed, by virtue of his universal omnipotence, that all countries which were beyond this line—that is, the West Indies or America—should belong to the King of Spain; and those on this side—that is, the East Indies and the shores of Africa—to the King of Portugal.” The only conditions were the payment of a large sum of money to him, and the conversion of the inhabitants to Christianity, by force if necessary.—CORMENIN, vol. ii., p.154.

Thus has the Jesuit reasoned ever since the wonderful system of Loyola was contrived in aid of the papacy; and thus must necessarily reason all who accept the dogma of papal infallibility. The author of “Protestantism and Catholicity Compared,” etc., understood all this when he wrote his book, as also did his American publishers when they recommended it as “peculiarly adapted” to the wants of this age, because it sets forth “the glorious character of the faith;” and he and they manifestly contemplated the occurrence of such events as would bring the world into a condition for the practical application of these doctrines.

At all events, he felt it to be the duty of the papacy, in whose behalf he wrote, to keep them fresh in the minds of its devotees, so as to hold them in readiness for such a time, whensoever it should arrive. And, consequently, his work would have been left in complete if he had failed to point out the ultimate results to be expected from these “Catholic doctrines;” that is, if he had not indicated “how the civil power may be lawfully resisted.” To this special subject, therefore, he has devoted a chapter, which begins thus:

“From what has been said in the foregoing chapters, it follows that it is allowable to resist illegitimate power by force. The Catholic religion does not enjoin obedience to governments existing merely de facto; for morality does not admit a mere fact unsupported by right and justice.” (Balmes, ch. lvi., p. 336.)

And then, referring to the teachings of St. Thomas, which we have already seen, in support of his proposition that “an equality of social and political rights “is impossible, he passes on to define what is meant by papal interference in the affairs of governments, and to show that it is nothing less than the direct interposition of God himself! He says:

“For many centuries there has been inculcated in Europe a doctrine much criticized by those who do not understand it, the intervention of the pontifical authority between the people and their sovereigns. This doctrine was nothing less than Heaven descending as an arbiter and judge, to put an end to the dispute of the earth.” (Ibid., p. 340.)

And this remarkable chapter is wound up by pointing to the times when the tempest of revolution has burst upon the world, and thrones have been overturned, and royal heads cut off “in the name of liberty;” to all of which he declares the Church says “this is no liberty, but a succession of crimes; the fraternity and equality which I have taught were never your orgies and guillotines” (Ibid., p. 343.)—thus placing all political revolutions along-side of each other, and seeming not to know that it was only that of Roman Catholic France where “orgies and guillotines” were substituted for law and order.

What man is so ignorant as not to understand all this? “The Catholic religion does not enjoin obedience to governments existing de facto!” that is, governments not founded on the law of God. No such thing as “an equality of social and political rights” is possible! “The intervention of the pontifical authority between the people and the sovereigns,” or between them and their governments, is only “Heaven descending as an arbiter and judge,” in the person of the pope, to hold them to the line of duty! The liberty which allows thrones to be overturned and kings to be dispensed with, “is no liberty, but a succession of crimes!” (*)

* It should not be forgotten that this is one of the authors to whom Archbishop Bayley, of Baltimore, referred his friend for the true teachings of the Church. Should it not command the most serious attention, when the fact is thus openly avowed that American citizens are trained in such a school?

This author was not disposed to shield the papacy behind any disguise whatever, but marched bravely up to the work he had in hand. He felt himself too secure in Spain to practice any deception upon a point of doctrine so absolutely essential to the maintenance of the ultramontane party, of which he was a distinguished member. He was too truthful for subterfuge. And, therefore, he could do no less than declare that the power of the pope over both spirituals and temporals is derived directly from God, and that its exercise over the world is the act of God himself!

We all concede that whatever is derived from God must be just and right: he is infallible. Whosoever shall be persuaded to believe that these doctrines are according to his teachings, to him they necessarily become just and right. No defender of papal infallibility is permitted to deny them— excommunication and anathema have already been decreed against him if he does. With all such, then, their duty to the Church is higher and more obligatory than any duty they can owe to human governments, either in the United States or elsewhere. And if the pope shall tell them, in an official bull or brief, that there are principles of government prevailing here which are condemned by the law of God; that this country belongs of right to “the domain of the Catholic Church” by virtue of the discovery by Columbus; that this right, being divine, can never be destroyed or impaired by revolution; that the papal jurisdiction has been wrongfully and criminally displaced by lawless usurpation; that the Government existing here is de facto, and not de jure, because it is merely human, and not such as God’s law requires; that it does not recognize the temporal power as subordinate to the spiritual, which God commands, but the spiritual, in its exterior organization, as subordinate to the temporal, which God forbids; that it has disunited the State and the Church, and tolerates different forms of religion, which is heresy; that all such institutions as ours, being Protestant, are infidel, because they deny to the papacy the right to measure our laws by the papal standard—if he shall tell them any or all of these things, and enjoin upon them that, in view of all this wrong, injustice, and crime, it is a duty which the papacy owes to God to re-assert its jurisdiction here, to restore again the true apostolic Christianity, to banish all this heresy, and to build up a lawful government constructed according to the divine plan; with all these and other kindred propositions before their minds, pressed and urged upon them by cunning and adroit priests, trained for the purpose in Jesuit schools, what will those who believe that the pope is infallible do and say? Win they obey or disobey the pope?

That is the question which no ingenuity can evade. He who accepts papal infallibility, and with it the ultramontane interpretation of the power of the pope over the world, and thinks that by offending the pope he offends God, will obey passively, unresistingly, uninquiringly. Such a man, whether priest or layman, high or low, is necessarily inimical to the Government and political institutions of the United States. With him his oath of allegiance would be worth no more than the paper upon which it is written. It would not stand a single moment before the all-absorbing absolutism of the pope, whose commands are equivalent with him to those of God. Or if, for a moment, he should stop to consider the extent of its possible obligation, the pope would be ready to assure him that, as it required him to do what the welfare of his Church and the will of God forbade him to do, it was null and void from the beginning. Or if still there should be some little unrest in his conscience, some slight misgivings as to the true line of his duty, the power of dispensation would be ready at hand to release him from the obligation of his sworn allegiance, and snap the cords that bind him to the Government, as the same kind of cords have been snapped by other popes and in other countries. To this end do the papal teachings inevitably lead: it is their natural and logical result.

The law of the Church is in its canons. These are made by the decrees of popes and councils. One of the greatest of the popes, Innocent III., asserted for himself such plenitude of power as gave him the right to dispense with any law. The Fourth General Lateran Council, with the approval of this same pope, enacted a canon wherein it is declared that constitutions which are prejudicial to the rights of the Church shall not be observed; thus, by the use of imperative language, making the non—observance of them obligatory. The Decretals, which are the body of the canon law, contain provisions to the same effect. The Third General Lateran Council, with the approval of Alexander III., decreed that an oath in opposition to the welfare of the Church and the enactments of the holy fathers is not to be called an oath at all, but rather perjury. Peter Dens, the great commentator on the laws and moral theology of the Church, lays it down as the law of the Church that the right of the pope, as the ultimate superior and sovereign, is reserved in every oath; which, of course, includes the oath of allegiance. He also instructs the faithful that the pope has the power of withdrawing or prohibiting what is included in an oath, and that when he does so it is no longer included. And Bishop England, driven to the wall by an ingenious and learned adversary, from the point of whose lance he could not escape, was compelled to admit the law of the Church yet to be as it was established by the Third Lateran Council.

Under such a law the papacy has but to demonstrate to its followers that a constitution or law of the State is opposed to the welfare of the Church, when it becomes their religious duty to treat the oath to obey such constitution or law as no oath at all, but rather perjury. And if this provision were not so plain and emphatic as to be insusceptible of misunderstanding, the papacy, ever on the alert, has provided its doctrines of “mental restrictions” and “ambiguity and equivocation,” as the final means of escape from almost every imaginable promise or oath, except where the party is bound to the papacy itself.

Its adroit training of its subjects in the school of dissimulation shows how completely the practice of falsehood may be systematized into a science. Of course, the abstract proposition that it is unlawful to he in any event is laid down in general terms; but in each special case as it arises rules are furnished by which to decide what is and what is not a lie.

“Mental restrictions” are of two kinds: purely mental and real. In the first, falsehood is not excused, because there is no external sign to signify that which is restricted in the mind. In the second, there is no falsehood, because the external circumstances signify that something is secretly understood. Thus, as to real restriction, it is said: “Real restriction occurs when the declaration is false, if we regard the words alone; but circumstances concur which signify that something is to be secretly understood, which the speaker keeps in his mind, and which, being secretly understood, the declaration is true.” (*)

* “Restrictio realis occurrit, dum enuntiato, spectatis solis verbis, falsa est, sed circumstantia concurrunt, quoe significant aliquid esse subintelligendum, quod loquens in mente tenet, et quo subintellecto, enuntiato est vera.”—DENs, vol. iv., No. 244, p. 309.

It is almost impossible to procure in the United States a copy of this work of Peter Dens. I have seen it advertised by at least two Catholic publishing houses, and have made the effort to obtain it from them, but failed. I succeeded, at last, in getting a copy from London. It is in Latin, in eight volumes—manifestly designed as instructive to the priesthood alone, by whom laymen are to be impressed with its teachings. Messrs. Lippincott & Co. have recently published a “Synopsis” of it, translated by Professor Berg, which contains the most material parts of it, except what relates to confessional, etc., which is too indecent for translation. I have used this translation, except in the case of oaths—which it does not include—and have given the original along with it, that the classical reader may test its accuracy. He will find it both literal and faithful.

This rule had the sanction of one of the infallible popes, Innocent XI., which, of course, adds greatly to its influence. In a proposition laid down by him, he said:

“If any, either alone or before others, whether asked or of his own accord, or for the purpose of sport, or for any other object, swears that he has not done something which in reality he has done, by understanding within himself something else which he has not done, or a different way from that in which he has done it, or any other truth that is added, he does not really lie, nor is he perjured.” (*)

* “Probatur etiam ex damnatione hujus prop. 36., Innoc. XI.: ‘Si quis vel solus vel coram aliis, sive interrogatus, sive sponte propria, sive recreationis causa, sive quocumque alio fine, juret se non fecisse aliquid, quod revera fecit intelligendo intra se aliquid aliud, quod non fecit, vel aliam viam ab ea, in qua fecit, vel quodvis aliud additum, revera non mentitur, nec est perjurns.'”—DENS, vol. iv., pp. 309, 310.

It will be readily observed how wide these rules open the door for falsehood and perjury—how completely they tend to destroy all confidence between men, and all faith and integrity. But as if this abominable doctrine of “mental restriction” were not sufficient to enable the order of Jesuits to triumph over the world by the system of fraud which it is designed to legitimate, that of “ambiguity and equivocation” is superadded to give it both efficiency and completeness. It amounts to this: that if a proposition is susceptible of two meanings, one may be expressed when it is not meant, and the other, which is meant, may be reserved in the mind. Hence it is said:

“An equivocation of this kind does not contain a lie, in whatever sense it may be received; because the external words truly signify that sense which the speaker has in his mind, and thus differs from a purely mental reservation, in which the external words do not contain the mental sense.” (*)

* “Hujusmodi oequivocatio non continet mendacium, in quocumque sensu accipiatur, qulia verba externa vere significant illum sensum, quem loquens in mente habet, et sic differt k restrictione pure mentali, in qua verba externa non continent sensum mentalem.”—DENS, vol. iv., p. 311.

That these rules are part of the Jesuit system of “mental reservations,” is undoubted. Sanchez, one of the fathers, says: “A man may swear that he never did such a thing (though he actually did it), meaning within himself that he did not do so on a certain day, or before he was born, or understanding any other such circumstance, while the words which he employs have no such sense as would discover his meaning.” (“The Provincial Letters,” by Pascal, letter ix., p. 277.)

The reason given by him and Filiutius, another father, is that “it is the intention that determines the quality of the action.” (Ibid.) And they give a surer method of avoiding falsehood: “After saying aloud, I swear that I have not done that, to add in a low voice, today; or after saying aloud, I swear, to interpose in a whisper, that I say, and then continue aloud, that I have done that.” (Ibid.)

The same rule is also expressed in these words: “No more is required of them to avoid lying than simply to say that they have not done what they have done, provided ‘they have in general the intention of giving to their language the sense which an able man would give to it.'” (Ibid.)

And Escobar, another and greater of the Jesuit fathers, lays down the following lax and demoralizing rule in reference to promises not confirmed by an oath: “Promises are not binding when the person in making them had no intention to bind himself.” (*)

* Ibid., p. 278. The great Bossnet condemned all this doctrine as “pernicious in morality,” and for that and other reasons was a Gallican Catholic, and not a Jesuit.

Now, with the believer in the ultramontane doctrines which prevail at Rome, and which, since the decree of papal infallibility, have become the only doctrines which the pope will allow to be accepted as true, it is quite certain that the oath of allegiance will not stand, for a single moment, in the way of his obedience to any command of the pope for the promotion of the welfare and interest of the Church. In taking the oath, how easy was it for him to have renounced his allegiance to some civil monarch; yet, at the same time, to have reserved in his mind his allegiance to the pope, not as a civil monarch in the same sense, but as the spiritual head of the Church, whose power, divinely granted, included authority over all temporal affairs within its jurisdiction!

But if he did not have this reservation, the other modes of escape are equally effective. Possibly, there are not very many who have made this reservation, but these will labor assiduously to increase their number. The Jesuits, and those upon whose minds they have impressed their teachings, understand it perfectly well; and their struggles to obtain the mastery over the world are unremitting. They have the unabating ardor of an army held together and in spirited by the promise and expectation of victory.

It is fair to assume that a majority of those Roman Catholics who have taken the oath of allegiance had no such mental reservation. But these well— meaning and good citizens are relied on to acquiesce, by their silence, in what may be done by such as had. These seem to have no conception of the extent to which this passive submission may carry them. They may well pause at this point for reflection and self-examination, while they are protected by institutions which allow this to them. If they shall do so, they may readily see how completely they have become entangled in the meshes of the Jesuit net, and realize the nature of the efforts their hierarchy are now making to bring them under the government of the canon laws of Rome, whensoever the existing laws of the United States shall conflict with them. Perhaps not one in a thousand is aware of these efforts.

The proceedings of “the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore” were referred to in the second chapter, to show the preference of the American hierarchy for the Catholic over the Protestant system of government, and their opposition to certain laws of the United States. From what was there said it would appear, very satisfactorily, that their purpose was to bring about that condition of things which shall result in governing this country by the canon law of Rome—some of the principles of which, as they affect the obligation of allegiance, have been explained. If there was left any doubt upon that subject, it may be easily removed. Since that chapter was written, a work has appeared entitled “Notes on the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore.” The preface thus begins:

“The desire of gradually introducing in this country, as far as practicable, the ecclesiastical discipline prevalent throughout almost the entire Church, was strongly and repeatedly expressed by the fathers of the late National Council of Baltimore. Its decrees tend both avowedly and implicitly to promote the accomplishment of this object.” (“Notes on the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore,” by Smith, Preface, p. iii.)

The author professes to propound the Decrees of Baltimore, because they are designed to establish “the same hierarchy, and, in consequence, substantially the same relations between bishops, priests, and laity,” as exist elsewhere in the same Church. (Ibid., Preface, p. vii.)

In defining the canon law, he calls the Church a perfect and sovereign society, which possesses “a three-fold power—legislative, judicial, and coercive or executive,” and which cannot be subordinate to any other society. (36) There are but two perfect societies—the Church and the State; the Church is “absolutely supreme;” the State “but relatively supreme.” The State, when emancipated from the Church, “stands in open revolt against God himself;” there should, therefore, be such “close union” between them that they should “assist each other.” (Ibid., p. 7.) He calls the canon law the “common law” of the Church, which “is obligatory on all the faithful spread throughout the world;” and makes it comprise, in so far as it is written, “The Constitutions and Decretal Epistles of the Sovereign Pontiffs,” and the ” Decrees of Ecumenical Councils.” (Ibid., pp. 8, 9.) He then defines the principles of the common law, among which are those which follow:

The pope can dispense with any law. (Ibid., p. 17.) The constitutions and decrees of the popes are explanations of the divine law, and are, therefore, binding as soon as known. (Ibid., p. 21.) The Church does not recognize the right in any government to say whether or not the pontifical decrees shall be enforced: “She is supreme and independent, and therefore can admit of no intermeddling with her authority.” (Ibid., p. 27.)

The Isidorian Decretals, although now known to be spurious and false, were looked upon as genuine for seven hundred years, or until their fraudulent character was discovered by Protestants in the sixteenth century; (Ibid., p. 32.) yet they aided materially in building up the papal system, and there is no pretense that the popes have abandoned such provisions of them as increase their power. The pope alone is the interpreter of the divine law, and his temporal power is necessary to the free exercise of his spiritual authority. (“Notes on the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore,” by Smith, p. 47.) He derives his jurisdiction immediately from God, and imparts a share of the plenitude of his power to his bishops. (Ibid., pp. 77, 78.) Ecclesiastical property must be governed by the laws of the Church. (Ibid., p. 144.) The State ought to recognize and carry into effect the laws of the Church. (Ibid., p. 149.) By these laws, laymen have no right of property in the Church, and it is against the law of God that they should dispose of its revenues. (Ibid., p. 150.) Where the mother of a child is a Catholic, and the father a heretic, or Protestant, the child may be baptized at the request of the mother, and against the wishes and consent of the father. (Ibid., p. 178.) Children of heretics may be baptized against the will of both their parents; because all heretics are “per se subject to the laws of the Church.” (Ibid., pp. 178,179.) Religious books, including Bibles, shall not be printed without the consent of the priesthood; and all such as have not their approbation are forbidden to be read. (Ibid., pp. 354, 361, 362.) The coercive power of the Church includes the power “to punish the insubordinate and repress the lawless;” which extends to any punishment short of shedding blood, such as imprisonment in monasteries, and other chastisements. (Ibid., p. 372.)

These provisions fall very far short of the whole body of the canon law, which is set forth in the papal and consular decrees, many of which have been noticed; but they distinctly show the purpose of the hierarchy to be the introduction of the whole into this country, gradually, but as rapidly as they can, either by the exercise of direct power, or because of the inattention and toleration of the American people. All the power they can now control is directed to, and concentrated in, this object. It will be observed that one reason assigned for the jurisdiction they seek to establish over this country, is that all heretics are “subject to the laws of the Church.” And inasmuch as infidels, who have always denied the faith, are included among the heretics along with Jews and pagans, this jurisdiction is made so complete and broad as to include the entire population of the country. Not only, therefore, do these hierarchs consider themselves entitled to possess the country and govern it, in the name and by virtue of the divine right of the pope, but to act as the masters and superiors of all classes of the people—only awaiting, prudentially, the opportunity to assert and exercise this high ecclesiastical prerogative.

In the mean time, while this tremendous authority is held in abeyance by our civil institutions, the papacy stands ready with its armory full of ecclesiastical weapons prepared for use. If these are somewhat dulled by the length of time they have lain idle, the dogma of infallibility has created a necessity for resharpening and burnishing them up again. Therefore, we find the faithful instructed in the law of the papacy as to the manner in which it would deal with the host of its enemies and persecutors. Thus, it is said, infidels “are not to be tolerated; because they are so bad that no truth or advantage for the good of the Church can be thence derived.” (*)

* “Ritus aliorum infidelium, nempe paganorum et hareticorum, per se non sunt tolerandi; quia ita sunt mali, ut nihil veritatis aut utilitatis in bonum Ecclesise inde derivetur.”—DENs, vol. ii., No. 53, p. 83.

And they are to be dealt with without trial or proof, on the ground of being incorrigible and rebellious from the beginning. Infidelity “is not to be tried or proved, but extirpated,” subject only to this condition—that this extirpation may be suspended where “there may be reasons which may render it advisable that it should be tolerated;” for example, where the power to extirpate is not possessed. (*)

* “Unde tentenda non est vel probanda, sed extirpanda, nisi adsint rationes, quse illam tolerandam esse suadeant.”— DENs, Ibid.

Heretics as such are to be dealt with under special provisions of the law, made to fit their case on account of their crime and impiety practiced in the act of setting up a false faith in opposition to that of Rome. Baptized heretics are to be visited with the greater excommunication by the pope, as in the case of the bull of Pius IX., a few years ago, excommunicating all Protestants. They are to be considered as infamous; and their temporal goods are to be confiscated. (“Bona eorum temporalia sunt ipso jure confiscata.”—DENS, vol. ii., No. 56, p. 88.)

They are to be subjected to corporal punishment, to exile, and imprisonment. (” Denique aliis paenis etiam corporalibus, ut exilio, carcere, etc., merito afficitintur.”—Ibid., p. 89.)

And then, to complete the work, in case they shall remain obstinate, and not heed the warnings of the Church, they are to be dealt with as John Huss and Jerome were under a decree of the Council of Constance—that is, they shall suffer death.

Let not the Protestant reader be alarmed; this is only the law of the papacy, which the infallible pope with his hierarchical auxiliaries is trying to enforce here, and which they would enforce if the world could be carried back by them into the gloom and superstition of the Middle Ages. See, however, the emphatic and plain language in which this death penalty is recorded in question and answer:

Are heretics rightly punished with death? St. Thomas answers, Yes, because forgers of money, or other disturbers of the State, are justly punished with death; therefore also heretics, who are forgers of the faith, and experience being the witness, grievously disturb the State.” (*)

* “An heretici recte puniuntur morte? Respondet S. Thomas, 2, 2, quaest. 11, art. 3, in’ Corp.’ affirmative: quia falsarii pecunim, vel aii Rempublicam turbantes, juste morte puniuntur: ergo etiam heretici, qui sunt falsarii fidei, et experientia teste, Rempublicam graviter perturbant.”—DENs, p. 89.

It must not be supposed that the baptized heretics who are thus to be dealt with are only those who have been baptized into the Roman Catholic Church. The class is much larger, and includes all baptized Protestants as well, provided the ceremony has been performed with reference to the ordinary essentials. These are not required to be re-baptized upon reception into the Roman Church; and are, therefore, proper subjects of excommunication and punishment. Since the time of St. Augustine, more than fourteen centuries ago, the doctrine on this subject has been as laid down by him, as follows: “For in all points in which they [heretics] think with us [Catholics] they are also in communion with us—are severed from us only in those points in which they dissent from us. What they have retained of the teaching of the Church, they do not lose by severance from her; hence, the power of conferring baptism may be found outside the Church. Moreover, it is Christ himself who baptizes. The grace of the Sacrament is wholly independent of the qualification of him who administers it.” (Alzog, p. 424.)

Thus it is manifest that all Protestants who have been baptized are held to be in “communion” with the Roman Church for the purpose of punishment for the crime of heresy, and, consequently, they are now, in the papal view, under sentence of death—the executioner merely waiting for sufficient power to enforce the decree, which has stood unrevoked and unchanged since the Lateran Council of Innocent III. provided for the extermination of the Albigenses.

Founded upon this enlarged and extraordinary jurisdiction and the subtle reasoning employed to maintain it, the law of the Church distinctly lays down the power of the pope to compel obedience from us all, from the millions of Protestant people in the United States who have vainly supposed themselves to be outside of his jurisdiction. It says: “Baptized infidels, such as heretics and apostates usually are, also baptized schismatics, may be compelled, even by corporal punishment, to return to the Catholic faith and the unity of the Church. The reason is, because these by baptism have become subject to the Church; and therefore the Church has jurisdiction over them, and the power of compelling them through appointed means to obedience, and to fulfill the obligations contracted in baptism.” (*)

* “Infidelis baptizati, quales esse solent Hoeretici et Apostate, item Schismatici baptizati cogi possunt, etiam puenis corporalibus, ut rever’tantur ad Fidem Catholicam, et unitatem Ecclesie.”

Ratio est, quod isti per Baptismum subditi facti sint Ecclesix: adeoque Ecclesia in eos jurisdictionem habet et potestatem eos compellendi per media ordinata ad obedientiam, et ad implendas obligationes in Baptismo contractas.”— DENS, vol. ii., No. 51, p. 80.

It is easy now to understand what the pope, in his Syllabus, and Archbishop Manning, in his pastoral, mean by the right of the Roman Church to employ force to coerce obedience to its decrees. With them the jurisdiction of the papacy is limited only by the boundaries of the world, and professing Christians of every creed are brought within the sweep of the pontifical saber, by a system of ecclesiastical law and ethics, which, built up in ages of superstition and ignorance, they are now seeking to revive. They admit no compromise and practice no moderation. Whatsoever stands in the way of their success is visited with the pontifical wrath; and anathemas and curses, in the name of God, are scattered broadcast over the world, as if God did not delight to exhibit himself more in the sunshine than in the lightning and the storm.

How many of the multitude of criminals upon whom the sentence of condemnation has been already pronounced are destined to pay the penalty of their disobedience, and how many shall escape, are matters concealed in the womb of the future. It is no trifling and idle thing for nations and peoples to find themselves thus plotted against. Nor is it a trifling and idle thing for the people of the United States to find such an enemy, with drilled and disciplined troops, in the very midst of their peaceful institutions. Heretofore they have not failed to meet the necessities of every crisis to which this country has been subjected, and it seems impossible that they can remain listless and indifferent with so formidable and dangerous an adversary at their very doors.

Continued in Chapter XX. Papal Infallibility




The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XVIII. Resistance to Civil Power

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XVIII. Resistance to Civil Power

Continued from Chapter XVII. Coercive Power of the Church.

Adrian IV and the grant of Ireland to England.—Ireland brought within the jurisdiction of Rome in the twelfth century.—Enlargement of the papal power.—Secular power administered by commission from the Pope.—Gregory VII and Innocent III.—The Fourth Lateran Council establishes the faith that institutions prejudicial to the Church should not be observed.—Papal doctrine in regard to oaths. Urban VI, Eugenius IV, and Innocent III.—Nature of the oath exacted by Innocent III from King John.—Subjects all governments to the Pope.—Effect in the United States.—Constitutional oath of allegiance.—Its obligation.—The papal theory on that subject.—Oaths opposed to the welfare of the Church not binding.—Unlawful oaths not binding.—What are lawful, and what are unlawful.—The papal principle applied to the government of the United States.—The papal argument by Balmes. Resistance to civil power usurped.—When it is usurped.—When legal, and when illegal.—Governments de jure and de facto.—Obedience to the last not obligatory.—May be recognized from prudential motives.—Government of the United States is de facto.—The monarchies of Europe, when obedient to the Pope, are de jure.—The doctrine of consummated facts denied.—Illegitimate authority cannot become legitimate by time.—Rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s only requires obedience to legitimate governments.—Legitimate governments are only such as are based on the law of God.—That of the United States is not legitimate.

The dignity and power acquired by the Roman Church by means of the exercise of its spiritual jurisdiction, however great, was not sufficient to answer the ends and gratify the ambition of the medieval popes. The frequent efforts of the Italian people to establish republican institutions, which were often attended with the expulsion of the popes from Rome, were not intended as a denial of that jurisdiction, in the proper sense, but as the means of limiting it to its own ecclesiastical sphere.

But the popes were not satisfied with this. With them, republicanism was synonymous with heresy, which they resolved to uproot with all the power necessary to that end. They denied, totally, the right of any people to make the laws or mold the institutions under which they were to live. Therefore, when Arnold of Brescia preached at Rome against their temporal power, and in favor of a republican form of government, the people were so incensed against Adrian IV that they drove him out of the city. And when he was afterward restored to his see by the army of Frederick Barbarossa—who delivered Arnold to him, in consideration of his coronation as emperor—he consigned his patriotic victim to death at the stake and held the Roman people in subjugation by force.(*)

* “History of Germany,” by Menzel, Bohn’s ed., vol. i., p. 459; “History of Germany,” by Lewis, p. 189; “Medioeval Kings,” by Busk, vol. i., p. 358; “Temporal Power of the Papacy,” by Legge, p. 49.

Thus, also, we find this same pope authorizing the like subjugation of Ireland by the English king, and consigning its peaceful and Christian people to the merciless cruelties of Henry II., upon the ground that it was a portion of “the patrimony of St. Peter and the Holy Roman Church;” and this, too, notwithstanding the Irish Church had grown up independently of Rome; had derived its faith from the canons of St. Patrick, and not from those of the Roman Church; had appointed and consecrated its own bishops and priests; had held its own synods; and had received the pallium from the pope only three years before the commencement of Adrian’s pontificate. (*)

The pallium is an ecclesiastical vestment in the Catholic Church, originally peculiar to the pope, but for many centuries bestowed by the Holy See upon metropolitans and primates as a symbol of their conferred jurisdictional authorities, and still remains a papal emblem. – From Wikipedia

Pallium

Pallium

* The pallium is the universal “symbol of ecclesiastical union and dependence,” the “insignia of investiture,” by which alone the pope imparts “a portion of his own primatial authority.”—Universal Church History, by Alzog, p. 693, and note (3) by American translators. Malachy, the Irish Archbishop of Armagh, solicited the pallium, for the first time, from Innocent II., but he refused it. It was afterward granted by one of his successors, and was carried to Ireland, in 1151, by his legate—so that the union of the Irish Church with that of Rome was nearly a hundred years after the conquest of England by the Normans, and nearly seven hundred years after the death of St. Patrick. The transfer of Ireland to England was the first jurisdictional act of the pope, after the ecclesiastical investiture which followed the granting of the pallium; and it was done under such circumstances as to authorize the conclusion that it arose from a combination between Henry II., the pope, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, his primate in England, that the pallium should be granted for the express purpose of bringing the country under the papal jurisdiction, in order to give—according to the prevailing belief—the divine sanction to the subjugation of the Irish people, and the exaction from them of tithes for the support of the popes and the maintenance of their royalty.—History of Ireland, by M. F. Cusack, Nun of Kenmare, pp. 231, 232; Norman Conquest, by Thierry, vol. ii., pp. 143, 189; History of England, by Hume, Harper & Brother’s ed., vol. i., p. 329; History of England, by Rapin, vol. iii., pp. 50—54; Latin Christianity, by Milman, vol. iv., p. 264; Eccl. Hist., by Jones, London ed., vol. ii., pp. 70, 71, citing M. Paris’s history, p. 67; History of England, by Lingard, vol. li., pp. 89, 90.

The idea that all this enormous and comprehensive power was derived from the pretended donation of Constantine was fast becoming obsolete, for the reason that if that were its only foundation, it would be circumscribed within too narrow limits. To enlarge rather than curtail it was what the popes of that age specially sought for. Hence they maintained the more steadily the idea of their own personal infallibility, in order by means of it to engraft upon the faith of the Church the doctrine that their temporal power was derived from Christ through Peter; and therefore, having that origin, was not confined to the Papal States, but extended to the entire world, and subjected all nations and peoples to their dominion, within the domain of morals no less than that of faith. This domain was considered as almost without limitation, or, at all events, as broad enough to include, not only the entire conduct of individuals in their public and private intercourse, but all such secular action of nations as involved questions of public or private morality. Thus, monarchs were to hold their crowns and exercise their royalty at the will of the reigning pope; nations were to execute only such laws as he considered in conformity to the divine law, and to abrogate those which were not so; and he was to intervene between them and their citizens at his own discretion, and release them from their allegiance, and turn over their territorial possessions to the dominion of those who would obey his commands and execute his will. “Secular power was only to be tolerated, as secular princes avowedly exercised it, by commission from the pope.” (Legge, p. 50.)

This doctrine had continued to grow and strengthen from the time when Gregory VII., the great Hildebrand, had excommunicated and deposed Henry IV., Emperor of Germany, and released all his subjects from their allegiance to him. Each of the succeeding pontiffs of the eleventh and twelfth centuries had avowed it whenever they could safely venture to do so. But it remained for Innocent III., one of the leading and ruling spirits of the age, to make it a part of religious faith, by ingrafting it, by virtue of his infallibility, upon the dogmas of the Church. His towering and unsatisfied ambition stimulated him to use it as the means of making himself “the general arbiter of differences and conservator of the peace throughout Christendom.” (“Middle Ages,” by Hallam, Harper & Brothers’ ed., chli. vii., p. 287.)

His proud spirit chafed at the thought that any earthly potentate should equal him either in greatness or authority. Therefore he required that “all disputes between princes” should be referred to him; and if either party should refuse “to obey the sentence of Rome, he was to be excommunicated and deposed,” and a like penalty was to be visited upon those who refused to attack whatsoever “refractory delinquent” he should point out. (Ibid.)

Forfeitures, interdicts, excommunications, and every other form of ecclesiastical censure and punishment, were of almost daily occurrence. Even such monarchs as Philip Augustus and Henry IV. quailed before him, and Peter II. of Arragon and John of England—as we have seen—ignominiously consented to convert their kingdoms into spiritual fiefs, and to hold them in subordination to him, upon the condition of paying an annual tribute. By virtue of the claim of infallibility, the power of arbitrary papal dispensation was carried to its extremest limit, even to the assertion and exercise of the right to infringe the canons of the Church. “Innocent III. laid down as a maxim, that out of the plenitude of his power he might lawfully dispense with the law;” (Ibid., p. 293.) and caused the Fourth General Lateran Council to insert among its canons one which provided “that the constitutions of princes which are prejudicial to the rights of the Church shall not be observed;” (*)—thus establishing this as a fixed principle of the canon law, and, consequently, as a part of the religious faith of the Church.

* “Eccl. Hist.,” by Du Pin, vol. xi., p. 100. This is the same council referred to in a former chapter, by one of the canons of which it was provided that heretics should be extirpated, and that whenever, upon proper notice, any prince should fail or refuse to do so, his dominions should be forfeited to the pope, who should turn them over to some one who would perform that duty.—See Du Pin, vol. xi., p. 96.

It did not take long to carry this doctrine of dispensation to the extent of applying it to the observance of oaths, and to find in the Decretals this provision: “That an oath disadvantageous to the Church is not binding; and that one extorted by force was of slight obligation, and might be annulled by ecclesiastical authority.” (*)

* “Juramentum contra utilitatem ecclesiam praestitum non tenet.” Hallam, p.293 and note; “Church History,” p.201, by Fry, London. It has undoubtedly become the settled law of the Roman Church that the pope may dispense with any promissory oath by withdrawing the promise or prohibiting its performance. The doctrine is thus laid down by an author greatly distinguished in the Church for his learning. In answering the objection that the obligation of an oath is of natural and divine right, and therefore that it cannot cease to be binding through dispensation, commutation, or veto, he says: The consequence is denied, because through dispensation, etc., it is brought about, that that which was included under the oath, by withdrawing, prohibiting, etc., is not included under the oath, and so there is nothing done contrary to the oath. (“Neg. cons. quia per dispensationem, etc., efficitur, ‘ut id, quod sub juramento cadebat, sub juramento non cadat subtrahendo, prohibeudo, etc., et ita non fit aliquid contra juramentum.’—S. Th. 2, 2, q. 89, a. 9, ad. 1.”)—Theologia Moralis et Dogmatica, by Peter Dens, Dublin ed., 1832, vol. iv., No. 177, p. 216. The same author goes one step farther, and says: “And then in every oath there is this condition:’the right of the superior is reserved.'” (“Deinde omni juramento inest heec conditio: ‘salvo jure superioris.'”)—Ibid.

Instances are numerous to show the effect of these teachings upon the lives and conduct of the popes, and Mr. Hallam gives two memorable ones by way of illustration—that of Urban VI., who promulgated a solemn and general declaration against keeping faith with heretics; and that of Eugenius IV., who, acting upon this principle, annulled compacts with the Hussites by releasing those who had sworn to them, and made the King of Hungary break his treaty with Amurath II., absolving him from his promise “on the express ground that a treaty disadvantageous to the Church ought not to be kept.” (Hallam, p. 293 (note), citing Sismondi, t. ix., p. 196, and Rymer, t. vii., p. 352.)

These instances are dwarfed before the more flagrant exercise of the same power by Innocent III. in the advancement of his schemes of temporal policy. At the very beginning of his pontificate he required the Roman prefect to take the oath of allegiance to himself, when it was his duty to take it to the emperor, from the obligation of which duty he released him. He asserted the right to punish offenses against the civil law, and “to interpose with his judgment and annul the decisions of the civil tribunal.” He reminded the inhabitants of the Tuscan States, who owed allegiance to the emperor, “that there were two great lights in the social heaven, having their seat in Italy, the lesser of which, the imperial authority, received its light from the greater, the Papal See.”

He fulminated against Otho, Emperor of Germany, a bull of excommunication; released his subjects from their allegiance to him, and stirred up a rebellion against him and in favor of Frederick, the youthful son of Henry VI.

As we have seen at another place, he released King John from the oath he had taken before the barons at Runnymede, to observe and enforce the salutary provisions of Magna Carta; and, concentrating, as it were, all his enormous claim of power in a single expressive thought, he proudly announced the maxim, that “the pope, in virtue of the plenitude of his power, might dispense even with rights.” (Legge, pp. 53—56.)

The very nature of the oath exacted by Innocent III. of King John shows the inordinate ambition of the one and the pusillanimity of the other. Lingard says, “He swore that he would be faithful to God, to the blessed Peter, to the Roman Church, to Pope Innocent, and to Innocent’s rightful successors.” (Lingard, vol. ii., p. 165.) This oath was extorted by the papal interdict, which closed all the churches in England and left the dead to go unburied, and by the terrible thunder of excommunication. It placed the English king at the feet of the pope, and the entire destiny of the English people in his hands, to be disposed of, not as their wants and interests demanded, but as the wants and interests of the papacy and the welfare of the Roman Church required. What wonder, then, that, at the very beginning of the Reformation in England, an earnest protest was made against this absorption by the pope of all the civil power of the Government, and this plotting to destroy the last vestige of popular authority. This protest might have been heard in the mutterings of discontent among the body of the people; but it was unavailing, except as the measures already narrated grew gradually out of it.

Wycliffe, a hundred years after the papal conquest of England, and two hundred years before Luther, maintained, in the face of all the powerful and persecuting prelates in the kingdom, that the nation had forfeited her dearest rights by so long consenting that the crown should be held as a fief of the See of Rome; and that the king could properly and rightfully administer the government, even though, at the same time, he refused any tribute to the Pope of Rome. Pointing out the life and example of Christ, who was “unwilling to become a ruler in civil matters,” and did not teach his disciples to seek after civil dominion—he declared, “Therefore it behooves us to require that the pope should be observant of his religious obligations after this pattern. It is clear,” said he, “that we are bound to resist him in the exaction of a condition which call not be proper to him, as being purely civil.” (“Day of Rest,” London, vol iii., part v., p. 238.)

Wherein does the difference consist between the claim of papal power and prerogatives in the time of Wycliffe and the present? The infallibility of the pope means now just what it did then, with whatsoever has been done and said by all the popes and in all the centuries since superadded, as the means of overcoming the increased power of resistance among the people of the advancing and progressive nations. The doctrine runs back to the remotest times so as to include every assertion of pontifical power made by any of the popes from the beginning, and concentrates it all in the present. If any single pope, by virtue of “the primacy of St. Peter,” struck nations out of existence, dethroned monarchs, released subjects from their oaths of allegiance, appointed rulers for the people without their consent, extirpated heretics by fire and sword, dispensed the obligation of the most solemn oaths on the part of others, and violated their own, then may the present or any future pope do any or all of these things infallibly, whensoever it shall seem to him that the interests of the Roman Church require it. There is no word in any language more comprehensive than the word infallibility. It embraces everything in the past, the present, and the future. Even while its earthly possessor remains in the world, it elevates him above the world, and makes him a co-partner with God in the exercise of divine power.

Keeping these things in mind, we shall be the better enabled to apply the doctrines of the papacy to the condition of things in our own country, and to understand what the present pope expects and requires of those citizens who recognize him as a “domestic prince” within the territorial limits of the United States. We have nothing to do, now, with the question how far and how many of these citizens will render obedience to any demands he shall make: it is but just to assume that multitudes of them will not, when they may be pressed to the extremity of impairing any of the fundamental principles of the Government. But we have directly and immediately to do with the papal doctrines he is now so assiduously laboring to re-establish, so that we may fully comprehend them, in all their length and breadth, and understand wherein, if successfully established, they will assail the integrity of our institutions.

The people of the United States, appreciating the advantages and distinctive features of their Government, have wisely and unselfishly provided a mode by which those born in other countries may enjoy, to a like extent with themselves, all these advantages. They have provided by their naturalization laws that an alien may become a citizen; and, in return for this valuable privilege, have required of him only that he shall take an oath of allegiance to the Government, whereby he shall swear that he “doth absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty whatever.” Such an invitation to citizenship in a free government, extended to those who have felt the burden and pressure of absolutism, commends itself to the admiration of mankind. It stamped our Government, from the beginning, with a degree of liberality hitherto unknown among the nations.

That oaths of allegiance are sometimes taken by those who regard them as mere form, and as having no binding obligation upon their consciences, is unquestionably true. There are very few who have not realized the truth of this, in their own experience and observation. But it is equally true that a large majority of those who become naturalized citizens of the United States become so with a full and proper appreciation of the binding nature of the allegiance they assume, and with the determination to discharge, faithfully and honestly, all the obligations which attach to their new relations. Innumerable considerations combine thus to influence them, apart from the mere integrity of personal motive and conduct. Chief among these is the fact that, by coming here, they have sought to escape the consequences of monarchical rule, and to better their condition by enjoying the protection of civil institutions which recognize the people, and not a monarch, as the authors of the law; and where they, by also becoming law—makers, may increase the sense of their own personal dignity and importance in society, and thus elevate themselves and their posterity. It is altogether natural that, after obtaining privileges of so much personal and social importance, they should be unwilling to forfeit or lose them by any act of their own.

But, while this is readily and cheerfully conceded to the bulk of our naturalized citizens, the fact cannot and should not be disguised that there are some among them whose minds are impressed, or liable to be impressed, with the belief that, although they have improved their condition by coming to this country, it may be yet further improved by the establishment of an independent ecclesiastical hierarchy, with authority to subordinate the Government to such laws and regulations as they, under the direction and dictation of the pope, shall consider necessary to bring the people under subjection to the Roman Catholic Church. Their liability to this impression is the result of their education, which is called religious, because it is received alone from priests, acting as officers of their Church. One of the first principles taught them is the belief that as the laws of God are higher than the laws of man, and the eternal welfare of their souls of more importance than all secular and temporal things, therefore the State must obey the Church, and not be permitted to enact or enforce any law which the Roman Catholic Church, or the pope, as its infallible head, shall consider inconsistent with the divine law, the faith of the Church, or good morals.

Under the influence of this teaching, it is difficult for them to realize the wisdom and virtues exhibited by our fathers in resorting to revolution to throw off the authority of the British crown, and substituting for it the authority of the people. They have a sort of undefined idea that the people should be permitted to make the laws by which they are to be governed; and this idea, which arises naturally in all minds, might be developed into positive belief in theirs, and probably would be, if it were not that the faith and teachings of their Church, as interpreted and explained to them by their priests, forbid it. For fear that they may be influenced by it, they are held under the strictest surveillance by these priests, who employ every opportunity to remind them that they owe higher allegiance and duty to the Church than to the State, and must obey the pope at every and any cost, even though, by doing so, all human governments and laws should be destroyed. They are required to believe that this obedience to the pope is obedience to God, because God has placed the pope above all human governments and laws, with power, as his only infallible representative on earth, to require and command obedience to all his decrees upon matters of faith and morals. And the utmost precaution is observed by the papal hierarchy to exclude such impressions as would naturally arise in their minds from the contemplation and enjoyment of our liberal institutions, and especially from their participation in the management of public affairs.

In this their vigilance is extreme, and exhibits itself most strikingly in prohibiting them from permitting their children to mingle with ours in our common schools, because they are provided by the State; and because, in order that they may comprehend and understand the structure of the Government, the pupils are taught that the people are the primary source of all our laws, and not the pope or the Church, and that every citizen of the United States is bound to pay obedience to them; the pope, the Church, and all the kings and princes of the earth to the contrary notwithstanding.

Few things are so wonderful as the readiness with which many of the Roman Catholic part of our population, especially among those who are naturalized, accept these teachings and act upon them; while, at the same time, they are unwilling to admit, or are too ignorant to realize, their inevitable tendency—which is, that they are training and educating their children in the belief that our Government is altogether wrong in separating Church and State; that our fathers were wrong in resorting to revolution to get rid of monarchy; that it is wrong for the people to make their own laws; and that the only form of government upon which the blessing of God can rest is that wherein the Church shall govern the State, and the pope the Church. They fail to see that, by these means, they are aiding in the erection of a “State within the State,” whose authority will be sufficient, if its exercise be permitted, to regulate the Government and society by its laws, and to compel obedience to them by force, whenever it shall become necessary to resort to it. They fail also to see that this state of things cannot exist so long as our form of government shall stand, and that those who require them to aid in producing it would not hesitate to sacrifice the Government itself if by that means they could establish their hierarchical system.

And, since such is the position in which many of our Roman Catholic population stand, it is in every possible sense important that the country should realize to what point their present subserviency to the papal hierarchy may by possibility lead them, unless something be done to counteract its influence. In order to do this intelligently, it is necessary to understand how far their oath of allegiance is considered by the Roman Catholic hierarchy as standing in the way of their complete obedience and submission to the pope, whenever he shall consider that the interest of the Church requires any change in our plan of government, or disobedience to any of our laws.

The obligation of an oath is understood to arise out of the law authorizing it. Although it binds the conscience, in a moral sense, in whatever form it may be taken, yet if not taken pursuant to law its violation does not amount to perjury. An invalid law is universally held as no law at all, although it may possess the ordinary forms. Hence, if an oath is required by a law which is null and void, on account of its violation of constitutional or fundamental principles, no legal consequences attach to its violation—the violator being left to settle the matter with his own conscience. Hence, also, if our naturalization laws require allegiance to institutions which oppose the fundamental principles of Christianity as maintained by the papacy, and are therefore, in the opinion of the pope, invalid, the papal hierarchy readily infer that the violation of this allegiance would involve no crime whatever, but, on the contrary, would arise out of the obligation of duty to God and the Church. And hence, again, if this violation be merely a matter of conscience, and the pope possesses the power—as standing in the place of God—to dispense with all merely conscientious obligations, then a dispensation from him would place all Roman Catholic violators of the oath of allegiance right before God and the Church. To comprehend properly the results which might ensue from this mode of reasoning, it is necessary to inquire into the doctrines and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church in relation to oaths—their nature and obligation.

The reader will remember the reference heretofore to a controversy carried on, some years ago, between the Right Rev. John England, Roman Catholic Bishop of Charleston, South Carolina, and the Rev. Richard Fuller, a Baptist minister of Beaufort, in the same State. (*) Being afterward published in book form, under the auspices of Bishop England, it is proper to assume that what he has there said is a just and fair exposition of the doctrines of his Church.

* Ante. This book, entitled “Concerning the Roman Chancery,” etc., was published in 1840, by Fielding Lucas, Jun., of Baltimore, and by John P. Beale, Charleston.

A book was published as late as 1874, at Rome,with the special endorsement of Beckk, the General of the Jesuits, and with the approbation of the Propaganda Fide, and therefore of the pope, wherein the obligation of a promissory oath is thus stated: ” Nunquam obligatur juramento, qui rem malam juravit; imo dupliciter peccat, si juramentum adimpleat, nempe contra religionem, et virtutem, cui opponitur materia juramenti.—S. Lig., n. 176.” TRANSLATION: One is never bound by an oath who has sworn to do an evil thing, for he sins doubly if he shall perform his oath against religion and virtue, to which the substance of the oath is opposed.— Theologia Moralis, P. Joannis Petii Gury, S. J., Rome ed., vol. i., p. 310.

Among other accusations made against this Church by Mr. Fuller, this was a prominent one, which could not fail to arrest public attention and excite inquiry: that the Third Lateran Council, held in 1179, made not only falsehood, but perjury, a virtue when practiced in behalf of the Church. So grave a charge as this greatly excited Bishop England, and drove him, after some ingenious equivocation, to an explanation of the doctrines which had been established by his Church. He endeavored at first to parry, with true hierarchical adroitness, the home-thrusts of Mr. Fuller; but the latter was too able and learned a disputant to allow this, and the bishop was at last driven to a degree of particularity which, in all probability, he did not contemplate at the beginning of the controversy. His language should command the most serious attention. He said:

“Among Catholics, sir, perjury is the violation of a lawful oath, or the taking of an unlawful one. Thus, if we swear to declare the truth, and do not declare it, it would be perjury; and should a man attempt to bind me by the form of an oath to declare a falsehood, I would be guilty of perjury, in going through the form to tell a lie, but I am obliged to go against the words by which I appeared to be bound, because it is no oath, but a perjury. An oath cannot be a bond of iniquity. A conspirator who has sworn with his fellows to commit robbery or murder is not bound by his oath. In fact, it is no oath; to be an oath it must have three qualities, viz., truth, judgment, and justice: the defect of either renders it no oath.” (“Letters Concerning the Roman Chancery,” p. 157.)

Here the distinctive principle is announced that an unlawful oath cannot be taken without perjury; but if taken, he who takes it must go against it, because it is no oath in the opinion of the Roman Catholic Church. With this as his postulate, Bishop England proceeds to explain what the direct action of this Church has been upon this important subject. He quotes Canon XVI. of the Third Lateran Council, which he calls “the legislature of the Church,” wherein this sentence is found:

“For they are not to be called oaths, but rather perjuries, which are in opposition to the welfare of the Church and the enactments of the holy fathers.” (*)

* “Non enim dicenda sunt juramenta, sed potius perjuria, que contra utilitatem ecclesiasticam et sanctorum patrum veniunt instituta.”—lbid., p. 158.

Then, addressing himself directly to Mr. Fuller, the bishop defends these principles as follows:

“I need not inform you that the first obligation of every citizen is the law of God; the second is the constitution of his State; and as no form of oath could bind him to the violation of the divine law, so, except the constitution of his State should conflict with the divine law, no form of oath could bind him to violate that constitution; and should there be such a conflict, he is bound to the State in every other point save that in which the conflict exists: and his exemption in this instance arises from that sound maxim of legal interpretation that where two laws are in irreconcilable conflict, that of the first or highest authority must prevail. These are the principles which I have been taught from Roman Catholic authors, by Roman Catholic professors; they are the principles which I find recognized in all enactments and interpretations of councils in the Roman Catholic Church, from the council at Jerusalem, held by the apostles, down to the present day.” (“Letters Concerning the Roman Chancery,” pp. 162, 163.)

To make the matter so clear that no room for misapprehension should exist, he quotes from chapter xix. of the Roman Catholic catechism the following questions and answers:

“Q. What else is commanded by the second commandment?

“A. To keep our lawful oaths and vows.

“Q. What is forbidden by this commandment?

“A. All false, rash, unjust, and unnecessary oaths; also cursing, swearing, blaspheming, and profane words (Matt. v., 34; James v., 12).

“Q. Is it ever lawful to swear?

“A. It is: when God’s honor, our own or our neighbor’s good, or necessary defense, requires it.

“Q. What do you mean by an unjust oath?

“A. An oath injurious to God, to ourselves, or to our neighbor.

“Q. Is a person obliged to keep an unjust oath?

“A. No; he sinned in taking it, and would sin also in keeping it.

“Q. Is a person obliged to keep a lawful oath?

“A. Yes; and it would be perjury to break it.

“Q. What is perjury?

“A. The breaking of a lawful oath, or the taking of an unlawful one.

“Q. Is perjury a great crime?

“A. It is a most grievous one.” (“Letters Concerning the Roman Chancery,” pp. 190, 191.)

And then, summing up his argument and putting the doctrine in the most compact form, he says:

“My argument, sir, would have been more fairly put in this way: Man’s first duty is to observe the divine law; but the divine law requires that an oath shall bind when it is taken in truth, in judgment, and in justice, and that it shall not bind when either of these conditions is wanted. The divine law is paramount to every other law, constitution, tribunal, or authority. Therefore, no law, constitution, tribunal, or authority can allow a man to swear falsely, to swear in support of injustice, or to swear rashly, or injudiciously, or profanely. No tribunal, civil or ecclesiastical, can do what God himself could not do!—he cannot do what is incompatible with his divine attributes: the sanctioning of perjury would be incompatible therewith, and therefore no tribunal could sanction it.” (*)

* Ibid., pp. 194, 195. This argument is found, as set forth in the text, in all Roman Catholic publications on the subject; but the manner in which Bishop England makes it is preferred on account of the authority which his name and office carry with them.

The language here employed by this distinguished prelate has the merit of simplicity and frankness, and it requires no critical analysis to understand its meaning. It lays down the following propositions as settled and established by the Roman Catholic Church:

1. An unlawful oath cannot be taken without perjury.

2. He who takes an unlawful oath is not obliged to observe it, but should go against it.

3. An oath cannot be a bond of iniquity; that is, in opposition to the divine law.

4. To be a binding oath it must have the three qualities of truth, judgment, and justice; the absence of either renders it no oath.

5. They are not oaths, but perjuries, which are in opposition to the welfare of the Church, and the enactments of the holy fathers.

6. The first obligation of every citizen is the law of God; the second is the Constitution of his State.

7. The obligation of a citizen to the constitution of his State is only binding when it does not conflict with the divine law.

8. The obligation of a citizen to the constitution of his state is not binding when it does conflict with the divine law.

9. The divine law is of higher authority than the law of the State, and must always prevail when they come in conflict.

10. A person is not obliged to keep an unjust oath; he sinned in taking it, and would sin also in keeping it.

11. An oath is not binding when it lacks the element of either justice, judgment, or truth.

12. No law, constitution, tribunal, or authority can bind a man to act unjustly; God cannot even do it.

From this recapitulation it will be seen that in order to determine upon the binding obligation of an oath, it is necessary, in any given case, to understand its character. If it is unlawful, it is not binding. To this, as an abstract proposition, there may be no special objection; but the difficulty lies in agreeing upon what is lawful and what unlawful. Let us give the doctrine a practical application as it is understood by those whose minds are trained in papal polemics.

Having separated the Church from the State, and made the latter entirely independent of the former, we have provided in our National Constitution that it and all the laws passed pursuant to it are “the supreme law of the land,” binding alike upon all citizens. In order, therefore, to decide whether the oath of naturalization is or is not lawful, we look to the Constitution and the powers it confers upon Congress as the legislative department of the Government. By that instrument it is provided that Congress shall have power “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization “—thus leaving, in the legal or common mind, no sort of doubt about the legality of the oath of naturalization under our laws. Hence, in view of our Constitution and laws, such an oath is both lawful and of binding obligation. But, according to Bishop England, the Roman Catholic Church does not reason in this way. It goes behind the Constitution in order to inquire whether it violates the divine law or not; whether it is just or unjust; whether or not it is in opposition to the welfare of the Church and the enactments of the holy fathers; whether it is consistent, or inconsistent, with truth; and if it finds the Constitution lacking in any of these essential elements, whatever oath it shall authorize, looking to any of these ends, or in any way bearing upon them, is unlawful, and not binding. Recognizing no other form of government as consistent with the divine law, except that which keeps the State and the Church united, it, of course, measures all laws by the standard of the divine law, and regards as invalid and not binding all such as do not come up to that standard. It receives the divine law from itself—that is, from the pope as God’s only infallible representative upon earth; and whatsoever constitution or law shall be found opposed to its welfare is unlawful, and must not be obeyed. It searches the enactments of the holy fathers for precedents by which to decide upon the character of all existing institutions; and whatsoever they shall not sanction and approve must fall before its supreme authority. Let us apply these principles and rules more particularly to the subject in hand—our naturalization laws.

The oath of allegiance implies, necessarily, the obligation to support the Government and maintain its principles. In direct and express terms, it requires the support of the Constitution as the fundamental law; and the oath, in this form, is taken by every naturalized citizen. How does the Roman Catholic Church, with the pope as its expounder of the divine law, look at this oath? Taking up the Constitution, it finds the following principles of government distinctly and emphatically set forth: the separation of Church and State, and the Church subordinated to the State, and required to obey its laws; the people made the source of all laws and of all political authority; the prohibition of any law respecting an establishment of religion, or interfering with the free exercise thereof; and the freedom of speech and of the press fully secured. How does it regard these provisions? In every form in which it can authoritatively speak, and especially through the mouths of a multitude of its most illustrious popes, it has declared that the divine law requires the Church and the State to be united, and the State to be subordinated to the Church, being required to obey its commands as the only mode of obeying God; that the people are incapable of self—government, and that it must declare what laws they shall, and what they shall not, obey; that the law of God commands “an establishment of religion,” with the pope at its head, with sufficient power and authority to govern the world; that Christ established the Roman Catholic Church, and founded it upon the apostle Peter, making all other forms of religious belief heretical and sinful; and, therefore, that the “free exercise” of religious belief is violative of the divine law; and that the freedom of speech and of the press are “in opposition to the welfare of the Church,” and tend to irreligion and infidelity, by giving license to free discussion, by inviting the exercise of individual reason and judgment in the formation of religious faith, and by stimulating the people to revolution, which is against the law of God, because violative of the “divine right of kings” to govern mankind. Looking upon the foregoing provisions of the Constitution of the United States in the light of these authoritative teachings, the Roman Catholic Church must, of necessity, regard each one of them as opposed to the divine law, the welfare of the Church, and the teachings of the holy fathers: such is the logical result of its mode of reasoning.

Hence, the Constitution of the United States, in so far as these principles are involved, is not binding upon the conscience of any who adhere to those doctrines of that Church which are dictated by the papacy. Hence, also, an oath to support these principles of the Constitution is perjury, and no oath at all, because it enjoins disobedience to the divine law. Hence, again, our naturalization oath is not binding upon the supporter of papal infallibility, because it obliges him to support principles which are opposed to the teachings of the pope and the Church, and which he is commanded to resist as the only mode of securing the favor of God. And, still further, it is the inevitable consequence of these papal doctrines—as announced by Bishop England, and involved in the recent dogma of papal infallibility—that not only these principles of our Constitution, but all other constitutions and laws which the pope shall declare to be in opposition to the law of God, “the welfare of the Church, and the enactments of the holy fathers,” must be resisted by all who hope for the approbation of the Church, and expect salvation in the world to come; thus making all human institutions dependent upon the will of a single man—upon whomsoever shall, for the time being, be the “King of Rome!”

It is altogether probable that Bishop England did not foresee the ultimate tendency of the doctrine he defended with so much learning and ability; for at the time of his controversy with Mr. Fuller, the doctrine of papal infallibility was not recognized as a part of the faith of the Roman Catholic Church, and its hierarchy in the United States had not become sufficiently bold to avow their support of it, or openly to assume, as they now do, a defense of the principles and enormities of the Jesuits or ultramontaies of Europe. They were “biding their time “—waiting for the accumulation of such strength as would afford some promise of ultimate victory, and therefore spoke upon all the delicate subjects touching the papal power and prerogatives with suppressed voice and “bated breath.”

But there were observant eyes in Europe constantly watching the progress of events in the United States; for it has become almost a proverb that Jesuitism never sleeps. Those who possessed a vision keen enough to see that the American hierarchy were well versed in the law of obedience, served a valuable purpose to the pope by influencing him to advance his claims and pretensions, so as to educate the whole Roman Catholic world up to the position it now occupies.

Books setting forth these claims and pretensions, some covertly, others openly, multiplied in every direction. Among the authors of these none won more distinction than the Rev. J. Balmez, a Roman Catholic priest of Spain, who was the author of a work which exhibits great power, learning, and erudition, by which he designed to show that the world is far more indebted to “Catholicity,” as he calls it, than to Protestantism for its present advanced civilization. This work, originally in Spanish, was soon translated into French, and then into English, so that a large circulation should be secured for it. It was published in the United States by the Roman Catholic publishing houses, and was commended in the highest terms by the authorities of the Church. In the preface to the American edition the author is spoken of as one who “has supplied the age with a work which is peculiarly adapted to its wants, and which must command a general attention in the United States.” The Roman Catholic is especially referred to it as furnishing reasons why he should “admire still more the glorious character of the faith which he professes;” and the Protestant is kindly informed that it “will open his eyes to the incompatibility of his principles with the happiness of mankind.” (*)

* “Protestantism and Catholicity compared in their Effects on the Civilization of Europe,” by Balmes, p. v. of Preface to the American edition. Published by John Murphy & Co., Baltimore, and by George Quigley, Pittsburgh, 1851. It is worthy of note that Archbishop Bayley, of Baltimore, who has deemed an effort to break the force of Mr. Gladstone’s late pamphlet necessary in this country, as Archbishop Manning did in England, has referred to this author as uttering authoritatively the true doctrines of the Church. In his letter of November 17th, 1874—published in most of the leading papers—he says: “When I find time I will write to you more at length, and recommend to you certain works to read which will show you more fully how little our theologians or political writers, like De Maistre, or De Bonald, or Balmez, have entertained any of the nonsense which Mr. Gladstone falsely attributes to us.”

This book was written in order to counteract the “pernicious influence exerted among his countrymen by Guizot’s lectures on European civilization.” (Ibid., p. ix.) But there were special objects designed to be accomplished by it, which were very distinctly and emphatically avowed. It is said, for example, that the pope “is the best guide of men in the path of liberty and progress,” and that the present pontiff, Pius IX., “shows a profound knowledge of the evils which afflict society.” (“Protestantism and Catholicity compared in their Effects on the Civilization of Europe,” by Balmes, p. xi.) It was manifestly intended to aid in laying the groundwork upon which the structure of papal infallibility was to be erected.

In a work so highly commended as this is to American readers, one would scarcely expect to find a labored effort to prove that the oath of allegiance to our Government, taken by a Roman Catholic, amounts to nothing, and has no binding obligation, when the welfare of the Roman Catholic Church requires it to be disregarded. But those who prepared it for publication here understood perfectly well the character of the persons into whose hands it would mostly fall, and that their minds were easily impressed by anything, however extravagant or preposterous, put forth authoritatively in behalf of their Church. And they did not miscalculate, as we may infer from the fact that in the United States the dogma of infallibility has been accepted with greater unanimity and more readily than in any other country in the world—a fact which renders an exposition of the teachings of this book, and others like it, not only interesting and instructive, but of more than ordinary importance, as well as significance.

This author has a chapter upon “Resistance to the Civil Power,” in which, after the necessary preliminary discussion, he begs his readers to “bear in mind the general principles at all times inculcated by Catholicity, viz., the obligation of obeying legitimate authority.” (Ibid., ch. liv., p. 325. ) In order to make the desired application of this principle, and to explain what he means by legitimate authority, he puts and answers a most pertinent question, as follows: “In the first place, Are we to obey the civil power when it commands something that is evil in itself? No, we are not; for the simple reason that what is evil in itself is forbidden by God: now, we must obey God rather than man.” (Ibid., p. 326.)

He does not stop here to explain what is and what is not evil, but proceeds as follows: “In the second place, Are we to obey the civil power when it interferes in matters not included in the circle of its faculties? No; for with regard to these matters it is not a power.” (“Protestantism and Catholicity compared in their Effects on the Civilization of Europe,” by Balmes, ch. liv., p. 326.)

In order that there may be no misapprehension of his meaning, he then points out the distinction between the temporal and the spiritual power, and insists upon the independence of the latter with respect to the former. In his view, the Church must be left by the State perfectly free to act for itself, in all matters within the spiritual jurisdiction. It must in no sense be subject to the laws of the State, because that would impair its freedom. And whenever the State undertakes to subject the Church to its laws, it passes beyond “the circle of its faculties.”He then continues:

“Ever since the foundation of the Church, this principle of the independence of the spiritual power has at all times served, by the mere fact of its existence, to remind men that the rights of the civil power are limited; that there are things beyond its province—cases in which a man may say, and ought to say, I will not obey.” (Ibid.)

Satisfied with his argument to maintain and enforce these propositions—and it undoubtedly displays great ingenuity and ability—he reverts to his original question, and repeats what he had already said, but in more expressive terms, thus: “It remains, then, established that we are to be subject to the civil power so long as it does not go beyond its proper limits; but that the Catholic doctrine never enjoins obedience when the civil power oversteps the limits of its faculties. ” (Ibid., p. 328.)

He adopts the general and commonly accepted definition of unjust laws, such as are against the common welfare, public policy, etc., in regard to which nobody would enter into controversy with him. But he goes beyond this, and finds other laws equally unjust, because of their opposition to the divine law. He says: “Laws may also be unjust in another point of view, when they are contrary to the will of God; as the laws of tyrants enforcing idolatry, or anything else contrary to the divine law. With respect to such laws, it is not allowable under ally circumstances to obey them; for, as it is said in the Acts of the Apostles, ‘We must obey God rather than man.'” (“Protestantism and Catholicity compared in their Effects on the Civilization of Europe,” by Balmes, ch. liv., p. 328.)

Having thus established his premises, he lays down, as the logical result of the doctrines maintained by the Roman Catholic Church, these rules: “1. We cannot, under any circumstances, obey the civil power when its commands are opposed to the divine law. 2. When laws are unjust, they are not binding in conscience. 3. It may become necessary to obey these laws from motives of prudence, that is, in order to avoid scandal and commotions.” (Ibid.)

These are the principles upon which he is rejoiced to know that “the admirable institution of European monarchy was founded;” principles which he thinks it the duty of the Roman Catholic Church to maintain throughout the world, because, as he says, they constitute “the moral defenses by which that monarchy is surrounded.”He thinks the minds of men are already sufficiently “wearied with foolish declamations against the tyranny of kings,” and would bring back to these salutary principles all such governments as have departed from them. (Ibid., p. 330.)

These principles are the same, substantially, with those laid down by Bishop England, and, if applied in this country, would test all our civil institutions by their conformity to the divine law. We have established our Government upon the theory that God recognizes the personality of each individual, and will deal with him accordingly. Therefore the conscience of every man is left free, that he may maintain whatsoever religious belief it shall approve. Necessarily, in order to establish and preserve this great principle, every individual and all Church organizations are required to obey the laws of the State. The spiritual power is not made independent of the temporal, but, in so far as the authority to enact the necessary laws for the public good is concerned, the temporal power is made independent of the spiritual. In all else the spiritual power is left unimpaired; that is, it is left independent within its proper spiritual sphere.

But according to the papal doctrine, as announced by this distinguished author, this places our Government in the condition of having transcended the proper “limits of its faculties,” of having violated the divine law, and of requiring certain obligations of obedience from every citizen which cannot be yielded by those who obey the papacy without disobedience of the fundamental principles of their Church organization. He insists that the Government shall be arraigned at the bar of the papacy, where it shall be judged by the divine law; that the pope alone, as God’s vicegerent, is the only proper and infallible interpreter of that law, and that whatsoever principle of the Government he shall declare to be unjust or heretical shall have no binding obligation upon the conscience of any Roman Catholic.

Already the present pope has declared that, in order that a government shall conform to the divine law, the State and the Church must be so united that the State shall obey the Church; that the ecclesiastical or hierarchical body must govern itself by its own laws, and not be governed by, or answerable to, the laws of the State, even for crime; that there must be but one form of religion, and that the religion of Rome; that all other forms of religion except that of Rome, including the Protestantism of the United States, are heretical, and ought to be annihilated; that freedom of speech and of the press and of conscience are all inconsistent with the “divine right of kings” to govern, and, therefore, should not be tolerated or allowed; that the present “progress” of the nations, which we attribute greatly to the influence of our example, must be arrested, and the world turned back to the medieval times; that he must be recognized as the only just and infallible expounder of the Word of God, and as incapable of error in all matters of faith and morals; that all mankind must obey him, in faith and morals, because he stands upon earth in the place of God; and that the Church, whose tremendous power is concentrated in his hands, may employ force whenever he shall deem it necessary to exact obedience as the means of reaching these results.

All these things are openly and distinctly avowed in his Encyclical and Syllabus; are set forth in books, pamphlets, newspapers, and tracts of immense circulation; and are foreshadowed by the persistent movements of the Roman Catholic hierarchy all over the world. And it requires but an ordinary amount of intelligence to see that if the time should ever come when these principles shall obtain the ascendancy in the United States, it must be, necessarily, at the expense of the fundamental and most cherished principles of our Government, the very principles whose protection the Roman Catholic emigrants from Europe professedly desired to secure when they abandoned their citizenship among the effete monarchies of the Old World and hopefully acquired it in the New.

But, in order to demonstrate the legitimate use of the right of resistance to civil authority, this Jesuit author explains the “Catholic doctrines” in relation to de facto governments, that is, governments existing by what he calls a “consummated act,” whether of revolution or otherwise, and in the actual possession of all necessary power. That these doctrines may be comprehended, it is necessary to keep in mind that, according to the teachings of Rome, governments de facto are those which have been established by the people upon the overthrow of the kingly authority—which is considered the only legitimate authority. Governments de jure are such as are based upon the law of God, with kings at their head, who shall obey the pope as the highest authority upon earth. In this view, all Roman Catholic monarchies are governments de jure, and therefore legitimate; while all popular republics are governments de facto, and therefore illegitimate. Kings must always rule; the people, never.

Hence, the old Roman Catholic monarchy of Spain, overthrown a few years ago, was a government de jure, to which implicit and passive obedience was due. Hence, also, the Government of the United States is a government de facto, because it was the offspring of revolution, and was substituted in place of a monarchy. And hence, again, the latter is an illegitimate government, borne with by the papal hierarchy for a while, only “from motives of prudence,” but subject to resistance and overthrow, to make room for a government de jure, or a legitimate government, whenever the interest and welfare of the papacy shall require it, and the result can be made certain. It is wonderful how surely all Roman Catholic authors and publicists who adopt the Jesuit or ultramontane views argue within such circles as bring them inevitably to these conclusions. This author shows that they are the only logical deductions from their mode of reasoning.

Asking the question, How far do “Catholic doctrines” extend on the subject of resistance to the civil power “by physical force?” he proceeds at once to combat and deny the proposition that “obedience is due to a government from the very fact of its existence.” This he calls unsound doctrine, “which is contrary to right reason, and has never been taught by Catholicity.” (“Protestantism and Catholicity compared in their Effects on the Civilization of Europe,” by Balmes, ch. lv., p. 330.)

Whenever, according to him, the Roman Catholic Church speaks of obedience “to the powers that be,” it has reference to “powers that have a legitimate existence.” Why? Because, says he, “the absurdity that a simple fact can create right can never become a dogma of Catholicity;” (Ibid.) that is, the papacy asserts the right to go behind the fact that a government exists, and inquire whether it is or is not legitimate; whether, in other words, it is de facto (existing in actuality, especially when contrary to or not established by law. ) or de jure; (according to law) and if it is found to be de facto merely, it may be resisted, because otherwise it would be the concession to an illegitimate government of “a right to command,” which would be to legitimatize usurpation. (Ibid.) Therefore he argues “that no reasonable man can seriously accept” such a doctrine as that “of consummated facts” as applied to governments. Yet, remembering what he had just said about not resisting existing governments “from motives of prudence,” he continues:

“I do not deny that there are cases in which obedience, even to an illegitimate government, is to be recommended; when, for instance, we foresee that resistance would be useless, that it would only lead to new disorders, and to a greater effusion of blood: but in recommending prudence to the people, let us not disguise it under false doctrines—let us beware of calming the exasperation of misfortune by circulating errors subversive of all governments, of all society.” (“Protestantism and Catholicity compared in their Effects on tile Civilization of Europe,” by Balmes, ch. lv., p. 331.)

It is a favorite idea with all the supporters of the papacy—most persistently maintained—that whenever society gets from under the influence and control of the Roman Catholic Church, it necessarily runs into heresy, infidelity, anarchy, and all that sort of thing. They repudiate everything like middle or conservative ground, and seem to be utterly unconscious of their intolerant and partisan excesses, as well as of the fact that it is only the progressive influence of Protestantism which has lifted the nations out of the darkness and superstition into which they were sunk during the Middle Ages. We ought not to be surprised, therefore, at finding this recognized and authoritative propagator of “Catholic doctrines” falling into this error, and talking about the subversion of all governments and of all society, whenever they refuse obedience to the pope and his hierarchy.

The standard he sets up recognizes only Roman Catholic governments and society!—for from them alone does he suppose all human advancement and prosperity to spring. All else is evil—and that continually. Yet he prudently recommends that this evil, terrible as it is in its consequences both in this life and that which is to come, be endured, wherever “resistance would be useless,” because such resistance would be but “the exasperation of misfortune.” Still, however, this “prudence” must not be practiced at the expense of truth—it must not be disguised “under false doctrines”—but the true “Catholic doctrines” should be proclaimed, so that the power shall be preserved by the papacy to upturn and destroy all illegitimate governments whenever resistance can be successfully resorted to, and establish legitimate governments in their places! This was the real design of the publication of this book in Europe in two languages; a design manifestly sympathized with, if not openly avowed, by its American publishers, when they professed to regard it as having “supplied the age with a work which is peculiarly adapted to its wants.” (“Protestantism and Catholicity compared in their Effects on the Civilization of Europe,” by Balmes, Preface to American edition, p. v. )

He finds no difficulty in arguing out of the way the Scriptural teaching that the civil authority must be obeyed: this merely furnishing him a field for the display of Jesuit ingenuity. “Illegitimate authority,” says he, “is no authority at all;” because “power involves the idea of right,” and where no right exists, there is only force. Therefore, he argues, “when the Scriptures prescribe obedience to the authorities, it is the lawful authorities that are implied.” (Ibid., ch. lv., p. 332.)

Again, the kind of civil power to which the Scriptures enjoin obedience upon us is that “ordained by God himself,” that which “is the minister of God himself,” which a usurped and illegitimate government can never be, and which none but a Roman Catholic government can be! And, again, the obedience to the civil power prescribed by the Scriptures is the same as that prescribed “to the slave in relation to his master;” it exists only where there is a “legitimate dominion.” If the slave is unjustly held in servitude, he may rebel against the authority of his master; but if justly held, he may not. So, if the civil authorities be not lawful—that is,” ordained by God himself”—as the pope shall declare his law—no obedience to them is required, except that “which prudence would dictate;” and they must, therefore, be endured as a “misfortune” until resistance can be made successful! Whatever process of reasoning he adopts, he reaches always the same conclusion. He keeps always within his prescribed circle; but, whether it be large or small, he never fails to terminate at the point most prominently before him, and most indelibly fixed upon his mind—the illegitimacy of all governments not based upon the divine law—meaning, of course, the divine law as the infallible pope shall declare it!

Conscious of the opposition to these “Catholic doctrines” of the practice of the early Christians, who always submitted to the ruling authority of the Government without concerning themselves about the temporal power, he endeavors to point out the “futility” of their position, by insisting upon a distinction between the state of things existing then and that existing in our day. In these early centuries, according to him, “all that upright men could do was quietly to resign themselves to the calamitous circumstances of the times, and by fervent prayer to implore the Almighty to take compassion on mankind.” (“Protestantism and Catholicity compared in their Effects on the Civilization of Europe,” by Balmes, ch. lv., p. 332.)

But now, since the number of Christians has increased so that they have become a controlling power in the world; since they have, in many instances, overturned governments, and may do so again whenever circumstances make it prudent to attempt it, he admonishes the faithful adherents of the papal cause to husband their resources, and submit prudently, for a while, to illegitimate rule; but, in the mean time, to prepare to strike when the proper hour shall arrive! He cautions them, first, to be sure that the government at which they strike is illegitimate—a question which now, since the dogma of infallibility, belongs to the pope alone to decide. Then, second, they should have in view the substitution of a lawful power, which, of course, the pope also decides. And, third, they “should count besides on the probability of the success of their enterprise;” a matter which involves prudential considerations alone. In the absence of “these conditions,” there would be “no object” accomplished; it would be “a mere fruitless attempt, an impotent revenge;” it would only cause “bloodshed,” only incense and “irritate the power attacked,” and have no other result than “to increase oppression and tyranny.” (Ibid., ch. lv., p. 332.)

An Archbishop of Palmyra had published a work upon the Church Militant, in which he maintained that when Christ commanded his followers to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” he meant “that the mere fact of a government’s existence is sufficient for enforcing the obedience of the subjects to it;” that is, he established the doctrine “of consummated facts.” But this he calls a “fallacy,” and declares that this work of the archbishop “was forbidden at Rome” by the “Sacred Congregation!” a decree, he says, in which “every man who is jealous of his rights”—that is, all the defenders of papal infallibility—will acquiesce. (“Protestantism and Catholicity compared in their Effects on the Civilization of Europe,” by Balmes, ch. lv., p. 333.)

Keeping in mind his prudential argument, and suggesting that “the interference of Christians in political disputes” would only bring their holy religion into disrepute, in the event that they should fail of success, he surmounts the difficulty arising out of “consummated facts” by repeating his argument that they must be legally consummated before the obligation of obedience can arise out of them. And then, by way of a practical application of these “Catholic doctrines,” he continues:

“Hence, in a political and social sense, we designate consummated facts a usurpation, completely overthrowing the legitimate power, and by means of which the usurper is already substituted in its place; a measure executed in all its points. Such is the suppression of the regular clergy in Spain, and the confiscation of their property to the treasury; a revolution which has been triumphant, and which has entirely disposed of a country, as was the case with our American possessions.” (Ibid., ch. lv., p. 334.)

This is the culmination of this distinguished author’s theory—of the “Catholic doctrines” of which he is the able and eloquent expounder. It reaches the point to which everything is now pressed by the defenders of papal infallibility—that is, to the point of revolution. Recognizing no other form of government except the monarchical as consistent with the divine law, Pope Pius IX. and his hierarchy do not hesitate to declare, in the face of the world’s progress, that every other form of government is revolutionary and usurpation. Therefore these “Catholic doctrines” are put forth by one of the most eloquent men in the Church, to show that all revolutionary governments are unlawful, and that although prudence may dictate obedience to them for a season, yet that, as they confer no right whatever, they may be destroyed, and lawful governments erected in their places whenever it can be done without the infliction of too much harm upon the attacking party! And therefore, in order that the prudential submission to a revolutionary government for the present may not be disguised “under false doctrines,” the teachings of this author are translated into English, published in the United States, and circulated among our Roman Catholic population, avowedly upon the ground that they are “peculiarly adapted” to the wants of the present age!

The Government of the United States had its origin in revolution. Our fathers cut with the sword the cord which had bound the American colonies to one of the monarchies of Europe. Believing their cause to be just, they appealed to God for the protection of his providence, and we believe that they won their success under that protection. They snatched liberty—civil and religious—from those princes of the Old World who had managed to keep their feet upon the necks of all who desired to enjoy it, and thus elevated the inhabitants of this country to a condition of prosperity and happiness which has no parallel in all the ages of the past. They built up a government which secures, in a higher degree than any other government on earth, all the rights and immunities of citizenship. They recognized the common brotherhood of man, and opened their arms to the oppressed, persecuted, and down-trodden of the world, inviting them to come and share with them the blessings of free and popular institutions. Millions of them, who were the slaves of political and ecclesiastical tyranny in the countries of their birth, are now in this country, and have already experienced the improvement of their condition—have acquired a new and more invigorating manhood. Of these there are thousands who love our Government with fervid intensity—who have defended its honor and its flag when they have been attacked, and are ready to do so again, to the very death, if necessary.

But there are others—no matter whether they may be counted by hundreds or thousands—who accept, with seeming acquiescence, the idea that they shall subordinate their patriotism to the Government to their devotion to the papacy; and who appear content to be recognized as maintaining, with their hierarchy, that the Church is higher and more potent than the State—even within the constitutional domain of the State. They are invited, by the most earnest and pathetic appeals, to love the Church first, the State second, and then only as the Church shall decree; and to merge their responsibility to the laws in their responsibility to the pope.

The laws of this country do not interfere with the religion of any of these; nor can they do so. They leave each individual conscience free, so that the citizen shall act upon his own responsibility to God. All our Protestant institutions assume that each of us may enjoy a pure Christian faith without ingrafting upon it any of the principles of civil polity which are confided to the State. They will not allow the State to invade the rightful jurisdiction of the Church, and declare what the faith shall be; nor will they submit to any impairment of the legitimate functions of the State by the Church. The line which separates these jurisdictions cannot be obliterated without marring the beauty of the one and assailing the integrity of the other. The Church and State must be kept apart—each in its own proper sphere.

Therefore, our Roman Catholic fellow—citizens, for themselves as well as Protestants, have the deepest interest in having these questions properly and satisfactorily solved: What is the design of those hierarchs who claim to be their sole and exclusive teachers, no less in the domain of social and political morality than in that of religious faith? Are they endeavoring to extend their spiritual jurisdiction beyond the limits fixed by our laws, and to trench upon the civil jurisdiction as marked out and defined? Does the pope claim for himself a jurisdiction over them, as citizens, superior to and above that of the State? Does he or not recognize as a legitimate fact our separation of Church and State? Does he expect of them to resist those principles of our Government which he shall declare to be contrary to God’s law, or against the welfare and interest of the Church? Does he demand of them, by virtue of his asserted infallibility, to enlarge the circle of their religious faith, so as to include within it any of the essential principles of our civil polity? Does he require them, as any part of their religion, to test their obedience to our laws by their conformity to the Constitution, or to his will? Which does he command them to obey, the civil laws of the State or the canon laws of the Church, in case of conflict between them? Which allegiance does he consider the highest, that which they owe to the Government of the United States, or that which they owe to the ecclesiastical government constructed by the Roman pontiffs?

In so far as the pope is concerned, every intelligent man who has taken the trouble to investigate understands the answers to all these questions. In so far as they are concerned, the time has come when they can no longer defer to answer them for themselves.

Continued in Chapter XIX. The Claimed Rights of the Papacy Over Governments




Kevin Annett Launches Papal Child Sacrifice Indictment!

Kevin Annett Launches Papal Child Sacrifice Indictment!

Kevin Annett’s bio.. In this interview with YouTube Shaun Attwood, Mr. Annett says he is “launching a criminal lawsuit against ‘Pope’ Leo XIV/Robert Prevost, charging him with complicity in murder, criminal conspiracy, and crimes against humanity.”

Transcription

Shaun Attwood: Good evening, everybody. I’m hugely excited to have Kevin back. He has an amazingly viral series exposing the horrors of the Vatican, the Pope and the Catholic Church.

But tonight he’s got an absolutely huge announcement that he has saved for this channel to let everybody know this news because you guys have really given him so much positive feedback, comments, support. People have bought his book and you can find the link for the books in the description. So Kevin’s really appreciative of all the support and interest that has been generated on this channel. It’s become one of the stories that has got the most interest of everything that we’re doing and we appreciate Kevin coming back so soon again and announcing this huge news. All of Kevin’s links are in the description box. And if you’ve got any questions for Kevin, please keep them within the remit of what we’re talking about. Put them in the chat. And when Kevin has announced the news and there’s various things he wants to go over first, then we will start to get the questions put to him. But I will be saving them up in the meantime.

So Kevin, what is it that you got? We’re all on tenterhooks! (The suspense is killing us!) Do you want me to get this on the screen right now?

Kevin Annett: Sure, that’d be good. It’s actually an announcement from the International Commonwealth Court of Justice. I’m an advisor to the prosecutor of the court.

Investigation of Pope Leo XIV.

And based on startling new evidence, they’re launching a criminal case against the present Pope Leo Robert Prevost. And we’ll get into that as I read that.

But I just want to say as a prelude to that, two days ago, there was an incident and this has never happened. It shows you that we have the bad guys concerned. I had just presided at a funeral of one of our people who had died. And I was standing there at the committal service in the graveyard. A limousine pulls up. Two guys get out. One of them walks over to me. This is when I was by myself after the service. And he looked vaguely familiar. I realized later he was a Knights of Columbus goon who had been in one of our church protests in Toronto. But he came to me and very quickly said,

“If you carry through with this court case, we’re going to do to you what we do to children in these ceremonies. We’re going to cut off parts of your body and you’re going to die slowly.”

He then turned around and left.

Okay, that’s never happened before face to face. And so, you know, I take it seriously enough. But as he left, I called out to him. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Because he definitely was one of those Knights of Columbus. These are goons that came when we were doing the church occupations in 2008 that forced out a lot of this stuff in Canada. He had been one of the people at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in downtown Toronto who had roughed up some of the people we were with.

Carrie Luster, a Mohawk woman, had gone up and seized the pulpit and began to read the crimes of the Vatican. She got punched in the stomach and dragged out. And this guy was one of the ones who did it.

Well, he was the guy who threatened me 17 years later, but I could tell it was the same guy. Unfortunately, I don’t know his name. And unfortunately, there was nobody around to record this, but it happened. And I think it’s directly related to this.

So to get into this announcement, the court has announced today that they’re beginning a criminal investigation. If you scroll down a little bit, you’ll see a picture of this young woman, Emanuela Orlandi. Scomparsa in Italian means disappeared. In 1983, she vanished. And you’ll see this in all the mainstream corporate media.

Emanuela Orlandi

Disappeared

Her father had worked at the Vatican. She had a long association. As a matter of fact, if you go right down to the bottom of that press release, you’ll see a picture of her as a young girl standing in front of John Paul II, who in fact was somebody who had harmed her and was involved in this Ninth Circle trading in children.

A young Emanuela Orlandi in front of Pope John Paull II/Karol Wojtyla, her rapist and trafficker

A young Emanuela Orlandi in front of Pope John Paull II/Karol Wojtyla, her rapist and trafficker

The court announced today, based on new evidence, that they are launching this criminal investigation against the present Pope Robert Prevost based on a number of things. First of all, there are two eyewitnesses, one within the Ninth Circle, a former cult member, and a victim survivor who has come forward, who was involved in the cult. Her parents had introduced her into the cult, and she survived. She’s in hiding now somewhere in Europe.

But the investigators of the court interviewed both of these people. They both claim that the present Pope Leo was involved in these Ninth Circle ceremonies on two occasions. First of all, September 1978, the month he was ordained a priest. He was ordained in Rome, the same month that John Paul I died. Remember the Pope who was killed for investigating the Vatican Bank? He was found basically poisoned.

And then later in June 1983, he was present when this young woman, Emanuela, was brought in and harmed and abused by these Ninth Circle members, and then shipped off, they believe she was sent off to Germany to be used in their cult network, either sacrificed or used sexually, and in other ways.

So the court prosecutor, let me read out the statement from the court prosecutor.

    “Apparently the new Pope Leo, Robert Prevost, was inducted into the Ninth Circle soon after his ordination as a priest in September 1998. The induction occurred at midnight on October 16, 1978, in a sub-basement catacomb beneath the Vatican.”

And I’m going to discuss where it happened because we have more evidence on that.

During that initiation, the newly appointed Pope John Paul II presided at the ritual killing, dismembering, and cannibalizing of a four-year-old Italian boy. Prevost was also present on June, as I mentioned, June 22nd, when Emanuela Orlandi was kidnapped, basically, and then circulated through their network.

Now this is important. Like every Roman pontiff, Robert Prevost was chosen as Pope from a select stable of Ninth Circle members who’ve been groomed by the cult for years and approved their loyalty to its carnage.

And the second part of this is that sources within the Vatican, once this stuff became known, they approached the court with a log. Apparently this is a log, a journal, of all the Ninth Circle ceremonies that have been held in the Vatican since 1870. And this log confirms that Prevost, the present Pope Leo, was present at these and other ceremonies in the Vatican.

Now a final point on that, if you go to the very bottom of the press release, you’ll see a schematic map of what’s underneath the Vatican. It’s part of what’s called the Vatican Grotto. These are chambers coming from the early Christian period and made into various chambers.

Vatican underground chambers

If you look there, scroll down a little bit, you’ll see Chamber U. That’s called the Tomb of Lucifer. And that’s where these, at least the recent Ninth Circle sacrificial ceremonies we’re talking about, took place. It’s interesting, it’s right beneath St. Peter’s Square, right where, according to legend, St. Peter was crucified upside down. And that’s significant spiritually, because it’s inverting the energy of early Christianity to capture it and control it, just like they do in these sacrificial ceremonies.

So that’s the basic press release. And the timeline on this is the court is convening in two weeks, Sunday, June 1st.

Three months later, September 1st, the court is issuing [will issue] summonses to Leo and his accomplices to be arraigned before the court. I won’t say where in Europe. And the charges will be read out and the prosecution’s case will begin on September 1st.

So that’s our basic news, but there’s other things connected to that which we should get into.

Shaun Attwood: Kevin, how easy or rather how difficult is it to serve legal papers to the Pope and these people, these higher-ups?

Keven Annett It’s been done before. Don’t forget, I mean, under their statutes, they can’t be prosecuted. But under international law, they can be. He can be prosecuted as flesh and blood. And the common law principle, going back to before Magna Carta, says, be you ever so high, you are not above the law. So under international law, he can be tried as a man. And they don’t have the right to refuse sheriffs from an international court who will be issuing them.

Don’t forget, when you serve something, you don’t have to be served in person. I mean, I’ve had this happen to me. All you have to do is nail the summons on the door of the Vatican or stand there with a video camera and say, we are serving the Pope here. He served, bang. And they wouldn’t want that kind of bad publicity, which is, I think, one of the reasons they want to shut this thing down before it gets to September, right?

Shaun Attwood: Indeed, yes. So does this mean that people will be arrested and there will be summonses?

Keven Annett Yep. We already have common law sheriffs from the first case and in subsequent years. We’re also going to go to Interpol and deputize them. We want to have deputized Interpol agents and even the Roman police to accompany us when we film this, when we do all this.

And yeah, they have the right. If they’re summoned, they’re usually given either 48 hours or seven days to respond, to come to the arraignment, which is when the charges are read out and they have to plead. If they don’t, they can be arrested for evading illegal summons.

And don’t forget Ratzinger stepped down when the Spanish government threatened to have him arrested when he came to Spain, when they looked at the docket of evidence we have on him.

So he’s vulnerable. I think that’s why these threats are intensifying.

I’m an advisor to the prosecutor’s office. I’m also the North American field secretary, but you know, it’s one of the reasons I’m coming to Europe in the fall to work with the court.

Shaun Attwood: So how long has this court been around and, you know, what kind of successes has it achieved in the past?

Keven Annett If folks remember, we formed the International Tribunal of Crimes of Church and State in Dublin in the summer of 2010. That’s after I got locked out of Canada when the Canadian government and churches did their cover-up and spin operation. Suddenly I was banned. I couldn’t be quoted in the press anymore.

So right at that time, I was invited over to Europe by Irish survivors of the church of Rome. And we set up this tribunal and it spread quickly to nine countries and it formed the common law court of justice that brought the first case against Queen Elizabeth and Joe Ratzinger and, you know, a.k.a. Pope Benedict that caused, you know, his resignation. He hid out in the Vatican till the day he died so he wouldn’t be arrested.

So it’s a bonafide court of record. Any citizen in the world can set up these courts. Any group of citizens can set up what are called tribunals of conscience if the courts and the government are implicated in these crimes, which we know they are.

So it gives us tremendous power and we’re hoping these things can be a springboard for people to set up in their own communities these investigations and not wait for others, you know, like me to do it. We’ve shown that this works and so that should be kind of a green light for folks.

Shaun Attwood: So the Vatican is worth so much money, there’s so much vested interest and you are kind of like rocking that boat. Aren’t you afraid? You have told us about the assassins, the intelligence, the police. They’re a law unto themselves, and any entity with that amount of money can pretty much have someone eliminated. Are you taking extra extra caution or?

Keven Annett Well, yeah, we have certain kind of protocols we follow but, you know, if they want to kill you, they’ll kill you and their their main ally is not the cop out there but the cop in your head. He’s telling you don’t do this, you know, something might happen to you.

I passed that long ago where I was self-concerned in that way because I realized because it can happen to any of us at any time, not just from a killer but fate, you know, we could drop dead from a stroke tomorrow. You have only this moment and if you stay focused on that, it’s very difficult for them to stop one person, let alone a whole group of people working together on this stuff.

The difficulty I’ve found is that people aren’t coming together on this and they’re not stepping up and taking these actions. That’s the real enemy, not these turkeys in Rome who are helpless. If we all stood together and took action, they would fall tomorrow and I have to keep that in mind all the time and I’m thinking all the time of those children right now who are being carved up and like a side of beef by these people and used and and killed.

So they want to take me and cut my nose and ears off. Well, so what? So I’m dead. The point is others have to carry this on and that’s the point we keep trying to get people to move from that fear and self-concern mode into we’re not going to be stopped. No, like a mother, the mother’s instinct or the father’s instinct to protect their children, it’s inherent in us. We need to tap into that and we’ll be unbeatable.

(Shaun Attwood reads the indictment against Robert Prevost.)

Shaun Attwood: So, we’ve probably got a lot of people on here, Kevin, who are not familiar with the Ninth Circle. I know you’ve explained it several times, but could you just explain it one more time, please?

Keven Annett: Yeah, it’s formed, we believe, by the Jesuits in the 16th century. It’s a child sacrifice cult, operates within the Catholic Church, it’s inter-generational, so there’s prominent families who are part of this, they raise their children in it, usually sacrifice their firstborn in order to, move up the hierarchy of the cult. And it operates also as a blackmailing agency. We’ve had survivors like Toos Nijenhuis and Anne Marie van Blijenburgh say that they were. Anne Marie was a lawyer who was brought to what she was told was going to be a dinner, turns out they were sacrificing and killing a child there, and, they blackmailed her and controlled her that way.

So it has political purposes and spiritual ones. You’ve talked about this kind of energy vampirism, but also it’s very lucrative. It’s part of the human trafficking network all over the planet the Catholic Church is embedded in and profits hugely from. Again, I mentioned that in my book, Dethroning Rogue Power. We’ve sold over 700 copies of this in this month alone, if you can believe it, so it’s been a huge success. So that’s kind of in a nutshell what the Ninth Circle is all about.

The date 1870, I don’t know, many people know this, but that year, the Pope in Rome declared himself infallible, which means he’s incapable of error. He kind of one-upped God, right? He said, I’m incapable of error, right? That year Garibaldi had overthrown the Vatican, basically. The Vatican didn’t exist until Mussolini reestablished it in 1929. But he got the guarantee, everyone in the church suddenly believed he was infallible.

So that obviously encouraged them to say, okay, we can go ahead with these Ninth Circle ceremonies, come out of the closet, because I can’t be touched now. And we think it’s definitely correlated. But the interesting thing, Sean, they have a log about all these ceremonies.

And we’ve apparently, it’s a very old form of Latin and still being translated, but we have already found the name of this guy, Prevost, already in here at these two ceremonies we mentioned. So, in court, this is almost irrefutable evidence, including with the eyewitnesses.

Shaun Attwood: So Angelique wants to know, is that the tomb they opened at Christmas?

Keven Annett: No, this is something else. As a matter of fact, don’t forget, anything you see in the press, it’s being swabbed. A couple of things on this, you mentioned, like in the press release, there’s a stable of safe names who can be chosen as Pope. They do this in any election with any government too. Call it a red list. Safe people are on a red list. Unacceptable candidates are on a black list and they can never be elected. But the safe people are on a red list. And those are the candidates you can choose. Whether it’s Trump, Biden, Robert Prevost, they’re all safe.

In the papacy, you’re on the red list if you participate in the Ninth Circle. And then it doesn’t matter who you elect, you’re elected in the Ninth Circle. And, so that’s one of the damning features of this, where it condemns the whole institution, not just bad apples, right? That’s the good part.

Shaun Attwood: So Annie’s wondering whether these Ninth Circle events coincide with Davos events or political get-togethers. I imagine there’s more history in the timings of the Ninth Circle than these contemporary political events, isn’t there, Kevin?

Keven Annett: Oh, yeah. Yeah, it goes back centuries. And it’s based, of course, on an ancient Roman sacrificial cult. We’ve talked about that before, where the Romans would sacrifice children for the crops, in early spring and that. So, I mean, these are old practices, but they have a whole aspect here where they’ve got a lot of political and financial power behind them, too.

We talked in the last show about China, China’s role in all this, and the importance of the Vatican Bank in shifting the world’s finances towards the east to the Chinese sphere. So that all comes into this as well.

Shaun Attwood: Now, the Pope, if he gets served, is he just likely to ignore this and just hope it goes away? Is that the strategy that these Popes have taken in the past?

Keven Annett: Well, it’s a dumb strategy, because what that does under law is you’re not contesting what’s being said about you. It’s how King Charles I in England had his head chopped off. He refused to plead. So the parliamentary court said, okay, you’re not contesting what we’re saying about you. You waged a war of tyranny against your own people.

If Prevost doesn’t contest what we’re charging him openly with, that he’s involved in these nefarious murderous activities, then it’s a tacit admission of guilt. And in a lot of court trials, criminal court trials, at that point he can be found immediately guilty as charged and sentenced. So they’re caught between a rock and a hard place. If they ignore it, they’re admitting to it. If they don’t ignore it and respond, they’re admitting to the legitimacy of our court and they have to be involved in it. So it’s a win-win for us. And that’s why we keep saying to people, take these actions and you’ll see the kind of power you have.

Shaun Attwood: A few people are asking for details of what’s in the diary of the Ninth Circle events, but we’ve got to be very careful, Kevin, with our language, what we say online. (Because of YouTube censorship.)

Keven Annett: I just want to make a point legally about that. You know, in the US Constitution, First Amendment, they talk about “prior restraint”, which means nobody can tell somebody what to say or how to phrase it in a legal context. If they try to do that, whoever is imposing these censorship rules on what happens on YouTube or whatever, they have to come into court and show just cause why they’re telling people not to use certain words. I don’t think they want that. And you can’t be shut down for using certain words. It’s called prior restraint. It’s against the law to do that. And they only do it because they think people will be intimidated and start cooperating. We can’t censor our words. That’s what people are under tyranny, that’s the first step towards tyranny, not saying things as they are.

Like in my work in Canada early on, these places, these death camps were called residential schools. Well, they weren’t schools. They were places where children were dying and being killed. So, nobody ever sued me over that. In 30 years, I’ve never been sued for using those words in Canada.

So why would it happen to you? If their lawyers and censors are listening to this right now, they know very well that it’s true, what I’m saying, and they’re not going to come down. They just rely on people’s fear to cooperate.

So I’m not telling you what to do and not to do, Shaun. I’m just, I feel the need to share that with people because it’s a fundamental issue of our right to say things as they are.

Shaun Attwood: Yeah, I agree with all of that, but I’ve lost the channel twice and it’s not people. It’s AI. So AI is watching every single word. And when certain words cross thresholds, it shuts you down. That’s the modern world we’re in.

Keven Annett: Yeah. Temporarily, they can shut you down. But at some point, whoever owns that AI would have to appear in a court of law and show why they did that.

Now, you always have to weigh what you’re going to lose in the short run with what you can lose. You know, I mean, I’ve been shut down so often, but I’m still here. And by being shut down, I became more popular and people are saying, what’s going on with this guy? You know, Shaun, you might get more followers by being shut down. But I feel the need to say that. I never tell people what to do or say, but I’m just letting you know lawfully we’re standing on solid ground.

Shaun Attwood: So who was Emanuela Orlandi?

Keven Annett: It got a lot of media exposure back in the eighties, her brother, Paolo, he’s led this campaign for many years. Her dad worked in the Vatican. She went to a music lesson somewhere in the Vatican and she just vanished June 22nd, 1983. It was solstice, summer solstice, which is not surprising. That’s a satanic high point.

And for years, the Vatican put up this thing saying, “Oh, we don’t know where she is. We’re searching for her,” a typical kind of spin and fog operation.

But the court investigators have spoken to the eyewitness who saw Robert Prevost at the ceremony, along with the Ninth Circle insider who confirmed, the second eyewitness confirmed that, yes, he was at this, where these things happened to her. And she was then sent to Germany, they believe. We’re communicating all that to her brother and to the campaign in Italy.

But it got enormous spread. It still does. If you look it up online, you’ll see, about that, about her.

Shaun Attwood: Yeah. I mean, the Marquis de Sade, he wrote about these extremely wealthy people in Europe in castles and stuff who would just snatch kids and do all kinds of horrific things to them. So, you know.

Keven Annett: I also mentioned about where this is happening in the Vatican. It’s called the Tomb of Lucifer, but where it is, I don’t know if like in Rome, you’ve got the St. Peter’s Square, this kind of circular thing, and there’s an obelisk. That obelisk is supposed to be where they crucified Peter, the disciple, who they claim was the first pope, which is nonsense, but they say that Peter was crucified upside down, right on that spot. What was interesting, that’s where I conducted the exorcism, October 11, 2009, where the tornado hit the next day, and then all this news hit the media about this, right on the same spot.

I didn’t even know I was being led there. I just stood there, and it shows you at that spot, it’s an energy vortex, and they’re using it, you can invert the inversion, you can, so it’s all kind of centered there, and what’s interesting is this U on the map, the tomb of Lucifer, right beneath where they supposedly crucified Peter.

It was only excavated in 1940 by this Pope Pius XII. Now, he’s the one who recognized the Nazi regime, and they recognized each other. This is 1940 to 49, and there’s stories about how the Nazis were always looking for these arcane relics to tap into the demonic energy related. It’s interesting, that’s when this Pius XII, the pro-Nazi pope, authorized the excavations that opened up this tomb of Lucifer, where they now conduct the Ninth Circle ceremony, so I don’t think that’s accidental.

Shaun Attwood: So what about Emanuela’s parents in this, what’s the deal there?

Keven Annett: Oh, they were bribed into silence, or bribed into going along with the official line, which is, we don’t know where she is, but the church is looking for her, and we pray for her safety, blah blah blah.

You know, I mean, I’ve had the same experience working with indigenous families who had their kids, done away with or whatever. They were told, they were approached by the church and said, you’re going to face a lot of trouble if you talk about this, and they go along with it. Even when that happened to our friends in our movement, their families all said the same thing.

So, when people are by themselves, on their own, they feel helpless, and they feel they have to go along, but what we’re doing with these court trials is to show no you’re not alone, and you can take action, and we hope it’s kind of a rallying and encouragement for people in that situation.

Shaun Attwood: So was that out of fear, or did they get paid off, or both?

Keven Annett: All of the above. Everyone has a weakness, they look for it, they press. Some people can’t be, and then they kill them. You know, whatever. It’s just, the story. I mean, we all know the world, the way it is.

I just remembered something connected to that, the Chamber of Lucifer that I mentioned, and the Nazi involvement. It’s a little known fact that Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul II in the picture there were both members in Germany and in Poland of what’s called the Knights of Darkness, which was an SS demonic cult. They would go into these concentration camps and get people and use them in their ceremonies, the SS Knights of Darkness. And it’s not accidental that these guys are very prominent in the Ninth Circle as well.

So we’ve got a lot of this categorized. It’s going to be in the prosecutor’s report. We’re going to send out summaries of this over the summer before the trial begins.

Shaun Attwood: So, physically, then, where will the trial be held? Which jurisdiction, which country?

Keven Annett: It has international jurisdiction. We don’t want to say where it’s going to be held at this point. When we first did that, there was a bad repercussion. But it has international jurisdiction. Common law has universal jurisdiction, which means you can hold it anywhere and it’s just as binding. But there will obviously be local actions happening in Italy, Brussels, where some of the legal advisors operate out of.

And we want to encourage people in any country to hold their own investigations, hold their own actions at churches to bring this out. People in those pews who are giving the money need to know these facts. So really urge people to write to us and get involved in this campaign. There’s a lot people can do on the ground to further the work of the court.

Shaun Attwood: So you started out talking about the threat to your life that you received this week. What about the other people involved in the court? Have they been through anything?

Keven Annett: Well, in the past, we’ve had investigators disappear altogether. One of the people I knew in Europe, he just vanished, never found him. Witnesses go missing or suddenly drop out or certainly start bad-mouthing us, in the typical manner you find with native people in Canada, who suddenly said, “Oh, I never gave Kevin my testimony. He’s making all that up.”

You know, the best way to stop something is to discredit it, not to start piling up bodies, because that brings attention. You want to bribe and convince people to change their stories on that, to say, “See, Kevin was just making it all up. It’s all about him and his ego.”

I mean, that’s what people are prone to believe anyway. People tend to want to look for that shady aspect. We live in a very cynical age, right? And people are prone to believe the worst about somebody. So it works most of the time.

But yeah, the fellow I was with, who is kind of my bodyguard, I don’t like having a bodyguard, but he insists. He’s ex-military, actually. He kind of follows me around. He was off at the cemetery. That’s why he wasn’t there. He would have taken these guys down. But they were watching us, obviously, and they waited till when I was alone and came over and thought, they know it’s not going to stop me, but they also know that I’m going to share the story and they hope it will intimidate people and encourage other people in the court, not to want to carry on.

But you can just do so much and then they’re powerless. And that’s why this is like planting seeds everywhere. We know the seeds will grow and they can’t stamp them all out, right?

Shaun Attwood: J.D. wants to know, why is this case being going on for so long and not had Leo in court already?

Keven Annett: Well, a couple of reasons on that. We just recently discovered that there’s this kind of red list of acceptable candidates for the papacy and that his name was on this Vatican, document from since 1870, listing all the Pope’s involvement. So once he got elected and we found this stuff, that’s when the court decided to move on this particular individual to show the bigger aspect of this, right? How it’s organized. These people are chosen 50 years in advance. There’s this young priest who is willing to take part in these things and say, OK, put him on the red list. He’s a future Pope, right?

Just to show people how the system works. But from the beginning, ever since our first court case in 2012, we said all along that it isn’t about the individuals, although in common law you have to indict individuals. It’s about a whole system, a whole history. The Vatican wouldn’t be able to get away with this unless they had billions of dollars every year. So you’re up against a formidable enemy. And we have just so many resources, right? So you can’t do everything.

You know, people are saying, “Kevin, why don’t you go arrest the guy?” Right. Who me personally? It requires that we reach kind of a critical mass of awareness and then police and others will come forward as they have done in the past.

Shaun Attwood: Right. Next question is from Kelly: “How much weight, if any, will this trial hold, and what outcome do you hope to achieve?”

Keven Annett: We hope to achieve the end of the Vatican and the disestablishment of this criminal institution. That’ll take many years. This is another nail in the coffin.

The power of the of the court is tremendous. Yet why do you think Ratzinger stepped down? Not only Ratzinger, but three other cardinals named in the indictment in 2012 all resigned, including the head of the Jesuits, Adolfo Nicolás Pachón.

So it has tremendous power, but unfortunately, by staying on the mainstream stuff, you’re always being brainwashed to think that power means you see a lot of cops go in there and take somebody down, or, like that’s not how a system, disintegrates. It’s disintegrating now as we speak, the Catholic Church, because of all of these revelations, you go to a Catholic Church in a place like Quebec, which is our Ireland or Italy, and there’s 10 people sitting in the pews on a Sunday morning. People are voting with their feet on this and it’s because of all of this work we’ve been doing and not stopping.

Shaun Attwood: So people are asking, why isn’t this already on the web? Because Kevin has decided to announce this this evening, and I’ll put the link for the announcement in the live chat, there it is, it’s in the live chat, so if people want to read that. And murderbydecree.com, International Court to investigate, it’s and I’ll put it in the description box as well.

Question from the Trackmaster Man: Why have the FBI not just shut this whole religion down? It’s painstakingly obvious what’s going on, and yet they re-elect a new pope and carry on. Surely there has to be an end.” Isn’t it out of the jurisdiction of the FBI? Because it’s a law unto itself, the Vatican, isn’t it?

Keven Annett: They like to create that impression, but no, the Vatican, like in every country in America, the Vatican is a subversive power. It operates outside the laws of America. It’s got its own law, claims its own jurisdiction.

When children are harmed, they’re told to disobey the child protection laws of their own country. That’s intruding on the sovereignty and the laws of America. Why wouldn’t that power be disestablished and stop from operating in America if they were a sovereign nation? So this is about fundamental questions of justice and the lives of children and sovereignty of nations, the rule of law, the separation of the church and state.

My question is, why do people stand by and let it happen? Why? I mean, if there’s an issue that would mobilize people, you think it’d be what happens to children, their lives, right? But no, I mean, that’s the degree to which people have been emotionally numbed and mentally numbed. And that’s one of the reasons we do these campaigns, is to spark life again in people, to say, look at this big death we’re part of, right? It kills minds and hearts and souls, not just bodies. And we’ve got to break out of that and have a future. So that’s kind of the bigger issue here.

Shaun Attwood: Was Trudeau, former PM, a professed Jesuit?

Keven Annett: He wasn’t just professed, he was raised by Jesuit teachers, as was his father, Pierre. It’s one of the reasons that we believe one of the Trudeau sons who died in a, “skiing accident,” you sacrifice one of your children in the cult, right? It’s a sign of a cultic involvement.




The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XVII. Coercive Power of the Church

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XVII. Coercive Power of the Church

Continued from The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XVI. Henry VIII. Part 2.

Coercive Power of the Church.—Parties and Factions.—Quarrel between Rome and Avignon.—Philip of France and Boniface VIII.—Power claimed by his Bull Unam Sanctam.—Promise of Clement V. to Condemn Boniface VIII.—John XXII. and Nicholas V.—Benedict XII. Corruption of the Fourteenth Century.—The Beginning of the Fifteenth Century.—Three Councils called by Gregory XII., Benedict XIII., and the Cardinals.—Council of Pisa.—It condemns both Popes, and deposes Them.—Alexander V. elected.—He confirms all the Decrees of the Council.— Three Popes.—Balthasar Costa becomes Pope, as John XXIII.—Council of Constance.—Tries and Condemns Gregory XII., Benedict XIII., and John XXIII.—The Latter found Guilty of Enormous and Scandalous Crimes.— He is deposed, and the Doctrine of the Pope’s Infallibility condemned.—Difficulty in maintaining the Succession of the Popes.—May be two Infallible Popes at same Time.—Corruption in the Council.—John Huss and Jerome.—Their Trial and Death.—Effect in Bohemia.—Martin V.—His Policy.—Violation of his Promise to Alphonso.—His Bull against the King of Arragon.—His Letter to his Legate. Becomes sole Pope.—His Letter to the King of Poland for exterminating the Hussites.—His Death.—Effects of his Reign.

THE interference of the popes with the domestic civil affairs of the nations was, undoubtedly, superinduced by their possession of temporal power in Rome. The fact of having acquired this power by means so totally different from any employed by the apostles, or by the Christians of the first centuries, naturally tended to destroy their Christian humility, and to implant in their minds ideas of personal and official grandeur. Under such influences many of the popes became mere politicians, and were mixed up for several centuries in controversies with kings and princes. They neglected the spiritual affairs of the Church, and seemed to think that God was sufficiently served by an enlargement of their own temporal authority.

The number of bulls, briefs, and encyclicals issued by them concerning temporal matters greatly exceeded those which involved the interest of religion. Having in this way separated themselves from the influence of the apostolic example, and finding the world, on account of its ignorance, in a condition to acquiesce in the imposture, they did not hesitate to set up the claim of divine power, sufficiently broad and comprehensive to embrace within it the right to govern the kings and princes, and, through them, the people. When they succeeded in obtaining a practical recognition of this power, as pertaining to the organization of the Church, they found it necessary to go one step farther in order to preserve it. This was the introduction of the doctrine, as a part of their religious system, that this immense power must be maintained, it necessary, by force. Hence, the persecution and extirpation of heretics; and also the doctrines now avowed by Pius IX. in his Syllabus.

Although, by these means, they were enabled to secure several centuries of success, during which the world was held in complete subjugation and darkness; yet, in the course of time, the light began to break in upon the minds of men, and to disclose the fact, in spite of the reigning ecclesiasticism, that this entire system of oppression was the offspring of usurpation and fraud. Then, like the possessors of all other ill—gotten power, the leading and most ambitious popes became adepts in all the arts and practices of political intrigue and diplomacy, and in the pursuit of whatsoever means were necessary to maintain their authority, without any regard whatever to the morality or immorality of their acts. And thus it is that they themselves created the combination of influences out of which the Reformation arose. Had they been content to employ their spiritual power for the legitimate uses of the Church, the Church would have possessed within itself sufficient power to have applied the necessary corrective to all abuses in its government. But when they went beyond this, and claimed the right to universal dominion, as derived directly from God and as a part of “the patrimony of Peter,” it became necessary to the world that this claim should not only be resisted, but, if possible, absolutely destroyed. It could not undergo any abatement merely; for, according to the papal theory, the power of the papacy is plenary (unlimited), and can be nothing less; and therefore the contest, in so far as the papacy was concerned, became a death—struggle.

And thus we have seen that, in point of fact, the Reformation in England—as the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth sufficiently demonstrate—was not so much a protestation against the faith and just authority of the Roman Church as against the abuses of the hierarchy, and the gross corruptions practiced by them under papal sanction and toleration. There were many intelligent and devout Roman Catholics who, before that time, had been sagacious enough to understand, and honest enough to declare, that the papacy had departed from the apostolic teachings and the practices of the first centuries of Christianity. Their efforts—preceding, the great Protestant Reformation—to save their ancient and time—honored Church were heroic, but unavailing. They are brilliant lights in these former centuries, and attract no less our admiration than our wonder. They convince us—if anything were necessary to do so—that there was yet enough in the true faith of the Roman Catholic Church, even in the worst days of Rome, to give consolation to the Christian mind, and to excite its liveliest Christian hopes; and that much that is essentially true and consistent with the teachings of the Saviour and his apostles has been preserved in its shifting creeds during all the years of its existence. The genuine love and veneration they felt for the Church to which their affections clung so tenaciously, stimulated them to desire and to labor for its reform, for the lopping—off the decayed branches, that the trunk of the old tree which had withstood so many storms might continue to bear good and wholesome fruit.

We cannot withhold from Anselm and Abelard, and Arnold of Brescia—all devout Roman Catholics—the concession of sincerity for their bold appeals to reason against the unjust assumptions and usurpation of authority by the popes. They were not of the number of those commonly classed with the Reformers; but when they asserted the right of free inquiry and free thought, they brought themselves under the ban of the papacy, which feared an open exposure of its enormous offenses against religion and society; and the controversy thus inaugurated necessarily incited such inquiries as could never thereafter be suppressed or silenced.

Nor can we fail to appreciate the integrity and manliness of Savonarola when he stirred up the people of Florence to intense excitement by his denunciations of papal infallibility—declaring that the constitutions issued by some popes had been annulled by others; that the opinions of some are contrary to those of others; and that the prevalent doctrines of the papacy led to “evil doings—to waste in eating and drinking, to avarice, to concubinage, to the sale of benefices, and to many lies, and to all wickedness.” (*)

* “Predica,” by Savonarola; apud Dean Milman, in his “Essays,” Essay 1., pp. 37, 57; “Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici,” by Roscoe, Bohn’s ed., p. 347.

It should increase our admiration of this intrepid priest to know that for the avowal of his honest convictions he lost his life. Arrested by violence, tried by authority of Pope Alexander VI. with “true Inquisitorial mercilessness,” and put to death by his persecutors, his courage, exhibited in the midst of the flames, imparted itself to his defenders, and gave fresh impulse to the work of reform. (Milman’s “Essays,” p. 66, etc.)

If the reforms sought for by these and other faithful Christians had been obtained within the Church, the Christian world would have been disinclined to rebel against the spiritual authority of the popes, being content to regard it as indicating the unity of the faith. But the authorities of the Church—including popes, prelates, and the inferior clergy—had become so corrupt that practical reform became impossible. The long residence of the popes at Avignon, in France—brought about by the political intrigues carried on between popes and princes—so demoralized those who conducted the affairs of the Church, both there and at Rome, that with them religion became a matter of secondary importance, if not of utter indifference. The Church was divided into parties and factions, each accusing and anathematizing the others as heretics and schismatics, and visiting upon them the curse of excommunication.

We have heretofore seen that Boniface IX. was pope at Rome, while Clement VII. and Benedict XIII. respectively claimed the pontificate at Avignon. This state of things manifestly grew out of the quarrel between Philip of France and Boniface VIII., which was conducted with great asperity on both sides, and reduced the election of a pope to a mere matter of temporal expediency, the real interests of the Church or of religion having little or nothing to do with it. The celebrated bull of Boniface—Unam Sactam—where in he asserted that the pope holds in his hands both the spiritual and the temporal sword, led him into such direct conflict with the temporal power, that, without resistance on the part of the nations, he would have reduced them all to the condition of entire dependency upon the papacy. Hence we find Clement V. securing the pontificate, as the successor of Boniface VIII., by taking an oath to Philip, “by the body of Jesus Christ,” that he would “blot out the memory of Pope Boniface!” and proceeding soon after his election to revoke several of the bulls of Boniface, and, especially, to declare “that the bull Unam Sanctam should do no prejudice to the king or kingdom of France, and that all things should remain in the same posture they were in before that bull;” (Du Pin, vol. xii., p. 11.) notwithstanding which, the faithful are now instructed that this same bull continues to be, even at the present day, a part of the canon law!

Hence, also, we find that, after the death of Clement V. the discord prevailing among the cardinals occasioned so much delay in the election of his successor, that the people became so disgusted as to “set fire on the conclave,” (Ibid., p. 21.) and disperse the cardinals. The terrified prelates could not be assembled again until after the death of Philip, and “the chair of Peter” remained without an occupant for two years!

John XXII. was then elected at Lyons and took up his residence at Avignon, and Nicholas V. was elected at Rome. But the Italians, though backed by the King of Bavaria, were unable to protect their pope, and he ultimately fell into the hands of John XXII., who imprisoned him till he died. (Ibid., p. 24) So prostituted had the papacy become under such influences, that heresy consisted in disobedience to the pope in the merest trifles, and punishments were inflicted on account of them, without the slightest remorse.

John XXII. caused four Gray Friars to be arrested because they would not wear their gowns in the shape prescribed by his pontifical bull Quorundam! They were condemned to be burned as heretics, and were executed! A fifth one was degraded and imprisoned for life for the same offense! (Du Pin, vol. xii., p. 25. )

Benedict XII., successor of John XXII., was himself a heretic, in this; that he maintained that “the souls of those who die in mortal sin descend actually right into hell, where they suffer the pains of the damned;” (Ibid., p. 29.) in express violation of the doctrine of purgatory, which the General Council of Florence, at its twenty-fifth session, in 1438, declared to have always been the doctrine of the Church.

Such a condition of affairs as thus existed at Avignon, aided by what occurred during the subsequent pontificates of Clement VI., Innocent VI., Urban V., Gregory XI., and Urban VI., surrounded the papacy, in the fourteenth century, with an amount of corruption which had no parallel in all the previous history of the world. The good men of the Church, of whom there were many, were made heart-sick at the spectacle. They desired reform, but were overpowered by the prevailing corruption.

The fifteenth century opened with demands for three councils: one summoned by Gregory XII.; another by the rival pope, Benedict XIII.; and the third by the cardinals. The latter, which assembled at Pisa, was the most numerously—attended, having, besides a number of cardinals, ambassadors from France and England. That this council did not believe in the doctrine of papal infallibility is perfectly certain; for, soon after it convened, it caused both popes, Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII., to be called at the gate of the Church; and neither of them appearing, proctors were appointed, in the name of the Universal Church, to consider what steps were necessary to be taken against both of them, in order to put an end to the schism and restore the peace of the Church. After they had been several times called, and had failed to appear by themselves or legates, the council unanimously adopted a sentence against them to the effect that they were both “contumacious (obstinately disobedient) of faith and of schism.”Here was an issue directly and explicitly made between the cardinals and these two contumacious popes, as to where the controlling authority of the Church was lodged; whether in a general council representing the whole Church, or, as Pius IX. and his Jesuit defenders now say, in the pope alone, as the infallible vicegerent of God.

The settlement of this great question by the Council of Pisa assures us that if Pius IX. had then been pope, he would not have been considered infallible; or if the cardinals of Pisa had been at the late Lateran Council at Rome, the decree of in fallibility would not have been enacted. It was decided that the cardinals had power to call the council, that it was lawfully assembled, and that it had power to proceed to a definitive sentence against both popes. The trial was, therefore, entered upon with all necessary solemnity. The popes remaining contumacious, although duly summoned to appear, commissioners were appointed to appear for and defend them.

After all the evidence had been heard and duly considered, the council decided, by a solemn and deliberate vote, that both Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII. had violated their oaths by continuing the schism, and that all Christians were released from the obligation of obedience to them! Benedict XIII. was accused of heresy upon the authority of the universities of Paris, Angiers, Orleans, and Toulouse, and three hundred doctors of that of Bononia. And all the accusations against him and Gregory XII. being fully sustained, a decree was unanimously passed declaring that they were both “manifest schismatics, favorers of schism, heretics, guilty of perjury and of the violation of their oaths; that they give a scandal to the whole Church by their manifest obstinateness and contumacy; that they are unworthy of all honor and dignity, and particularly of the pontifical; and that they are fallen from it, deprived of it, and separate from the Church, ipso facto.” The See of Rome was declared vacant; all Christians were forbidden to obey either of the popes; and all their judgments and sentences were declared null and void! (Du Pin, vol. xiii., D. 5.)

Now, when it is considered that this council was composed of one hundred and forty cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and mitered abbots, of twenty—six doctors of divinity, of three hundred doctors of civil and canon law, and of ambassadors from France, England, Jerusalem, Sicily, Cyprus, Poland, Brabant (a province of Belgium), Austria, Bavaria, and from a number of lesser powers, including some of the princes of Italy, it must require more than a common amount of assurance to pretend, as all the Jesuit and ultramontane writers now do, that infallibility was always and everywhere the universal doctrine of the Church! For although it has suited the purposes of the papacy to deny that the Council of Pisa was an ecumenical council, and to disguise its proceedings as much as possible, yet that it did represent the real sentiments of the Church is abundantly attested by the history of those times. There could not then have been assembled in Europe any considerable concourse of Christians who would not have denounced the infallibility of the pope as impious and unchristian. And of this we shall soon see more satisfactory proof than that furnished by the Council of Pisa.

After Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII. had both been deposed, the Council of Pisa proceeded to the election of a new pope; when Alexander V. was chosen, and, being present, presided over the council and approved all its sentences and decrees. After a few more sessions the council adjourned, and another general council was ordered to meet in 1412, to provide for reform in the Church. Pope Alexander V. afterward published a bull in 1410, confirming all that the Council of Pisa had done, against which bull many ultramontane maledictions have since been hurled.

In the mean time, Gregory XII. assembled his council in Aquileia, but it was attended by very few prelates. He, however, caused it to decree that his election was canonical, as had been also that of Urban VI., Boniface IX., and Innocent X.; and that the elections of Clement VII., Benedict XIII., and Alexander V. “were temerarious (reckless), unlawful, and sacrilegious, and that they were schismatics and usurpers.” He, moreover, caused it to be announced that he would resign the pontifical dignity, in order to restore harmony, if Benedict XIII. and Alexander V. would do so; for it must be remembered that there were now three popes, each claiming to be the successor of Peter!

But Alexander V. was disposed neither to surrender his dignity nor to carry on the work of reform which was expected of him by the Council of Pisa. He was under the control of Balthasar Costa, who directed the measures of his pontificate with the sole view of making himself his successor, in which he succeeded. Yet he was, says Du Pin, “acknowledged for pope by all Christendom, except Apulia and some part of Italy which had not yet abandoned Gregory, and the kingdoms of Arragon, Castile, and Scotland, and the states of Count Armagnac, who acknowledged Benedict.”

At his death, which occurred in 1410, Balthasar Costa was elected his successor, and took the name of John XXIII. He made war upon the King of Naples with a view of wresting his dominions from him, and placing the Duke of Anjou upon his throne. The king, however, finally drove him from Rome, where he was hated by the people in consequence of his having “drawn great sums of money from the richest men in the city.” He took refuge at the Court of the King of Hungary, where he went to consult about the meeting of a council. He sent his legate to France with a bull, whereby he assured the French clergy that he desired that a council should be held at the time agreed on at Pisa, to endeavor to bring about a union between the Greek and Latin churches, to make peace between France and England, and “to reform the Church both in its head and members.” He finally succeeded, by obtaining the protection of Sigismund of Hungary, in getting his views so generally acquiesced in that he at last called the Council of Constance to meet in 1414—the time fixed at Pisa. This council, although thus convened by a pope who had participated in the proceedings of the Council of Pisa, and had, by acquiescing in them, committed himself to the doctrine that a council can try, condemn, and depose a pope, and, therefore, that popes are not infallible, is regarded by all the Church as the Sixteenth Ecumenical Council. Whatever it did, therefore, carries with it the highest sanction of the Church, and has all the authority of law.

At this council the means of restoring peace to the Church by terminating the schism were much discussed by the fathers. Deputies attended from Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII., the former of whom proposed his resignation. The fathers, however, although they declared that the Council of Pisa was lawfully celebrated, were mostly of opinion that the best way to put an end to the schism was to require that all three of the popes—Gregory XII., Benedict XIII., and John XXIII.—should resign! They held that, notwithstanding John XXIII. was a lawful pope, yet the Universal Church might constrain him to resign, and that the council was the representative of the Universal Church. John endeavored to defeat this measure by sowing divisions among the members of the council; but all his exertions in that direction were without avail, the vote being unanimous.

In the mean time an Italian bishop accused John XXIII. of having committed “all sorts of crimes,” which were not immediately made public. The prelates from Germany, England, and Poland thought they ought not to be published, because it “could only serve to disgrace the Holy See, to scandalize the Church, and throw it in confusion.” John at first thought he would defy the council, and deny their power to depose him, except for heresy; but he was persuaded by his friends not to make this attempt. Before the investigation of the charges was begun, the council proposed to him his resignation, according to the plan they had previously adopted. Embarrassed as he was, he had no other method left which seemed to open the door of escape; and he accepted the plan with apparent pleasure, proposing that he would voluntarily resign if Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII. would also agree to do so. This contingent proposition was not acceptable to the council, and he made another, equally unsatisfactory for the same reasons. A third one was drawn up which, through fear of the Emperor Sigismund, he agreed to accept. He then pronounced the declaration, and the next day repeated it in the presence of the council. He vowed, and swore to God, to the Church, and the Holy Council, that he would resign so soon as Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII. should do so, or should be deprived of their claims to the pontificate by death or otherwise. He offered to visit Benedict XIII. himself and procure his abdication; but the council would not consent to this, suspecting that his only object was to get away from Constance, and thus break up its sessions. This suspicion was not without foundation; for soon after, notwithstanding he had promised the emperor that he would not leave, he escaped in disguise, and took shelter in a castle several leagues distant, followed by only five or six cardinals, four of whom returned in a few days.

This absence of the pope led immediately to the consideration in the council of the question whether the pope was above the council, and, therefore, infallible, or was inferior to it, and consequently not infallible. There were only six cardinals who maintained the first of these propositions, and who insisted that the council was dissolved in consequence of the absence of the pope. But the council answered them “that the pope was not above the council, but inferior to it,” thus directly and emphatically condemning the doctrine of papal infallibility! The ill—fated John XXIII., finding his efforts to break up the council ineffectual, fled to another castle, where he summoned a notary, and made solemn protestation against all that he had promised to the council, and sworn to because, as he said, he was “forced to it by violence and fear,” so little did the popes in those days regard even their most solemn oaths, though taken in the presence of an ecumenical council.

The council, in order to counteract the influences which John XXIII. was trying to invoke in his own behalf, then proceeded to pass several important decrees. In one of these it is declared that the Council of Constance was “lawfully assembled in the name of the Holy Ghost;” that it “represented the whole Catholic Church militant; had its power immediately from Jesus Christ; and that every person, of whatsoever state or dignity, even the pope himself, is obliged to obey it in what concerns the faith, the extirpation of schism, and the general reformation of the Church in its members and its head:” (*) Other decrees were passed, declaring that those who refused to obey the council, “even the popes themselves not excepted,” should be punished; that if the pope, when required by the council to renounce the pontificate, failed or delayed to do so, he had thereby forfeited his dignity, and no obedience was due him; and that if John XXIII. did not return to Constance, “they would proceed against him as a favorer of schism, and suspected of heresy.”

* The ultramontane writers pretend that the words, “in what concerns the faith,” in the above decree, were afterward added by the Council of Basil. They do this in order to break the force of this decision of a general council against papal infallibility. But Du Pin, from whom the above facts are taken, shows the falsity of this pretense, and also that, even without these words, the decree sufficiently affirms the supremacy of a council over the pope.—Du PIN, vol. xiii., pp. 14, 15.

John XXIII. resorted to many subterfuges to escape his impending doom. He endeavored to apologize for his secret departure from Constance by pretending that it was necessary on account of the condition of his health; and even went so far as to propose the second time to resign. But the council had no confidence in him or his promises. Having already committed perjury by the violation of a most solemn oath, the fathers could put no other estimate upon him than that he was capable of any kind of treachery—was both base and false—hearted. They therefore proceeded with his trial, and, after the most careful examination of the evidence and full deliberation, found him guilty of crimes before which the iniquities of the basest of modern criminals dwarf into insignificance. Du Pin thus enumerates them:

“Lewdness and disorders in his youth, the purchasing of benefices by simony; his advancement to the dignity of a cardinal by the same means; his tyranny while he was legate at Bononia; his incests and adulteries while he was in that city; his poisoning of Alexander V. and his own physician; (*) his contempt of the divine offices after he was pope; his neglecting to recite the canonical prayers, and to practice the fasts, abstinences, and ceremonies of the Church; his denying justice, and oppressing the poor; his selling benefices and ecclesiastical dignities—to those that bid most; his authorizing an infinite number of dreadful abuses in distributing of preferments, and committing a thousand and a thousand cheats; his selling bulls, indulgences, dispensations, and other spiritual graces; his wasting the patrimony of the Church of Rome, and mortgaging that of other Churches; his maladministration of the spiritual and temporal affairs of the Church; and lastly his breaking the oath and promise he had made to renounce the pontificate, by re tiring shamefully from Constance, to maintain and continue the schism.” (**)

* The accusation against him was that he had caused his physician to poison Pope Alexander V., in order that he might obtain the papal chair, and then poisoned his physician to prevent detection.

** Du Pin, vol. xiii., p. 17.

Cormenin gives the decision of the council somewhat more in detail, thus:

“The General Council of Constance, after having invoked the name of Christ and examined the accusations brought against John XXIII., and established on irrefragable proof, pronounces, decrees, and declares, that Balthasar Costa [the pope] is the oppressor of the poor, the persecutor of the just, the support of knaves, the idol of simoniacs, the slave of the flesh, a sink of vices, a man destitute of every virtue, a mirror of infamy, and devil incarnate; as such it deposes him from the pontificate, prohibiting all Christians from obeying him and calling him pope. The council further reserves to itself the punishment of his crimes in accordance with the laws of secular justice; and his pursuit as an obstinate and hardened, noxious, and incorrigible sinner, whose conduct is abominable and morals infamous; as a simoniac, ravisher, incendiary, disturber of the peace and unity of the Church; as a traitor, murderer, Sodomite, poisoner, committer of incest, and corrupter of young nuns and monks!” (*)

* Cormenin, vol. ii., p. 108. This author also says that only a portion of the articles were publicly read; and that there were, besides these, secret ones too frightful to be announced. In a recent work it is said that these latter were “dropped for the sake of public decency. “—The See of Rome in the Middle Ages, by Reichel, part iii., p. 484. This last—named author publishes some of the charges, and the sentence of the council, taken from Labbe’s collection, in the original Latin.—Ibid., note 5, and p. 485, note 1; see also Life and Times of John Huss, by Gillett, vol. i., pp. 515—517.

Few men have reached so low a point of infamy and degradation as that reached by John XXIII., who is recognized by all the Church historians as having been lawfully elected pope. On account of the enormity of his crimes, he was deposed and disgraced by the council, and all persons were forbidden to recognize him thereafter as pope, or to obey him. Thus reduced, and abandoned by the few friends who had previously adhered to him, he humiliatingly announced to the council that he had no defense to offer, declared the council to be most holy and infallible, and approved of all its decrees up to his deposition at the twelfth session, thus entitling that decree which declared that a general council was superior to the pope, and, therefore, that the pope was not infallible, to take its place in the canons and to become a part of the law of the Church!

The Jesuit defenders of infallibility, with all their cunning and ingenuity, have been sorely puzzled over this part of the history of the Church. They have found it exceedingly difficult to make the links in the chain of regular apostolic succession interlock each other. In whatsoever way they attempt it, they run afoul of numerous palpable facts which, when fully understood, upset all their theories.

In the “Catholic Family Almanac for the United States,” for 1870, there appears a chronological table of the Roman pontiffs, beginning with St. Peter and ending with Pius IX. (“Catholic Almanac,” 1870, pp. 47, 48.) This is intended for the instruction of the faithful. Referring to the forty years of disputed succession which followed the close of the pontificate of Urban VI., in 1389, it carries down the Roman line of succession as follows: Boniface IX., from 1389 to 1404; Innocent VII., from 1404 to 1406; Gregory XII., from 1406 to 1417; and then follows it with Martin V., from 1417 to 1431—thus making the line unbroken. Within these same years it puts down as “rival popes,” Clement VII., Benedict XIII., Alexander V., and John XXIII.

A recent “History of the Catholic Church,” published also in the United States in 1870, and highly commended for its accuracy, contains also a chronological table of the same kind. Covering the period given above, it makes the line as follows: Boniface IX., from 1389 to 1404; Innocent VII., from 1404 to 1406; Gregory XII., from 1406 to 1409; Alexander V., 1409; John XXIII., from 1409 to 1413; and then follows Martin V., from 1413 to 1431—with the additional statement, indicated by the letters “abd” opposite their names, that Gregory XII. abdicated in 1409, and John XXIII. in 1413. (“History of the Catholic Church,” by Rev. Theodore Noethen, p. 577.)

Now, without stopping to comment upon other facts connected with the great schism of forty years, during which the right to the chair of Peter was continually and obstinately contested, to the disgrace of all the parties and the injury of the cause of Christianity, it may be well asked, how are the faithful to decide between contradictory statements like these? One places Alexander V. and John XXIII. among the “rival popes,” and the other places them in the regular line of succession! One continues the pontificate of Gregory XII. in the regular line down to 1417, and makes no mention of Alexander V. and John XXIII. in that line; while the other represents Gregory XII. as having abdicated in 1409, and continues the regular line down to Martin V., with both Alexander V. and John XXIII. One represents Martin V. as having been made pope in 1417, and the other in 1413—four years before.

But the puzzle will become more difficult of solution to an intelligent investigator when he finds out, as he would do, that neither of these tables represents the precise truth. Gregory XII. was not pope from 1406 to 1417. He was elected at Rome in 1406, while Benedict XIII. was yet pope at Avignon, where he had held his pontifical court since 1394 as the successor of Clement VII. At the time of his election he promised the cardinals at Rome to resign if Benedict would do so, but afterward equivocated to such an extent that all his cardinals except four withdrew from him, and appealed from his authority to that of the Council of Pisa. This council deposed him in 1409, as they also did Benedict XIII., and elected Alexander V., who was regarded as the legal pope. Alexander V. was not, therefore, a “rival pope;” nor was John XXIII. Gregory XII. did not abdicate in 1409; but after he was then deposed by the Council of Pisa, claimed still to be pope as against Benedict XIII., Alexander V., and John XXIII. up till the fourteenth session of the Council of Constance, in 1415, when he resigned his right to the pontificate and recognized the validity of the council. The council then approved of what he had canonically done; (Du Pin, vol. xiii., p. 18.) that is, what he had done before he was deposed by the Council of Pisa. This broke his fall somewhat by recognizing him as legal pope at Rome against Benedict XIII. at Avignon, from 1406 to 1409—only three years out of the twelve which he claimed. And this was perhaps more a matter of policy and necessity than principle; for if Gregory XII. was not the lawful pope from 1406 to 1409, then Benedict XIII. was; and he is properly put down as a “rival pope” in one of the above tables, and does not appear in the other at all. And if Gregory XII. was a lawful pope after he was deposed by the Council of Pisa, then Alexander V., who was elected by that council, was not. As the Council of Constance decided that at Pisa to have been regularly and legally held, and recognized Alexander V. and John XXIII. both to be legal popes, they could not stultify themselves by approving of what Gregory XII. had done after he was deposed; for that would have been equivalent to deciding that Peter had two successors at the same time!

But, apart from this confusion in tracing out the line of regular apostolic succession, this complicated condition of affairs suggests this most pertinent inquiry: where, during all this time, was infallibility deposited? Was Gregory XII. infallible? He was deposed by the Council of Pisa, and the Council of Constance recognized the act as valid. Was Benedict XIII. infallible? He also was deposed by the same authority. Was John XXIII. infallible? He was deposed by the Council of Constance, after having been found guilty of the most outrageous offenses. Was the Council of Constance infallible? That it claimed infallibility is certainly true; that the whole Church assented to this claim is also true, and yet to affirm now that it was would be heresy, under the decree of the late Lateran Council. By it the faithful are taught that the pope is alone the possessor of infallibility, and is the source from which all others receive it. Therefore they are driven to the necessity of deciding that Gregory XII., or Benedict XIII., or John XXIII. was infallible. If they select Gregory XII., the Council of Pisa stands in the way to condemn them. If they select Benedict XIII., they meet the same difficulty. If John XXIII., the Council of Constance, and his tremendous catalog of crimes, stare them in the face. If they pass by all three of them, and lodge infallibility in the General Council of Constance, they are pronounced heretics by Pius IX. and his Jesuit and ultramontane prelates, and cut off from the Church by excommunication.

What, then, are the faithful to do in the midst of all these complications? To a common—sense mind this question would be hard to answer; but the defenders of the papacy are equal to the occasion. See how admirably this difficulty is disposed of by St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, who wrote shortly after the schism. He says:

“It is possible for one to have belonged to either party in good faith and with a safe conscience, for, although it is necessary to believe that there is but one visible head of the Church, if it should nevertheless happen that two sovereign pontiffs are elected at the same time, it is not obligatory to accept either as the legitimate pope; but only to acknowledge as the true pope the one who has been canonically elected; and the people are not expected to determine which is the pope, but can follow the opinion and guidance of their pastors.” (*)

* History of the Catholic Church,” by Noethen, p. 404. This author gives an account of the great schism in three pages, and without even mentioning the name of Gregory XII., Benedict XIII., or John XXIII. He quotes the above with approbation.

That is to say, “it is necessary to believe that there is but one” pope at a time, but “not obligatory.” Peter can have but one legitimate successor occupying the pontifical chair; but if there should be two, it is no matter, as it is “not obligatory” upon the faithful to select between them. All that is necessary is to believe that one or the other is the pope, no matter which. “The people” are too ignorant and simple—minded to “determine” anything about matters of so much intricacy. All they are required to do is to “follow the opinion and guidance of their pastors!” to avoid all thoughts of their own, all investigation of the facts, and passively submit to whatsoever commands shall be given them. Even though, as was the case in the instances referred to, one set of the faithful should be taught by their pastors to support one pope, and another class another pope, stll no matter! for notwithstanding each should denounce the other as a heretic and guilty of all sorts of crimes, still, as infallibility must be somewhere, one or the other must have it!

Until the Council of Pisa deposed Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII., the faithful were permitted to believe that either was infallible as taught by their pastors. And the only effect of the election of Alexander V. by the council was to add to the list another representative of infallibility. The necessary effect was, each was infallible to those who followed him, so that infallibility became triplicated, existing, in three places at the same time.

The Church had not so many heads as Briareus, yet it had so many that nobody then and nobody now can tell which was the true head! And yet this book, designed for the edification of American readers, after admitting that “the obstinacy of the popes” divided the Christian world, “increased the schism, and caused all the subsequent evils” to the Church; and that as “God has promised his Church that he will not forsake her in time of extreme peril,” his providence selected the cardinals as the agents for convening a council in defiance of these schismatic popes, and thus saving the Church from overthrow—after admitting all this with every appearance of candor, does not hesitate to tell us that each of these popes was infallible to his followers; that each was in the line of regular apostolic succession; that each wore the crown and held the sword of St. Peter, provided only that the pastors who paid obedience to each so commanded their several flocks to believe, as they undoubtedly did! And this is put forth with apparent sincerity in this intelligent and investigating age, as if mens’ minds were still encased in an impenetrable coat of ignorance and stupidity, and bold and unblushing dogmatism were alone possessed of impunity.

But it will not do to pass by the Council of Constance without further comment. When it is remembered that it is regarded by all the Church as ecumenical; that the pope found guilty by it of the most infamous crimes belongs to the regular line of succession from Peter; and that he was the pope at Rome; some of the impending difficulties in the way of reform in the Church may be seen and appreciated, even at this distance of time. It was claimed that the “chair of St. Peter” was at Rome, and that the Church there was, consequently, “the mother and mistress of all the Churches.”

As pagan Rome was the chief imperial city of the world, so the popes, in imitation of the emperors, had endeavored to make Christian Rome the sole representative of ecclesiastical imperialism. It was so in the person of John XXIII., an Italian, who was in possession of the Vatican, of all the holy churches of Rome, of the triple papal crown, of the fisherman’s ring, of all the relics of the saints, part of the true cross, of the thorns in the cross of Christ, and of the garments worn by the Virgin Mary, and the thousands of other things which the ignorant and superstitious are still taught to worship. And, more than all that, was he not in fallible, so that he could not err in matters of faith or morals?—though steeped in crime and villainy sufficient to contaminate the whole atmosphere of Rome. The festering and consuming sore of corruption was, therefore, more violent at the heart of the Church than at the extremities; it was viler and more filthy there than the world ever saw anywhere else, in any of the departments of society, since Sodom and Gomorrah were overwhelmed by the wrath of God. And such was the solemn and deliberate decision of an ecumenical council, pronounced without a single dissenting voice!

There were some good men in the council who desired to make it a reform council—the ostensible object for which it was convened. But the ideas which prevailed with the majority limited the work of reform to the pope alone: they desired to reform him, but not themselves. If the cardinals and higher prelates of the Church had been willing to practice such virtues as they demanded of the pope, and of the inferior clergy, results very different from those which did ensue might have been brought about. But, so far from this having been the case, a large number of them were as corrupt as the pope, and habitually practiced the very vices they condemned in him, thus influencing the lower clergy to a still greater degree of degradation. And such is the undeniable voice of all impartial history. John Huss, after the conviction and disgrace of John XXIII., thus spoke from his dreary prison at Gottlieben:

“The council has condemned its chief—its proper head—for having sold indulgences, bishoprics, in fact, everything; and yet among those who have condemned him are many bishops who are themselves guilty of the shameful traffic!…. O profligate men! why did you not first pull out the beam from your own eye?…. They have declared the seller to be accursed, and have condemned him, and yet themselves are the purchasers. They are the other party in the compact, and yet they remain unpunished.” (Life and Times of John Huss,” by Gillett, vol. i., p. 524.)

The learned Clemingis, who lived in those days, whose Christian fidelity was unquestioned, and who, together with Gerson and D’Ailly, shed luster upon the University of Paris, spoke of the members of the council as “carnal, for the most part bent on their pleasures, not to say their lusts;” and said:

“These carnal sons of the Church do not only have no care or apprehension of spiritual things, but they even persecute those who walk after the Spirit, as has been the case from the days of just Abel, and will be to the end of time. These are the men who fly together to the Church merely to seize upon temporalities; who lead in the Church a secular life, conspire, covet, plunder, rejoice in pre-eminence, not in profiting others; oppress and rob their subjects; glory in the honor of promotion; riot in pomp, pride, and luxury; who count gain godliness, sneer at such as wish to live holily, chastely, innocently, spiritually, calling them hypocrites….. Of such men the Church is full this day, and scarcely, in whole chapters or universities, can you find any others….. Are men like these the ones to exert themselves for a reformation of the Church—men who would account such a reformation the greatest calamity to themselves? (Apud Gillett, ibid.)

The Council of Constance, controlled by men of this sort, and subject to such influences as would naturally emanate from them, while its action, like that of the Council of Pisa, was a blow at the ambition of the papacy and the infallibility of the pope, did as much as lay in its power to advance the cause of ecclesiastical absolutism, and to crush out the rising and growing spirit of inquiry which had been excited by Anselm, Arnold, Savonarola, and Wycliffe, of former times, and by John Huss and Jerome of Prague, who then lived. The trial, condemnation, and execution of Huss and of Jerome will remain a reproach to it as long as history is read—will forever convict it of injustice, cruelty, intolerance, and persecution. Whatever amount of ingenuity may be expended, and however the facts may be perverted and distorted by Jesuit art and cunning, it cannot be disguised that the cruelty practiced toward them was designed as a condemnation of free thought, and an attempt on the part of the highest authority of the Roman Catholic Church to perpetuate the corruption and vices which then prevailed at the expense of all that was sanctified in the former history of the Church, and that purity of faith and practice which it had derived from the teaching and example of the apostolic Christians. No language is fertile enough in words of denunciation to express what all intelligent and thinking, minds must feel in relation to it.

Both Huss and Jerome had always led pure and Christian lives. No charge of vice or immorality was ever made against either of them. The Bohemian Christians venerated and followed them, not merely on account of their eloquence as preachers, but because no breath of suspicion ever rested upon their integrity as men or upon their fidelity as Christians. But they were accused of favoring the doctrines of Wycliffe, which pointed to reform; and that was an unpardonable sin, because they struck at the multifarious forms of vice and corruption which were then sanctioned by the example of such popes as John XXIII., and such prelates as constituted the majority of the Council of Constance. This pope and these prelates were their accusers, triers, and executioners, and it should surprise no one to know with what alacrity they hastened to their conviction, and how their hearts leaped with gladness when the torches that consumed their bodies were lighted by their emissaries.

John Huss had a “safe-conduct” from the Emperor Sigismund, under whose influence John XXIII. consented that the council should be held. He was promised full protection both in going and returning to the council, where he was summoned to answer the charge of heresy. Yet this promise of protection was violated, to the damning disgrace of all the parties concerned in the treacherous and dastardly act. Whether it was justified by the perpetrators of the wrong upon the declared ground that “faith should not be kept with heretics,” is no matter, since it is undoubtedly true that such was the doctrine which then prevailed among the popes and the leading members of the hierarchy, and which yet prevails, as there are volumes of evidence to show. Both upon this and less satisfactory grounds, innumerable contracts, agreements, and promises have been violated and disregarded without the slightest compunctions of conscience; and in all these matters the popes themselves were far ahead of all others.

Whether John XXIII. or Sigismund was most to blame for the betrayal of Huss is of no consequence now, since the pope is shown to have been capable of that or any other enormity, and the emperor was ready to do whatsoever was necessary to the protection of his imperial authority. The council was equally guilty with either or both of them, for, knowing that the “safe-conduct” had been given by the very authority under which it convened, if it had not been insensible to shame it would have scorned to maintain a jurisdiction acquired over a defenseless adversary by such base and cowardly means. Du Pin says, “The pope and the emperor invited John Huss to come thither,” and “the emperor granted him a safe—conduct.” (Du Pin, vol. xiii., p. 120. ) This invitation, if it did not expressly engage the pope to good faith, implied it so strongly that any man less infamous than John XXIII. would have protested against its violation. And if the council had entertained any respect for the pope, and had not been influenced by the loose principles of morality which then prevailed, the blood of John Huss would not yet be clinging to its skirts.

The next morning after Huss arrived at Constance, two noblemen, who had accompanied him, visited the pope to notify him of his arrival. They inquired of him whether he could safely remain without ally risk of violence. The pope replied: “Had he killed my own brother, not a hair of his head should be touched while he remained in the city.” ( “History of the Council of Constance,” by L’Enfant; apud Gillett, vol. i., p. 329 (note 1).) So that, if the pope was not a party to the “safe-conduct,” he gave his solemn promise that it should be ob served. Either would have bound an honest man, but neither would have bound John XXIII.! Even his oath, taken before the council with a solemn appeal to God, could not bind him, infallible as he was!

Infamous as John XXIII. was, he was not destitute of ability or cunning. Having reached Constance some time before the emperor, he endeavored to shape the policy of the council so as to divert attention from his own crimes. He had already distinguished his pontificate by emptying the vials of his wrath upon the head of King Ladislaus of Naples for no other offense than his having been an ally of Gregory XII., which, as we have just been taught by Noethen, quoting from St. Antoninus, was no offense against the law of the Church. Harmless as this preference of Ladislaus is now pretended to have been,yet for it alone he was declared by this infallible pope to be “a heretic, a schismatic, a man guilty of high treason against the majesty of God;” a crusade was proclaimed against him, and those who should take part in it were promised that all their sins should be forgiven, upon repentance and confession. (Gillett, vol i., p. 181.)

His success in bringing the hierarchy to adopt his views in reference to Ladislaus, and his promptness in dealing with heresy, led him to believe that if he could turn the attention of the council to inquiries of that kind, he might himself escape. Accordingly, “the foil he used was the heresy of Huss,” which he hoped would give him the opportunity of showing how faithfully he guarded the faith of the Church! To effect his purpose the more certainly, he caused his bull of convocation to be read, wherein, in order to establish the legitimacy of his own pontificate, he claimed that the Council of Constance was but a continuation of that of Pisa, and then announced, through one of his cardinals, that the council would be expected to direct its attention especially to some prevalent errors of doctrine, and “pre—eminently to those which were originated by Wycliffe,” knowing that Huss had been accused of maintaining them. He succeeded in part of his plan, that is, in inciting the persecution of Huss, but not in escaping the doom which he himself so richly merited. (Gillett,vol. i., p. 342.)

Huss, when summoned before the council, was told that he had been charged with disseminating “errors of the gravest kind” in Bohemia, but they were not specifically stated. He was only notified that they were “manifestly opposed to the Catholic Church.” To this indefinite accusation he replied, like an honest man, “If any one can convince me of any error, I will unhesitatingly abjure it.” (Ibid., p. 345.) Specific articles of accusation were, however, afterward drawn up against him, by which it was charged, 1st, that he rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation; 2d, with maintaining that a priest in mortal sin cannot administer the sacraments; 3d, that by the Church is not to be understood the pope, clergy, or members of the hierarchy; 4th, that the endowment of the Church by secular princes is unwise; 5th, that all priests are equal, and it is false that bishops alone have the right to consecrate and ordain; 6th, that the entire Church has no power of the keys, when the whole clergy is in gross sin; and, 7th, that he had contemned his excommunication by saying mass everyday on his journey to Constance. (Ibid., p. 347.)

He was immediately arrested and held in custody as a prisoner, to answer this indictment. His place of imprisonment was a nauseous and unhealthy apartment, “through which every sort of impurity was discharged into the lake”—of Constance. When the emperor, who had not yet arrived, heard of this, he sent forward ambassadors to demand the release of Huss, but he was not discharged. On account of his sickness, occasioned by the foul air he was compelled to breathe in his filthy and poisonous dungeon, he was at last removed to more healthy apartments. This is said to have been done by the pope, “lest Huss should die in prison, and the cause of orthodoxy lose the incense of a burning heretic.” ( Ibid., p. 357.) His failing health admonished him of the necessity of having an advocate to defend him, and he asked that one might be appointed. But this was refused; and he was told “that, according to the canon law, no one could be allowed to take the part or plead the cause of a man suspected of heresy;” an act of tyranny worthy only of the most heartless despotism.

Weak and feeble as he was, however, his defense of himself was a masterly exhibition of his great powers of mind, and of his unflinching courage. But it was of no avail. All sorts of evidence were admitted against him; everything he said was tortured into heresy; and, after a mock trial of a few days, he was pronounced by this great ecumenical council to be guilty not of any crime, but of daring to think! He had ventured to say that immoral priests could not administer the sacraments, and this was considered by a majority of the council as an impeachment of themselves. He had endeavored to lower the pride and diminish the authority of the pope and hierarchy, and had thus brought himself under the ban of these corrupt officials. Of course he was convicted—that had been predetermined—for no victim could be furnished so likely as Huss to satisfy the world of the orthodoxy of the council and the pope!

There was but a single mode of escape for this intrepid champion of free thought; that was, to admit the errors charged against him, and to retract them. Unconscious of error, he could not in his conscience admit it; and therefore he had nothing to retract. He appealed to reason and the enlightened judgment of the council; but that body refused him the right to address himself to any motive higher than that which grew out of its own selfish and partisan passions, and demanded unconditional submission. It would allow no debate, no inquiry; every one of its assumptions had to be accepted as infallibly true. Huss, then, when he demanded to be heard in defense of his own opinions, was the representative of the free spirit of the present age—the champion of that intellectual and moral freedom upon which the central column of Protestantism is now resting. How much fairer and nobler a place does he occupy in history than the infamous pope whose victim he became, or any of those members of the council who aided in producing his conviction! Their names are scarcely known except to the readers of history, while his is lisped by almost every schoolboy throughout Christendom.

Jerome met the same fate. He and Huss were burned at the stake—martyrs in the cause of truth and freedom. Neither of them exhibited the slightest fear of death. No quivering muscle displayed the cowardice of conscious guilt. They were heroes in the highest sense, and left behind them influences which were not long in producing fruits, not expected by their persecutors, but which laid the foundation for some of the grandest results in history.

To pretend that the Roman Catholic Church is not guilty of the death of Huss and Jerome, as the papists do, is worse than idle. The Council of Constance was its highest authority. It represented the entire Church, and in this capacity tried, convicted, and turned them over to the secular authorities for execution. After their conviction, and before they were removed from the council chamber, paper crowns were placed upon their heads. These were covered with “pictured fiends” with flames around them, to signify that they were devoted to death by burning. (Gillett, vol. ii., pp. 65, 255.)

When this was placed upon the head of Huss, his persecutors exclaimed, “We devote thy soul to the devils in hell,” which was more the language of a fiend than of a Christian. The council knew what the result of the conviction would be. The Church at that time shaped the domestic policy of the nations, in so far as it concerned the Church or dealt with heresy. Wherever there was an emperor or king who refused to enact laws against heretics consistently with the decree of persecution enacted by the Fourth Lateran Council, he was cursed and excommunicated, and his subjects were released from their allegiance. Hence the law under which Huss and Jerome were executed was the result of that obedience which the nations then paid to the Church, which the Church required of them, and for the failure or refusal to pay which it visited its severest punishments upon them. The blood, therefore, of these murdered Christians is still crying out against the hierarchy of the Church, and will not be washed away until they learn to exchange their persecuting intolerance for the mild and forbearing teachings of the Gospel.

Soon after the vengeance of the Council of Constance had spent itself in the flames which consumed the bodies of Huss and Jerome, avengers begun to spring up on every side to proclaim anew the truths uttered by them, and more especially to assert the right to challenge the oppressions and usurpations of imperialism. The contest became one between reason and authority—between the papacy, wielding all the power of the Church in maintaining its demand for absolute and uninquiring submission, and in denying to its followers free access to the Scriptures, and the right of free inquiry into the truths of religion, philosophy, and science.

In order ignobly to maintain its authority, and thus to perpetuate the existing corruptions, every artifice was employed. Bulls of excommunication and ecclesiastical interdicts— employed far more frequently in reference to secular than spiritual affairs—were the common resort of the popes, who, forgetting that God still reigned over the world, impiously claimed that they could open or close the gates of heaven and hell at their pleasure, and could withdraw the thunder and the lightning from the sky to scathe and blast the opponents of their ignominious and debasing vices. What wonder is there, then, that these avengers arose within the Church, when they remembered how much it had done to Christianize and civilize the world, and how much of apostolic purity there was yet retained in its cherished faith? They saw clearly that the struggle involved the life of Christianity and the dearest hopes of the Christian world; and the inspiriting thought that they were the champions of such a cause gave them a courage and heroism which the world will never cease to admire. The oceans of blood which papal imperialism caused to be shed throughout the beautiful plains and valleys of Europe have not been sufficient to wash from the pages of history the bright record of their virtues and their courage. The flames could consume their bodies, but other flames were enkindled which could not be extinguished; and from out of these flashed forth the light of truth.

The Bohemians were very much attached to Huss and Jerome, and their cruel murder produced intense excitement among them. The King of Bohemia observing, one day, a nobleman, named John Zisca, deeply wrapped in thought, inquired of him what he was thinking about; when he replied: “I was thinking on the affront offered to our kingdom by the death of John Huss.” The king replied: “It is out of your power or mine to revenge it, but if you know which way to do it, exert yourself.” (“Church History,” by Fry, London, 1824, p. 261.)

And he did exert himself in such a way as to bring down terrible revenge upon the heads of the persecutors. With the assistance of Nicholas de Hussinetz, he raised an army of forty thousand men, and a war immediately ensued between the emperor, as the representative of papal imperialism, and the Bohemians, which lasted for thirteen years. Inhuman cruelties were practiced on both sides, and the termination of the struggle was marked by a concession to the Bohemians which they considered of the utmost importance in maintaining their faith and mode of religious worship. This was the allowance to their laity of the use of the cup in the sacrament, which the Romanists had denied to them, because it gave too much importance to the common people. The introduction of this concession in the treaty of peace was, to some extent, the recognition of the fact that the laity were not a mere canaille (riffraff); and it resulted, ultimately, in bringing about a union between the Waldenses and the Hussites, and in giving new impetus to the cause of the Moravian Christians. And although the Hussites were banished from Moravia some time afterward, they had two hundred congregations in Bohemia and Moravia at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Martin V. was elected pope by the Council of Constance, and having finally succeeded, after much difficulty, in getting rid of his rivals, was also anxious to get rid of the council—for, like other popes, he desired to govern alone. He was afraid to break it up, and endeavored to keep in its favor by continuing to execute the Hussites, making for that purpose “a magnificent auto-da-fe (public execution)!” Unable to accomplish his wish in this way, he announced his intention of leaving Constance, but was opposed in this by the emperor, who desired to have the relations between them satisfactorily arranged. Martin, dreading the possibility of being cited to a new council, in case of disagreement with the emperor, thought to put an end to the proceedings by resort to a pontifical bull, wherein he maintained that “a pope was the absolute judge of his own actions, in all circumstances, and that he could annul the promises he had previously made!” (Cormenin, vol. ii., p. 111.) And he adopted this principle in practice.

He endeavored to establish the papal rule over the cities of Genoa, Venice, Florence, and Naples, which had freed themselves from the tyranny of the popes. He found the husband of Joanna, Queen of Naples, driven out in consequence of his cruelties; and, taking advantage of the existing disorders, he offered the crown to Louis of Anjou, on condition of his assisting him to re-acquire the papal possessions, thus claiming the divine right to dispose of crowns and kingdoms. Joanna, to defeat this, obtained assistance from Alphonso, King of Arragon; and as the pope’s army was upon the eve of being defeated, the wily pope had recourse to the cunning expedient of making another agreement with Alphonso, to the effect that if he would dethrone Joanna, he would obtain the renunciation of Louis of Anjou, and give the crown to him. Alphonso consented, and seized the government of Naples, requiring an oath of allegiance from the inhabitants. Joanna fled, and Alphonso became master of Naples. He called on the pope for the fulfillment of his promise, by deposing Joanna and conferring the title of king upon him. But as the pope, when he made the promise, had not the slightest idea of complying with it, he replied, very deliberately, that “he had never intended to fulfill the promises he had made him!” (Ibid., p. 113.) that the crown of right belonged to Louis, who had bought the investiture of it from Popes Alexander V. and John XXIII.; and that, besides, he would not aid a prince who had given shelter to a rival pope, as Alphonso had done to Benedict XIII. His solemn promise did not weigh with him the weight of a feather.

Alphonso determined to avenge the insult, and Martin V., seeing that he was likely to do it effectually, sent to him a legate to sue for peace. But Alphonso, having learned his perfidy and hypocrisy sufficiently, declined any intercourse with the legate, and published an edict forbidding the reception of any of the pope’s bulls in Spain. This was purely a temporal matter, yet the pope issued a bull against the King of Arragon declaring him an enemy of religion, a supporter of schism, and as such deprived him of his dignity and kingdom; not, it will be observed, for any sin against God and the Church, but for daring to rebuke him, an infallible pope, for his perfidy and want of truth.

The pope now gathered an army of Italian, French, German, and English soldiers, and sent them into Bohemia, under the command of one of his cardinals, to exterminate all who embraced the doctrines of Huss. The Bohemians were not easily overcome, and drove the papal troops out of their country. But the pope, although thus defeated, was gratified that he had succeeded in stirring up a civil war in Germany, from which he hoped great gains to the papal cause. Therefore he wrote to his defeated legate:

“You will immediately recruit new troops to recommence hostilities, and to wash out, in the blood of the Hussites, the opprobrium with which your name is covered. Let no consideration arrest you; spare neither money nor men. Believe that we are acting for religion, and that God has no more agreeable holocaust than the blood of his enemies! Strike with the sword, and when your arm cannot reach the guilty, employ poison, burn all the towns of Bohemia, that fire may purify this accursed land; transform the country into arid steppes, and let the dead bodies of the heretics hang from the trees in greater number than the leaves of the forest.” (Cormenin, vol. ii., pp. 115, 116.)

Benedict XIII. having died, and Clement VIII. having resigned his claims to the pontificate, Martin V. became the sole possessor of the tiara, in 1429, thus ending the great Western schism, which had for more than fifty years enabled the chief actors to exhibit themselves as “ambitious, avaricious, vindictive, debauched, and cruel; solely occupied with duping men, and changing the holy water into a stream of gold.” This gave to Martin V. more leisure to prosecute his war of extermination of the Hussites; and we have still further insight into the character of this war, and the policy of this infallible pope, by the following letter, addressed by him to the King of Poland, endeavoring to procure his aid in bringing back the Bohemians to the true faith:

“Know that the interests of the Holy See, and those of your crown, make it a duty to exterminate the Hussites. Remember that these impious persons dare proclaim principles of equality; they maintain that all Christians are brethren, and that God has not given to privileged men the right of ruling the nations; they hold that Christ came on earth to abolish slavery; they call the people to liberty, that is, to the annihilation of kings and priests. While there is still time, then, turn your forces against Bohemia; burn, massacre, make deserts everywhere, for nothing could be more agreeable to God, or more useful to the cause of kings, than the extermination of the Hussites.” (Cormenin, vol. ii., pp. 116,117.)

Martin V. did not live long enough, after issuing this bloody edict, to witness its desolating effect upon the Bohemians. The gallant Hussites, invigorated by the consciousness that they were defending an inalienable right which God had given them, rallied, like true soldiers, to the defense of their principles and their homes, and cut the papal army to pieces, driving it back in dismay and disgrace. At their hands liberty won another triumph over imperialism, and the cause of free conscience was, under the protecting providence of God, still preserved. The shock which the pope sustained when this sad news reached the Vatican was too great for him. Finding himself thus defied, and with an army routed and dispirited, he was seized with a fit of apoplexy, and died, disappointed in his hopes, and despised by all except those who were united with him in the effort to keep the people in degradation and perpetuate the reign of papal and imperial absolutism. But he lived long enough to show the world that the canon of the Fourth Lateran Council, which commanded the extermination of heresy by force, was still the law of the Church, and that from it the papacy derived the leading and governing principle of its action. With a view to the enforcement of this law, he proclaimed his infallibility, that he might the more readily grasp sufficient temporal power to unsheath the swords of princes, and send forth their armies, with torch and fagot, to murder, to destroy, and to desolate some of the fairest portions of Europe. What impious blasphemy it is to say that God was on the side of the fiendish and infernal work prescribed by this pope for the defenders of papal sovereignty!

But the healing of the schism to which the pontificate of Martin V. led did not put an end to the corruptions of popes, prelates, or priests. God seems to have permitted these to continue during the remainder of the fifteenth century, and into the sixteenth, in order that the Christian world might realize how far the papacy had departed from the teachings and practices of the apostolic age, and be prepared for the ushering—in of the Protestant Reformation. Notwithstanding that torrents of blood were shed, and the fires of the terrible Inquisition were kindled, and gibbets and scaffolds were erected wherever the papacy had power, God did not design that the world should be longer ruled by depraved popes and priests; and, therefore, by the consummation of that great event, he marked out for it new roads to happiness and prosperity, and to Christianity fresh triumphs in more peaceful fields. And thousands who had before felt the crushing weight of papal oppression, and groaned under the burden, enlisted under the banner of religious freedom, which has been borne onward and upward, through terrible trials, until at last it floats in front of the Vatican at Rome, despite the curses and anathemas of Pope Pius IX., who, that it might again be trailed in the dust before him, invites another crusade, revives the canon of the Lateran Council, and gnashes his teeth in desperate rage, because there is no king upon any throne to do his bidding, and because mankind will not tamely submit to the pressure of his heel upon their necks.

By the proclamation of his sovereignty, his infallibility, and his omnipotence, he leaves no room to doubt that he desires to turn the Christian world back from its progressive advancement into the terrible condition from which the Reformation raised it, and by the substitution of terror, hatred, and intolerance, for love, charity, and toleration, to will again universal supremacy for the papacy. To do this, he would enslave all peoples who will not obey him, destroy all governments wherein the people have power, abrogate every law in conflict with papal enactments, restore the universal reign of kings, and establish a Holy Empire, with ecclesiastical supremacy, upon the ruins of all popular government.

Continued in The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XVIII. Resistance to Civil Power.




International Court To Investigate Pope Leo’s Complicity In The Ritual Murder of Children And The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi

International Court To Investigate Pope Leo’s Complicity In The Ritual Murder of Children And The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi

By Kevin Annett

(This is a re-post from https://murderbydecree.com/2025/05/17/international-court-to-investigate-pope-leos-complicity-in-the-ritual-murder-of-children-and-the-disappearance-of-emanuela-orlandi/

Eyewitnesses saw Leo/Robert Prevost at Ninth Circle sacrificial ceremonies as early as September 1978

BREAKING NEWS: Saturday, May 17, 2025

Rome and Brussels:

The court that prosecuted Pope Benedict and forced him from office is launching a criminal lawsuit against ‘Pope’ Leo XIV/Robert Prevost, charging him with complicity in murder, criminal conspiracy, and crimes against humanity.

The case against the Bishop of Rome is based on new evidence linking him to the ritual rape and murder of children as a newly ordained priest, and to the torture and disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi on summer solstice of 1983.

Investigators with the International Common Law Court of Justice (ICLCJ) have interviewed a former participant in the Ninth Circle cult as well as a victim-survivor of its grisly rituals. Both witnesses claim that Robert Prevost participated in the killing of children as part of his induction into the cult.

The witnesses state that Prevost was also present at the rape, torture and subsequent disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi on June 22, 1983 in a chamber beneath the Vatican.

The Court has obtained corroborating Vatican archival evidence consisting of a “log” of the details of all Ninth Circle ceremonies held in Rome since 1870. This record confirms Prevost’s presence at these events in September 1978 and June 1983.

According to the Court Prosecutor,

“Apparently the new pope Leo, Robert Prevost, was inducted into the Ninth Circle soon after his ordination as a priest, in September 1978, the same month that the former Pope John Paul I was murdered in the Vatican. Prevost’s induction into the cult occurred at midnight on October 16, 1978 in a sub-basement catacomb beneath the Vatican. During that initiation, the newly appointed Pope John Paul II presided at the ritual killing, dismembering and cannibalizing of a four-year-old Italian boy.

“Prevost was also present on June 22, 1983 when Emanuela Orlandi was kidnapped by Vatican agents, raped and tortured by Ninth Circle members, and then taken to Germany to be sexually trafficked and possibly sacrificed.

“Like every Roman pontiff, Robert Prevost was chosen as pope from a select stable of Ninth Circle members who have been groomed by the cult for years and have proved their loyalty to its carnage.”

In addition, the Court will be investigating Pope Leo’s links to Catholic-run child trafficking and killing cults in Canada, America, Peru, and Argentina, including those connected to the deceased Pope Francis/Jorge Bergoglio.

The Court will convene on Monday, June 2, 2025 under the Law of Nations and with the participation of international jurists. That same week, the Court Prosecutor will present lawful Summonses to ‘Pope Leo’ and his accomplices to appear before the Court for arraignment when the trial begins on Monday, September 1, 2025.

Regular public and media briefings on the Prevost case will be issued by the Court during the summer and prior to the trial’s commencement.

The Court is offering rewards and immunity from prosecution to any persons with information or evidence that leads to the criminal conviction of Robert Prevost/‘Pope Leo XIV’ under international law.

The Court can be contacted at [email protected] . 

Issued by the Press Office of the International Common Law Court of Justice on Saturday, May 17, 2025

A young Emanuela Orlandi in front of Pope John Paull II/Karol Wojtyla, her rapist and trafficker

A young Emanuela Orlandi in front of Pope John Paull II/Karol Wojtyla, her rapist and trafficker

See: Emanuela Orlandi, new revelations by Mehmet Ali Agca: “The kidnapping was an internal fact of the Vatican”

Schematic of Vatican Grottos and the site of Ninth Circle sacrificial ceremonies involving each pope since at least 1870: The killings occur in Chamber U, “The Tomb of Lucifer’) :




Pope Francis And The Horrors of the Catholic Church – By Kevin Annett

Pope Francis And The Horrors of the Catholic Church – By Kevin Annett

On May 19th a friend in Argentina sent me some shocking YouTubes that link Pope Leo to child trafficking! The accuser, Kevin Annett, is a man I never heard of before. I try to be very careful about what I post on this website and so I asked my friend for resources that confirm Mr. Annett’s testimony. But the other night when my wife and I listened to the first part of a four-part series from Kevin Annett about what he had to say about Pope Francis, I became convinced that he is telling the truth and that it is something I must share. I am posting this article first before I share what Mr. Annett says about Pope Leo because I think it will credibility to his testimony about the current pope. Even just by transcribing the YouTube video for this article has led me to resources that confirm his testimony.

Kevin Annett’s bio: About Kevin Annett

Partial Transcription

Shaun Attwood: Good evening, everybody. I am absolutely delighted to have our friend of the channel for about five years now, Kevin Annett, back on.

Earlier today, we did a revisit of Kevin’s content that we’re allowed to show on YouTube. We had a three hour marathon and so many people have got questions for you, Kevin, and they were just mind blown by your personal experience, by your level of research into the pope, into the Vatican, into the horrors of the royal family and the collaborations, the genocide, et cetera, especially in Canada and Kamloops. So we have got all of Kevin’s links in the description box. Please support his important work.

And, you know, he’s over the target when he’s had assassination attempts, poisoning attempts on his own life. He’s kept us abreast of those developments over the years. I’ve not seen Kevin for a bit.

It’s since Trump got in power that YouTube has eased off on what we can say a little bit. Let’s not go overboard. And hopefully this this live stream will not be wiped off the face of the earth like many of other Kevin’s were when there was extremely heavy censorship on us previously.

Now, Kevin, perhaps a lot of the viewers are not familiar of your work and don’t know who you are this evening because we’ve got a lot more viewers now. Before we get into the death of the pope and the, you know, the consequences of that, could you just explain your history? You know, you were a man of the cloth yourself and you became an activist, et cetera.

Kevin Annett: Well, 30 years ago now, I arrived as a Protestant minister on the West Coast of Canada with a young family. And I found quickly that a lot of children were going missing, Native children and that many Native children had died in the local what they call residential schools. There were death camps where half the children never came back.

And over the years, not only after getting fired and blacklisted and defrocked proudly from the United Church of Canada, I started a campaign that eventually forced of the truth, forced the pseudo apology in 2008. But it also sparked an international movement around setting up common law courts, helped force Ratzinger (Pope Benedict) out of office in 2013. You know, and so it’s it’s mushroomed all over the planet because we’re facing the same crime, the same kind of concealment of these killers in high places.

A lot of that is in https://murderbydecree.com/. You can read the history.

And what’s relevant for today, one of my 28 books, (shows his book Dethroning A Rogue Power: Why the Vatican must be denied membership and presence at the United Nations and in the world community), this one you can get on Amazon. It’s all the reasons why the Vatican is a criminal power. And it gives you a lot of juicy information for people need more background on that.

Shaun Attwood: And link is in the description box for that. You can watch Kevin’s of a broadcast as well. So, Kevin, you know, I mean, you’ve been researching this stuff for so long. As soon as I saw the news about the death of Pope Francis, it’s like your face just popped up right into my head. I mean, how how did you feel when you saw this news?

Kevin Annett: Well, frankly, I was disappointed that the guy wasn’t arrested and put in jail, he’s already being criminally convicted for his participation in these various child trafficking and killing activities, including when he was a bishop in Argentina, where there’s an interesting connection between him and the queen of the Netherlands, Máxima Zorreguieta, where they’ve been paying money to each other for the last I think it’s over 10 years now. And because they know each others sordid history in Argentina, her father and he were both part of the military junta. They were killing a lot of people where Bergoglio turned a blind eye, but he was also directly involved in these Ninth Circle cult activities.

As a matter of fact, we just posted on my Telegram site evidence that forced Ratzinger out, in which this woman, Toos Nijenhuis, who was raised in this Ninth Circle cult, saw Ratzinger and a guy called Bishop Alfrink from Utrecht, Holland, torturing the deaf children in a castle in Belgium. And she described in grisly detail that, but also in other recordings we have too, she described seeing Archbishop Bergoglio, i.e. Pope Francis, at these same events.

Apparently this Ninth Circle cult participation in it is mandatory for anyone wishing to become pope. So, you know, that’s kind of apropos to what we’re experiencing today with his death.

Shaun Attwood: Could you explain, Kevin, because you’re familiar with all this terminology, what the Ninth Circle is?

Kevin Annett: According to Vatican documents and eyewitnesses who were raised in the cult, it refers to the Ninth Circle of hell. In Dante’s Inferno, Dante Alighieri, the Italian poet who actually was an insider with the Vatican, described there being nine levels of hell. And at the ninth level, where Satan resides, is where people go when they betray the sacred trust. So, like the trust of a child, for example.

And it’s referring to this cult where children are brought in ritually tortured, raped, and killed, and then they’re cannibalized because, and the body part’s eaten, because it’s believed, like in the Catholic mass, that by consuming the blood and the body of the innocent, whether Christ or a child, you’re given eternal life. It’s really the same mindset, and it’s also used to entrap politicians and judges. We’ve interviewed people who have, you know, gone through that.

Unfortunately, if you go into this in any detail, you tend to disappear or get attacked. You know, a lot of our witnesses have gone missing, you know, especially in Europe, where it’s so prominent, right?

Shaun Attwood: So, Kevin, are you suspicious about the timing of the announcement of the death of the Pope?

Kevin Annett: Well, it’s interesting. Yeah, I am, because if you go back to just two years ago, if you remember, Bergoglio, Pope Francis, came to Canada under the guise of issuing apologies to all of their tens of thousands of murdered children. But in fact, as we proved, he went up to, on the west coast of Canada, a super port called Prince Rupert, which is pretty much Chinese-owned now. The Chinese have pretty much bought up all the oil and gas in northern Canada, but they’ve done that with Vatican funding. And what’s interesting is when Bergoglio went to this meeting, the purpose of it was to sign an agreement with China to underwrite their buying up of resources all over North America and buying up the infrastructure and everything, underwriting them for almost a trillion dollars every year.

The guy who brokered that was the present secretary of state, Pietro Parolin, who’s one of the prime candidates to be the next, bishop of Rome. Parolin is very pro-China, Bergoglio wasn’t. And they forced his compliance by blackmailing him about his Ninth Circle activities and his relationship with the queen of the Netherlands, Máxima Zorreguieta.

So all along he was trying to straddle the fence between the pro-China faction. A lot of the Vatican money is now going into the BRICS Alliance or China and the West. So the fact that it’s happening now, I don’t think it’s accidental because it’s reached a point now with what’s going on with the tariff war and the trade war.

There’s different ideas about what that’s all about, but it definitely involves Vatican money, Vatican bank money and their move into the China faction. So, I think he might have just been too much of an impediment anymore to that deal going through.

We know that, living here on the West Coast of Canada, you see it all the time. The Chinese are not only buying up everything, but their troops are operating openly, all especially in the northern areas where the liquid natural gas sites are, which they’ve all grabbed. So, it’s all about money and politics, as always, right?

…I don’t really pay much attention to who’s the figurehead (the pope) because the first source of power in the Vatican is the College of Cardinals and their banking interests. About 80% of all the bank deposits in the world are channeled through the Vatican bank. And they’re, they’re the guys who dictate, I mean, the Pope has no power. Look at Francis. He didn’t even live in the Vatican. He would make statements and then the College of Cardinals would contradict them.

So, I mean, it’s not like the figurehead is that important. He’s just there to keep, the, the sheep in line and, create the illusion that there’s such a thing as Vatican reform.

The Vatican is one of the largest investors in not only big pharma, but the global arms industry. You know, it’s the largest small arms company in the world, Beretta limited, in Italian arms. They fund all the wars all over the planet.

The problem with religion is that it programs people to believe that some guy on earth is more holy than somebody else. And they know what’s best for you. And you know the old saying: absolute power corrupts absolutely. That was actually a statement by a British politician, Lord Acton. And he was referring to the Vatican, which is something left out of the history books.

When the Pope declared himself infallible in 1870, his reaction to that was, well, that’s just man playing God. And it’s the greatest threat to humanity in the world is somebody being above the law, which the Vatican effectively is.

The thing about the Catholic Church is that the descendant of the Roman Empire, not of the Christian Church. Even the terms used for the Pope, Vaccari Christi, the one who replaces Christ, Maxima, the Pontifex Maximus, the great bridge between heaven and earth, that was the title of the Roman Emperor, so all of these, it’s Christ is supposed to be the head of the church, not a man, whether it’s the king in England or the Pope in Rome.

And so it’s not so much Christian religion as a neo-pagan emperor worship cult, founded directly on Rome. So, and, that’s why they have Christ hanging on the cross. They murdered Jesus, replaced him with the Pope. I mean, when you read the history and use common sense and look at the way they act in the world, all of that is true, but you’ve got to get past that mind fog that even atheists have when it comes to do with the Church of Rome.

The amount of money the Vatican has access to is in the trillions. It’s a huge amount. Like I say, they’ve got most of the deposits of the world, but they also have financial concordats, which are agreements, treaties with most of the countries in the world where your tax money is being channeled right into the Vatican bank without you even knowing it. And then there’s the billions brought in every year from the collection plates and all their corporate investments.

They’re not allowed to have tax-exempt status if they don’t give 100% of their revenue to charitable or religious purposes, yet here they’re buying Exocet missiles for military dictatorships. I mean, they’re allowed to get away with murder because they’re partners in crime with the state and the big money that have always been, kind of the evil trinity behind genocide and war and all that stuff.

(A question to Kevin if he thinks the Church and other groups bought the presidency for Donald Trump, and if so why.) Financially and politically, all roads lead to Rome, right? I mean, when I was there first time, back in 2009, one of the senior senators came to me and he said, well, you have to understand the mafia and the banks, Vatican Bank and the politicians and the Pope, they’re all the same people. And their main concern is buying all the politicians, keeping them aligned. Every political party in Europe is funded with Vatican Bank money and in America. So, what would be the interest of setting up an oligarch who’s trying to assume power, whether it’s in America or Russia or wherever. It is completely in line with Vatican corporatist thinking, which is there’s one emperor figure and everybody goes along with it. And you don’t have dissent. You don’t have people governing themselves. That’s a subversive American idea, that people don’t need leaders. They can govern themselves in their own communities. So, it’s all coming from that mindset that’s thousands of years old, of emperor worship. And it just plays out in different forms.

If there’s a pope that’s out of line, they just kill him. Remember what happened to Pope John Paul I in 1978. He was a silly little boy, he did things like try to abolish the papal procession where you carry the guy on their back. He started an investigation into the Vatican Bank and 28 days later, he was dead. It goes back to ancient Rome. You just get rid of the person, right?

Unless you want to use them. And so I make an example of like what the United Church did with me. They just destroyed my life publicly. The only public defrocking of a ministry in church history to say, look what we can do to you, this guy. And so, there’s different strategies involved, but normally they don’t like to create martyrs. They want to just get people afraid of certain people, certain issues, certain ideas. You don’t get into that position of authority unless you’re a part of the whole mess.

Like I said, about the ninth circle, every Cardinal, every Pope since at least the 17th century, the Jesuits, I believe, set them up, set up this Ninth Circle. The evidence points to that. So it’s been around for centuries and that’s, everybody’s in the club.

Shaun Attwood: Well, there’s a question here that ties into that. And it says that every president visits the Vatican. What’s the significance of that?

Kevin Annett: Like I said, all roads lead to Rome. And it was interesting because John Adams, one of the founding fathers, the second US president said that popery and liberty are opposed. If the Roman Catholic church has a presence in America, the Republic is over because the two can’t coexist. They’re based on two totally different ideas of law and government.

In that sense, the American Republic isn’t around anymore because they always pay lip service to Rome, the Pope. And it isn’t just because of all the Catholic voters, because 90% of American Catholics don’t support Vatican policy on things like birth control and other things. So it’s because of the money and, and the political power that brings, right?

Shaun Attwood: Pope Francis was considered to be contemporary progressive. Do you think we will see more forward thinking and calls for tolerance by the Vatican in the next appointed Pope?

Kevin Annett: No, because the idea, that’s just window dressing and people can’t look at the window dressing, but the thing behind it, the so-called progressive Pope Francis came to America in 2017 and beatified, that is turned into a saint, a guy called Junipero Serra, who was a missionary who had worked to death over 100,000 native people in California. And Bergoglio says, “we are impressed and inspired by his zeal.” Okay, so let’s turn a genocidal maniac, let’s turn him into a saint and praise him. That’s progressive.

I mean, the point is the mentality is the same. If you’re not one of us, we have the right to kill you. I mean, the Vatican going back 2000 years, it was a basis of European genocide, that whole idea. So let’s not try to paint him or any of these people in a way that they’re not.

If you look at who is made a saint, it’s always somebody who served the Vatican in some way, usually a hatchet man like Thomas More in England. The point is, who are they serving? And the way it’s made is the College of Cardinals appoints somebody and just says this man we have decided, ranks beatification. I’m not up on Catholic theology, because it repulses me and, the whole belief system. But I understand that it puts them in, people literally believe that this person can then intervene for you from on the other side, like, if you pay enough money, you can pray your relative out of hell.

It’s like, but apparently when somebody said when they’re in the Vatican Museum, they said, apparently God doesn’t like cash, he only takes credit cards. So you kind of imagine heaven being this big bank, right? I mean, people are dumb enough to believe this, because they’ve never grown up. And they’re thinking they’re always looking for the father figure to lead them.

All these different terms, and even the term Pope, Papa, Father, neuro linguistic programming, he’s a father of everyone. Really? I thought God is. You’re led around by the nose if you let them define the terms and the reality of what’s going on here.

People are all coming to the same idea at the same time. That is, we have to govern ourselves. You can’t trust any institution or any authority figure, no matter how much they beguile you. Make your own common law assemblies and courts, bring in your own laws, enact them.

We’ve been doing that in different countries. And in Canada with Republic of Kanata, we’ve nullified COVID orders and kept tax money in the community. But it also means spiritual reclamation.

And I’ve just published another book on that called Governing Ourselves, a manual on political, personal and spiritual sovereignty. And I go into a lot of that in that book. So that’s another one to get on Amazon.

Shaun Attwood: What are the main changes, differences between Catholicism and Christianity?

Kevin Annett: Well, like I say, in my belief, a Christian is someone who thinks that Christ is the head of their gathered community of believers called a church, right? But the Catholic church doctrine says, no, the pope is Christ on earth, literally. So that means a blasphemous idea that you can elevate one man above God. And in England, the Anglicans, Episcopalians believe that the king, the monarch is the head of the church.

That’s why a lot of my ancestors got burned at the stake and had to come to North America to get away from man-made religions posing as Christianity. So I think, like I say, there is a new kind of reformation happening where people are going back to the source and going back to their scripture, their own faith, realizing we don’t need churches to practice our faith, especially when they’re genocidal and have blood on their hands and are criminally convicted.

Shaun Attwood: Cathy says, why is it okay to bash Catholics? I’m a Catholic, Cathy, and I was an altar boy, actually. So we’re not bashing all Catholics. We are exposing the corruption at the top of the pyramid. Is that right?

Kevin Annett: Yeah. It’s not about attaching yourself to a church and then having to defend it. It’s about, isn’t a child’s life more important than church doctrine or church finances? Because there’s a policy in the Catholic church that every Catholic is expected to abide by or you get excommunicated, thrown into hell, which I don’t believe, but Catholics believe that. Why? If you report a child rapist, nobody has to report child rape, not even to tell the police. And that means as a Catholic, you’re involved in a global criminal conspiracy to protect child rapists. That’s just the law. So the Catholic church sets up their own legal system in every country alongside the existing legal system. And they expect people to defy the laws, the child protection laws of their own country, and help child rapists. I mean, if people can live with that, live alongside that, and think that has something to do with Jesus Christ and the rights of children, then you have no excuse when it happens to your child.

So we say to people, Catholic churches are not safe places for children. Get them out, form your own community. I know Catholic priests who have split off and formed their own congregations because they don’t want to give money to Rome. There was a movement in Ireland, not in our name, a Catholic, Dyson and Catholic priests who are doing that.

So do it yourself. Don’t rely on a blood-soaked, money-soaked system calling itself a church.

Shaun Attwood: What is the point of politics and religion when so many children go missing every year? It’s not a priority for them, is it?

Shaun Attwood: Well, no. The abuse of children is a foundation of religion and politics. It’s how you keep people in line. You traumatize them at a young age, and then they’re afraid even to think against, let alone act against, any authority. I see this on native reservations all over North America. You threaten the children, and everybody does what the chief in council and the government and big money says. So that’s why in Canada, the mandatory sentencing for child rape is only six months. Yet it’s two years in prison for owning a marijuana plant, two years, six months for raping a child.

So children do not matter in practice in this legal system. So that’s why it’s so hard. This campaign for 30 years now, it’s like trying to move a mountain. People don’t care about this. I know individuals care about what happens to children, but don’t expect the political or legal system to back up, or the religious system, because they all profit from it. The Catholic Church is one of the biggest child trafficking agencies in the world. I mean, the facts speak for themselves. You just look into a bit, and you’ll find all this is true.

Shaun Attwood: A few people have asked whether they can watch Deliver Us From Evil. I’m not sure. Just go on Google, put, where can I watch Deliver Us From Evil? If you do that, there’s a few things called Deliver Us From Evil, but you’re looking for the 2006 American documentary film that explores the life of Irish Catholic priest, Oliver O’Grady. He did his sentence, got out, did more, back in now. Oh, it’s disgusting. They bring in these high-priced lawyers, and all they do is they move him 20 miles away. They promise the parents this isn’t going to happen again. They move him 20 miles away, and it just never ends. It’s disgusting.

Kevin Annett: Like I said, it’s a policy, Crimen sollicitationis. It was passed in 1929 by the Vatican, and it says you have to protect child rapists and not tell the police. Look it up. It’s in murderbydecree.com in one of the appendix, in the appendices at the back. We’ve reprinted it.

Shaun Attwood: Is that because they want to protect their own brand, and they feel if these guys get convicted, it’s going to look bad on them?

(This file is longer than 30 minutes. Go Unlimited at TurboScribe.ai to transcribe files up to 10 hours long.)

Kevin Annett: Oh yeah, I mean definitely it’s about protecting the money too, they don’t want the lawsuits. And it’s all about protecting the money and the public image. That’s why when we, in Canada, when we started occupying churches on Sunday morning and threatened the money in the collection plates, and they started talking about apologies and investigations, not before that.

Shaun Attwood: So Casey says, was Pope Benedict forced to step away?

Kevin Annett: Yeah, we had brought a case in an international criminal court of justice, served him and others with the evidence we found about, Vatican leading genocide in Canada and ongoing child trafficking.

Five days before he resigned, the Spanish government sent a diplomatic note to the Secretary of State in the Vatican saying if Benedict came to Spain he could face arrest. Based on that evidence I mentioned earlier, which is on my telegram site, showing that he directly participated in Ninth Circle ceremonies and killed children. And as soon as that came up, the Spanish government threatened to release that. Five days later he resigned. First time in 600 years a Pope had done it. No coincidence at all, right?

Shaun Attwood: Which ties into a question which was asked earlier actually about the Ninth Circle as to whether any of the criminal acts had been investigated or prosecuted.

Kevin Annett: There have been attempts to do that and they always get shut down, always. There were several attempts to stop, and we had success actually in Montreal and just outside Brussels on two occasions we were able to actually stop Ninth Circle ceremonies. Because you get the information and you get it out there and there’s honest cops that want to do the right thing, but it can cost them their life like it did the Ottawa policeman who, Kal Ghadban, who investigated it. Then he was found dead in the police station the next week of suicide when he was a decorated policeman and a happy family man. They don’t mess around these guys, right? That’s more of the same crime, right?

Shaun Attwood: If they’ve got trillions, if they’re worth trillions, they can do anything, can’t they? So how do you fix the fact they traffic in shame? Can they make themselves relevant again?

Kevin Annett: No, because that’s all based on a rotten idea, which is that we know what’s better than you. To me, if you don’t believe in emperor worship, then there’s no way you can be a Catholic, because it’s just a variation on that idea.

So you see, you can take the words, talk is cheap, especially from a pulpit, right? You can spout all the words you want, but what do you do every day to uphold human dignity and defend human life? One of the reasons the Catholic church is against abortion is because it cuts into their profit margin. They actively traffic newborn babies. There’s a thing called the Baby for Adoption Protocol in Catholic hospitals all over North America and probably all over the world, but we’ve documented it here.

They have a list from adoption agencies and foster homes, a list of the number of babies they need. We’ve talked to young women this has happened to, young Catholic girls who get pregnant. The priest and their parents convinced them to give up the child in utero, signing away the baby. The baby’s then trafficked. You know, they make lots of money.

I’ve spoken to people in Spain. This happened under the Franco dictatorship. They would traffic the children of political prisoners. Bergoglio, Pope Francis, who just died, he did that in Argentina. That’s why he went from being a priest to the head of the Jesuits in just 19 years. Actually, it was shorter. I think 16, but anyway, because he was doing that.

The military junta would control their opposition by grabbing their children, and the Catholic church made billions out of this, and they still do. So, where it is the dignity of the child and what does Jesus Christ come into any of that? Remember what Christ said, his prescription for anyone to harm a child, tie a millstone around their neck and throw them in the nearest ocean. Well, should we enact that, folks?

It’s a culture of secrecy. Religion is the best vehicle for crime because, A, nobody would suspect, they’re talking about the love of Jesus! They wouldn’t be trafficking children, would they? Well, the bigger the child rapist in town, the more sterling reputation he has to cover up what they’re really doing, and that applies especially to religion.

There has to be one law for everybody. That’s why any of these churches that do these crimes, they shouldn’t have tax-exempt status. They shouldn’t have diplomatic status like the Catholic Church has at the UN. There has to be one law for everybody, or we live under tyranny. If you’re a child rapist, you know that you can become an ordained Catholic priest and you’ll never be harmed. You can rape away, traffic children, law will never touch you. That’s pretty much the case.

Shaun Attwood: We’ve seen it over and over again, and last week we had a lady on who was brutalized by the Catholic nuns in Ireland. That was a hell of a story as well.

All right, so Sky wants to know, well, let me preface this. It’s a very long answer to this, Sky, that Kevin’s got, and we did have three hours of Kevin’s interviews on the channel this afternoon. You can get it in much more detail. Perhaps you can give a condensed version to this question. Can Kevin talk anything about the orphanage in Canada? I think it was in 1961 when the Queen visited there. I remember him talking about it before, I think, a long time ago.

Kevin Annett: You mean about the Queen abducting those children? That was October 1964, and my friend who’s now dead, William Coombs, witnessed it. She took 10 children. They were never seen again. That’s one of the reasons she was subpoenaed, to come to the same common law court case that forced Ratzinger out of office, because it’s common for these things to happen. In fact, we went into it further and discovered that that eight of the 10 children had died.

Two of them were taken back to England and used in Ninth Circle ceremonies in Carnarvon Castle in Wales. That’s according to one of King Charles’s own security advisors, Major Johnny Thompson, who then put a contract out on William Coombs. That’s why he was killed, arsenic poisoning in St. Paul’s Hospital.

There’s lots of this evidence out there. The problem isn’t lack of evidence, it’s where do you take it? How do you put the system on trial? How do you defend children when it’s a policy to traffic and torture and murder them?

Shaun Attwood: Yeah, go back to all the ancient religions, they would do that, wouldn’t they? To the kids, to get the harvest, the crops growing, and things like that.

Kevin Annett: Well, it’s interesting you mentioned that, because we know about Moloch, the fire god in ancient Canaan, you would throw your firstborn into it. I’m sure people back then who were challenging that were accused of bashing Molochites, because they dared to confront the child sacrificial ceremony that was necessary for the economy, right? The Ninth Circle ceremonies often happened on what’s called the Feast of Frelja and Terminella, which were ancient Roman festivals where they would sacrifice animals and children to ensure the crop. This is between February 22nd and 24th. That’s often satanic points. Of those days in the month, especially early in the year, you’ll often find satanic rituals going on. So these are ancient practices.

Shaun Attwood: Yeah, and we interviewed a guy, I think it was last year, who managed to get inside Moloch at Bohemian Grove. He got a lot of threats after that.

Kevin Annett: Well, the thing is, Sean, you can’t operate in the world of big money or politics or religion without encountering this. That’s why the idea that one of these people who are up in the elite are going to save all of us is a fallacy. I mean, people play that off to gain support and money all the time for themselves, but they’re in the club and you’re not in it. It’s time we all unite across all these divisions and stop these killers, child killers.

Shaun Attwood: So Laureen wants to know, what do you think was the purpose of Vice President J.D. Vance’s visit to the Vatican?

Kevin Annett: Just to guarantee loyalty. I mean, who knows? That’s the point. You don’t really know what’s being done. You’re allowed to see certain things. It doesn’t mean it’s really what’s going on.

Same reason Biden went to Rome. Because don’t forget, it comes down to money. The Vatican Bank money is going to China. Could be about that, could be about, like what I mentioned earlier, the Vatican Bank underwriting the economic takeover of North America by China. Not just resources, but what’s called the road and belt initiative. Tell you, driving down the highway in Canada, there’s a sign, it’ll say $85 billion road construction. Hello? $85 billion for road construction? This is massive restructuring of the transportation. And you get it all over the world. China’s buying up the trains, the seaports, but 90% of the containers in Seattle and Vancouver port are all owned by China. So I’m sure that him going to Rome has something to do with that. Working on deals.

Shaun Attwood: Seager wants to know, Kevin, have you had any supernatural, unexplainable experiences?

Kevin Annett: Yes, I have. And I don’t talk about them because I don’t think people would believe them. But I can tell you one thing that happened, which was kind of interesting. And this was in the height of doing, when I was expanding over to Europe and we began to set up the tribunal. I was set up to be killed in Vancouver one night because I do a lot of street work there, street ministry when I was younger and people don’t know me. So this native woman said, Kevin, I need your help. I’m being evicted. And I went into her place and it was a setup because there were two guys there with a knife waiting and I would have been dead.

And I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. I’m very cogent. The next thing I knew I was out on the street. Don’t ask me how. I didn’t black out but I was just out on the street. I wasn’t there anymore. And I got the hell out of there, of course. But the point is, I don’t have an explanation for that. I don’t try to put any kind of label on it. I just know that when you’re doing the right thing, you’re protected and you don’t give up and you’re not afraid of these people because that’s the main way they control people to greed and fear.

So that’s one example, but there’ve been other things. I took part in exorcisms, including one outside the Vatican just before the tornado hit. October 11th, 2009, I was invited to go to the Vatican, St. Peter’s Square. And it’s funny because when you’re standing in St. Peter’s Square, you’re not allowed to do any kind of protest or ceremony or the Vatican cops arrest you immediately. And that had happened to some native elders before.

So there I am standing in the middle of St. Peter’s Square. I was asked to do a ceremony for the missing children. And then when I was there, I thought, wait a minute, we’re in the heart of the beast here. We need to do some kind of exorcism right here. Get this thing out of here. So I did. I began the first stage of an exorcism, which is calling on the entity, the possessing entity to reveal itself. And these cops were walking by me like I wasn’t there. They were looking right at me and I wasn’t stopped or harassed once. The next morning, about eight o’clock, a tornado hits the center of Rome. First time in 48 years. And that same week, the European press started reporting Ratzinger’s role in ordering bishops to cover up child rape.

So that’s no accident. I mean, it wasn’t me. It was something working through me at that moment, calling out the entity to name itself. And ever since then, this stuff has never stopped. You know, the exposure of this stuff is just constant.

So you’ve got to be in the right place at the right time and just trust that power.

Shaun Attwood: And so the viewers could fully understand the risks you’ve been taking and continue to take. Could you explain the other attempts on your life, Kevin?

Kevin Annett: Well, you mentioned I was poisoned in 2021 in the summer. And that was just before I mentioned it had to do with the Ninth Circle ceremony. We were stopping in Montreal and I almost died from it. I actually went off into a native community and some traditional elders were kind of working on me, withdrawing stuff from me. But it was like a psychic attack as well. So anyway, there was that. There’d been other attempts, you know. Too many to mention, really. And this isn’t just taking my kids and blacklisting me.

I’ll give you an example. Just about six months ago, I was invited by some Vancouver teachers to speak to them about their curriculum and how it doesn’t mention any of the stuff in MurderByDecree.com. They were trying to get around the censorship of the real genocide that happened. I was in that conference about 20 minutes when the principal showed up and told me to leave.

He said, “The Vancouver school board has expressed concern about you being here.” And I said, “Really? Why would that be?” But it’s that censorship is constantly in place, you know. And why would it be, right, if they bought off all the survivors and dealt with the issue? It’s because it’s this ongoing crime they know I’m not going to let up on, right, in exposing this.

So, I mean, I’ve been lucky so far. But the reason I like being on these shows is people need to know this knowledge. If anything did happen to you, they need to carry this on. So that’s my focus now. You know, you find your purpose and you’re invincible in a way, right?

Shaun Attwood: Kevin, we’ve got 30 people a day here in the UK being arrested for social media posts. What’s it got like in Canada? I mean, Trump’s, talking about freedom of speech and it seems that some of the platforms have eased up a bit, but our government has just doubled down the other way.

Kevin Annett: Oh, it gets worse everywhere all the time. And, I mean, I’ll tell you one of the reasons it’s getting worse is with China so openly operating now everywhere here in North America, you can’t really mention that without getting instantly slammed.

One of the things we found out is the so-called deportations are not deportations. A lot of them are people being trafficked into private prisons in America, slave labor. Pam Bondi, who’s Trump’s attorney general, is a former lobbyist for the private prisons. And you’ve got them in England, too. I’ve had my friend Owen was stuck in one and for, what, six weeks without a charge. They make money off them. You know, it’s a cash cow, just like Native people are on reservations.

So, behind the rhetoric of, deportation and all that, that’s not what’s going on at all. It’s the old money game. I mean, Trump International launders money for the Mexican drug cartels, who are the main force in, in trafficking people all over North America.

So, yeah, the fact that a politician would profit from legislation personally, I mean, that’s the game. It doesn’t matter if the Republicans and Democrats are doing it. Everybody does it.

And that’s why we shouldn’t rely on these father figure politicians. We need to just rely on our own common sense and ability to take action ourselves, because it’s not going to come from above, right?

Shaun Attwood: Here’s one from Nikki. In the 1960s, 1970s, the indigenous women in Greenland were being sterilized. Was that a decision of the church?

Kevin Annett: Oh, well, historically, the Catholic Church has been right in the forefront of sterilization of indigenous people. You know, they well, it’s like the relationship between Big Pharma and the churches. They for many years, they fund the theological centers and the churches. And in turn, the churches provide children for drug testing experiments, that not just natives or indigenous people in Greenland, but all over the world, they do that. But the Catholic Church had a particular role in the sterilization, the development of sterilizing drugs, because they owned the companies that had a major interest in companies like Roche, Pfizer, some of the early Nazi pharmaceutical companies had a direct tie to the Vatican Bank.

So yeah, and their policy is, they say, well, pro-life, but just for Catholic, white Catholic folks, although they can’t be too blatant about it, because most of their members now are black, or Asian and black, that part of the world is where most of the members are. So they’ve got to be very discreet about talking about that. But it’s been their long policy to do that and hiding behind a pro-life rhetoric.




The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XVI. Henry VIII. Part 2

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XVI. Henry VIII. Part 2

Continued from Chapter XVI. Henry VIII. Part 1

Although Henry VIII. manifestly designed to build up an independent Church in England, with himself as its head, which should be freed from the spiritual and temporal authority of the pope, and the influence of the new doctrines of English and German Protestantism, yet it is undoubtedly true that he gave important, though undesigned, aid to both. By his persecutions he demonstrated that neither could be suppressed by that means. But as he had learned these from Rome—whose dogmas have, since the False Decretals, long before the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council, always embraced, as a part of the faith, the doctrine that the Church was bound to maintain its organization and power by force, if necessary—he continued them throughout his reign, seemingly unconscious that the papal power was too strong to be immediately broken, and that, while he could torture the bodies of the Reformers, he could neither take away from them the right to think, nor subdue their courage.

The immediate assistance he gave to Roman Catholicism was rendered by maintaining the leading principles of its faith. The English people, as we have seen, had been sufficiently subdued by the power of the hierarchy to become passively submissive to all their commands. Being deprived of the use of the Bible, and shut out from all the advantages of intellectual culture, the masses, though clinging to their ancient liberties with intense affection, had not yet acquired that sense of personality which is absolutely necessary both to the establishment and preservation of popular liberty. They remained, therefore—many from choice, but a larger number from fear—still submissive to the dictation of Rome; while the nobility vacillated from side to side, accordingly as their interest and safety dictated. Those remote from the cities—where the papal exactions were not so directly realized—were the most submissive, because they were the most ignorant, and were kept under the more immediate influence of the monks. Mr. Hallam says that the citizens of London and other large towns “had begun to acquire some taste for the Protestant doctrine;” and continues:

“But the common people, especially in remote countries, had been used to an implicit reverence for the Holy See, and had suffered comparatively little by its impositions. They looked up also to their own teachers as guides in faith; and the main body of the clergy were certainly very reluctant to tear themselves, at the pleasure of a disappointed monarch, in the most dangerous crisis of religion, from the bosom of Catholic unity.” (“Con. Hist. of Engl.,” by Hallam, vol. i., p. 93.)

Upon the minds of this class Henry VIII. made but little impression favorable to his new theories. The belief very properly entertained by them, that the divorce was sought only for the gratification of his passions, rendered them disinclined to acknowledge his supremacy. And the monks, taking advantage of this, were able to keep them comparatively steadfast in their fidelity to the pope. The king having thus left the fundamental features of their religious faith undisturbed, they remained at the close of his reign still under the influence of the monks; while the nobility and many of the higher clergy remained as before, ready to take the strong side—whether papal or Protestant. And thus Henry VIII. did not do to Roman Catholicism half the injury that its advocates pretend; for it cannot be disputed that he left it possessed of great vigor and strength.

What he did for Protestantism may be briefly summed up. He taught the nation that the papal scepter could be broken, and that the power and influence of the hierarchy could be checked, if not terminated, by compelling it to submit to the civil laws of the kingdom, as all other citizens were required to do. He put a stop to the enormous accumulation of wealth in the monasteries, which had so long kept the people in poverty and dependence. He opened the way, without intending it, for the further introduction of German influence and of free thought. He inaugurated measures which led to placing the English Bible in the hands of the people. He taught the people the necessity of not forgetting that they were Englishmen, and entitled to an English nationality without being passive subjects of the “King of Rome,” either by temporal or divine right. And he established a system of measures which, in the end—how ever designed—steadily led them forward to a point of national greatness never surpassed by any people upon earth, ancient or modern.

Protestantism gained strength by these measures, and ultimately gave rise to many of the most cherished and important provisions of the British Constitution. It still holds the people of England true to their own national fame and greatness; and if they have not yet marched fully up to the side of the people of the United States in demanding the control of their own affairs, they have advanced so far toward it, that they no longer fear to threaten royalty with their power, to hold the lash of public rebuke over their aristocracy, and to assert their right to that full and complete protection which now belongs to every free—born Englishman, whether he be a peer in Parliament, a mechanic in his workshop, or a laborer in the field.

But a little while ago, the leading newspaper in England, and of the world, expressed this thought: “There can be no union between the people and the possessors of unjust privileges, and the fight between them must go on until the people have won.” (London Times, October 29th, 1871.)

It is the right to utter sentiments such as this that Protestantism has vindicated, and to which the policy of Henry VIII., unconsciously to him, has led. To this extent, then, has he been made the instrument in the hands of Providence of serving England and the nineteenth century; and because of this his memory should not be held wholly in execration. The elements of character were singularly mixed up in him. His training and education as a papist led him into errors, excesses, and vices which we may condemn, even while crediting him with whatever of good he did. Providence often permits beneficent results to be educed from the evil designs of men. Protestantism would have lived and grown without Henry VIII.; but God raised him up within the pale of the Roman Catholic Church, so that, becoming familiar with its policy and persecutions, he might the more effectually employ its own weapons to destroy its power to harness down the freedom of religious thought.

But Protestantism in England had to gain strength by the gradual progress of the Reformation, which at every step was resisted by the papists with desperate energy. During the reign of Edward VI., son and successor of Henry VIII., several measures were adopted which aided materially the cause of reform, and proportionately weakened that of the papacy. They were far in advance of any existing at the death of Henry. Masses were abolished, and the cup was given to the people in communion. (Ralpin, vol. viii., p. 33.) The jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts was abridged. (Ibid.) Priests were allowed to marly. (Ibid., p. 47.)

But these and other kindred measures only incensed the papists to greater violence; and, to avenge themselves, they engaged actively in stirring up insurrections against the Government. The insurrectionists in Devonshire, moved by the priests and monks, set forth their demands in fifteen articles, and insisted upon the consent of Edward to them. In these they required—what is now required of the people and Government of the United States—”that all the general councils and the canons of the Church [of Rome] should be observed;” the immediate object of which was to restore the temporal power of the pope. They also desired that the mass should be in Latin; that images should be set up; that the priests should pray for souls in purgatory; and that “the people should be forbidden to read the Bible!” (Ibid., pp. 58, 59.)

All these demands being refused, the rebels marched upon and besieged Exeter, which was relieved by the king’s troops, under Lord Russel, when the insurgents were dispersed. (Ibid., p. 60.) Another rebellion was also begun by the papists in Northampton, which was suppressed by the Earl of Warwick. (Ibid., p. 62.)

Edward VI. did all in his power to promote the cause of the Reformation by promptly resisting all these revolutionary measures of the papal party; and so far succeeded that the celebrated Confession of Faith—consisting of forty—two articles— which was the foundation of the present Church of England, was drawn up by Cranmer and Ridley during his reign. (Rapin, vol. viii., p. 85.) This, says the historian, was the last mortal wound given to the old religion.

To Edward VI., therefore, justly belongs the honor of having been the first Protestant King of England; and all true history assigns to him such honesty in the administration of affairs, and such purity of personal motive, that, although he died at the early age of sixteen, and reigned but seven years, he was enabled, by his consistent policy, to leave an illustrious record of his virtues; and it must ever be spoken to his praise, that, youthful as he was, he succeeded in holding in cheek the bad passions which had held their carnival during the reign of his father, and in putting his foot firmly upon the monster of persecution. The rack and the thumb—screw—infernal instruments of the papal Inquisition—were cast aside, and papists were allowed to maintain their religious faith without fear of torture or the scaffold.

Although religious differences may have led to the conviction and execution of his maternal uncle, the Duke of Somerset, yet the young king was constrained to consent to his death because, upon the record of his trial, he appeared guilty of the design to seize upon his own person and the administration of the Government, and for these purposes to raise an insurrection in the city of London. (Ibid., p. 92.)

When he placed his signature to the death— warrant of the Anabaptist Joan Bocher—who was convicted of heresy—he did so with tears in his eyes, yielding rather to the persuasions of Cranmer, who had been trained in the school of Henry VIII., than to his own convictions. And it may be fairly inferred that his assent to the subsequent execution of Van Pare for heresy was obtained by the same influence. But of these executions the papists did not complain on their own account, saying merely that “the Reformers were only against burning when they were in fear of it themselves,” (Ibid., p. 55.(note)) and availing themselves of them to stir up disaffection and insurrections against the Government. (*)

* Lingard admits that the Reformers were persecuted under Henry VIII., and charges against Edward VI. only that he prepared to burn the papists, but not that it was actually done. He says: “It might perhaps have been expected that the Reformers, from their sufferings under Henry VIII., would have learned to respect the rights of conscience. They had no sooner obtained the ascendancy, during the short reign of Edward, than they displayed the same persecuting spirit which they had formerly condemned, burning the Anabaptist, and preparing to burn the Catholic at the stake, for no other crime than adherence to religious opinion.”—LINGARD’S Hist. of Eng., vol. v., p. 227, sixth London ed.

If they remain as blots upon his reign, they still leave it white as snow compared with that of his Roman Catholic father, and only go to prove that in times so stamped as those were with the intolerance of Rome, the principles of Protestantism were necessarily of slow growth; that they had to contend against such combinations as, without providential protection, they could not have resisted; and that when in the end they did supplant the antagonistic principles of Romanism, they removed the most crushing weight of tyranny which has ever rested upon mankind since the beginning of the Christian era.

Edward VI. was supposed to entertain some fears that his sister Mary—daughter of Henry VIII. by Catherine of Arragon, and heir to the throne—would, after his death, lend her influence to the papists, on account of her mother’s influence upon her education. The Duke of Northumberland, taking advantage of this, and probably being the first to suggest it, induced him to set aside the succession of both Mary and Elizabeth—also daughter of Henry VIII. by Anne Boleyn—by the formal assignment of the crown to Jane Grey, daughter of the Duke of Suffolk, who, by the will of Henry VIII., was made next in succession after Elizabeth. This act was manifestly without authority of law; and while it resulted from the ambitious desire of the Duke of Northumberland to get the control of the Government during the minority of Jane Grey—who was his daughter—in—law—the motive, on the part of Edward, was to save the Reformation from overthrow. (Rapin, vol. viii., p. 106.) The result, however, was not what either anticipated.

Lady Jane Grey was one of the most accomplished women in England of her age, only sixteen. She was wholly without ambition, and devoted exclusively to her studies and domestic pursuits. At first she declined the crown with befitting modesty, but finally yielded to the entreaties of the Duke of Northumberland, and suffered herself to be proclaimed queen. This was not considered a triumph by the Protestants, who had no confidence in the duke, he being, as they supposed, influenced entirely by his personal ambition, (Rapin, vol. viii., p. 119.) and ready to rejoin the papists if he could thereby promote his temporal interests. And, besides, he was unpopular with the people, on account of his agency in procuring the death of the Duke of Somerset, who was greatly esteemed. And besides, also, there existed a general impression that the assignment of the crown by Edward was illegally made. The papists, of course, took advantage of all this, and zealously pressed the claims of Mary, on account of her known devotion to the pope and her support “of the most extravagant things in the Romnish religion.” (Ibid., p. 121.)

Mary was proclaimed queen at Norwich, and was furnished with troops by the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, to maintain her right. Many, if not a large majority, of these were Reformers who, before they espoused her cause, obtained from her a solemn promise that, while she would reserve to herself the liberty of professing her own religion, she would leave the religion of the kingdom as she found it, that is, as it was at the close of the reign of Edward VI. (*)

* Mr. Froude refers to the same promise made by Mary, through Renard, the ambassador of Charles V., a promise of which Renard considered it necessary to remind her before she reached London, in order to defeat her purpose of having the funeral ceremonies of Edward VI. conducted according to the Roman Catholic forms. In his letter to Mary, Renard says: “The country dreaded any fresh convulsions, and her majesty should remember that she had instructed him to tell the council that she was suspected unjustly, and had no thought of interfering with the existing settlement of the realm. “— FROUDE’S Hist. of Eng., vol. vi., p. 53.

Whatever may have been her secretly cherished design, they know but little of the history and teachings of the papacy who do not know that it has always regarded such promises as carrying with them no obligation of obedience, but as absolutely void. Innumerable instances are recorded where popes have violated their most solemn promises upon the flimsiest pretexts, and authorized others to do so, alleging, by way of apology, that the interest of the Church demanded it, and that no covenants injurious to that interest were binding.

We have seen this in the cases of the kings who swore to obey Magna Carta. The Council of Constance disregarded the promise of “safe—conduct” given by the emperor to John Huss, although the pope, by the strongest implication, knew of and assented to it. The Third Lateran Council, in one of the canons enacted by it, declared that “they are not to be called oaths, but rather perjuries, which are in opposition to the welfare of the Church and the enactments of the holy fathers.” (*)

* Letter from Bishop England (Roman Catholic), late of Charleston, South Carolina, to Rev. R. Fuller, in their published controversy, entitled “Roman Chancery,” p. 159. This frank concession of Bishop England would seem to render any additional evidence of this statement unnecessary. But there is abundantly more. These are the words of the canon law:

“An oath contrary to the utility of the Church is not to be observed.

“These are to be called perjuries rather than oaths which are attempted against ecclesiastical utility.”—Decret. Gregory IX., vol. ii., p. 358, lib. 2, tit. 24, cap. xxvii., apud CUMMING, in his Lectures on Romanism, p. 72.

That Queen Mary yielded her royal assent to this doctrine is beyond all question. Whether she did it of her own volition, or in obedience to the universal sentiments of the partisans of the papacy, is of no consequence; it is the fact alone that is important. Her first step in that direction was a proclamation qualifying her promise by declaring that she should use no force to compel the adoption of the Roman religion “till all was regulated by the authority of Parliament;” thus indicating the purpose of shielding herself behind that body. (Rapin, vol. viii., p. 134.) This proclamation excited the apprehensions of the people to whom she had made the promise, and they immediately sent to her a petition, praying her “to remember a promise which she had made them with her own mouth.” (Ibid., pp. 137, 138.)

The manner in which this petition was received shows not only the perfidious character of this queen, but how completely she was controlled by the unprincipled hierarchy of Rome, and the low state of morals which prevailed among them. It was haughtily rejected as offensive to royalty, because it reproached the queen with failure of her word! The petitioners were told that “subjects were not to control the action of their sovereigns;” and Dolbe, one of the number who had borne the petition, was set in the pillory. (Rapin, vol. viii., p. 138. Lingard fails to give any account of this transaction probably from prudential motives.)

The mask was then unblushingly thrown aside, and from that time the reign of this false queen was distinguished by some of the most bloody and cruel acts of persecution of which English history gives any account. She did not even spare the innocent Jane Grey, whose head fell beneath the axe of her executioner, for what others had done in her name. A Protestant judge was fined a thousand pounds sterling for ordering the justices of Kent to conform themselves to the laws of Edward, not yet repealed. (Ibid., p. 139.) The prisons were filled with the victims of papal vengeance, and it was soon made apparent that they were to be forced to disavow their Protestantism. Steps were taken, without delay, to provide for the abrogation of “all laws which had been made in favor of the Reformation, and to restore the ancient religion.” (Ibid., p. 142.)

With a view to this, it was resolved to prohibit a free election of the Commons, in order to prevent the return of a majority of Reformers; and thus to avoid any Parliamentary action which should reflect the will of the people. The whole power of the queen was employed for this purpose, and, says Rapin, “all sorts of artifices, frauds, and even violence, were put in practice to carry the election in favor of the court.” (Ibid., p. 142.) Protestant magistrates were removed and Romanists put in their places. The people were intimidated “by menaces, by actions, by imprisonments on the most frivolous pretenses.” (Ibid.) Protestants were not allowed in some places to participate in the election assemblies; false returns were made without scruple; and thus a majority of the Commons favorable to the queen and the pope was obtained.

It did not, of course, take a Parliament thus elected long to repeal all the laws of Edward, and to legalize the persecutions against the Protestants. This accomplished, the queen, through the intrigues of Charles V., was afterward married to Philip of Spain, his son, in order to put the throne of England in a more complete state of dependence upon the pope, and to introduce the system of persecution so long practiced by the Spanish Inquisition, and with which the English people had not yet become familiar. The sequel proved that the real object was, not to convert the Protestants, but to overwhelm and exterminate them. (Rapin, vol. viii., p. 212.)

The whole reign of Mary was, consequently, one of blood. In the last year before her death thirty— nine Protestants suffered martyrdom; and four of these about a week before she died! It is difficult to arrive at a true estimate of the number of her Protestant victims—it being variously stated at from two to eight hundred! (Ibid., p. 213, and note.)

That the object of Philip in becoming the husband of Mary was to obtain control of the English Government, so as to subject the people to the complete dominion of the papacy, there is no earthly doubt. His ruling passion was ambition, and there was no surer method of gratifying it than to become master of England. (“Hist. of Eng.,” by Hurne, vol. iii., p. 410.) “He inherited his father’s vices, fraud and ambition,” and “united to them more dangerous vices of his own, sullen pride and barbarity. England seemed already a province of Spain, groaning under the load of despotism, and subjected to all the horrors of the Inquisition. The people were everywhere ripe for rebellion, and wanted only an able leader to have subverted the queen’s authority. No such leader appeared.” (“Modern Europe,” by Russell, vol. ii., p. 346.)

And why did no such leader appear? All candid historians give the answer. The nobility had become so corrupted that they cared for nothing but to retain their power, which they were ready to do by conforming to the royal will, no matter at what sacrifice of character or conscience. The few of them who dared to maintain their independence, or to defend the right of the people to adopt their own form of religious belief, paid for it with their lives, or escaped miraculously. The bishops who had favored the Reformation were removed, and Romish bishops put in their places; and these last, in a short time—true to the papal policy—became “a power behind the throne, greater than the throne itself.” They were the fit tools of the papacy—filly prepared and ready, not only to dictate to Philip and Mary the bloody work which Rome required to be done, but to do it with untiring alacrity.

A few years before, during the reign of Henry VIII., the pope, Paul III., had entered into an alliance with the emperor, Charles V., the father of Philip, for the extermination of heresy in Germany; or, “in other words,” says Mr. Russell, “for oppressing the liberties of Germany, under pretense of maintaining the jurisdiction of the Holy See.” (Russell, vol. ii., p. 296.) This league—one of the most infamous and accursed in all history—was understood by both the contracting parties to involve the necessity of applying force to put down the hitherto unresisting Protestants, to totally destroy them! That the pope so understood it, is shown by the fact that it bound him to furnish the emperor with twelve thousand foot, five hundred horse, and two hundred thousand crowns, for carrying on the war. He also gave the emperor one year’s revenue of the benefices in Spain, with power to alienate a hundred thousand crowns’ worth of Church lands, to defray his expenses! (Rapin, vol. vii., p. 684; Fox’s “Book of Martyrs,” Philadelphia ed., pp.602, 603.)

Trained in such a school as this, and with such examples for his imitation, no wonder that Philip felt himself charged with the obligation to inaugurate a reign of terror in England—one transcending all the outrages and enormities of Henry VIII. Under the pressure, therefore, of such a system, far the larger part of those who were concerned in the management of the Government and Church in England sunk into ignominious subjection to the joint power of the crown and the papacy; and the people, without some master spirit to guide them, were compelled to submit to the same degradation. Those from whom they had a right to expect encouragement and protection either suffered death at the hands of the public executioner, or were engaged in contriving plans for their greater humiliation. These latter, both peers and bishops, labored “how to qualify and mold the sufferance and subjection of the people to the length of that foot that is to tread on their necks; how rapine may serve itself with the fair and honorable pretense of public good; how the puny law may be brought under the wardship and control of lust and will.” (Milton’s Prose Works, vol. i., p. 17. ) And their efforts were successful, according to the most sanguine anticipations of the pope, of Charles V., of Philip, and of all those who were thirsting for Protestant blood, and were ready to engage in exterminating its possessors.

Cardinal Pole, who had been driven out of England, and had received the protection of Charles V., and who was thoroughly devoted to the papacy, was recalled, and placed in such relations to Queen Mary that he was allowed to mold her policy in reference to both temporal and ecclesiastical affairs. He was governed by instructions from Rome, which, of course, required him to reduce England to the low condition of becoming again a papal province.

In an oration, delivered before Philip and Mary and the whole Parliament, this cardinal, as legate of the pope, spoke of the great love of the pope for England, on account of its having been the first island converted to Christianity; reminded them that this affection was so strong in the mind of Pope Adrian IV. that he gave to King Henry II. “the right and seignioly (the power, rank, or estate of a feudal lord) of the dominion of Ireland, which pertained to the See of Rome;” referred to his conference with the Emperor Charles V., who, he said, “hath travailed most in the cause of religion;” and avowed the purpose of his mission to be the bringing of England into unity with Rome. This, said he, required that all should adhere to the pope as “vicar of God,” who derives his power not from man or the consent of governments, but “from above;” and whose power is both “imperial and ecclesiastical!” And he told them that, in order to bring the nation into subjection to the pope, they must ” revoke and repeal those laws and statutes which be impediments, blocks, and bars to the execution of my [his] commission!” (Fox’s “Book of Martyrs,” pp. 309—312.)

“The pope never interferes with temporal affairs!” constantly declare his followers. But here he stood before the whole nation of England, in the person of his legate, who spoke by his command, and directed such legislation by Parliament as should concentrate all dominion in his hands! Not interfere with temporal affairs!—when he causes his legate to tell the people of England that they ought to become his slaves, because his predecessor, Adrian IV., had given Ireland to them, and made the Irish people their slaves! Not interfere with temporal affairs!—when he points out the very acts and statutes which are to be abrogated and repealed! Not interfere with temporal affairs!—when this great legate, at one of the most critical points in English history tells the king, queen, and Parliament that the power of the pope over the nation comes directly from God, and that it is therefore “imperial and ecclesiastical,” and that it will be for the welfare of their “souls and bodies” that they should obey him!

The legate was obeyed; the pope had his own way; the obnoxious statutes were all repealed; the people were subdued by threats, persecution, and bloodshed; and Philip and Mary did all they could to carry out the infernal league be tween Charles V. and the pope. No matter what else a man did, if he acknowledged the supremacy of the pope, he was rewarded by royal and papal favor. No matter how faithful a Protestant was to all the obligations of citizenship, his religion was crime enough to subject him to torture or death. Philip had brought with him from Spain the passion for torture which the Inquisition had incited there; and the war of extermination was carried on with a thirst for blood such as fills alike the mind of an untutored savage and an intolerant pope.

John Rogers and other martyrs were burned to ashes for the crime of denying the doctrine of transubstantiation, and calling the Church of Rome the Church of Antichrist. (Fox’s “Book of Martyrs,” p.330.) When Bishop Hooper was carried to the stake, the process of burning was so tardy that he died by slow degrees of torture, knocking his breast with his hands until one of his arms fell off, and then with the other till it stuck fast to the hot iron! (Ibid., p.350.) Latimer and Ridley had to be burned to gratify the vengeance of that “papistical monster,” Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor of England. (Ibid., p. 382.) And so horrible were the innumerable cruelties practiced upon the multitude of papal victims, that the blood almost curdles as we read, at this distance of time, the narratives of them. As they stand without example in all history—except in the pagan persecutions of the early Christians, and the Romish persecutions in the valleys of the Vaudois—so there is nothing to save them from universal execration. All that even Lingard can say for them is that “it was the lot of Mary to live in an age of religious intolerance, when to punish the professors of erroneous doctrine was inculcated as a duty no less by those who rejected than by those who asserted the papal authority ” (Lingard, vol. v., p. 227.)—overlooking the important facts that up to the reign of Mary there had been no persecution in England in behalf of Protestantism; that Henry VIII. had persecuted both papists and Protestants, and was never a Protestant in religious faith; and that no single drop of Roman Catholic blood had been shed during the Protestant reign of Edward VI.!

But we have already learned that the persecutions of Protestants in England did not begin with either Mary or Henry VIII. The examples heretofore enumerated show that it was learned by both of them, not alone from some of their Roman Catholic predecessors, but from the direct teachings and faith of the Church at Rome, which were supported by the False Decretals and the additions made to them from time to time, after the adoption of the original forgeries. But these forgeries merely conferred the power to persecute when necessary for the Church: the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council made it a duty, and fixed a penalty for its non—performance. This was manifestly the interpretation given to it by Pope Gregory IX. in his subsequent attempt to execute this canon with all the terrible vengeance it invited. With a view to the extortion of money, he exacted, in England, a tenth part of all the movable goods of the kingdom. (Rapin, vol. iii., p. 303; Cormenin, vol. i., p. 409.) Because the Emperor Frederick hindered the persecution of the Albigenses, and for other reasons, he excommunicated him, and released all his subjects from their allegiance;” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 471.) which proves incontestably that the duty to persecute and exterminate heretics was not only a part of the canon law, but of the doctrinal faith of the Church!

To give the utmost possible strength to the injunction, this same pope, Gregory IX., announced (infallibly[!], of course) the impious doctrine, that “Christians should not regard the sanctity of an oath toward him who is the enemy of God, and who tramples under feet the decrees of the Church!” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 470.) Claiming, as he did, in the most unequivocal manner, the right to govern the world, temporally and spiritually, by virtue of power derived from God, it is not to be doubted that when he sent the code of canon laws into England, during the reign of Henry III., the decree of the Lateran Council constituted a part of it; and that, interpreted by the persecutions of the Albigenses, it was designed to place the duty of exterminating heretics upon the ground that he who did so would thereby serve God and will his way to heaven! It was so understood by Henry IV. more than a hundred years after Gregory IX., when he assured a convocation of the papal clergy, in London, that he was ready to join them in whatever means should be judged proper to extirpate heresy and punish obstinate heretics!(Rapin, vol. v., p. 15.)

Now, when it is considered that this Lateran decree became the canon law in England three hundred years before Luther; that it was enforced against the Lollards more than a hundred years before that time, and when those in favor of reform in the Church were too feeble to attempt persecution in any form; and when it is remembered that it became the law of the Church of Rome by the solemn action of the Twelfth Ecumenical Council and the approval of the infallible pope, Innocent III., and was expressly recognized by another infallible pope, Gregory IX.;(*) and that the Church of Rome requires every act thus performed to be held as unerringly right as if done by Christ himself; then the whole responsibility for the introduction of religious persecution into England unquestionably rests with the popes of Rome and their ecclesiastical and royal subordinates, all of whom, under the influence of such teachings, learned to rejoice when the muscles of their victims cracked under their torture, and their bodies were consumed in the flames!

* By the highest Roman Catholic authority it is said: “In the Fourth Council of Lateran, in 1215, held by his [Innocent’s] authority, the discipline of the Church was regulated by seventy wholesome decrees, or canons, very famous in the canon law.”—BUTLER’S Lives of the Saints, Sadlier & Co.’s ed., vol. x., p. 56 (note).

And thus we see that the persecution of Protestants became legitimated and sanctified in the eyes of the popes, princes, and hierarchy of the Romish Church; and thus did that Church give its high sanction to the persecutions of Mary. And it will ever stand so written in history, whatsoever ingenuity may be resorted to, or falsehood employed, to deny or disguise it. The canons of the Lateran Council still remain the law of the Roman Catholic Church! The pope who made the infamous compact with Charles V. was infallible (!), and therefore could not err! The recent decree of infallibility makes all that he did, and all that every other pope has done in the domain of faith and morals, as unerring as if done by God himself! But the nineteenth century has reason to thank God that there are no more such rulers upon the thrones of Christendom as Charles and Philip and Mary. If there were, the Encyclical and Syllabus of Pius IX. would soon find bloody work for them to do in their dominions.

No royal marriage ever occurred in England more fatal to the happiness and prosperity of the kingdom than that of Philip and Mary. That it was plotted by the pope and Charles V., and that they employed Cardinal Pole to accomplish it, there seems no reason to doubt. It was in manifest opposition to the wishes of the English people, who desired the marriage of their queen to a native prince. It could never have been accomplished, for there was no pretense of affection about it, had not Mary been completely under the control of the papacy and the papists. She was a religious bigot, to so great an extent that she had no will of her own in opposition to the commands of the pope or other authorities of the Church. She may have been sincere in the conviction that it was best for the people that they should be governed in obedience to these authorities, rather than by laws of their own making; but, however this was, she did govern them as if England still remained a Roman province. She permitted the pope, by his legate, to dictate what should and what should not be done. No law was enforced against the wishes of the pope, and everything commanded by him was blindly and faithfully executed. He governed England as if he were the occupant of its throne.

Cardinal Pole was an Englishman, it is true, but the papacy never had a more zealous defender of all its usurpations and oppressions than he was. As the presiding, genius and guiding spirit of the court, he was the papal manipulator of all who had anything to do with the affairs of the Government. He represented the pope directly and immediately, kept him regularly advised of whatever transpired, and obeyed all his edicts with a fidelity and zeal that challenged the admiration of Rome. So that by means of his and the influence of Philip over Mary, her reign was as completely papal, in all its leading features and characteristics, as if the English crown had lawfully rested upon the head of the pope. In all this she was unjust to the nation, and must ever be regarded as a betrayer of its trust. (“History of England,” by Froude, vol. vi., p. 489, etc.)

There is no reason for disguising the fact that Elizabeth, after the death of Mary, persecuted the papists. She, too, had been educated and trained under Romish influences, and before the commencement of her reign had professed the Roman Catholic religion. It is hard to get rid of the influences of education, especially when they have produced intolerance; and in such times as she lived, when everything tended to extremes, but few endeavored to do so; and these few were hidden in the multitude, who floated along with the current, lather than assert any counteracting principles.

If Elizabeth had any special ideas of the duties of a sovereign, beyond those which involved the simple administration of the Government, she acquired them as a sort of family inheritance from her father, and by immediate personal intercourse with Mary. If she had any conception of church discipline or church organization, or of a system of religious faith, it was likewise acquired in the same way. Having learned by such means as these, with the influence of the papal clergy super-added to them, that it was the duty of the custodians of any religious organization to maintain it by force when necessary; this, in other words, being an essential part of the Romish system of religion, when she reached the throne it is not to be wondered at that whatever she felt it her duty to do was done under these influences and according to these principles.

She had to deal with ambitious and proud ecclesiastics, whose hands were yet red with some of the best blood of England, and who had inculcated the necessity of exterminating heretics, according to the Lateran decree, in order to secure the protection of the Church in this life, and eternal happiness in the next. And if, when she found them to be her own enemies and the persecutors of those of her subjects with whom she sympathized, and saw them relaxing none of their efforts to keep the crown of England subject to the disposal of the pope, she struck back at them with their own weapons, what is there very surprising about it, considering all the circumstances and the times? She did persecute papists, cruelly and wrongfully, but she persecuted Protestants also, like her father. She found the papal system relying for its chief strength and support upon the State; and had not advanced so far toward the results designed by the best Protestant reformers as to understand how a new system could be established without the preservation of this principle. Like the papal advocates of the old system, she, too, derived the right to govern directly from God, and not from the people; and, in common with them, desired the union between the Church and the State to be preserved, in order that imperialism should not be endangered. And hence, led on by existing complications, and by motives thus engendered, she aimed her blows at all the enemies of her civil as well as ecclesiastical authority—at Protestants as well as papists. If, therefore, there are victims of her cruelty who will rise up in judgment against her when they shall meet her at the final bar, she can say, as can also Henry VIII., that, unlike the persecutions of her sister Mary, they were not all of one Church— that both Roman Catholics and Protestants fell beneath her royal vengeance!

Let the true distinction be observed. She persecuted Roman Catholics because they denied her ecclesiastical supremacy, and endeavored to snatch the scepter of the kingdom from her hands and lay it at the feet of the pope. She persecuted Protestants because they denied both her ecclesiastical supremacy and her divine right, and inculcated a doctrine which she and her courtiers saw, at a glance, would ultimately dispense with the agency of kings in the management of public affairs. And she entered, with her strong will and unconquerable resolution, upon the task of building up a new system and a new Church, which, while it should gather up the fundamental principles of the old British Christians—almost buried beneath a load of oppression which had existed for nearly a thousand years— should, at the same time, preserve enough of modern Romanism to keep the people in complete subjection to the dominion of kings.

Hence it is easy to see that her persecuting spirit antedated all the Protestantism she had, and was the natural fruit of the papal intolerance to which she had, all her life, been accustomed. She was trained, by both precept and example, in the religious belief that it was ordained of God that the Church and the State should remain united; and, as the undoubted Queen of England, she demanded the recognition, by all her subjects, of her right to govern both. She did not intend that their fealty should be divided between her and the Pope of Rome, or the army of foreign ecclesiastics he had imported into her dominions; but, woman as she was, resolved that the crown should rest exclusively upon her own brow, and that the scepter of absolutism should be grasped by her own hand. When she began her persecutions against the papists, she, like Henry VIII., might have been reconciled to Rome but for the question of supremacy.

But between her and the Puritans there was no point of reconciliation, for the plain reason that their Protestantism struck directly at the foundation of her royal right to govern the conscience and hold it in passive obedience to authority. The Protestantism she desired to build up was mere antagonism to the papacy, mere resistance to the right of the pope to govern England. She understood it to involve, necessarily, the existence of an English episcopacy,—hierarchical, but not Roman—and the maintenance of a Church organization attached to the State, but, unlike that of Rome, subordinate to its laws. Upon these questions there was no common ground of union between her and the Protestantism then struggling for existence, which was striving to unshackle the conscience, and to establish, upon the basis of the old English liberties, the right of free thought and free speech. She, possibly, might not have been disposed to quarrel with the Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Puritans, or Lutherans, upon many of the fundamental principles of their faith, had they been willing to concede her ecclesiastical as well as temporal supremacy; but with her the denial of this was an unpardonable violation of obedience to the crown, although she knew that it had led to the separation from Rome.

In so far as she was influenced by religious motives at all, her chief object was to re-establish the National Church organization of Edward, either upon the basis of the articles then adopted, or such new ones as should give it strength and efficiency enough to cope successfully with its powerful antagonist, the papacy. Her courage, more than her piety, was tried at every step. Multitudes of difficulties and embarrassments crowded into every hour of the controversy. Those immediately around her—with some honorable exceptions—by whom her ecclesiastical policy was directed, were, in the main, governed by inordinate selfishness, and were ready to sacrifice even religion itself to obtain the possession of wealth, power, and station. In these respects they were no improvement upon the Romish hierarchy, to whom the most of them had belonged. They were papists or Protestants, according to circumstances; passing from one to the other with the ease and facility of time—serving politicians. They were Protestants under Edward, papists under Mary, and again Protestants under Elizabeth.

Surrounded by such influences, it is altogether probable that Elizabeth might have been prevailed on by her clergy to accept either a Roman Catholic or a Protestant creed, accordingly as their own personal fortunes were advanced; and that the creed adopted, in so far as herself and her courtiers were concerned, was assented to from no higher motive. As with Henry VIII.,so with her—the question of supremacy merged all others; which shows her persecutions, even more than his, to have grown naturally out of the times and the affairs of her kingdom, as they had been molded by the policy of the papacy. She fell back behind the reign of Mary upon the issue made by Henry VIII. with the papacy; and this led her to abrogate everything that Mary had done concerning religion. And as Henry VIII. had not gone so far as to deny the fundamental principles of the Romish faith which she could not preserve without defeating the project of a National Church in England— she adopted that form of religion which had been established by law during the reign of Edward VI. This was merely Protestantism in an imperfect and undeveloped form; not that which Luther and his adherents had established in Germany, nor that which the Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Puritans, and other non-conformists maintained in England, nor that which now exists in England, Prussia, and the United States. It was a religious system established by law, like the papal system it was designed to supplant, in opposition to the liberalizing tendencies of true Protestantism—of that which has been since developed. It was, in a word, an attempt to constitute a system of imperial Protestantism, constructed after the model of imperial Romanism, its authors being seemingly unconscious of the fact that it contained elements altogether too incongruous for reconciliation and harmony.

Not only, therefore, did Elizabeth strive hard to throw off all the influences left upon the country by the reign of Mary, but she strove equally hard to prevent all those who desired a further and fuller development of Protestantism from disseminating their doctrines among the people. Having to maintain her own supremacy against the papists, and her divine right to govern against the more advanced Protestants, her persecutions, consequently, embraced both these classes. She found ready at hand a system of persecution regularly organized by the hands of the papists, after the Roman and Spanish methods, which came to her as a family inheritance from her sister Mary. And she employed this more furiously, it is true, against the papists than the Protestants, because they were her most powerful and formidable adversaries, and were supported by a Church which had made itself almost omnipotent by ruling the nations and peoples of Europe with imperial grandeur for hundreds of years.

Such a contestant could not be successfully resisted, except by hard blows; and as this Church had made itself great by employing such blows against all its antagonists, Elizabeth did not hesitate to retaliate upon it with its own weapons, to employ its own instruments of torture, to light the fagots around the bodies of its children with the same torch which it had set on fire when the body of William Sawtre was burned under the reign of Henry IV. Hence, her persecutions of the papists were precisely such as were practiced by the papists themselves against the Reformers under Mary and some of her papal predecessors. Hence, also, her persecutions of the non—conforming Protestants were less excusable, because less provoked, and were therefore cruel and merciless. By the former she broke the papal power, and provided thereby for not only the triumph, but the subsequent elevation, of her kingdom, and to that extent was a public benefactor. By the latter she failed to destroy the courage and true nobility of character which belonged to the English people, or to eradicate from their minds the principles of Anglo—Saxon liberty. These principles were providentially preserved, until a system of fully developed Protestantism, as it now exists in the United States, has grown out of them; and this, reacting upon the English mind, is rapidly leading, in that country as it has done in this, to an abrogation of the divine right of kings, and a full recognition of the right and capacity of the people to govern themselves.

Continued in Chapter XVII. Coercive Power of the Church




The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XVI. Henry VIII. Part 1

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XVI. Henry VIII. Part 1

Continued from Chapter XV. The English Barons.

Religious Persecution antedates Protestantism.—Lucius III. and Innocent III. persecute the Waldenses and Albigenses.—The Fourth Lateran Council.—The Third Canon provides for extirpating Heretics, and taking away their Country.—Law of the Church.—Acted upon in the Fifteenth Century by Innocent VIII.—The Practice of Innocent III. under it.—Persecution made a Religious Duty.—Reformation in Germany.—Luther and the Pope.— Henry VIII. and the Pope quarrel about Supremacy, not Faith. Protestants do not assist Him.—The Pope releases his Subjects from their Allegiance.—Their Adherents persecute each Other.—More and Fisher.—Henry VIII. always a Roman Catholic in Faith.—He persecutes Reformers and Papists.—Edward VI. the first Protestant King.—He does not persecute Papists.—Gives the Crown to Lady Jane Grey.—Mary, the Rightful Heir, proclaimed Queen.—Her Promise to the Reformers that they should not be disturbed in their Religion.—She refuses to be bound by her Promise.—The Teachings of Rome.—Mary’s Measures all Papal. Her Persecution of Protestants.— Her Marriage to Philip of Spain.—The Result of the League between Pope Paul III. and Charles V.—Cardinal Pole.—Dictates Policy of the English Government.—Persecutions continue.—Hooper, Latimer, and Ridley.— Elizabeth.—She persecutes both Papists and Protestants.—Is educated in the School of Rome.—Only seeks to substitute Imperial Protestantism for Imperial Romanism.

IT was impossible, in the very nature of things, that the condition of affairs portrayed in the last chapter could long exist in England without some material change. The barons had placed themselves between the people and the king, and were the representatives of principles of civil polity which they could not now surrender without an abandonment of the best interests of the country and their own honor. The Lollards, under the lead of Wycliffe, were similarly situated, as it regarded the principles of religious belief and the affairs of the Church.

Upon one point they agreed; that is, the necessity for reform. The barons were laboring to reform the State; the Lollards, the Church. The barons were not ready to concede that the king was the State; nor were the Lollards ready to concede that the pope was the Church. Such concessions on the part of both of them would have given to absolutism a perfect triumph over all the ancient liberties, and would have left England completely subdued. She would then have been, in fact, a fief of the Holy See, with no claim whatever to an independent national existence. With her Parliament constituted as it then was, subordinated to the king, and with the king subordinated to the pope, the people would have borne the same relations to the papacy that the people of the Papal States did—that of entire dependence. The pope, as a thorough politician, could see all this, and therefore left no possible means unemployed to hold both the barons and the Lollards in subjection. For, whatever else he may have seen, it must have been apparent to him that, unless the reform sought for by each was speedily checked, they would both ultimately reach some common point of union which would make them strong enough to materially weaken both the papal and the kingly power.

As the controversy waxed warmer and warmer, the respective parties became more earnest and aggressive; the barons more determined not to yield; the Lollards more resolved upon Church reform; and the pope and the king more resolved upon keeping the Church and the State so united that their combined power would be sufficient to suppress all free inquiry, and to keep the people in a condition of vassalage.

It was an issue between power and right—the former represented by the pope and the king, the latter by the people, in civil affairs under the lead of the barons, and in the affairs of the Church under the lead of the Lollards. As in all such controversies, power has invariably resorted to force to keep itself in place, so it did in this. This force, however, did not proceed exclusively from the King and Government of England, inasmuch as by this time the influences of the combined opposition had become too great for open resistance by the king and Parliament. But as the pope had assumed to himself the divine prerogative of governing the country, both in its civil and ecclesiastical policy, and held the king in complete subjugation, the Church was relied on as furnishing, through its ecclesiastical organization, whatsoever was necessary in that direction to accomplish the desired end.

The pope’s recognized right of dictation to the king made him responsible for the oppressive measures resorted to by the latter; while his position as the infallible head of the Church made him equally responsible for the oppressive measures of the Church. It is manifestly true that the principles of Magna Carta would have gone into immediate effect in England but for the interference of the pope; for if he had not intervened between the king and the people by employing the authority of the Church to release the king from the obligation of his oath, the barons, backed by the people, would have been able to hold him to his promise. And thus we find all the measures of compulsion employed against the barons and the Lollards traceable directly to the papacy, and made effectual, as far as they could be, by means of the immense number of foreign ecclesiastics scattered throughout the kingdom, who, as the emissaries of the pope, dictated to the king whatsoever measures were necessary to keep the people in check. And hence we find also that a measure of ecclesiastical policy was adopted, and made a part of the canon law of the Church, during the pontificate of Innocent III., which makes the papacy immediately and directly responsible for all the force and persecution employed, not only in England, but elsewhere, to keep the people in subjugation, and repress reform both in State and Church.

In the year 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council was held in Rome, under the direct personal guidance of Innocent III., to whom, as already shown, King John surrendered the crown of England. This is conceded to have been the twelfth Ecumenical Council, and its enactments are, consequently, regarded as part of the canon law, equally binding upon the faithful at all times, as much so now as when they were originally passed. In one canon adopted by this council certain heresies were condemned; in another, heretics were excommunicated; and in another, it was provided that they should be exterminated.

Here we reach a point of vast importance to the present times, and ground on which it is necessary and right that we should tread with great caution, so as not to mislead ourselves or others. For if it be true that what is here alleged constitutes a part of the law of the Roman Church, having, by the action of a general council and the assent of a pope, the impress of infallibility stamped upon it, then it win not do to say, as the papal writers do, that persecution arose out of Protestantism and was of Protestant growth; for it must be observed that at the time referred to there was no such thing as Protestantism known. Wycliffe, who has been properly called the “Morning—star of the Reformation,” was not born tin the year 1324, and therefore the Lollards, who were his followers in England, had not arisen.

The Waldenses, or Vaudois, had been excommunicated for heresy by Lucius III., who was pope from the year 1181 to 1185; and they were afterward condemned for teaching, contrary to the practice of the Roman Church, that the unworthiness of the clergy rendered them incapable of their ministry. (Du Pin, vol. xi., p. 147.)

Pope Innocent III. inaugurated measures of his own accord in the year 1198—the first of his pontificate—to extirpate the Albigenses. The next year he ordered their estates to be confiscated. He ordered the abbots and monks not only to preach against them, but to “excite the princes and people to extirpate them, and to form a crusade against them.” Raymond, Count of Toulouse, a leader among the Albigenses, caused one of these missionaries to be assassinated, for which he was required to retract his errors, and to deliver up several of his towns to the pope as the price of his absolution—which was granted him. After this was done, as the crusaders had no further contest with Raymond, they turned their arms against the town of Beziers, where the Albigenses were fortified, besieged, took, and burned the town, and put all the inhabitants “to the edge of the sword.” (Ibid., pp. 150, 151.)

The particular heresies, therefore, with which the Church had to deal during the pontificate of Innocent III. were those of the Waldenses and the Albigenses; and, consequently, it is to these that the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council were specially directed. All this antedated the existence of the Lollards and the birth of Protestantism; but when Protestantism began subsequently to arise, the law of the Church was already prepared to visit upon the Protestants the same measure of pontifical vengeance as had been visited upon the inoffensive Waldenses and Albigenses. The torch of persecution, lighted for the latter, was kept continually aflame, in readiness for the former.

The Fourth Council of Lateran being assembled to deal, among other things, with the heresies then existing, it was considered necessary that it should be so attended as to represent the Universal Church. To effect this, two years were permitted to pass between the time when it was called by Innocent III. and its meeting, in November, 1215. It contained four hundred and twelve bishops in person, eight hundred abbots and priors, and a great many deputies of absent prelates who were excused from attending. There were also ambassadors from the following courts: Constantinople, Sicily, Germany, France, England, Hungary, Jerusalem, Cyprus, Arragon, and from those of other princes. And thus it had all the power and authority which could be conferred on it by the Church. Even those who denied the personal infallibility of the pope accepted all the decrees of such a council as infallible, equally binding as if God, by a visible manifestation, had sent them down from heaven.

To say, however, of the canons of this council that they were the deliberate action of those who composed it would be contrary to the fact. Du Pin, referring to the canons upon discipline, says: “‘Tis certain that these canons were not made by the council, but by Innocent III., who presented them to the council ready drawn up, and ordered them to be read, and that the prelates did not enter into any debate upon them, but that their silence was taken,for an approbation!” (Du Pin, vol. xi., p. 95.) Nevertheless, they became as much the law of the Church as if they had been debated and voted on. Any violation of the doctrine of passive obedience was only another form of heresy.

The third canon of this General Council stands in history without any parallel. And in order that the reader may see this for himself, it is deemed most expedient to pass by what is said of it by Protestant writers, and quote the precise words of Du Pin, not merely on account of his great learning and erudition, but because of the conspicuous position he occupied in the Roman Catholic Church. He says:

    “In the third canon they excommunicated and anathematized all the heretics who oppose the Catholic and orthodox faith, as before explained: and ’tis therein ordered that the heretics shall be delivered up, after their condemnation, to the secular powers, or to their officers, to be punished according to their demerits, the clerks being first degraded; that their goods shall be confiscated, if they be laics (laypersons); and if clerks, then they shall be applied to the use of the Church; that those who lie under violent suspicions of heresy shall be likewise anathematized, if they do not give proofs of their innocence, and they shall be avoided tin they have given satisfaction; and if they be in a state of excommunication during a year, they shall be condemned as heretics; that the lords shall be admonished and advised by ecclesiastical censures to take an oath that they win extirpate heretics and excommunicate persons who shall be within their territories; that if they neglect to do it after admonition, they shall be excommunicated by the metropolitan and bishops of the province; and in case they persist a year without making satisfaction, the sovereign pontiff shall be advised thereof, that so he may declare their vassals absolved from their oath of fealty, and bestow their lands upon such Catholics as win seize upon them, who shall be the lawful possessors of them, by extirpating heretics, and preserving the purity of the faith in them, but without prejudice to the right of the superior lord, provided he offer no obstruction or hindrance to the putting this ordinance in execution. The same indulgences are granted to those Catholics as shall undertake to extirpate heretics by force of arms as are granted to those who go to the Holy Land. They excommunicated those who entertained, protected, or supported heretics, and declare that those who shall be excommunicated upon that account, if they do not make satisfaction within a year, shall be declared infamous, and divested of all offices, as well as of votes in the elections; that they shall not be admitted as evidences; that they shall be deprived of the faculty of making a will, or succeeding to an estate; and, lastly, that they may not perform the functions of any office.’Tis likewise further ordered that those who win not avoid the company of such persons as are by the Church denounced excommunicate shall be excommunicated themselves tin they have given satisfaction. But, above all, ecclesiastics are forbidden to administer the sacraments to them, to give them Christian burial, to receive their alms or oblations, upon pain of being suspended from the functions of their orders, wherein they may not be re—established without a special indulto from the pope. The same punishment is likewise inflicted on the regulars, and, besides this, that they be not any longer tolerated in the diocese wherein communicated who shall dare to preach without having received a license from the Holy See or a Catholic bishop. Lastly, the archbishops and bishops are obliged to visit in person, or by their archdeacons or by other persons, once or twice a year, the dioceses where it is reported that there are any heretics, and to put a certain number of inhabitants under their oath to discover to the bishop such heretics as may be detected. They are likewise enjoined to cause the accused to appear, and to punish them if they do not clear themselves, or if they relapse after they have been cleared. Lastly, the bishops are threatened to be deposed if they neglect to purge their dioceses from heretics.” (*)
* Du Pin, vol. xi., pp.96,97. The duty of persecuting and exterminating heretics now became a part of the canon law of Rome, not merely by the previous infallible act of Innocent III. himself, but by force of this decree of an Ecumenical Council. Nearly three hundred years after the time of Innocent III., his successors found a memorable occasion for enforcing it against the peaceful Vaudois, for daring to maintain their own religion in preference to that of Rome. In 1487, Innocent VIII. fulminated against them a bull of extermination, by which he enjoined all temporal powers to take arms for their destruction. He commanded a crusade against them, “absolving beforehand all who should take part in this crusade from all ecclesiastical penalties, general or special, setting them free from the obligation of vows which they might have made, legitimating their possession of goods which they might have wrongfully acquired, and concluding with a promise of the remission of all sins to every one who should slay a heretic. Moreover, he annulled all contracts subscribed in favor of the Vaudois, commanded their domestics to abandon them, forbade any one to give them any assistance, and authorized all and sundry to seize upon their goods.”—History of the Waldenses, by Muston, vol. i., p. 31.

When we remember that Innocent III. based his right to interfere with the domestic policy of the nations upon the ground of the possession of divine power, we shall be the better enabled to appreciate the character and understand the scope of this extraordinary part of the canon law of Rome. His power being divine, obedience to it, both on the part of nations and individuals, was the inevitable consequence. Therefore, this decree of the Third Lateran Council proceeds upon the idea that the obedience of the nations had been already secured; but that if it should be refused the papacy possessed the same power to punish them that it did to punish individuals for their disobedience.

Accordingly, the decree provides for the extirpation of all heretics by force of arms, the confiscation of their goods, the forfeiture of all their rights of property and country, the seizure of their territory by whomsoever of the faithful shall think proper to do so, and requires them to be hunted down by spies and detectives, against whose accusations they are required to defend themselves by proving their innocence! It stands alone in the world in enormity; and even now it chills the blood to read of the horrible sufferings inflicted upon the poor unoffending Waldenses and Albigenses, by virtue of it, merely because they would not bow down before the papacy, and agree to consider as virtues the shameless corruptions and vices of its court.

As it win be necessary to refer to this decree again, it win be well to inquire, at this point, what position it occupies in the present canon law of the Roman Church, which Pius IX. is now laboring to make the universal law of all the world. Since the council which enacted it there have been eight ecumenical councils and over eighty popes, embracing a period of over six and a half centuries, and yet no decree has been enacted by any one of these councils, and no bull, or brief, or encyclical has ever been issued, by anyone of all these popes, wherein it has been declared that the Third Lateran Council transcended its authority, or that its third canon was not a part of the existing canon law of the Church. Undoubtedly, therefore, it remains a part of that law today, to be executed whensoever the pope shall think it necessary to the welfare of the Church to do so, and he shall possess the necessary power.

In 1839 a controversy was carried on in the columns of The Charleston Courier, in South Carolina, between the Rev. Richard Fuller, a Baptist minister, and the Right Rev. John England, Roman Catholic Bishop of Charleston, who was greatly distinguished for his learning and piety. In the course of it Mr. Fuller charged that, by the enactment of this canon by the Fourth Lateran Council, the Roman Catholic Church had made it a part of the law of its organization, that heretics should be persecuted. Bishop England admitted that the canon had been enacted, and set it forth substantially as it is copied above from Du Pin, but endeavored to break the force of the admission by insisting that, having been “a special law for a particular case,” it is not now, therefore, “a canon of the Church.” He also insisted that as the Fourth Lateran Council “was not merely a council of the Church, but it was also a congress of the civilized world,” therefore this canon was not “concerning the doctrine of the Church,” but was “a civil enactment of the temporal power against persons they looked upon as criminals.” (*)

* Letters concerning the Roman Chancery,” by the Rev. Richard Fuller, of Beaufort, South Carolina, and the Right Rev. John England, Bishop of Charleston. Published under the auspices of the latter, pp. 196—200.

This is puerile (silly), as win appear to any reasoning mind upon a moment’s reflection. This council was one of the great general councils of the Church. Its provisions in reference to heresy and heretics are both special and general. Its canons were not enacted to meet special cases only, but all cases covered by them. The assemblage was ecclesiastical, solely and entirely, so far as it possessed power to pass enactments. The ecclesiastical authorities of the Church were alone summoned by Innocent III. to attend it. All the ambassadors from the civil powers who were present were there by courtesy, not by right. They were not members of the council, so as to be entitled to vote upon questions of either Church discipline or doctrine. They did not vote upon these questions, but, as Du Pin says, the measures were drawn up by the pope and acquiesced in by the bishops. Therefore, to say that a canon enacted by such a council, under the direct auspices of Innocent III., did not become a part of the doctrine of the Church and take its place in the canon law, is the exhibition of a degree of absurdity into which nothing but sheer necessity could have driven such a man as Bishop England. But if there were any doubt about it when he attempted this impotent apology, there is none now, since the decree of infallibility is broad enough and goes back far enough to embrace this enactment as the infallible word of God. It takes in, as we have seen heretofore, all that has been done by the popes in all the past centuries, all that may be done now, and whatsoever may be done in the future.

Was not Innocent III. an infallible pope? No papist win deny that. Then, without the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council, he prescribed extermination as the remedy against the heresy of the Waldenses and Albigenses, and, consequently, against all heresy. Thus this method of persecution became a part of the canon law, and therefore a part of the doctrine of the Church, by his infallible act alone. And when afterward he compelled this general council to affirm and ratify what he had done and declared by a solemn decree, unanimously passed by the representatives of the whole Church, persecution became so embodied in the law of the Church that no earthly authority can remove it. Whether he alone, as he claimed, and as Pius IX. now claims, possessed all the divine power; or whether, as the Gallican Christians insisted, it was in his hands when acting jointly with the council, does not change the question. According to either, the decree as enacted was the exercise of a divine power, and therefore became part of the faith. Consequently, if there had even been an attempt made to repeal, vacate, or set it aside, it must have failed for the want of power; for the law of God is unchangeable. There having been no such attempt, however, this persecuting decree is as binding upon the faithful today as it was the day it was enacted.

The “temporal powers” had nothing to do with its enactment. They were held by the pope to be the mere instruments to secure its execution. He used them for that purpose; and that is what is meant by the theory which permits the Church to teach the State its duty—in the domain of faith and morals! They neither enacted any such laws themselves, nor authorized their ambassadors at this council to legislate in reference to their domestic and internal policy. The council dealt with the affairs of the Church, and the laws it passed were considered above those of the states. Whatever nation disobeyed them was heretical, and forfeited its right to exist! Whatever individual disobeyed them was cut off by excommunication! The fact, therefore, cannot be escaped by any sophistry that the persecution of heretics is commanded by the canon law.

And thus we are enabled to understand the condition of things existing in England after the pontificate of Innocent III., who set the example of persecuting heretics, or of causing them to be persecuted, which his successors were very willing to follow. And the imbecile kings of England were quite as willing to obey them; for, not only by the letter of this law of the Church, but by the action of the infallible Innocent III., they were taught to foresee that an act of disobedience to the pope would be construed into heresy, and cost them their crowns and kingdom. And looking back, through the lapse of years, to the condition in which England must have been placed by the prevailing policy at that time, we cannot fail to see how necessary it was for the barons to demand and to adhere to the provisions of Magna Carta as the means of securing civil liberty, and for the Lollards to demand reform in the Church as the means of securing religious liberty.

But we can see, too, that it was impossible for Protestantism to rise immediately out of this condition of affairs. It had to await the slow progress of events elsewhere, especially in Germany. Both there and in England the load of papal oppression was too heavy to be thrown off at once. Therefore we are enabled to account for the fact, that in its first forms, during its terrible struggles for existence, it retained somewhat the impress left upon it by the papacy; and never, in fact, reached the point of full development until it obtained a new field of operation in the United States. Reforms are never the result of sudden impulses. Like the plant which enlarges by accretion, they are wrought out by the force of opinion gradually developed.

It is well understood that in Germany, as well as in England, for many years before the Reformation, the ecclesiastical and political alliance between the reigning monarchs and the papacy had been complete, and comparatively undisturbed. Owing to the imbecility of some of the monarchs and the inordinate ambition of others, the German people were reduced, through instrumentalities like those employed in England, to dependence upon the popes, who claimed that they possessed divine authority to regulate their domestic affairs also. By virtue of their conceded power to appoint all the prelates of the Church, and to exact from them oaths of fidelity to themselves, they had succeeded in building up an ecclesiastical empire, which they maintained among the German people in entire independence of the Government and its laws—a state of things precisely similar to that which Pius IX. is now trying to bring about. The hierarchy which composed this independent body was freed from all responsibility to the German authorities, no matter what enormity its members perpetrated upon society, or what the nature and extent of their usurpations. They looked alone to Rome for the approval or disapproval of their conduct. Whatsoever the pope commanded them to do, they did—peaceably, if the people submitted, but forcibly if they did not. Such enormous power as this naturally bred arrogance and covetousness; and as the popes have at all times required large sums of money to maintain the splendor and magnificence of their courts, they employed it for the accumulation of large wealth, not only at Rome, but among themselves. With this wealth in their possession, these prelates became more and more exacting—knowing that they were esteemed by the popes in proportion to the extent of the contributions they levied upon the people.

It is not at all to be wondered at that the Germans, like the English, became restless and dissatisfied under the crushing pressure of such a burden as this. All the tendencies of their minds were toward freedom, in the defense of which they had always been in the foremost rank. But on account of their devotion to the Roman Catholic Church, and the belief, constantly inculcated in their minds by the clergy, that they were indebted to it for all the Christianizing and civilizing influences they possessed, they patiently endured their submission till they could bear it no longer. They at last came to realize that the question was simply one of life or death to their nation—that it was impossible for Germany ever to acquire an independent and commanding position among the other nations so long as this hierarchical power was permitted to maintain its ascendancy. And herein we undoubtedly find the real origin of the Reformation in Germany—according to Hallam, “its predisposing cause.” (“Constitutional History of England,” by Hallam, vol. i., p. 137.)

Luther quarreled with the pope about matters of religious faith, and when the people of Germany saw this vast power, with all its ecclesiastical weapons drawn, threatening him with the terrible vengeance of the papacy, they took sides with him, not at first on account of his religious opinions merely, but because the time had come for them to assert their true German manhood, and to throw off the yoke of temporal bondage which the papacy had placed upon their necks. And thus a single brave and unterrified man was enabled to multiply his army of reformers into an unconquerable host, whose ultimate victory over the pope consisted, not alone in the introduction of the Reformed religion, but in marking out new paths for the modern nations—paths which pointed, with marvelous precision, toward that grandest achievement in history, the American Revolution.

The Reformation in Germany did not immediately extend itself into England; for Henry VIII., who was a bigoted papist, occupied the throne at a time when he had the power to resist its influence, and, in order to keep himself in favor with the pope, wrote a reply to Luther, for which he was flattered with the title “defender of the faith.” It was his greatest pride to keep in existence in England the same exacting and ambitious hierarchy against which the German people were getting ready to rebel. Between these ecclesiastical princes and himself there was perfect accord in this: that each should sustain the power of the other, at every hazard, in order to keep the people in subjection, and prevent them from having any voice in the management of public affairs. They were held together by the cohesion of a common faith, which taught, as had always been taught by the papacy, the divine right of kings and the divine right of popes above that of kings, which latter enabled the popes, as “vicegerents of God,” to sit in judgment over all the earth, with the right to command whatsoever should augment their power, and to forbid whatsoever should curtail it. Like the people of Germany, those of England were held down by an oppressive weight of tyranny at the beginning of their Reformation.

Henry VIII. was a vicious and unprincipled monarch, consistent in only two things—the constant indulgence of his evil inclinations, and an equally constant adherence to the chief doctrinal dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. He was never a pious Christian except nominally; no more so when he broke the alliance between the Church in England and that at Rome, than when he sought to win the favor of the pope by hurling his royal and poisoned shaft at Luther’s head. And he was never a Protestant except only so far as he resisted the papal encroachments upon the authority and prerogatives of the English crown.

Upon this subject, much of what is called history abounds in error and misstatement. It has led many honest minds into the belief that this profligate king was at the head of the Protestants of England. The papal writers are indefatigable in maintaining this belief, in order to hold the Reformation responsible for his vices; whereas the “truth of history” is, that he never professed to be, and never was, a Protestant, in any proper sense of that term, but lived and died in the faith of the Roman Catholic Church! His quarrel with the pope had nothing to do with the faith of the Church. It began about the divorce, but soon involved the question of ecclesiastical investitures, by means of which he found the pope could maintain in England a power rival to his own, if not more formidable. Upon these questions each supported his position with stubborn tenacity, until the breach between them became so wide that it could neither be healed nor bridged over. The parties were about equal in pertinacity and ambition, neither of them having the slightest respect for the people, or regard for their political rights. As none of the religious dogmas of the Church were assailed by Henry, the controversy was simply a struggle for supremacy between two sovereigns, one of whom was the lawful king, and the other claiming dominion over the kingdom in right of divine appointment; and each of whom, to have secured his triumph, would have made galley—slaves of all the English people. (*)

* John Milton says: “Henry VIII. was the first that rent this kingdom from the pope’s subjection totally; but his quarrel being more about supremacy than other faultiness in religion that he regarded, it is no marvel if he stuck where he did. The next default was in the bishops, who, though they had denounced the pope, they still hugged the popedom, and shared the authority among themselves, by their six bloody articles, persecuting the Protestants no slacker than the pope would have done.”—Prose Works of John Milton, Philadelphia ed., vol. i., pp. 3, 4.

The final triumph which Henry VIII. did win over the pope only changed the form of English tyranny, by concentrating all the absolute power of imperialism in the hands of one despot, instead of leaving it to be shared by two. It remained papal tyranny in substance, if not in name, by the preservation of that nefarious union between Church and State which had its origin at Rome in the time of Constantine, and which, wherever it has existed, has held the people in vassalage.

Henry VIII. and Pope Julius II. were both children of the Church of Rome, educated in the same religious faith, and disciplined under the same papal system. With each of them Innocent III. was infallible, and the persecuting decree of the Fourth Lateran Council was a part of the law of the Church.

When Henry felt the pressure of the papal power upon himself, he called upon the Protestants of Germany for assistance to enable him to resist it; but they refused the alliance, because they had no sympathy with his cause, and despised his iniquities. Julius, finding him thus unsupported, followed the example of Innocent III., in the exercise of divine power, hurled at his head the thunders of excommunication, and released all the English people from their allegiance to the crown, impiously pretending also that he stood upon earth in the place of God, and that obedience to him, in both spirituals and temporals, was necessary to secure admission into heaven.

The demon of persecution was unchained among the followers of these Roman Catholic contestants, each letting loose his own blood—hounds; and if the distinguished More and Fisher were cruelly murdered for their resistance to the English oath of supremacy, which did nothing more than place the king above the pope, their triers and executioners were their own brethren, reared, educated, and nurtured in the same religious faith. No drop of their blood stained the hands of a single Protestant Christian. The children of Rome shed the blood of each other with a ferocity akin to that of wild beasts. And even after all this, and before the blood of the victims had become dry, Paul III., who, while cardinal, had taken the side of Henry VIII., made an effort to reconcile Henry with the papacy, there yet being no important difference of religious faith to separate them. And a like effort at reconciliation was made by the Roman Catholic king of France; at the suggestion, doubtless, of the pope. The question, however, being one of mere supremacy in the government of England, Henry was not disposed to give up any of his royal prerogatives, and no compromise could be arranged.

The Protestant Christians stood aloof from the contest, awaiting the result with anxiety, of course, and hoping that it would contribute to the strength of their own cause. Their religious faith received no encouragement from the king, and had the curse of the pope resting upon it; so that when the final expulsion of the papal power from England was accomplished, the English Church, under Henry VIII., still retained the leading tenets of faith it had learned from Rome. It continued to maintain the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist. It did not regard communion in both kinds as at all essential. It forbade the marriage of priests. It preserved the Romish custom of encouraging vows of chastity. It continued private masses for the dead. It enforced the duty of auricular confession. It was, in fact, as much Roman Catholic under Henry VIII. as it had been under Pope Julius II. or Pope Paul III., except that it denied the temporal authority of the pope, and his right, divine or otherwise, to interfere with and regulate the domestic affairs of either the English Church or nation. (*)

* “History of the Church of England,” by Short; Appendix B to ch. v., p. 79; “History of England,” by Macaulay, vol. i., p. 46; “Constitutional History of England,” by Hallam, vol. i., ch. ii.; “History of England,”by Rapin, vol. viii., pp. 20, 21; “History of England,” by Hume, vol. iii., p. 311; “History of Religious Thought in England,” by Hunt, vol. i., p. 10. This last author, speaking of the “Six Articles” of 1539, says, “They are purely Roman Catholic.”

The following eminent Roman Catholic authorities are directly upon this point: Lingard says, “The publication of ‘the Articles’ showed that the king was not disposed to dissent from the pontiff on doctrinal matters.” LINGARD’s Hist. Of Engl., vol. v., p. 58.

Hearing of the death of Anne Boleyn, Pope Paul III. said: “I have long besought God to open his majesty’s eyes. It is impossible that Heaven should have abandoned a prince who is endowed with so many virtues, and who has rendered so many services to the Christian republic. Heaven will surely enlighten him. Now is the time for Henry to finish the noble work which he has commenced in defense of Christianity. If he return to the bosom of the Church, who is there among the princes of Christendom that will be able to resist him? With Rome as his ally, the peace of the world will be secured. I will unite with Henry, and we will join our efforts to pacify the world……. Let him not doubt the affections of my heart.” AUDIN’s Life of Henry VIII., p. 322.

The late Archbishop Spalding, of Baltimore, says: “Notwithstanding his defection from the Church, Henry was still attached to the ancient faith, and he decided to retain its principal articles, as well as the ancient worship. In 1536, he compiled, with the assistance of his theologians, a book of “Articles,” which Cromwell presented for signature to the convocation, and which the members, of course, subscribed without a word. These articles declare that a belief in the three ancient creeds—the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athlianasian—is necessary to salvation; that the sacraments of baptism, penance, and the holy Eucharist are the ordinary means of salvation; and that the use of masses, the honoring and invoking of saints, and the usual ceremonies of the public service “are highly profitable, and ought to be retained.” The lay vicar—general accordingly issued his injunction to the bishops and clergy, requiring that these articles should be explained to the people, should be accepted by all, and reduced to practice. This was followed by a fuller exposition of doctrine, entitled “The Godly and Pious Institution of the Christian Man,” issued by the convocation on the command of the king. This document strongly denies the possibility of salvation out of the Catholic Church; and it inculcates slavish passive obedience to the king in the same breath with which it denounces the papal supremacy. “—Hist. of the Prot. Ref., by M. I. Spalding, D.D., 5th ed., vol. ii., pp. 103, 104, citing Wilkins’s “Council.,” iii., 804; apud Lingard, vol. vi., pp. 272, 273.

And Henry, to prove how faithful he was to his Roman training, turned his persecution against the English reformers, who were disposed to favor the principles of the Protestant religion, the influence of which was beginning to be transferred from Germany to England, and to unite with similar influences already existing there.

The torch and the rack, so familiar to Rome, were no less terrible in the hands of the English than they were in those of the Roman pope. The difference was this only, that Henry VIII., having learned their use from Rome, employed them, after he established his English pontificate, in the torture of both Roman Catholics and Protestants! Who does not remember the account of three of each, coupled two and two, who were carried out to execution upon the same hurdles? (*)

* Archbishop Spalding refers to this incident in strong terms.—History of the Prot. Ref., by Spalding, vol. ii., p. 105. Macaulay says, Henry VIII. “sent to death, on the same hurdle, the heretic who denied the real presence and the traitor who denied the royal supremacy.”—MAcAULAY’s Miscellanies, article Nare’s Memoirs of Lord Burleigh, Philadelphia ed., p. 147.

In a like spirit he employed his royal power to prevent the teachings of Luther from taking hold of the English mind, and punished those who openly advocated them, or were suspected of doing so. The circulation of pamphlets and tracts written by Luther was prohibited. He forbade his subjects to import, sell, or keep in their possession Tyndale's translation of the New Testament, “and ordered the chancellor and the courts to prosecute any one that should disobey his commands; and to punish, with the utmost rigor of the law, the abettors of the new opinions ” (“Life of Henry VIII.,” by Audin, p. 313. This is a Roman Catholic author.)—that is, the Protestant opinions that were taking deep root in England and Germany.

And if before his death he abated these persecutions, it was only because he courted an alliance with the Protestants, so as to make his power more effectual in his contest with the pope. He cared nothing for religion, but struggled hard for royal authority and supremacy. But death, which strikes alike both the high and low, laid its unsparing hand upon him before he could accomplish such an alliance, before Protestantism had become firmly planted in England, and while he was yet, in all the religious faith he ever had, a Roman Catholic! True, he has extorted some praise from portions of the English people, and the poet Gray called him

    “…..the majestic lord
    Who broke the bonds of Rome!”

but these praises were bestowed because “they saw in him, not indeed the proselyte of their faith, but the subverter of their enemies’ power, the avenging minister of Heaven, by whose giant arm the chain of superstition had been broken and the prison gates burst asunder.” (“Constitutional Hist. of England,” by Hallam, vol. i., ch. i., p. 49.)

Continued in The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XVI. Henry VIII. Part 2




The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XV. The English Barons

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XV. The English Barons

Continued from The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XIV. The Native Britons Part 2.

The Pope turns England over to France.—Resistance of the Barons.—John resigns the Crown to the Pope.— Langton.—Charter of Henry I.—Barons form a League.—Langton supports the Barons.—Magna Carta.—John swears to obey it.—The Pope releases Him, and annuls the Charter. He claims England as a Fief.—Foreign Mercenaries.—Henry III.—Italian and Foreign Priests.—King promises to observe the Charter.—The Pope again releases Him.—Appeals to Rome.—Peter—pence.—Immunities of Clergy.—They murder with Impunity.—House of Commons established.—Pope again releases the King from his Oath.—Civil War.—The Barons defeated.—Their Treatment by the King and Pope.—Edward I. confirms the Charter.—The Pope releases Him.—Edward II.—The Statutes of Provisors and of Praemunire.—The Lollards.—Law for burning Heretics.—William Sawtre and Thomas Badby burned.—Lollards attacked.—Clergy exempt from Punishment in Secular Courts.—Their Corruption and that of the Popes.—Urban V. and Gregory XI.—Popes and Antipopes.—Scandalous and Disgraceful Conduct.—Gregory XII. Pope at Rome, and Benedict XIII. at Avignon.—Both declared Infamous by the Council of Pisa.—Alexander V.—John XXIII. deposed for Enormous Crimes by Council of Constance.—Martin V.—Influence upon the Church. —Corruption almost Universal.—The Fruits of the False Decretals.

THE condition into which King John was thrown by the attempt of Innocent III. to stir up an insurrection in England against his authority was embarrassing in an extreme degree. He had incurred the animosity of the Norman barons, who, after having at first entertained hostility toward the native Britons and the Saxons, had become reconciled to both, and were anxious to defend and share with them their ancient rights and privileges. These barons were Roman Catholics in all the essentials of religious faith; but as they found nothing in that faith, when uncontaminated by the influence of the papacy, requiring them to submit passively to the tyranny of either kings or popes, they became early imposed with the necessity of adopting such measures as would teach their rulers that the English people had some rights they were bound to respect. The occasion afforded them an opportunity of seeking to avenge themselves upon the king for the injuries he had inflicted upon them in a previous part of his reign; and as the power of the crown, when backed by that of the papacy, was too strong for resistance by any ordinary means, they began to combine with a view to his expulsion from the throne, and the election of another king more favorable to the people.

The pope, taking advantage of this disaffection, and supposing that there existed no further impediment to the consummation of his plans, issued another bull deposing John, and empowering the King of France to put the sentence into execution! Of course the King of France, faithful as he was to the Church, did not act altogether out of religious motives; nor did the pope, although he claimed to be employing a divine power only for the good of the Church, address himself to any such motive. The pretext of the good of the Church was, on the part of both, the mere cover for ambition of the baser sort. Therefore, we find the pope promising the French king, as a reward for his aggressive interference with the affairs of England, “the remission of all his sins, together with the crown of England, when once he had dethroned the tyrant.” (“History of England,” by Rapin, vol. iii., p. 203.)

It was scarcely possible to make a more bountiful bestowal of pontifical favor. In one breath the sins of a whole life-time were forgiven, and, in the next, the crown of a nation was given away! The pope had about as much right to do the one as the other: the first was an assumption of a prerogative which belongs to God alone; the second was a criminal violation of the law of nations. Both acts, under the pretense of Divine sanction, were impious. But the King of France readily accepted the proposition, and commenced military preparations to carry it into execution.

The pope, however, was too cunning a politician to permit measures to be carried to extremes, so long as there was a possibility of accomplishing his ends by other means; for he was sagacious enough to see that with Philip of France in possession of the English throne he might have an adversary far more formidable than John to deal with. Accordingly, he sent a legate to John to excite his fears by telling him that the barons would take the side of Philip, and to remind him of his unpopularity with the people. He hoped to bring John to terms without complying with his promise to Philip; for, like many other popes, he always interpreted the law of God as if it had been made flexible and yielding, merely for the purpose of advancing the papal ambition.

As the courage of John had already begun to fail, the legate had little difficulty in impressing his mind with the views of the pope, who, notwithstanding the anathema of the Church rested upon John’s head, was still willing to treat with an excommunicated heretic, if thereby he could add to the power of the papacy. When the legate, therefore, found that John had become alarmed at the formidable alliance against him, he developed the whole papal plan by telling him that his only remedy was to put himself wholly under the protection of the pope, which he could do by becoming a dutiful son of the Church, and by promising to perform whatsoever the pope should enjoin upon him!

John, caught in the papal net, finally consented to these humiliating terms, and agreed to take the necessary oath. However, when the legate came to explain the terms of the surrender, he insisted that as John’s offenses were “against God and the Church!”—as all offenses against the papacy are yet regarded by the advocates of infallibility—he must also resign the crown into the pope’s hands! Forced by the seeming necessity of his condition, and with his spirit crushed by the violence of pontifical wrath, John consented even to this; and, publicly taking the crown from his head, laid it at the feet of the legate! He then signed a charter, resigning to the pope the kingdom of England and the lordship of Ireland! (Rapin, vol. iii., p. 208; Lingard, vol. ii., p. 165; Appendix, note, D.)

And thus the King of England became a vassal of the Pope of Rome, promising to pay a thousand marks a year in money, and binding all his successors to like obedience! And all this was done without any regard whatever to the interest or wishes of the people, who, under the impious pretense that God required it, were transferred from one despot to another, like cattle sold in the public market. And thus Pope Innocent III., by virtue of authority derived from the Forged Decretals, planted his feet upon the necks of the English people.

Even Lingard, conscious of the iniquity of the act, cannot refrain from saying that “this transaction has heaped everlasting infamy on the memory of John;” and he might, with equal propriety and justice, have added, like infamy upon the memory of Innocent III., who planned, plotted, and contrived it by fraud, usurpation, and deceit—all covered up under the flimsy disguise of infallibility. And yet, infamous as it was, it is not at all too strong to say that Pius IX. would avail himself of the same disguise, today or tomorrow, to do the same thing in England or the United States, or in any other country, under like favorable circumstances.

John having thus traded away the crown to the pope, to the disgrace of both seller and buyer, the dissatisfaction against him became intense throughout the kingdom. Langton, though the pope’s legate, sympathized with the barons; and, in order to stimulate their zeal, he made known to them the existence of an old charter granted by Henry I., a fact which was of the utmost importance to their cause, but of which they were previously ignorant. (*)

* Henry I., in order to obtain possession of the crown, promised to abrogate all rigorous laws made after the Conquest, and to restore the Government to the condition in which it was under the first Saxon kings. This he did by granting a charter, renouncing the unjust prerogatives usurped by William the Conqueror, and by William II., his (Henry I.’s) immediate predecessor.—Rapin, vol. ii., pp. 323—326. For copy of this charter see Thierry, vol. i., p. 344 (note).

Thus notified of this important grant, the barons were easily induced to enter into a league or confederacy to secure a greater degree of independence, upon the basis of the old Saxon liberties. When this movement was made known to the pope, he was gratified; not because he desired or intended that the barons should obtain any additional liberties, but because he hoped that the breach between them and the king would become so irreconcilable that they could not unite against him; for he understood perfectly well that if the king and the barons were united in opposition to him, they could soon terminate all his usurped authority in England. But Langton understood the policy and schemings of the crafty pope, and was determined that his countrymen should not be deprived of their ancient Saxon liberties, since they were preparing to make such noble efforts for their restoration. He was familiar enough with the papacy to foresee the degradation into which they would be plunged if the pope should secure his triumph. And he, accordingly, brought himself under the suspicion of the pope, who sent another legate into England, and demanded a second resignation of the crown by John, and an additional treaty, sealed with gold instead of wax.

When this demand was made, the king, already humiliated to an unparalleled degree, consented to it; but Langton protested against it, because it was apparent that the pope had by this time resolved to oppose the cause of the barons, and had promised to protect John against their demand for their ancient liberties. Langton’s protestation greatly incensed the pope, who could not understand how a papal legate could espouse the cause of English liberty; but he was afraid to proceed immediately to extremities for fear of open resistance by the people, who were now beginning to learn something of the rights out of which they had been cheated by treacherous rulers, under the dictation of equally treacherous popes.

The barons were not appeased by the conduct of either the king or the pope, but renewed their league, and courageously resolved to demand the re-establishment of the charter of Henry I. When they made this demand of the king, he, backed by the pope, refused it. They then took up arms, acquired possession of London, and besieged the king in the Tower. Were they justified in this? Undoubtedly they were.

There are two kinds of government—one of law, the other of force. When the latter seizes upon and destroys the natural and inalienable liberties of a people, they have the right to re-assert them by whatsoever degree of force may be necessary to resist the usurpation. In that condition the English people were then placed. Their former freedom had been guaranteed to them by all the proper forms of law; and when kings and popes, by unrighteous combinations, had disregarded the law and set it aside, they were justified in resuming their position of independence, even at the sword’s point.

And the barons showed themselves capable of performing this great work, for they soon compelled the king to sign two charters, one of which was the Charter of Liberties, or Magna Carta, which is yet regarded as the foundation of the present liberties of England and the United States. Being afraid to trust the king, the barons required him to take an oath to observe these charters, which he did in the most solemn form. But circumstances soon transpired to show that, notwithstanding the solemnity with which this oath had been taken, he did not intend to be bound by it. It was considered an essential part of the doctrine of the “divine right” of kings, that they were not bound by any promise made by them to the people, in whose hands none of the powers of government were lodged; and if this convenient method of escape from the obligation of an oath had not been provided, the dispensing power of the pope, as God’s vicegerent (!), was always at hand to release the representatives of absolutism from all such obligations, whenever the interest of the papacy required it.

In this particular instance King John was stimulated to the violation of his oath by the foreigners who were about his court, and who had been sent into England by the pope to aid him in oppressing the people by the exercise of ecclesiastical authority, under the canons of the Roman Church, and who were assiduous in their efforts to become the masters of the country. (Rapin, vol. iii., p. 228.) These ecclesiastics assisted the king to raise foreign troops to resist the barons, because such troops, being merely mercenaries, and having no sympathies with the English people, were always ready to enlist in any cause which promised them remuneration, whether in the form of money or booty. The king, however, while employing these means of subjugating his own people, called also upon the pope for assistance. He sent to him copies of the charters he had granted the barons, in order to show how much they encroached upon the royal and pontifical authority, and asked that he be absolved from his oath to observe them—that is, that the pope, as God’s representative, should release him from the obligation to obey a promise solemnly made to his own countrymen concerning their own domestic laws and policy!

The pope was greatly incensed at the barons for having dared to assert such liberties for themselves and the people, understanding perfectly well that such a concession would lead to a demand for others. And “in his rage he swore [by St. Peter] that, cost him what it would, he would never suffer their rashness to go unpunished.” (Rapin, vol. iii., p. 230.) He annulled the charters, absolved the king from his oath, and wrote to the barons commanding them to renounce what they had extorted from John, as the only means of escaping the pontifical wrath.

Lingard comes to our assistance again, by furnishing us the reasons which influenced Innocent III. in this additional act of interference with English affairs. After naming several, such as the violation of their fealty to the king by the barons, the fact that they had presumed to sit in judgment upon the conduct of their king, and the additional fact that John had agreed to take part in the Crusades, and was therefore entitled to protection, he proceeds to say:

“Lastly, England was become the fief of the Holy See, and they [the barons] could not be ignorant that if the king had the will, he had not, at least, the power, to give away the rights of the crown without the consent of his feudal superior [the pope]. He [the pope] was therefore bound to annul the concessions which had been extorted from John, as having been obtained in contempt of the Holy See, to the degradation of royalty, to the disgrace of the nation, and to the impediment of the Crusade.” (“History of England,” by Lingard, vol. ii., p. 181.)

Could anything show more satisfactorily the nature of the divine power over the temporal affairs of nations, exercised by Innocent III., and now re-asserted by Pius IX.? In this particular case it went to the extent of claiming plenary jurisdiction over the entire domestic policy of the kingdom, by denying to the king any power to grant additional liberties to the English people without the consent of the pope! It assumed that King John, without the consent of the nation, could make England a fief to the pope, and lay its crown at his feet, but could do no act tending to give the people the right to be consulted about the laws by which they were to be governed! It attempted to legitimate the highest crime which a king can commit—the treacherous surrender of his crown—by covering it up under the divine sanction, as if God had designed that the papacy should be built up by the sacrifice of all truth, justice, and honor! It was such an act of deep and indelible infamy as time cannot wipe out.

And why are we, in this age, justified in so considering it? Not merely because the precedent thus established has furnished a rule of action for other popes, in their attempts to subordinate all nations and peoples to themselves, but for other reasons which will readily occur to a thoughtful mind.

Magna Carta shines as a bright light in history. It was the beginning of that great uprising of the English people which enabled them to take the lead among the advancing nations. It is the corner—stone of all popular government as it now exists; and but for it, kingly and papal absolutism might be today holding its universal carnival. And yet we are told by an infallible pope that such an act, so glorious in all its consequences, was “in contempt of the Holy See!” Why? Because it tended “to the degradation of royalty,” by putting into the hands of the people rights which they derived from God and nature!

John, thus released from the obligation of his oath by the dispensing power of the pope, set on foot an army of foreigners to punish the barons and ravage the country. The barons defied the thunders of the pope and the armies of the king. The latter had no higher object than plunder, and the effect was that the country was reduced to a most deplorable condition—the private property of the barons being seized and appropriated by foreign mercenaries. The pope excommunicated the barons, merely because they were unwilling to be made slaves, and not for any violation of their religious faith. He ordered Langton, his legate, to publish the bull of excommunication in England to intimidate the barons. But Langton, though faithful to his religion, had not forgotten that he was an Englishman; and he refused to perform the degrading and disgraceful act. And for this act of devotion to his native country he was suspended by the pope from the Archbishopric of Canterbury, which was designed to stamp him with the indelible mark of disgrace. (*)

* The Catholic World, in an article on “The Spirit of Protestantism,” makes an enumeration of the “beneficent results” which have been “directly and indirectly the work of the Catholic Church.” Among other things, such as the Crusades and the discovery of America by Columbus, it points with exulting pride “to Archbishop Langton framing Magna Carta!!!—”The Catholic World, December, 1872, vol. xvi., p. 290. Lingard, referring to the refusal of Langton to publish the bull, and his suspension in consequence, says that he visited Rome, but failed to “mollify the pontiff, or recover the exercise of his authority.”—History of England, by Lingard, vol. ii., p. 182. Some papal writers set down Magna Carta itself to the credit of the Church, because the barons were Roman Catholics! Much that passes for history is made in that way.

The bull, however, was published, but the barons again defied it, because they were not particularly named in it. The pope, to remove this objection, issued another, excommunicating them by name, and putting their lands, as well as the city of London—which took the side of the barons—under interdict. Again they refused obedience, declaring, in the spirit of true Englishmen, that “it was not the pope’s business to meddle with temporal affairs, seeing that St. Peter had received from Christ none but spiritual power: for which reason it was neither just nor right that Christians should suffer themselves to be swayed by the ambition and avarice of popes.” (Rapin, vol. iii., p. 233.)

They were Roman Catholics in religious faith, strongly attached to their Church and the traditions of its early purity and greatness, but were unwilling to surrender the independence of their country to either a treacherous king or a domineering pope. They were resolved that they would not become the mere slaves to the temporal power which Innocent III. claimed the divine right to exercise over them. And they were determined to stand by and to restore the liberties which they considered the birthright of the English people. They did this with a courage which has endeared to every lover of popular liberty the memory of these hardy but unlettered old barons, who defied not only the king, but one of the most powerful and ambitious of the popes. Their firm adherence to their demand for freedom kept the principles of English liberty alive in the minds of the people, who had never yet forgotten their ancient Christianity or the teachings of their Saxon ancestors. These principles survived every shock they received, and enabled the people to bear themselves up under every load of oppression with which kings and popes endeavored to crush them.

Pope Innocent III. and King John have passed away. Of the former, it is related by a Roman Catholic pen that, after death, he was seen in a vision by St. Lutgarde, a nun, to whom he said that “he could not enter heaven until the day of the last judgment, and after having suffered tortures incomprehensible by the human mind,” on account of the monstrous enormity of his crimes. (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 464. ) The world’s greatest bard, in almost the last words put into the mouth of the latter, makes him say,

    “Within me is a hell; and there the poison
    Is, as a fiend, confined to tyrannize
    On unreprievable, condemned blood.”

Yet the principles of Magna Carta have lived, grown, and expanded, and will continue to live, grow, and expand until all the chains of absolutism shall have been broken, and there shall be no bands upon either the limbs or minds of men.

During the subsequent reign of Henry III.—one of the most disgraceful in English history—the liberties of the people were almost entirely destroyed. The popes, by the appointment of Italian ecclesiastics, had created in England an army of foreign priests, who were exclusively devoted to Rome, who had no sympathies in common with the English people, and who, scattered all over the country, impoverished it by their enormous exactions of money. (*)

* The pope, at one time, nominated three hundred Italian priests to vacant benefices in England. And so numerous did these foreigners become, that their annual income extorted from the people amounted to seventy thousand marks—over $230,000—while the revenue of the crown, levied for the support of the Government, scarcely exceeded one—third of that sum!—RAPIN, vol. iii., pp. 349—398.

The king, obeying the pope, also made an effort to annul the Great Charter, although he had solemnly promised, at the beginning of his reign, to observe it. He excused himself for this attempt to violate his promise, upon the ground that he was a minor when it was made! The pope and the king “mutually stood by one another whenever the business was to extort money” from the people. (Rapin, vol. iii., p. 305.)

The pope made every possible effort to alienate the affections of the king from his English subjects, by causing him to call still more foreigners devoted to the papacy to assist him in conducting public affairs. (Hume, vol. ii., p. 16.) And when Parliament complained of this, the Bishop of Winchester, speaking for the pope, rebuked them upon the ground that it was an encroachment upon the royal prerogative! (Rapin, vol. iii., p. 324.) Nearly all the money of the kingdom was remitted to Rome. (Ibid., p. 367.) And the pope acquired such power over Henry that, under threat of excommunication, he obtained a renewal of the concession of John, that the crown should remain in vassalage to the Holy See. (Ibid., p. 371.)

The English bishops, stimulated by the pope, claimed jurisdiction over civil affairs, upon the pretense that there was hardly any case but what religion was concerned with (Ibid., pp. 374, 457.)—the logical result of the papal demand that the pope shall be regarded as infallible upon all questions of morals as well as of faith. The king obtained innumerable subsidies upon promises which he violated as soon as he received the money; in all of which his perfidious conduct was approved by the pope, who was always ready to grant him a dispensation for the violation of his most solemn engagements, when their mutual interests were thereby advanced. (Ibid., p. 403.)

The popes considered England as a conquered country, its kings their vassals, and its people as having no rights of any value whatsoever when they came in conflict with the demands of the papacy. (Ibid., p. 454.) They entertained appeals in almost every matter of controversy, and the people were compelled to spend immense sums of money in traveling to Rome to solicit their favor. (Ibid. ) They converted Peter—pence into a tribute to the chair of Peter, and practiced the most rigorous measures for its collection. (Ibid., p. 457.) They organized a compact body of ecclesiastics, trained to obedience and submission, who, in disregard of the laws of the kingdom, took the side of the popes against the people, as if they were the absolute and only sovereigns of the country. (Rapin, vol. iii., p. 457.) They demanded that the civil courts should have no jurisdiction to try and condemn ecclesiastics, even for the most enormous climes!(Ibid., p. 458.*)

* More than a hundred murders were committed by ecclesiastics during the reign of Henry II., in which the parties were not even punished by degradation. The clergy had absolute power over their own body, and no appeal was allowed from their decisions. A layman forfeited his life by the crime of murder, but an ecclesiastic went unpunished. This was called one of the immunities of the clergy! A clergyman committed a murder in 1163, and, being tried by an ecclesiastical court, was sentenced merely to lose his benefice and be confined in a monastery! The king complained that he ought to be tried as laymen in the civil courts, but the clergy objected. The king remained firm, and it was finally agreed, among other things, that this should thereafter be done. But when the pope was informed of this, he refused his sanction, and denounced it as “prejudicial to the Church, and destructive of her privileges!”—RAPIN, vol. iii., pp. 21—26.

The process of excommunication was entirely perverted from its original meaning, and made to serve the temporal uses of the pope, upon trivial no less than upon grave occasions, being employed to punish trifling acts of disobedience, to raise money, and for almost every imaginable purpose but the advancement of the Gospel. It would be impossible to enumerate, indeed, within a compass less than a volume, the outrages and enormities practiced in England during this gloomy period by kings and popes, who considered the assertion of any single popular right as a crime which God had appointed them to punish! The power, oppressions, and vices of the papacy had nearly reached their culminating point, and the pure religion of Christ and his apostles, which was designed to purify and refine the heart and soul of man, was entirely subordinated to temporal and selfish ends, and made to play the ignoble part of ministering to the worldly ambition of the popes and their prostituted army of ecclesiastics.

The barons would have been unworthy the name of Englishmen if they had not resisted these encroachments upon the rights and liberties of the people, with whose interests and happiness their own had now become inseparably identified. The reciprocal hatred which had once existed between the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans had, like that between the native Britons and the Saxons, given way before the sense of common injuries and the threatened loss of their common liberties.

To the stubborn tenacity with which the Anglo—Saxons adhered to their Teutonic principles the country was indebted for this. They had gradually worn away the Norman prejudices, and had retained their own language, and enough of their ancient laws and customs to furnish an ultimate barrier against the encroachment of kings and popes—their common and implacable enemies. The barons realizing this, firmly maintained their ground on the side of the people, and resolved upon grappling royalty itself by the throat, if its hold upon the country could not otherwise be broken. The struggle was one which called for an exhibition of the highest and noblest qualities of English character. The ancient liberties were to be snatched from the grasp of royal and papal imperialism, and given back again to the people from whom they had been wrenched by usurpation, to be sacredly preserved, as belonging of right to every Englishman, and as the foundation of the world’s future progress.

The firmness and resolution of the barons constrained the king to grant important concessions. Twenty—four commissioners were appointed— one half by the king, the other by the barons—to provide redress for the public grievances. (Rapin, vol. iii., p. 431.) These provided for the confirmation of the Great Charter, and the introduction, for the first time, of the representatives of the Commons—that is, of the people—into Parliament; (Ibid., p. 433.) a measure, imperfect as it then was, which was based upon the natural and inalienable right of the people to give or withhold their assent to all laws by which it is proposed to govern them. The Parliament, thus brought under popular influence, approved what had been done by the commissioners, and provided for the execution of the articles they had drawn up.

Beneficial results immediately followed. They were first seen in the expulsion from the country of the army of foreigners, who, by the joint policy of the kings and the popes, had been imported to fill the offices, consume the wealth of the people, and keep them in bondage to the papal power. (Ibid., p. 435.) This accomplished, the barons formed another alliance, and swore to maintain their liberties with their lives and fortunes. (Rapin, vol. iii., p. 435.) The city of London joined the alliance.

The king, however, in the mean time, fearing the loss of his royal prerogatives, and the consequent elevation of the people, appealed to the pope to absolve him from the oath he had taken to abide by his compact with the barons! This absolution was readily granted by Pope Alexander IV.; but, as he died before any effective measures had been consummated, it was confirmed by Pope Urban IV., (Ibid., P. 443.) who was as little scrupulous upon this subject as any of his predecessors. Thus supported by the Church, the king announced to Parliament that he would not observe his oath, and took immediate steps to recover the prerogatives he had lost by surrender to the barons. The barons were unyielding, and they and the king both prepared for civil war. To avoid this, however, if possible, the barons petitioned the king to adopt conciliatory measures, which he finally consented to do., to an extent satisfactory to them.

But the king soon broke his promise again—as he could easily do at any time, by the help of the pope—and the parties again made preparations for war. The king at last began active hostilities by surprising Dover Castle, which was in the hands of the barons. (Ibid., p. 453.) Before any decisive result was reached, however, it was agreed to refer the matter to the King of France as arbiter—a measure which reflects more credit upon the peaceful disposition of the barons than it does upon their sagacity. As might have been expected, the French king fully sustained his royal brother of England, having precisely the same motive for keeping the people in subjection, and being equally under the influence of the pope. He decided that the provisions of the twenty—four commissioners were null and void, that the king should be restored to his former power, that he should appoint all the great officers of the crown, and that foreigners should be as capable of holding offices in England as the English themselves! (Ibid., p. 454.) Consent to this on the part of the barons would have buried English liberty in its grave forever. Therefore, civil war became inevitable.

At the beginning of it, fortune seemed to favor the cause of the king, but he was finally taken prisoner; when the barons drew up a new plan of government for the extension and security of their liberties. By this plan conservators were appointed in each county to preserve the privileges of the people, and these were required to nominate knights to sit in Parliament as the representatives of their shires, thus laying the foundation for popular legislative representation. The Parliament elected pursuant to this plan adopted important measures of reform for the promotion of the public welfare, and greatly reduced the prerogatives of the king.

While the Government was thus conducted, it made a nearer approach to the popular form than any other that had existed in England after the popes had obtained a foothold there, and embodied many of the Teutonic principles brought there by the Saxons. The king, however, having subsequently obtained his liberty, the barons suffered a severe defeat, which changed the whole aspect of affairs. After this, the barons were persecuted “a thousand ways,” and made to “endure many hardships,” says the historian. (Rapin, vol. iii., p. 473.) Their estates were confiscated. The city of London was required to deliver up her magistrates, and pay large sums of money. The king conferred the estates of the barons upon his favorites, and left no means untried to punish them for their resistance to his authority.

Pope Clement IV., to convince the people that the barons had forfeited their claim to his protection and secured to themselves the certainty of eternal perdition, because they had struggled to regain the ancient liberties of the country, sent over a legate with a bull of excommunication against them and all their adherents, dead or alive!(Ibid., p. 474.)’ And thus, with only their “lives and limbs” saved, these defenders of human freedom against the encroachments of kingly and pontifical absolutism were compelled to lay down their arms, and go back among the people, to keep alive in their minds the principles for which they had risked so much. And they were kept alive—cherished in the hearts of the English people, until the time came for their final triumph.

We can scarcely realize now, in the midst of our own prosperity, how much we owe to these firm and courageous old heroes, who, for nearly half a century, held out against both kings and popes. But for them, the ancient liberties of England would have been lost, and the world would have been kept in the midnight of the Middle Ages. But for them, the reign of King John would have been redeemed by no such event as the establishment of the Great Charter to save it from the disgrace of treachery and imbecility. And but for them, the present civil and religious freedom of England and the United States might have had no such foundation as has enabled it, thus far, to defy assault, and stand firm against encroachment.

Truth and candor require that full justice should be done to these old Roman Catholic barons, who obeyed God and their own consciences, rather than corrupt popes and ecclesiastics. They loved their religion,but they loved freedom also; and for loving freedom they were cursed, anathematized, and despoiled by the Church of Rome! They did not believe the pope to be infallible, and for this they were consigned to eternal torment in the world to come!

But the barons made so bold a stand against imperialism, that, from the time of this memorable contest to the birth of Protestantism in England, no king dared again arouse the popular indignation by an armed assault upon the defenders of the Great Charter. The fear of the people began to manifest itself in their conduct and policy. They conceded only what they could not withhold, and, together with the popes, employed art and intrigue to accomplish, by indirection, what they dared not attempt again to obtain by force.

Edward I. confirmed the Charter at the beginning of his reign, in order to conciliate popular favor; and although he had pretended to do it “of his own accord,” he soon asked the pope to absolve him from his promise, religion and the Church being used solely to advance the temporal ends of kings and popes. The pope absolved him, of course, not merely because of his hostility to the Charter on account of its enfranchisement of the people, but because, as it is said, the king made him “a present of gold plate!” (Rapin, vol. iv., pp. 99—113.)

Edward II. pledged himself to Parliament that its provisions should be faithfully kept, and when he sought to escape the fulfillment of his promise, the barons seized him, and held him to his word. Yet he recognized himself as the vassal of the pope, and suffered him to interfere in the temporal affairs of his kingdom. This the pope did by sending a legate to England with a papal commission to make peace between that country and Scotland, to excommunicate both kings, and place both countries under interdict if they refused obedience! (Rapin, vol. iv., p. 152.) —thus assuming that all the prerogatives of both crowns belonged to him as the vicar of Christ! Edward III., in order to obtain a subsidy from Parliament, again confirmed the Charter, (Ibid., p. 242.) and indicated a wish to curtail the authority of the pope, by subsequently repeating this act of confirmation, and by consenting to the statute of Provisors to prohibit the popes from disposing of benefices in England. (Ibid., p. 255.) This statute, however, was not effective against the machinations of the popes, and, although several times repeated under subsequent kings, its terms had to be enlarged by the statute of Praemunire before any good was accomplished by it. (*)

* The statute of Provisors provided that no ecclesiastical living should be accepted from the pope, and that nothing should be sent to him out of the kingdom. By that of Praemunire all bulls, excommunications, etc., against the king, crown, or realm, proceeding from Rome, were prohibited.

Everything done by these kings was by way of concession to the people, on account of fear—showing that they were apprehensive that their royal rights were held by a precarious tenure, and that the people only awaited a favorable opportunity to assert their ancient liberties. During all the subsequent reigns between that time and the accession of Henry VIII., these liberties were suspended, but not forgotten: if there had been no other method of preservation, they would have been traditionally preserved in the English mind. The one hundred and thirty years embraced in that period were distinguished by many events of the most important character to England and the world. The fortunes of the people seemed sometimes to be almost overwhelmed by the combined oppression of kings and popes; but their cause was never at any time entirely lost.

Providence will shape our ends, “rough—hew them how we will;” and when the popes, as the head of the Church, grasped a temporal sword, and stained it with the blood of pious Christians, for no other offense than the worship of God according to their own consciences, they called down the wrath of Heaven upon their own heads, and aided in building up a party of reform in the Church. As early as the reign of Richard II. incipient steps were taken in this work of reform—showing that the Roman Catholic Church never was without pious and devout Christians among its members. The measures then inaugurated ultimately gave birth to Protestantism— slowly, it is true, but surely. Although, in 1381, an act was passed, in obedience to Rome, authorizing the imprisonment of heretics by the bishops, (Rapin, vol. iv., p. 394.) yet the House of Commons forced a repeal of it during the next year. (Ibid., p. 397.) The passage of such an act, however, shows that Rome was ready to place her heel of iron upon the necks of any who dared consult their own consciences upon questions of religious faith. She would repeat these measures today if she again possessed the power, and, therefore, they teach us a valuable and most instructive lesson.

This inauguration of religious persecution was designed for the suppression of the Lollards, or followers of John Wycliffe, who published his reform doctrines in the year 1377, during the reign of Edward III. These new doctrines had so spread among the people in a few years, that, while Richard II. was carrying on his war in Ireland, the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London were compelled to entreat him to return, and look after the cause of religion. The immediate cause of their alarm was, that at a late Parliament the Lollards had suggested the necessity for reform in the Church! (Ibid., p. 424.) The king returned, seized upon one of the Lollards, compelled him to abjure the new doctrines, and threatened him with death if he again professed them! (Ibid., pp. 424, 425.)

Now a new and powerful element began its work—one which the people readily saw would enable them to achieve their ultimate freedom. There was yet no law to punish heresy; and, therefore, Wycliffe was unmolested, and his followers among the people increased with wonderful rapidity. Even his death did not dishearten them; and as early as the year 1389 they began to separate from the Roman Catholic Church, and to appoint their own priests (Rapin, vol. iv., p. 472.)—thus beginning the Reformation.

So rapidly did they increase, that Rome had to bring forth the most fearful engines of her power to suppress their free thought, and chain down their limbs. The reign of Henry IV. was soon signalized by the enactment of a law “for the burning of heretics ” (Ibid., vol. v., p. 33; Froude’s “Hist. of England,” vol. i., p. 95.)—a most Christian(!) and truly Roman mode of disposing of the Lollards. Under this act, William Sawtre, a Lollard, was immediately convicted by an ecclesiastical court, and burned to death! (Ripin, vol. v., p. 33. )— thus becoming the first English martyr, after the monks of Bangor, to the cause of religious liberty. Then Rome rejoiced, and the cruel and bloody work of persecution began. The fires were kindled which were to consume hundreds more of the best of England’s sons—of men whose only crime was that they dared assert that God had given to every man the right to worship him according to the dictates of his own conscience!

Thomas Badby, another Lollard, was burned in 1410. When offered his life if he would recant, he refused, and suffered death with heroic courage. (Ibid., p. 74.)

During the reign of Henry V. the Romish clergy held a convocation to decide upon measures necessary to check the progress of the doctrines of Wycliffe; which resulted in the king’s being advised by the Archbishop of Canterbury “that fire and fagot were the only means of extirpating heresy!” (Ibid., pp. 92, 93.) This was the doctrine of Rome, announced by its highest ecclesiastic in England! But the king was slow to adopt it, as the new doctrines were spreading so rapidly as to excite his fears of the people. He, however, advanced toward it as near as he thought he could safely do, by issuing a proclamation prohibiting the Lollards from holding meetings, and the people from being present at their preaching! But the Lollards held their meetings, notwithstanding the proclamation, and at one of them, held at St. Giles’s Fields, near London, it was represented that twenty thousand were present, supposed to be under Sir John Oldcastle, who had been previously convicted of heresy, and would have been burned if he had not escaped.

Being unable to suppress these peaceful assemblages of the people, the clergy adopted another method for their extermination, by persuading the king to believe that the Lollards had a design upon his life, and were conspiring against the Government—a method which it required the corrupt followers of the papacy to invent. The king yielded to their importunities, summoned a body of armed men, closed the gates of London, for fear the people there would go out to help the Lollards, surprised about eighty peaceful and praying Christians at midnight, cruelly murdered twenty of them, and made prisoners of the other sixty, some of whom were forthwith executed, and the remainder set at liberty. (Rapin, vol. v., pp. 100—103.)

During the reign of Edward IV. the clergy regained much of their lost power, and again began to press more heavily and severely upon the people. In 1462 an act was passed, under dictation from Rome, providing that they should only be tried in the ecclesiastical courts, and should not be held responsible for crimes before the civil tribunals. The king also released them from the operation of the statutes of Provisors and Praemunire. (Ibid., vol. vi., p. 17.) But all these measures, while they added to the power of the Romish clergy in England, also increased their corruptions. These were so openly and unblushingly practiced as to put in striking contrast their conduct with that of the reforming Christians; and by this means the numbers of the latter continually increased, especially among those who had so long struggled to maintain the Great Charter and the ancient liberties. And thus these popular elements were consolidated into a power which persecution could not destroy, but which was destined to be preserved until it became strong enough to control the policy of the English nation, and influence the whole civilized world.

The finger of Providence was wonderfully displayed in the events which immediately preceded and followed this beginning of the Reformation, under the inspiration of the new doctrines announced by Wycliffe; in so exhibiting to the world the ambition and corruption of the papacy as to demonstrate the necessity for the restoration of the ancient liberties in England, in order that the English people, by the aid of their cultivated reason, might discover the true teachings of the apostolic Christians, and restore Christianity to the purity it enjoyed before Constantine tempted the bishops of Rome to mingle in the temporal concerns of princes.

It was but a little while before when Pope Urban V. was shut up for “whole days” in the palace of the Vatican with the infamous Joanna of Naples, and rewarded this “crowned courtesan” for her favors by presenting her with “the golden rose” at the public ceremony of its blessing. (Cormenin, vol. ii., p. 71.)

It was during the pontificate of Gregory XI. that Wycliffe attacked the ultramontane doctrines. One of the first acts of this pope was to issue a bull against Barnabo—one of the hated Visconti, who had caused the arrest of the Bishop of Milan—denouncing him because he had refused his subjects permission to go to Rome “to purchase indulgences, benefices, and absolutions.” (Ibid., p. 73.) And when Barnabo made overtures of peace to him, he refused them, saying, “No, no; it is useless for me to see them; I will spare them from perjury, and will save their souls in spite of themselves, by causing them to be interred alive if they fall into my hands.”He directed the Vaudois to be exterminated by armed troops and by his infernal Inquisitors. He wrote to the Bishop of London to put Wycliffe “to the torture,” and rejoiced as the devouring flames consumed the bodies of thousands of Christians whom he called heretics. (Ibid., p. 75.)

The fourteenth century closed with three popes, each excommunicating the others; and the fifteenth began with two—one of whom caused the other to be poisoned! (Ibid., p. 93.) For more than a quarter of a century there were popes and antipopes—some at Rome, others at Avignon in France, at the same time—who denounced each other, to the scandal of all Christendom, until pure—minded Christians all over Europe blushed for shame.

Gregory XII. was pope at Rome, while Benedict XIII. was also pope at Avignon. The “sacred college” of cardinals, assembled at Rome, said of Gregory that he was an “accursed pope,” because he desired to murder several of them. They called him “the coward, the drunkard, and the knave; the man of blood, the illustrious robber, the schismatic, the heretic, the precursor of Antichrist!” who had “mounted the chair of the apostle like a thief, to set fire to the four corners of the house of God, and to pull down its columns!” And of Benedict they said that he was “a worthy co-partner” of Gregory “in his work of violence and iniquity.” (Cormenin, vol. ii., pp. 95, 96.) They also charged Gregory with an “incestuous amour with his own sister!” and called his chamberlains the purveyors of his “hideous lubricity!” And the Council of Pisa confirmed the iniquity of both these infallible (!) popes, deposed both of them from their sacerdotal functions, and elected another, who took the name of Alexander V.

In the sentence of the council it is declared “that these two infamous men are guilty of enormous iniquities and excesses!” (Ibid., p. 97.) Alexander V. died of poison, when John XXIII. “broke the pontifical gate with a golden axe,” (Ibid., p.100.) and was crowned as pope at Rome. The Ecumenical Council of Constance soon met, and deposed John, declaring that he was “the oppressor of the poor, the persecutor of the just, the support of knaves, the idol of simoniacs, the slave of the flesh, a sink of vices, a man destitute of every virtue, a mirror of infamy, a devil incarnate.” Fifty-four articles enumerating his crimes were publicly read, and “twenty other secret ones” were not read, ” so frightful were the crimes which they announced.” (Ibid., p. 108.)

This council, after acquiring for itself an undesirable notoriety by condemning John Huss for heresy, elected a new pope, Martin V. Pope Gregory XII. finally submitted to the decree of deposition, and so did John XXIII., who retired to a fortress. But there still remained two successors of Peter—Martin V. and Benedict XIII. The latter lived as pope in Valencia for about ten years, and after his death his cardinals elected Clement VIII. as his successor; but he was finally induced to abdicate in favor of Martin V., and thus to put an end to the corrupt and degrading quarrels about the papal sovereignty at Rome which had made all the parties concerned, for half a century, contemptible in the eyes of the world.

No wonder that God so directed his providences that the lovers of true Christianity, within the pale of the Roman Catholic Church, should see these and other kindred enormities of the papacy. This old Church, hallowed by an existence of nearly fifteen hundred years, yet retained within her fold many thousands of devoted and pious Christians, who had escaped the contamination of the corruption which had so long prevailed among the leading hierarchy. How their hearts must have bled when they saw her led away by these debasing influences of the papal system, so far from the apostolic counsels she had once followed! How sad they must have been when, looking back through the last thousand years, they beheld her gradually descending from her high eminence down into corruptions at which pagan Rome would have blushed, and soiling her sacred and once unspotted robes with the slime and filth of worldly politics! And how natural it was for them, acting in consistency with their understanding of religious duty, to begin the work of reformation, and to desire the eradication of these abuses, and the extraction of the poison that was coursing through her veins, slowly, but steadily, consuming her strength. Many of them must have felt as one of that Church, referring to times subsequent to those of which we are now writing, expressed himself when he said:

“The fifteenth century, however, surpassed all the preceding ages in corruption; the churches became the resorts of robbers, sodomites, and assassins; popes, cardinals, bishops, and mere clerks exercised brigandage forcibly in the provinces, and employed, as was most convenient, poison, the sword, and fire, to free themselves from their enemies, and despoil their victims. The Inquisition lent its horrible ministry to popes and kings. In France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and England, it embraced in its thousand arms the victims of the cupidity of tyrants, and put them to the most frightful tortures. The country was covered with legions of priests and monks, who devoured the substance of the people, and carried off to their impure retreats young girls and handsome youths, whom they again cast out, disgraced and dishonored. The cities became the theaters of orgies and Saturnalia, and the palaces of bishops were filled with equipages for the chase, packs of dogs, troops of courtesans, minions, jugglers, and buffoons.” (Cormenin, vol. ii., p. 91.)

The reader cannot fail to have observed the causes which led to the melancholy condition of affairs, both in State and Church, shown by the foregoing detail. There was no want of patriotism on the part of the English people, or of true piety on the part of the laity of the Church. These were struggling in every way they could to establish reform and make it effectual in both State and Church. The wrongs inflicted upon them were not necessary to the Church, or sanctioned by any of her earliest teachings. They were inherent in the papal system, arose out of the temporal power, and grew in enormity as that power increased. The doctrine of passive obedience and submission to authority, applied to the affairs of the State, prohibited the citizen from making any complaint against the conduct of the king and Government, under penalty of severe punishment. The same doctrine, applied to the affairs of the Church, prohibited the layman, however conscientious, from expressing any disapprobation of the conduct of pope or priest, under penalty of excommunication. In the one case the act was held to be a crime against the State, in the other a sin against God! To say of a king that he was a tyrant, was treason against the State; to say of a pope or a priest that he had committed murder, or adultery, or any other crime, was treason against God! This was the teaching of the False Decretals;(*) and to cover it up as a part of the doctrinal belief of the Church, the popes have assumed that they act on earth in the place of God, that all their power is derived directly from God, and therefore that they are infallible and cannot err!

* It has already been shown that even the celebrated Council of Trent decreed that a minister of the Church forfeits none of his authority by any sin, however enormous!

When Constantine, addressing “a company of bishops,” said to them, in the presence of Eusebius, “You are bishops whose jurisdiction is within the Church,” he intended to limit their power, and to deny them any authority over temporal affairs. But when he continued in these words: “I also am a bishop, ordained by God to overlook whatever is external to the Church,” (“Life of Constantine,” by Eusebius, London, 1845, p. 193.) he asserted the divine right of kings. And when the popes, in order to gather all this external power into their own hands, built up the wonderful machinery of the papacy, and obtained the consent of kings to receive temporal crowns at their hands, they made the doctrine of Constantine a part of the religious faith of the Roman Church, so that they, as the only in fallible representatives of God on earth, should become the dispensers of crowns, the regulators of the internal affairs of nations, the authors of universal law, and, consequently, the irresponsible sovereigns of the world.

With Innocent III. the crown of England was held by divine right; and as God had entrusted the Pope of Rome with the sole authority to decide what was permitted or forbidden by his law, therefore he had a divine right higher than that of the king, by the authority of which he was entitled to say who should, and who should not, wear the crown. And as he was infallible and could not err, whensoever and howsoever he decided the question, passive obedience and submission to his decision became a religious duty to the faithful; and whosoever dared to question the correctness of his decision, or challenge the legitimacy of his authority, became ipso jure a heretic, and liable to be cut off from the Church, and from all Christian association, by the terrible sword of excommunication!

This was the great and comprehensive power that absorbed all other powers. It held the kings in obedience to the popes, and they plotted together, in every form of intrigue, to make their united power so compact and unassailable that it should press with death—like weight upon the people, both in Church and State, that they might remain unconscious of their degradation; or where one appeared, bolder than the rest, to fling defiance in their faces, he should be silenced by excommunication, if possible; but if not, by the rack, the dungeon, or the fagot.

We shall have occasion hereafter to see how this doctrine of the divine temporal authority and infallibility of the popes deals with the obligations of the most solemn oaths and promises, when the pope regards them as opposed to the welfare of the Church; but the readiness with which the popes released the English kings from their oaths to execute the principles of Magna Carta is too suggestive, in this connection, to be passed by without comment. It will readily be perceived that if these infallible popes acted in conformity with the law of the Church, then, by that same law, no faith whatever can be kept with heretics!

Undoubtedly the power to release from the obligation of an oath is held to be an incident to the power to absolve from the consequences of sin. In order to justify its exercise the oath must be to do something violative of the law of God and against the interests of the Church, in which case it would be considered void; or something which, lawful in itself, would, if done, lead to one or the other of these consequences, in which case it would be binding without the exercise of the dispensing power. Upon which of these grounds the popes based their action in releasing the English kings from their obligations in reference to Magna Carta is of no consequence, any further than as their conduct served to illustrate, practically, the application of a doctrine regulated by a law of the Church.

Viewed in either light, the result is the same. For example: whether they considered Magna Carta to be violative of the law of God, or against the interests of the Church, and therefore unlawful; or that if its principles were carried out in England, either or both of these consequences would ensue, their opposition to it was based upon their divine right to judge of these things; and their power to dispense the kings from the observance of their oaths was the necessary and logical consequence. That, in point of fact, they did consider it to be violative of the divine right of kings, because it conferred upon the people the right to participate in the affairs of government, is, beyond all question, true. And, being so considered, it was made a matter of religious faith that the principles of the Great Charter should not be executed in England. And why of religious faith? For the manifest reason that as the divine right necessarily included the right of kings to govern the people, and the right of the popes to govern the kings, therefore it was an essential part of the doctrine, and consequently of the law, of the Church.

Now, if the reader will examine the Charter he will see how it violated this doctrine of divine right, and wherein it was in opposition to the doctrine and law of the Church, as understood by the infallible popes of that day. In so far as it conferred any rights upon the people, its principles may be thus briefly summed up: it prohibited unlawful amercements (fines), distresses, or punishments; it gave the right to the owner of personal property to dispose of it by will; it established the right of dower; it gave uniformity to weights and measures; it forbade the alienation of lands in moitmain (A legal arrangement in which a property owner such as an ecclesiastical institution is barred from transferring or selling its property. ); it provided against undue delays in the administration of justice, for assizes and circuits for the trial of causes, for the trial of every accused freeman by jury; and that no man’s life, liberty, or property should be taken from him, except by the judgment of his peers and the law of the land.

In so far as it affected the king, it merely restrained his royal prerogative of preemption and purveyance, by which he had been allowed, by means of purveyors, to take whatever property of the citizen he needed, without his consent, and at whatever price he saw fit to pay, and to impress the carriages and horses of a subject to do his business. And, in order to show that these old barons felt keenly a sense of justice themselves, and had a just appreciation of it in others, it contained this memorable sentence: “We will sell to no man, we will not deny or delay to any man, right or justice.”

Wherein, by all this, did the king surrender anything that ought, in right and justice, to belong to the crown? One would suppose that if the citizens of a country are entitled to any sort of freedom, or to have any share at all in the management of affairs, some provisions of this kind are indispensable. And yet we find those kings of England who were the mere creatures and tools of the pope resolved upon denying them to the people; and the popes, under pretense of being divinely required to do so, releasing them from their solemn oaths to observe them.

The plain and obvious meaning of all which is, that, according to the law of the papacy as it was then understood and acted on by infallible popes, the people of England were not entitled to have any share in the affairs of their own government, for the reason that, if they did, the power of the papacy would be weakened and the law of God violated! And such was the inevitable and logical result of the doctrine of divine right as understood and announced by Innocent III., and such remains today its inevitable and logical result as understood and re-announced by Pius IX. What was the law of the papacy then is its law yet. Admit the law to exist, and its consequences cannot be escaped—they inevitably follow, as effect follows cause. Streams do not more certainly find their way to the sea than it follows, from the recognition of the divine right of kings and popes, that they become the sovereign masters of the world, and all mankind their slaves.

Continued in The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XVI. Henry VIII. Part 1.




The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XIV. The Native Britons Part 2

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XIV. The Native Britons Part 2

Continued from The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XIV. The Native Britons Part 1.

Into what a condition of humiliating degradation, therefore, was England dragged down when the nation and people were laid at the feet of the papacy! It was the price of her obedience to papal despotism—the result of the Christianizing (!) influence of Rome upon her Saxon kings!

But it was impossible to destroy the attachment of the native Britons for their ancient religion, for that form of Christianity which they believed to have been derived from the apostles, as it was also impossible to break their courage. They and the Saxon common people had mingled together until, by association and intermarriage, their former prejudices had been worn away, and they now constituted a peaceful and homogeneous society. They had acquired all the leading characteristics necessary for a new and more vigorous nationality. The Britons imparted to the Saxons some of their ideas of religion and Christianity, while the Saxons, in return, imparted to them some of the principles of civil government they had brought with them from the valleys of the Elbe, the Eyder, and the Rhine.

Yet they were held in tight subjection by their princes, who were themselves held in equally tight subjection by the popes. The people were surrounded on every side by remorseless oppressors, and had to rise up, under this tremendous weight, by slow degrees, and through sufferings it would require many volumes to detail.

The Saxons belonged to the Teutonic, or Germanic, stock, and differed essentially from the Latin race, which clung to the shores of the Mediterranean. Having succeeded, as early as the fourth century, in resisting the aggressions of the Roman empire, they formed a confederacy, which laid the foundation of their “progressive greatness.” (“History of the Anglo-Saxons,” by Sharon Turner, vol. i., p. 132.)

Although overwhelmed by the armies of Charlemagne, their influence was never entirely eradicated, and their distinctive principles were preserved through every variety of fortune. These principles have always been, from the date of their first confederation, “singularly propitious to human improvement.” (Ibid., vol. i., p. 135.)

At the time of their settlement in England, they had their chiefs, or war-kings, who were carefully held in subjection to the popular power; and when they elected a king, “their consent in the gemote (a public meeting or local judicial assembly in Anglo-Saxon England) continued to be necessary to the more important acts of his authority;” (“History of the Anglo-Saxons,” by Sharon Turner, appendix to bk. ii., vol. i., p. 183.) thus showing that they were not then governed without their own consent, even by their kings.

Their religion was pagan; yet after their conquest of England there is no evidence that they ever interfered with that of the native Britons until after their kings yielded to the influence of Rome! We have seen that the religion of these native Britons was at no time eradicated after the first introduction of Christianity, but, on the other hand, that it was preserved and cherished by the people. Hence, as the Saxons found Christianity there, it was impossible that they could have escaped its influence, as it was also impossible that the Britons could have escaped the Saxon influence. The common people had no motive to prompt them to engage in the work of exterminating each other; and to assert that they did so, except when constrained to it by the policy of their kings and the dictation of the popes, is utterly incredible. And it is not at all probable that any others than those who composed the respective armies ever engaged in this work. Indeed, there is little in history more certain than that the body of the people—Britons and Saxons—especially in the remote districts, mingled together in friendly association, so as to impress each other with their respective sentiments and opinions. By this kind of influence they became, at last, molded into one people; and there is much in their subsequent history to show that each imparted to the other principles and elements of character which still impress Anglo-Saxon institutions wherever they exist, and distinguish them from those which have been erected by the Latin race.

It cannot be doubted that the Saxon idea that the people were the source of even the kingly power, was readily accepted by the native Britons, who yet knew nothing about hereditary kings, or their divine right to govern. Nor can it be doubted that after the Saxon kings had become obedient servants of the popes, they labored assiduously to eradicate this principle, which had been inherited by the Saxon people from their Teutonic ancestry. These kings were captivated at once with the idea that they got their power from God, through the pope, and not from the people; for they could easily understand, ignorant as they were, that if the people could make, they could also unmake, kings. And hence they became ready and willing converts to the papal teaching—to a doctrine which confirmed their power to them. They cheerfully accepted a religion so congenial to their tastes—so necessary as the means of promoting their ambition. Rome has always understood well how to teach this to kings; and the latter have generally been apt and submissive pupils—quick to learn, and slow to forget.

There is no satisfactory evidence anywhere that the body of the Anglo-Saxon people ever assented to the doctrine of the divine right of kings, until it was taught as a part of the religious system of Rome, and imposed upon them by force. There is abundant evidence, however, to show that the partial and interrupted dominion of the Northmen in England, which continued for more than two centuries, was unable to destroy the early Anglo—Saxon influences. On the contrary, these influences remained impressed upon the popular mind, and were occasionally exhibited in the struggles of the people to throw off the yoke which their kings, in obedience to the popes, had fastened on their necks. But whatever may have been the result, in the natural course of events, of the mutuality of intercourse and sentiment between the native British Christians and the Saxons, they were, in the end, brought completely and compactly together under a common nationality, and jointly exhibited those qualities which achieved their triumph in all their contests with the kingly and papal power. And when they succeeded in ultimately creating the English nation, they so stamped it with their common sentiments and opinions, that in its wonderful progress it has absorbed even its conquerors, until, in this day, the whole world is influenced by its laws, its language, and its character.

The Norman conquest under William the Conqueror carried into England a fresh supply of papal influences. At the death of Edward the Confessor, Harold became king, by the almost unanimous consent of the nation. He was elected by the Witan, with the full approbation of the people, “in the exercise of their ancient and undoubted right,” and was “acknowledged as king by every earldom and every shire in England. He was king, alike by the will of his predecessor, by the choice of his people, by the consecration of the Church, by the homage of the thegns (aristocrats who ranked at the third level in lay society, below the king and ealdormen) and prelates of England.” (“The Norman Conquest,” by Freeman, vol. iii., pp. 21—70; Thierry, vol. i., p. 152.)

But William, Duke of Normandy, set up a claim to the throne based upon pretexts which, if they had been valid, would have conferred upon him no right whatsoever under the laws of England. He pretended that Edward had made to him a gift of the English crown before the selection of Harold as his successor, and that Harold had violated his oath to marry his daughter and to pay homage to him. William was a devout son of the Church, and submitted willingly to the direction of the great Lanfranc, Prior of Bec, and the foremost man in the Church of Normandy. Whether the plan was concerted by both of them, or originated in the fertile brain of the latter, is of no consequence; but it was agreed that William should submit his claim to the decision of the pope; that is, that the pope alone should decide who should be king of England, without any regard to the wishes of the people or the authorities of the nation.

The pope at that time was Alexander II., but “the power behind the throne” was the great Hildebrand. While any other foreign power on earth would have refused to decide such a question, yet the papal court did not hesitate to take jurisdiction of it, on the ground of possessing the divine right to dispose of crowns and kingdoms. It was of no consequence to inquire what the English people desired. They were incompetent to decide what the law of God required or forbade. Of that law the pope was the exclusive earthly custodian, as Pope Pius IX. still claims to be, and his jurisdiction was derived directly from God!

It marked “a distinct epoch in the history of European politics, when, for the first time, the occupant of the apostolic throne was called on to adjudge a disputed diadem.” (Freeman, p. 317.)

The ambassador of William, an ecclesiastic, was sent to Rome to plead his cause. No notice of the proceeding was given to Harold. But the trial went on. The pope was told that William “craved the blessing of the Holy See upon his righteous cause,” and if he succeeded would “hold of God and of the apostle the kingdom which he hoped to win.” One side only was heard. Harold had no advocate there to defend him against his Norman assailant. England had not submitted the disposal of her crown to such a tribunal, and recognized no right but her own to give or take it away. But the interest of England was not the question to be discussed or decided. The only question considered by that papal tribunal was—what did the interest of the papacy require to be done? The ambitious Hildebrand saw that the occasion was one for the establishment of a precedent, which would enable the papacy thereafter to dispose of all other crowns; and his counsel triumphed. A decree was passed, declaring Harold to be a usurper, and William of Normandy to be the lawful claim ant of the English crown!

Harold and his followers were excommunicated, and William was authorized to go forth as an avenger of Heaven. He was required to teach the English people “due obedience to Christ’s vicar,” and, what the papacy never forgets, “to secure a more punctual payment of the temporal dues of his apostle.” (Ibid., p. 320.)

A costly ring, “a hair of the prince of the apostles,” and a consecrated banner were sent to William, in order that it might appear that his “fraud and usurpation” had the sanction of Heaven. Every blessing held in store by the Church was conferred upon William, and the terrible thunders of anathema were hurled at the head of Harold. (Ibid., p. 321; Thierry, vol. i., p. 159.)

While it is apparent that Pope Alexander II. had in all this the double motive of subjugating England to the papacy, and of giving greater strength and universality to its power, yet there is something behind it which the sagacious (having sound judgment) mind of Hildebrand could not have failed to discover. Although previous popes had employed the Saxon kings for the advancement of their ambitious designs, it was easy to see that it would not be safe to rely too much upon the Saxon and British people, who now, by several hundred years of intercourse, had become molded into one. The Teutonic stock never furnished good materials for slavery; and, therefore, the papal policy was so directed as to place England in the hands of those more closely allied to the Latin race. Hence, the preference given to, and the pontifical blessing bestowed upon, William of Normandy—a part of France. And hence, also, we find that, after the Battle of Hastings, and before William had reached London, the Romnish clergy went out to meet and congratulate him because he marched under the consecrated banner, was accompanied by the papal blessing, and was “well disposed to the Church.” (*)

* “History of England,” by Rapin, vol. ii., p. 230. Freeman says, when speaking of the disgraceful submission at Berkhampstead, that besides the Metropolitans of York and Canterbury and the Bishops of Worcester and Hereford, there were some of “the best men of London, and many others of the chief men of England,” who went on the “sad and shameful errand.”—The Norman Conquest, by Freeman, vol. iii., p. 547.

But little more was necessary to make the conquest of England complete. It was soon done, and William placed the crown upon his brow, in the name, not of the people of England, who were not consulted, but of the Holy See of Rome. He had enforced with arms the decision of the pope, and had brought England down, in degradation, to the feet of the papacy.

Although William and other kings of the Norman line had some fierce controversies with the popes, about investitures and other kindred questions, yet they constantly and actively endeavored to eradicate all the Saxon influences in England, as far as possible, and substitute for them those of Norman origin; that is, to bring the country under the influence of the principles prevailing among the people of the Latin race, in preference to those of Teutonic origin. The popes, in order that the victory in these controversies might be won, and, at the same time, to keep the kings within their grasp, conducted them, on the part of the papacy, with marked sagacity. They made a merit of necessity whenever it forced them to submit to firm and resolute princes, in order that thereby they might preserve their strength for the more complete control of the weaker ones. And when they succeeded at last in having their legates recognized in England, they were enabled to place by the side of the king a power sufficiently great to keep the nation bound fast to Rome; and to war, by the aid of the Normans, more successfully against all the liberalizing influences of the Anglo-Saxons.

The popes, however, needed a more efficient instrumentality than any they had yet possessed to bring about the complete subjugation of the English people. This was the introduction of celibacy among the English clergy. It was considered absolutely necessary to the perfect working of the papal system, that there should be organized a compact body of ecclesiastics, destitute of all those generous sympathies which grow alone out of the family relation, that they might be the better fitted to do the work of the popes. Notwithstanding sacerdotal celibacy finds no sanction among the early Christian fathers, and is directly opposed to the example of Peter and a majority of the apostles, (*) yet its introduction, as a matter of policy, was a display of great sagacity.

* It is supposed that all the apostles, except John and Paul, were married; and Clement, Ignatius, and Eusebius think that Paul was. It is certain that Peter and Philip had children. Not one of the early fathers condemns the marriage of the clergy. See the question fully discussed in Edgar’s “Variations of Popery,” ch. xviii., p. 526.

The experience of mankind has demonstrated that there is no other place around which so many of the most ennobling sentiments continually cluster as the domestic hearth—stone; and that those who cherish in their hearts the kindly affections of home and kindred are the last to yield to such dictates of inhumanity as have been often exhibited by those who have built up and maintained the papacy. Therefore, the celibacy of the Roman clergy has been, since its introduction, considered one of the most effective means of establishing the supremacy of the popes; and for this purpose the attempt was made to introduce it into England, after the Norman conquest.

The pope then desired—as the present pope also does—to set apart the clergy from the body of the community, as a privileged class, with power to govern themselves by laws of his and their own enacting, independently of the civil power and the laws of the State. The English clergy were, at first, unwilling to give up their wives. Pope Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), during the reign of William the Conqueror, had a decree passed by a council at Rome forbidding them to marry. The clergy resisted it—for many of them had wives. A synod was called to consider the question, but it did not adopt the decree. A compromise was agreed upon with the pope’s legate, to the effect that those who had cures (pastoral charge of a parish) in the cities should put away their wives, while those who had benefices (ecclesiastical office) in the country should be allowed to retain them; but that none should be thereafter admitted to orders before they had sworn that they would not marry, thus showing that celibacy is a mere measure of expediency and involves no religious principle.

The imposition of this restraint had the effect of preventing competent men from taking orders, and inflicted serious injury upon the character of the clergy. Pope Pascal II., to remedy this—showing, at the same time, how pliant the principles of the papacy are when an important result is to be obtained—decided not to execute the canon rigorously in England, and granted a dispensing power to the Archbishop of Canterbury. But this prelate was less accommodating than the pope, and procured the condemnation of marriage by the decree of a London synod. Pope Honorius II. had to send one of his cardinals to England to see that it was executed. When he reached there, he, as legate, convened a council, wherein he denounced the married clergy in violent terms; saying, among other things, that “’twas a horrible crime to rise from the side of a harlot, and then to handle the consecrated body of Christ.”

That night, after this impious and vulgar assault upon one of the tenderest and most endearing relations of life—a relation sanctioned by the example of the Apostle Peter himself—this pure- minded (!) cardinal, fresh from Rome and the side of the infallible Honorius II., “was caught in bed with a common woman!” (Rapin, vol. ii., p. 420.) Of course, his precepts had but little effect against an example such as this, and other efforts were rendered necessary.

Some years after, another council was held, when it was considered necessary to give the power of enforcing the canon to the king—a duty which he readily undertook. Like the popes in the use of their dispensing power, he employed his authority to raise his royal revenue “by selling to the priests a dispensation to keep their wives!” (Rapin, vol. ii., p.420.) But, not withstanding all these difficulties, celibacy finally became the absolute law of the Church in England, as elsewhere. The papal Caesar needed his corps of ecclesiastical subordinates, as completely devoted to him as were the commanders of the Roman legions to the pagan Caesars. Each struggled for absolute dominion, and the example of one was followed by the other. Rome, with each, was the central seat of empire— the ” mistress of the world.”

Having, by these means and the politic use of the benefices and honors of the Church, caused the clergy to center all their affections upon the papacy, the popes were enabled to persevere in their schemes to aggrandize their power to such an extent that they compelled the disgraceful and humiliating surrender of the crown to them by King John. Pope Innocent III. resolved that the Archbishopric of Canterbury should be filled by Cardinal Langton—who, though an Englishman, had received a foreign education in France without regard to the wishes or consent of the king. John firmly resisted this for a while, and the pope, to punish him, placed the kingdom under interdict, so that divine service ceased in all the churches, the sacraments were withheld, public prayers were forbidden, and the church—yards were closed—the dead being thrown into ditches, like dogs, without any funeral ceremony. (Ibid., vol. iii., p.193.)

The king, in retaliation, treated the clergy with severity, and was at last excommunicated by the pope. John remained unmoved, until the controversy became one involving simply, on one side, the triumph of the king; on the other, that of the pope—neither party having the slightest regard for the interest or welfare of the people, and both king and pope entirely subordinating the peace and quiet of the Church to their own personal ambition for supremacy.

The pope finally sent two nuncios to England, with whom John was persuaded to agree that some ecclesiastics he had banished should be permitted to return, that the privileges of the Church should be restored, and that Langton should be confirmed as Archbishop of Canterbury—thus yielding to the pope everything he had desired at the beginning of the quarrel. But he yielded too readily, and displayed so little real courage, that Innocent III. was too bold a politician not to take immediate advantage of it. His manifest object was to humiliate the king, and reduce the kingdom to entire submission to himself, so that he could bring all the people under ecclesiastical government, with Rome as the seat of all authority. Therefore he demanded that all that had been taken from the clergy should be restored and full damages paid—when he knew that it was impossible for the king to do either. John being compelled to refuse, the pope pronounced another sentence of excommunication against him, and took immediate steps to stir up a revolt against the Government, by endeavoring to increase the dissatisfaction already existing among the people. The occasion was one which displayed the toweling ambition of Innocent III., and developed, in a most striking degree, the character of the papal policy, which, under like circumstances, would be developed in the same way today or tomorrow.

Pretending that the refusal of the king to do what he knew he had no power to do was rebellion against his authority as God’s vicegerent, he fulminated a terrible bull, absolving the English people from their allegiance to the crown, and commanding them, upon pain of excommunication, no longer to obey their king!(*)

* He absolved the vassals of John from their oaths of fealty, and exhorted all Christian princes and barons to unite in dethroning the king, and in substituting another more worthy, by the authority of the Apostolic See.” —History of England, by Lingard, Vol. ii., p. 163.

An event so remote as this would seem, at first glance, to have no special relation to the present times; but when it is observed that Innocent acted under a claim of divine right and of infallibility, and that the present pope sets up precisely the same claim, it is of the highest importance that the principle upon which he based his supposed right to release the English people from their allegiance to their own Government should be well understood.

What Innocent III. then did in England, Pope Pius IX. undoubtedly thinks he has the power and right to do in all the governments now existing. For that purpose the late Lateran Council enacted the decree of infallibility. In ascertaining this principle of papal usurpation we are not confined to Protestant authority. It is distinctly avowed by one of the most distinguished Roman Catholic authors—one whose “History of England” is recommended to the faithful in the United States.

Lingard, referring to the relations between Innocent III. and King John, states the ground upon which the former acted, as avowed by himself, in interfering with the dispute between John and the King of France—a matter purely temporal. He says that in this explicit statement is set forth “more plainly than any speculations of modern writers, the real ground on which the popes assumed their pretended authority in temporal matters;” and, therefore, the language of the pope is the more worthy of careful scrutiny. He gives the following as the reasons by which Innocent justified himself:

“He first transcribes the following passage from the Gospel: ‘If thy brother trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between him and thee alone…., and if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more….; and if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church; but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican (Matthew xviii., 15—17). ‘Now,’ he [Innocent] proceeds,’the King of England maintains that the King of France, by enforcing the execution of an unjust sentence, has trespassed against him. He has, therefore, admonished him of his fault in the manner prescribed by the Gospel; and meeting with no redress, has, according to the direction of the same Gospel, appealed to the Church. How, then, can we, whom Divine Providence has placed at the head of the Church, refuse to obey the divine command?. How can we hesitate to proceed according to the form pointed out by Christ himself?…. We do not arrogate to ourselves the right of judgment as to the fee—that belongs to the King of France. But we have a right to judge respecting the sin; and that right it is our duty to exercise against the offender, be he who he may….. By the imperial law it has been provided that, if one of two litigant parties prefer the judgment of the Apostolic See to that of the civil magistrate (apud Grat., caus. ii., 9, i. can., 35), the other shall be bound to submit to such judgment. But if we mention this, it is not that we found our jurisdiction on any civil authority. God has made it our duty to reprehend the man who falls into mortal sin, and, if he neglect our reprehension, to compel him to amend by ecclesiastical censures. Moreover, both kings have sworn to observe the late treaty of peace, and yet Philip has broken that treaty. The cognizance of perjury is universally allowed to belong to the ecclesiastical courts. On this account, therefore, we have also a right to call the parties before our tribunal.'” (“History of England,” by Lingard, vol. ii., pp. 153, 154 (note).)

And soon after, in explanation of the bull of Innocent releasing the English people from their allegiance, Lingard says:

“….Innocent grounded his temporal pretensions on the right which he possessed of judging of sin, and of the obligation of oaths….. At first, indeed, the popes contented themselves with spiritual censures; but in an age when all notions of justice were remodeled after the feudal jurisprudence, it was soon admitted that princes, by their disobedience, became traitors to God; that as traitors, they ought to forfeit their kingdoms, the fees which they held of God, and that to pronounce such sentence belonged to the pontiff, the vicegerent of Christ upon earth. By these means the servant of the servants of God [the pope] became the sovereign of the sovereigns, and assumed the right of judging them in his court, and of transferring their crowns as he thought just.” (Ibid., p. 163 (note).)

Now, if the reader will examine the first of these extracts, wherein Lingard quotes the language of Innocent, he will see that the latter derives his extraordinary power from the Gratian Decretals, which, as we have already seen, were made up of numerous gross and palpable forgeries! And if he will then take the pains to examine any of the recent encyclicals of Pius IX., especially that of 1864, (Appendix C. 29) he will also see that the latter derives his temporal power, which enables him to require obedience of governments as well as individuals, just as Innocent III. did, from his divine authority to judge of sin, and therefore from the same False Decretals! When he talked, in the Encyclical of 1864, about having derived from his “predecessors” jurisdiction over “all heresies and errors which are hostile to moral honesty and to the eternal salvation of mankind,” it was manifestly his intention to place himself upon the ground occupied by Innocent; and it is equally manifest that the late Lateran Council intended to affirm his claim of universal jurisdiction over both “faith and morals”—that is, over all the sins committed by governments or individuals—by enacting the decree of infallibility.

It is a common boast of the papal writers that the faith and teachings of the Roman Church are immutable that they have always been, from the beginning, precisely the same. Has not Pius IX., then, and will not his successors have, according to its teachings, exactly the same power to judge of sin, wheresoever it exists, that Innocent III. had? Every thing now done and said by Pius IX. and his ultramontane allies is confirmatory of the fact that they so understand the character of the papal jurisdiction. But this question, the greatest of the present age, is susceptible of a more practical test.

Alexander II., at the dictation of Hildebrand, took jurisdiction over the political affairs of England, and gave away its crown to William of Normandy, because Harold had violated his oath, thereby committing a sin. Pius IX. has declared, in almost every variety of expression, that Protestantism is a sin, and that all the advancing nations and peoples are acting in violation of God’s law: why may he not, therefore, arraign them at the bar of the Roman Curia, pronounce judgment against them, and dispose of them as the interest of the Church shall require? Innocent III. declared that he did not derive his jurisdiction over nations from “any civil authority,” and Pius IX. has done the same thing. They both assert the Divine right to reprehend sin, and to compel amendment by ecclesiastical censures.

All this is of the faith and of morals, and, therefore, what they have said is to be taken as said ex cathedra. Innocent III. was as infallible when he released the English people from their allegiance, and declared that another king than John should be selected “by the authority of the Apostolic See,” as Pius IX. now is when he commands the faithful in Germany, Switzerland, and Brazil to resist the laws of their respective governments, and calls such resistance the true service of God. Therefore, the penalty for disobedience to the papal command must be the same in each case; for the Church—that is, the pope—judges for herself what she shall do, how she shall do it, and in what manner a refusal to obey her shall be punished!

Innocent III. made those who disobeyed him “traitors to God!” Are not those who disobey Pius IX. precisely the same? Innocent III. declared that “they ought to forfeit their kingdoms,” because they “held of God,” against whom they had committed treason; and “that to pronounce such sentence belonged to the pontiff, the vicegerent of Christ upon earth!” who was “the sovereign of the sovereigns,” and had “the right of judging them in his court, and of transferring their crowns as he thought just!” If one of the greatest of the popes has any authority in fixing the law of the Church, then this is as much its law today as it was when it was decreed at the Vatican; and that Pius IX. and all his Jesuit supporters so understand it, will not be questioned by any who will take the pains to examine the facts. It would require a volume even to compile, without comment, what has been written on this subject.

The Catholic World says: “While the State has some rights, she has them only in virtue and by permission of the superior authority, and that authority can only be expressed through the Church, that is, through the organic law infallibly announced and unchangeably asserted, regardless of temporal consequences.” (The Catholic World for July, 1870, vol. xi., p. 439.)

Dr. Brownson says: “No civil government, be it a monarchy, an aristocracy, a democracy, or any possible combination of any two or all of them, can be a wise, just, efficient, or durable government, governing for the good of the community, without the Catholic Church; and without the papacy there is and can be no Catholic Church.” (Brownson’s Quarterly Review, last series, January, 1873, vol. i., p. 10.)

Then, as an argument to enforce the proposition that “human laws repugnant to the divine law have no force what ever, and are on no account to be obeyed,” he proceeds to say:

“Now, as all laws, as all rights, are spiritual or divine, and as all their vigor, as laws, is derived from the spiritual order, only a spiritual court, or representative of the divine order, is competent to judge of them, define, declare, and apply them to the practical questions as they come up in individual or social life. This representative of the divine order on earth is the Church, instituted by God himself to maintain his law in the government of men and nations. Hence the necessity of the union of Church and State; and the condemnation in the Syllabus of those who demand their separation and the independence of the State.” (Ibid., vol. i., p. 12.)

He says, moreover, that the State “is bound to protect” the rights of the Church “with physical force, if necessary,” and “to govern in accordance with the divine law as she interprets, declares, and applies it.” Also, that the Church has “the right to call upon” a Catholic state to suppress an insurgent heresy or schism, and to compel those who have personally received the faith to return to the unity from which they have broken away.” (Ibid., p. 17.)

Innumerable quotations of this kind could be inserted here, but to do so would only be a work of supererogation. It is more satisfactory to go directly to the Vatican, as everything coming from that quarter has upon it the unmistakable stamp of pontifical authority. In 1870, Cardinal Antonelli issued an official communication from Rome, directed to the papal nuncio at Paris, wherein he declared that “the maxims and fundamental principles of the Church” were derived from “pontifical constitutions,” that is, decrees of popes, among which is the celebrated bull Unigenitus of Clement XI.; and then says:

“And, in truth, the Church has never intended, nor now intends, to exercise any direct and absolute power over the political rights of the State. Having received from God the lofty mission of guiding men, whether individually or congregated in society, to a supernatural end, she has by that very fact the authority and the duty to judge concerning the morality and justice of all acts, internal and external, in relation to their conformity with the natural and divine law. And as no action, whether it be ordained by a supreme power, or be freely elicited by an individual, can be exempt from this character of morality and justice, so it happens that the judgment of the Church, though falling directly on the morality of the acts, indirectly reaches over everything with which that morality is concerned.” (“Vatican Council,” by Archbishop Manning, appendix, p. 185.)

This is distinct enough to convince the most incredulous that it is a fixed and well-understood law of the Roman Church, that all individuals and societies and nations are within the circle of the papal jurisdiction; and that whatsoever they may do not compatible with God’s law, as the pope shall define it, in the whole domain of faith and morals, he has the right to condemn, and does condemn, by virtue of authority derived directly from God. Hence, it will be perceived that the law of the Church is today just what it was announced to be by Innocent III., and that it confers upon Pius IX. precisely the same authority which he claimed over the crown of England, and which Alexander II. exercised when he decided it to belong to William of Normandy.

The law being the same, the penalty for disobedience must be the same—for the Church never changes! In any given case of disobedience, whether by an individual or a nation, the act must be, necessarily, treason against God, as Innocent declared. The individual, for this offense, is cut off by the sword of excommunication from all fellowship with the faithful, and the doors of heaven are closed against him; if he be a civil ruler, his authority to govern is stricken from his hands, and those who owe him obedience by the laws of the State are commanded not to obey him. The nation, not having, like the individual, a corporeal body to be punished or a soul to be damned, forfeits all rights to the exercise of the power out of which its disobedience arose, and becomes thereby subject to the “sovereign of the sovereigns,” to whom God has given authority to pronounce judgment against it in his court,” and to transfer it to whomsoever he shall think “just;” that is, to the faithful who will bring it into the path of duty! And when all other remedial measures have failed, the Church, says Pius IX., has the right to avail “herself of force” to compel obedience! (*)

* The Syllabus condemns as one of the principal errors of the times the doctrine that “the Church has not the power of availing herself of force.” See Appendix D, paragraph v., sec. 24.

We are not left to any conjecture in reference to the punishment of individuals or nations for the heresy of disobedience to the pope, which is considered as disobedience to God. If the doctrine laid down by Innocent III. and Pius IX. is not explicit enough oh this subject, it is so laid down by authors of recognized authority, who have compiled the law of the Church, as to leave no room for cavil. In 1773, a work was published in Spain, written by Alfonzo de Castro, a learned friar, which was designed to set forth the law of the Church for the punishment of heretics. These punishments he divides into two classes, spiritual and temporal. The latter are defined to be proscription and confiscation of property, and “the deprival of every sort of pre-eminence, jurisdiction, and government, which they previously exercised over persons of every condition.” To this class belong kings and those who govern public affairs. “A king,” says he, “having become a heretic, is ipso jure (by the law itself) deprived of his kingdom, a duke of his dukedom, an earl of his earldom, and so with other governors of the people, by whatever name they are known.” And this is done by the pope, who “deprives a king of his royal dignity, and strips him of his kingdom; for in the matter of faith, kings, like other subordinates, are the subjects of the sovereign pontiff, who can punish them as he does others.”

Inasmuch as to deprive a ruler of his kingdom, the country would be left without a governor, unless something more were done, the law goes a step farther. This author states it in these words:

“If an heretical king have no heir, or if the heir be also a heretic, then if the nation be not infected with heresy, I should say that it has the power and right of electing the king, as it is said in the First Book of Kings,’The people makes itself a king.’ But if the people be infected with the same pestilence (of heresy) as the king, the people will be deprived ipso jure of the power of choosing for itself a king, and then the business will devolve on the sovereign pontiff!” (Apud Dr. Cumming. See his “Lectures on Romanism,”in London, in explanation of the teaching of Cardinal Wiseman, pp. 55, 56.)

And thus the remote facts in English history, already detailed, connect themselves with our own times, by the attempt of the papacy, under the lead of the Jesuits, to revive the papal doctrines of the Middle Ages, as the means of arresting the progress and advancing civilization of the nineteenth century. The passionate declamation of the pope, and the vaporing of a few hierarchs, or all of them, for that matter, amount to nothing in the abstract. Like all others of disappointed ambition, they are most prolific in terms of denunciation against those who have been driven out of the Roman Church by their severity and injustice.

And if they choose to drive them still farther by additional severity and injustice, and every form of anathema and malediction, Protestants are not likely to concern themselves very much about it. But when they impudently arraign whole nations of people, deny to them the right to govern their own affairs, pronounce judgment against them as heretics and traitors to God, and claim that the pope has the divine right to set his own rulers over them, it is quite time for us to understand what is to be the effect of all this upon the future destiny of our own country. But this question can be more satisfactorily considered when we shall have learned something more of the working of the papal system, which we are now asked to adopt in preference to that which has placed us in so eminent a position among the nations.

Continued in The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XV. The English Barons




The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XIV. The Native Britons Part 1

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XIV. The Native Britons Part 1

Continued from Chapter XIII. The False Decretals Part 2.

The Native Britons.—Their Religion before Augustine.—Gildas and Bede.—Augustine holds Synod with British Bishops.—His Threats against Them.—Conversion of Ethelfied.—Battle of Carlegeon, and Murder of Monks of Bangor.—Roman Religion introduced.—The Effects of It. Offa murders Etlielbeit, and the Pope pardons Him.—He establishes Peter—pence.—He accepts a Code of Canon Laws from Adrian I.—The Native Britons and the Saxons.—Their Customs and Religion are imparted to each Other.—Saxon Kings willingly accept the Doctrine of the “Divine Right” to govern from Rome.—The Norman Conquest.—Harold. William of Normandy.—The Decision of Alexander II. upon his Claim.—Consecrated Banner and a Hair of St. Peter.—Battle of Hastings.—Influence on England.—Celibacy introduced.—Example of the Legate of Honorius II.—Innocent III. and King John.— He releases the Subjects of John from their Allegiance.—Holds all Disobedient Kings to be Traitors to God.—His Claim of Power and that of Pius IX. the Same.—Church and State united.—Cardinal Antonelli to Papal Nuncio at Paris.—He approves the Bull Unigenitus of Clement XI.—His Theory of the Indirect Power.—Its Effect.—A Heretical King forfeits his Kingdom.—The Pope chooses a King for a Heretical Nation.

THE working of the papal system and its influence upon civil policy are nowhere more clearly seen than in the principal events which led to the Reformation in England. As we trace the birth of our popular institutions back to the great uprising of the people there, we cannot fail to realize how manifestly it was designed by Providence as the means of breaking the scepter of ecclesiastical tyranny and giving freedom to the human mind. Having already observed enough to demonstrate the necessity for reform among the prelates and clergy of the Roman Church, we shall find, as we go along, ample means of comparing Protestantism with Romanism, and more particularly with that perverted form of it which is maintained by those who direct the policy of the papacy, and exultingly call themselves “the princes of the Church.”

The native Britons had their own form of Christianity, existing apart from their Druidical worship, which, in whatsoever way it was acquired, they believed to be of apostolic origin. Upon this subject there is much false teaching in history. All the papal writers affirm that Christianity was first introduced into Great Britain in the year 597, by the monk Augustine and the missionaries who accompanied him from Rome, during the pontificate of Gregory I. And many Protestant writers concede this, seemingly disposed, without investigation, to accept it as a fact, because it has been so frequently and dogmatically asserted. (*) There is nothing farther from the truth; and the evidence of this is so abundant and conclusive that no intelligent man, if he will take the pains to examine it, can entertain any reasonable doubt upon the subject.

* In the “Outlines of History,” by Willson, which has become an American school-book, the subject is disposed of in a few words, thus: “It appears that about the year 597 Christianity was first introduced into England by the monk Augustine, accompanied by forty missionaries, who had been sent out by Pope Gregory for the conversion of the Britons. The new faith, such as it pleased the Church to promulgate, being received cordially by the kings, descended from them to their subjects, and was established without persecution, and without the shedding of the blood of a single martyr.”P. 261. The text will show how entirely unreliable are such unconsidered statements as these. They are almost as far from the “truth of history” as the stories of “The Arabian Nights.”

Clement, who was a disciple of Peter and a fellow-worker of Paul, and who was Bishop of the Roman Church about the end of the first century, wrote his First Epistle to the Corinthians shortly before his death—probably about the year 97. Referring to Paul, he says he preached “both in the East and West,” and went to “the extreme limit of the West.” (*) Now, we know that after the Roman conquest of Great Britain, before the birth of Christ, the country was governed by a Roman prefect or proprietor, who maintained his authority by a large military force, and required the payment of an annual tribute by the native inhabitants. And we know also that the Britons were unable to expel the Roman magistrates and establish their independence until about the beginning of the fifth century. Hence the conclusion is clear that, if Paul preached in “the extreme limit of the West,” he must have gone to Great Britain and planted the Gospel there. Or, if the expression of Clement be taken in a narrower and more limited sense, and Gaul be considered as the utmost field of Paul’s labors, then we may conclude that the Christianity planted by him there was carried over to Britain by means of the intercourse between the Gauls and the Britons.

* “Anti—Nicene Christian Library, “The Apostolic Fathers, vol. i., p. 11. This epistle of Clement is also found in “The Apocryphal New Testament,” published some years ago in New York.

Eusebius and Theodoret both assert that Christianity was carried to Britain by some of the apostles, but without naming Paul or any other apostle. Tertullian and Origen both speak of it as established in their day—the first half of the third century—and the former says distinctly that Christ was solemnly worshiped by the inhabitants. Irenaeus says that Christianity was carried to the “Celtic nations,” which included the Britons.

Baionius, the annalist, says that there was a MS. in the Vatican library at Rome which proved that Simon Zelotes, the apostle, propagated the Gospel in Britain, and that Joseph of Arimathea went there about the year 35, and died there. Other authors mention the same facts; and Dorotheus, Bishop of Tyre, says that Aristobulus, to whom St. Paul refers in his Epistle to the Romans, was the first bishop of Britain. (*)

* The authorities upon this subject are all compiled by Bishop Short in his “History of the Church of England,”pp. 1, 2. And also by a more recent author, the Rev. T. C. Collins Trelawny, in a work entitled “Perranzabuloe: The Lost Church Found.”

Gildas the Wise wrote his “History of the Destruction of the Brittaines” in the year 546, fifty—one years before the mission of Augustine. Every page, and almost every sentence, of this book shows the existence of a British Christian Church at that time. It is crowded with extracts from the Old and the New Testament, and makes many references to the condition of the British Christians. At one place he says:

“Britaine hath Priests, but some shee hath that are unwise; very many that minister, but many of them impudent; Clearkes shee hath, but certaine of them deceitful raveners; Pastors (as they are called), but rather wolves prepared for the slaughter of Soules.” [Note: This is the original spelling.] (*)

* Gildas, London, 1641, p. 184. See “The Conquest of Britain by the Saxons,” by Haigh, London, vol. i., pp. 15,16, showing that the native Britons carried their Christianity into Cornwall and Wales.

In the same connection he immediately speaks of “Apostolical decrees,” “Priesthood or episcopal dignity,” “followers of the Apostles,” “the office of a Bishop or Priest,” etc., thus establishing the fact, beyond controversy, that Christianity had been introduced and a British Church established long before Augustine was sent there by Gregory. As to the time when this was done, Gildas is not very explicit, but he states quite enough to show that the British Christians in his day traced their Christianity back to the apostolic times. Referring to their religion, he says:

“In the meane while, Christ, the true Son of God, spreading forth not onely from this temporall firmament, but also from the Castell and Court of Heaven (which exceedeth all times) throughout the whole world, his most (glorious light, especially (as we know) in the Raign of Tiberius Caesar, (whereas in regard to that Emperour) against the will of the Senate threatened death to the disturbers of the professors thereof, Religion was most largely without any hindrance dispersed of his infinite mercy, did first cast on this Island, starving with frozen cold, and in a farre remote climate from the visible sunne, his gladsome beames, to wit, his most holy Lawes.” [Written in old spelling.] (Gildas, pp. 13, 14.)

Some have supposed that Gildas intended to assert here that Christianity was carried to Britain in the reign of Tiberius. But this conclusion cannot be reached without great confusion of dates. Tiberius died about the year 37, and it was either during that or the preceding year that Paul was converted on the road to Damascus. The “door of faith” was opened to the Gentiles about the year 42 or 43. The assemblage of the apostles at Jerusalem was about the year 50. At that time it was agreed that Paul and Barnabas should “go unto the heathen,” that is, to the Greeks and Romans; and that Peter and John should “go unto the circumcision,” that is, to the Dispersion, in the provinces of Asia Minor.

Paul did not go to Rome until about the year 60, when he went as a prisoner, and there is not a word in the whole of the gospels to show that anyone of the apostles visited that city before that time. It was undoubtedly after that when Paul went to “the extreme limit of the West” to preach, and it is not likely that any of the apostles were there before him. Therefore Gildas could not have meant to fix the reign of Tiberius as the time when the Gospel was preached in Britain. And if his language be carefully scanned, it does not bear that meaning, although it is somewhat obscure. He must have meant to say that the light of the Gospel began to spread forth during the reign of Tiberius, which is the fact; that Tiberius “threatened death to the disturbers of the professors” of religion, and that then Christianity, having an opportunity to disperse itself, first reached the island of Britain. That this is his real meaning, and that he intended to assign the introduction of Christianity to Paul, is evident from the following language, which he elsewhere uses:

“Which of yee for the confession of the true word of Christ, hath, like the vessell of election, and chosen Doctor of the Gentiles [Paul], after suffering the chaines of imprisonment, sustayning of shipwracke, after the terrible scourges of whips, the continuall dangers of seas, of theeves, of Gentiles, of Jews, and of false apostles, after the labours of famine, of fasting, etc., after his incessant care had over all the churches, after his exceeding trouble for such as scandalized, after his infirmity for the weake, after his admirable peregrination over almost the whole world in preaching the Gospel of Christ, through the stroke of the sword lost his head,” etc. [Original spelling.] (Gildas, p. 217.)

Here, in speaking of the labors of Paul as extending over “almost the whole world,” the inference is unavoidable that he intended to include Great Britain, which, as a Roman province, was an important part of the world. But, however this may be, the fact is incontestable that Christianity in Great Britain antedated many years the mission of Augustine from Rome. And it is equally true that the British Christians had a church of their own, regularly organized, which existed independently of the Church of Rome. Even Lingard, the great Roman Catholic historian, is compelled to say, “That the Christian faith was publicly professed in Britain before the close of the second century, is clear from incontestable authority.” (“Anglo-Saxon Church,” by Lingard, p. 18 (note).)

But he immediately endeavors to break the force of this admission by insisting that after this time the race of native Britons disappeared before the Saxons, and that with them also disappeared their refinements and “knowledge of the Gospel;” and that the worship of Woden took the place of the worship of God. This is not probable, if it is even possible. It is a naked assertion without any proof to sustain it.

Venerable Bede refers to the desolating war carried on by the Saxons against the Britons, showing that the country was overrun by fire and sword, and the inhabitants “butchered in heaps.” But he says that some of them escaped to the mountains, some fled beyond the seas, and others “led a miserable life among the woods, rocks, and mountains.” (“Eccl. Hist. of England,” by Bede, Bohn’s ed., p. 25.)

Rapin says the Saxons became masters everywhere except in Wales. (“History of England,” by Rapin, vol. i., pp. 144, 145.) And Lingard himself, in another work, without entering into details, says it would be interesting “to exhibit the causes which transferred the greater part of the island from the milder dominion of the Romans to the exterminating sword of the Saxons.” (“History of England,” by Lingard, vol. i., pp. 42, 43.) It is not true, then, that the race of native Britons disappeared before the Saxons; and, inasmuch as they were not exterminated, it is a most natural conclusion that those of them who remained in Wales, and were concealed in different parts of the island, retained and preserved their religious faith and church organization. All history shows that when a people are thus persecuted and driven from their homes, they cling to these with the utmost tenacity and with unfaltering courage. And this conclusion is supported by the condition in which Augustine found the inhabitants when he reached there.

That there were then Christians there is undoubtedly true; and that they were all native Britons is equally true, for, as is conceded on all hands, none of the Saxons were converted until afterward. It may be laid down, then, as an indisputable fact, that Christianity always existed in Great Britain from the time of its first introduction; that is, at all events, from the second century.

When Augustine arrived in Kent, during the reign of Ethelbert, he came in immediate contact with an organized Christian community, having, ordained bishops and other church functionaries. With the assistance of the king he assembled these together, and invited them to unite with him in “the common labor of preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles.” They kept the festival of Easter according to the custom of the Eastern Christians, and not that of Rome a fact which goes to show that they had not then submitted to the Council of Nice, and were, consequently, independent of the Roman Church. And “they did several other things which were against the unity of the Church,” in the Roman sense; that is, against the supremacy of the pope. Thus, having their own Church organization and their fixed principles of religious faith, they declined to “comply with the entreaties, exhortations, or rebukes of Augustine and his companions, but preferred their’ own traditions before all the churches in the world.”

Then, it is said, the pretended miracle performed by Augustine, of restoring a blind man to sight, extorted from the Britons the concession that he was a preacher of the divine truth; nevertheless, they declared “that they could not depart from their ancient customs without the consent and leave of their people.”

A second synod was subsequently held, no more favorable to Rome than the first. At this assemblage there were present, on the part of the British Christians, seven bishops, “and many most learned men.” To these Augustine proposed that if they would consent to keep Easter and administer baptism according to the custom of the Roman Church, and unite with him in the propagation of the word of God among the British people, he would “tolerate all other things” they might do; that is, if they would only recognize the sovereign supremacy of the pope over them, they could believe and do whatsoever else they pleased! The papal proposition was again rejected, the British Christians continuing to prefer their own to the religion of Rome, and at once the true spirit of Roman propagandism was displayed. (*)

* Rapin gives the answer of Dinoth, Abbot of Bangor, to the proposition of Augustine, in these expressive words:

“You propose to us obedience to the Church at Rome. Are you ignorant that we already owe a deference to the Church of God, to the bishop of Rome, and to all Christians, of love and charity, which obliges us to endeavor by all possible means to assist and do them all the good we can? Other obedience than this to him you call pope we know not of, and this we are always ready to pay. But for a superior, what need have we to go so far as Rome, when we are governed, under God, by the Bishop of Caerleon, who hath authority to take care of our churches and spiritual affairs?”—History of England, by Rapin, vol. i., p. 237.

“Giraldi’s Cambrensis is of opinion that Christianity came to England from Asia; it must not, however, be forgotten that the island was much visited by ships sailing from a portion of Africa, where a church was early established. There cannot be a question that, for a considerable period before the advent of Augustine, the Christian faith had taken root in England; and at the period of his visit there were among the Britons, in Wales and Scotland, native prelates, an ordained priesthood, and a ritual differing in essential features from the Roman. The Abbot of Bangor explained to Augustine and his associates that an apostolic church had existed in this part of the world without any subjection to the father of fathers, and, notwithstanding his mission from Pope Gregory, was likely to remain so.”—Lives of the English Cardinals, by Williams, London ed., vol. i., p. 22 (note), citing also “Historical Vindication of the Church of England, in point of Schism,” by Twysden, p. 7.

Seemingly conscious of being supported by a strong and aggressive power, Augustine replied to these humble and tolerant British Christians in words of insolent defiance and threat, “that in case they would not join in unity with their brethren they should be warred upon by their enemies; and if they would not preach the way of life to the English nation, they should at their hands undergo the vengeance of death!” (Bede, pp. 68—71.)

Did Augustine design this language as a threat? The language itself is susceptible of no other meaning; and if the foregoing quotation shows truly what he said, there is no room for doubt about it. The extract is taken from Bede, whose accuracy is not doubted by anybody, and who undoubtedly understood Augustine as threatening, vengeance against the British Christians, because they would not consent to obey the pope! No contrary interpretation could ever have been given to his words, had not the defenders of the pope’s supremacy found it necessary to break the force of this objection to their system of ecclesiastical organization by placing Augustine in the attitude of making a prophecy, and not a threat. Hence we find Lingard, one of their standard authors, instead of quoting truly from Bede, representing him as putting this language into the mouth of Augustine: “Know, then, that if you will not assist me in pointing out to the Saxons the way of life, they, by the just judgment of God, will prove to you the ministers of death.” (*)

* “Anglo-Saxon Church,” by Lingard, p. 42. The same author also uses the same language in his “History of England,” vol. i,, p. 55.

Let the reader compare these words with those of Bede, and he will see at a glance how the latter are perverted. Bede does not say a word about the judgment of God, which was to fall upon the Britons for their disobedience, or that they were to be providentially punished by having the Saxons become the “ministers of death” to them, or anything that can be tortured into such a meaning. Lingard is inconsistent with himself in putting these words into the mouth of Augustine. He had, but a little while before, said that before that time the Britons had “disappeared” before the Saxons; and yet, in order to change the threat of Augustine into a prophecy, he has the British Christians still existing as fit subjects for Saxon vengeance!

The papacy, however, requires far greater inconsistencies of those who enter upon its defense. In this particular case, it required the invention of a new set of words; and Lingard has supplied them. And, seeming indisposed to dwell upon them, he follows them with this single sentence, “He did not live to see the prediction verified,” using the word in the sense of prophecy. But it is clear that the language of Augustine, as recorded by Bede, does not bear this interpretation. Other words are found at another place in his history, wherein he is represented as speaking of “the prediction of the holy Bishop Augustine.”

Referring to the murder of “about twelve hundred” of the unarmed monks of Bangor by the Saxon king, a convert of Augustine, for no other offense than that of praying for the success of their countrymen, and refusing obedience to Rome, he says: “Thus was fulfilled the prediction of the holy Bishop Augustine, though he himself had been long before taken up into the heavenly kingdom.” (*)

* Bede, p. 72. See also note, where it is said that this passage has been regarded as having been added to the original.

M. Augustin Thierry, referring to this statement, says: “It was a national tradition among the Welsh, that the chief of the new Anglo-Saxon Church caused this invasion, and pointed out the monastery of Bangor to the pagans of Northumberland. It is impossible to affirm anything positive on this point; but the coincidence of time rendered the imputation so grave as to make the friends of the Romish Church desirous of destroying all traces of that coincidence. In almost all the manuscripts of the sole historian of these events [Bede] they inserted the statement that Augustine was dead when the defeat of the Britons and the massacre of the monks of Bangor took place. Augustine was, indeed, old at that period; but he lived at least a year after the military execution which he had so exactly predicted.”—History of the Conquest of England by the Normans, by Thierry, Bolin’s ed., vol. i., pp. 39, 40.

If these words are really such as Bede used, they are consistent only with the supposition that the language of Augustine was that given by Lingard. But we have seen that his language was in every essential particular different, and therefore are justified in looking upon this last extract at least with some degree of suspicion. If, however, it is accurately taken from the original, it is but the construction which Bede placed upon the language of Augustine, which he has handed down to us, and which we can interpret for ourselves.

Now, when it is considered that the words of Augustine were, that the British Christians “should be warred upon by their enemies,” and “should, at their hands, undergo the vengeance of death;” and, further, that he did not, as Lingard alleges, say one word about “the just judgment of God” which was to fall upon them, his plain and obvious meaning must have been that he would employ the means necessary to bring about this result; in other words, that as it was a part of the canon law of Rome that force could be rightfully employed to compel obedience to the papacy, he would teach this to the Saxon kings, his converts, and incite them to the bloody and murderous work. Why, otherwise, did he omit any reference to the “judgment of God?” And why, if the meaning of his language, as given by Bede, were not perfectly clear, and did not mean a threat instead of a prophecy, has it been considered necessary to substitute other language for it, not used by Bede, entirely perverting the original meaning?

There can be no other conclusion fairly arrived at, from the whole account of this transaction as given by Bede, than that Augustine had reference to his own agency, and not to the providence of God, in bringing about the punishment of these humble British Christians, for no other offense than that of adhering to their “ancient customs,” and preferring their “own traditions ” in preference to the customs and traditions of Rome, and of choosing to obey their own bishop rather than the pope! What was there in all this that God should curse them for, or should cause “about twelve hundred” of their number to be butchered in cold blood? Is it not time that the world should hear no more of such debasing superstition as this—that the vengeance of God will fall upon all who oppose the papacy—when we now see all the Roman Catholic governments destroyed, the temporal scepter of the pope broken, no king, or prince, or people on all the earth having either the power or will to defend the papacy, and the Protestant nations and peoples marching forward, with marvelous and unchecked prosperity, in the full sunlight of intellectual, moral, and material development?

The sequel shows how well Augustine accomplished his design, how true he was to the teachings of Rome. How different was his method of propagating the Gospel from that practiced by Christ and the apostles! They went among the humble and obscure, the poor and the unlettered; but he dealt only with the Saxon kings. And when he had brought these to realize that the best means of preserving their crowns was by adopting a system of religion which taught, as its starting—point, the necessity of passive submission and obedience to authority, he succeeded in so training his new converts as to cause them to murder the harmless British monks, merely for praying that the British Christians—their own countrymen—might be able to defend themselves successfully against the Roman Christians(!) at the Battle of Carlegion, where the attempt was made to destroy them for maintaining their ancient religion!

The manner in which Bede relates these events must excite the fire of indignation in every honest Christian heart, although more than twelve centuries have passed. It was the beginning of religious persecution in England, and at no one time since then has bloodier work been done. When the poor British monks went out to pray at the battle, taking no part in the conflict of arms, and Ethelfied, one of the converted Saxon kings, was informed of it, he said: “If, then, they cry to their God against us, in truth, though they do not bear arms, yet they fight against us, because they oppose us by their prayers.” (*) Then, out of twelve hundred and fifty, twelve hundred of these praying Christians were cruelly butchered, for refusing to acknowledge the Pope of Rome as the head of their Church!

* Bede, p. 71. Notwithstanding it is incontestably true that the British Christians were numerous at the time of the mission of Augustine and of this attempt to exterminate them by the sword, a late work published in the United States makes this statement, which is an improvement upon that of Lingard: “The Gospel was preached in England during the second century, but had become extinct at the time that kingdom was conquered by the Saxon idolaters, who banished the first inhabitants!“—History of the Catholic Church, by Noethen, p. 266.

And thus did papal vengeance and papal intolerance begin their work of bloody persecution at the very first planting of Romanism in England! To Rome all other Christianity than its own was—as it yet is—barbarism; and, therefore, the sword was drawn to hew down these poor British Christians, not because they did not worship God, but because they would not obey the pope! And thus we learn what papal writers mean when they tell us that Augustine first carried Christianity into England. With them there is no Christianity except that which comes from Rome—none which does not acknowledge entire and passive submission to the pope, none that does not put the pope in the place of God on earth!

Thus introduced, the papal power was preserved in England for hundreds of years, by the authority of kings who were held in obedience to Rome by that part of its religion which teaches that they govern by divine right; that they derive their crowns, not from the people, but from God, through the pope as his sole earthly representative. What ever occasional conflicts about spiritual and temporal juisdiction may have arisen between these kings and the popes on account of personal interest or ambition, this sentiment has been common to them all. Differ as they may about other things, they have always agreed on this, because it keeps the people in subjugation to them. None understood better than they that those who select the rulers of a nation are its masters. The papacy has always taught that the people have no right to govern, but are bound to the duty of obedience to princes.

Therefore the popes have never hesitated to invoke the assistance of the armies of princes in carrying on the work of popular subjugation. They have caused mercenary hordes to be turned loose upon harmless and inoffensive people, as the Albigenses and Waldenses, without the slightest “compunctions visitings of conscience,” for no other purpose than to bring them down into a condition of inferiority and subordination. And when they have thus made princes minister to their ambition, they have held them in like subordination, by threatening to devastate their dominions.

Thus England was governed for centuries, with the load of papal tyranny pressing with the weight of mountains upon her. Her kings kept no faith except that which bound them to Rome; and the popes were always ready to release them from the most solemn obligations, and to sanction the most enormous crimes, when the interest of the papacy required it.

Offa, one of the Romish kings of the Heptarchy, invited Ethelbert, King of the East—Angles, to visit his court, under the pretense of marrying his daughter. But, that he might become master of East—Anglia, he violated the sacred laws of personal honor and hospitality by his assassination. To quiet the remorse of a guilty conscience, he went to Rome to obtain a pardon from the pope, who, availing himself of the opportunity of extending his power and enlarging his jurisdiction, readily granted it “on condition he would be liberal to the churches and monasteries!” that, says the historian, being “the way of atoning for sins then!”(Rapin, vol. i., p. 187; “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” by Bede, A. 792, p. 342.)

Offa repaid this act of pardon by the pope in a manner which subsequently proved most fatal to the happiness and prosperity of England. One of the West—Saxon kings had already established at Rome a college for the education of English youth, and had ordered a penny to be collected each year from every family for its support. Offa extended this tax over Mercia and East—Anglia; and thus was originated the celebrated Peter— pence, which came to be afterward claimed by the popes as a tribute from the English to St. Peter and his successors, and which they converted to their own use for many years, and until it was abolished by Henry VIII. (Rapin, vol. i., p. 188.)

But King Offa did more than this to degrade his country, and to show how completely he had become the vassal of the pope, who was at that time Adrian I. The pope sent two legates to England with a code of ecclesiastical laws carefully prepared by himself, which he required to have introduced there for the government of the kingdom. These legates called two synods, one of which met in Mercia, and was attended by King Offa in person; and the introduction of this papal code as the law of England was, under his influence, consented to. (History of England,” by Lingard, vol. i., p. 78.) And thus a power was built up in England sufficiently strong to govern the country, without reference to the people or any responsibility to them, but responsible only to the pope! What these laws were can now be learned only by comparing them with others which have grown out of the papal system. But it may be safely assumed that the papal clergy were by them freed from all responsibility to the domestic laws of the kingdom, and were by this means erected into a privileged and irresponsible class, looking only to the pope for direction in all things. Pope Adrian I., whose character may be inferred from what has been elsewhere said,(Ante, ch. xi., p. 347.) would have been satisfied with nothing less than this.

Continued in Chapter XIV. The Native Britons Part 2




The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XIII. The False Decretals Part 2

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XIII. The False Decretals Part 2

Continued from Chapter XIII. The False Decretals Part 1.

ARNOLD OF BRESCIA BURNED TO DEATH.

Adrian IV. became pope in the year 1154. When Frederick Barbarossa, the Emperor of Germany, consented to be crowned by the pope, he made a concession to the papal authority which greatly flattered the pride and aroused the ambition of Adrian. But, besides his cession of Ireland to England, his pontificate was distinguished by nothing else so much as the conviction and execution of Arnold of Brescia, by burning, on account of his denunciation of the corruptions of the Roman priesthood. (*)

* Arnold was a republican, and opposed the whole hierarchical system, including the temporal power of the pope. He was condemned to silence by a council at Rome, and banished; but was finally seized and carried back to Rome, where, “by the judgment of the clergy,” he was “executed by the officer of the pope.”—MILMAN’S Latin Christianity, vol. iv., pp. 270, 271.

The forged Decretals were just beginning to bear fresh fruits—most palatable to the papal taste, because it was considered necessary to the further and successful growth of the papacy that every voice, like that of Arnold’s, which cried out for reform should be hushed, and that every arm raised against papal usurpation should be stricken down.

Alexander III. was his immediate successor—equally ambitious, and far more bold and daring. At the time of his election an anti-pope was also elected, who took the name of Victor IV.—the pontificate having become the object of most disgraceful struggles between rival aspirants. Frederick Barbarossa was at that time prosecuting a war in Lombardy, and Alexander III. commanded him not to press his conquests any further, unless he desired to incur the censures of the Church. Frederick paid no attention to these threats, but summoned both Alexander and Victor to appear before a council at Pavia, where it was proposed to decide which of them was the rightful claimant of the tiara. Alexander treated the order of the emperor with as much disdain as his own had received, and both anathematized and excommunicated Frederick, declaring that “the power of the popes is superior to that of princes.” The council, however, assembled and decided in favor of Victor IV., who was crowned at Pavia, and recognized as pope by the bishops and clergy of Germany and Lombardy.

Alexander now excommunicated Frederick the second time, and declared all his subjects freed from their oath of fidelity to him. This, like his former excommunication, was without effect upon the emperor, but it surrounded Alexander with embarrassments which would have crushed a less courageous man. With the Emperor of Germany, and the kings of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Lombardy recognizing Victor as the pope, and without any other support than the doubtful and hesitating alliance of the kings of France and England, Alexander III. bore up against the pressure with wonderful ability. Though unable to reach the papal palace in Rome, he was, nevertheless, “every inch a king”—bold, firm, and defiant. Such persistent courage rarely fails in the accomplishment of its object, whether good or bad.

At the death of Victor, which occurred in the year 1164, after the schism had lasted about five years, the whole aspect of affairs underwent a change. The exactions of Frederick in Lombardy had caused a formidable party to be formed against him there, and Alexander, taking advantage of the disaffection, was enabled, by the use of money, to buy his way into the city of Rome. Seated now upon the chair of Peter, and without a rival, he was able to turn his attention to the difficulties between the Holy See and the King of England, growing out of the exertions of Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, to bring that country into complete obedience to Rome. This he did so effectually, that in a short time he had the satisfaction of seeing the English king completely humiliated before him, begging his pontifical protection, and disgracefully swearing that he would “submit always to the Roman Church,” and requiring his sons to do the same.

The contest between Alexander and Frederick was long and fierce. The emperor marched into Italy with his army, but was repulsed. At one time a pestilence swept off his soldiers so rapidly, before the Walls of Rome, that he was compelled to retreat, which strengthened Alexander, on account of the popular belief that it was the work of the Divine hand. At last Frederick was driven to the necessity of submitting to terms of peace with the pope; and, when these had been agreed upon, he went to Venice to meet Alexander, from whom he humiliatingly begged absolution and forgiveness. The following account of this disgraceful scene is copied by Cormenin from the historian Fortunatus Ulmnus:

“When the emperor arrived in the presence of the pope, he laid aside his imperial mantle, and knelt on both knees, with his breast on the earth. Alexander advanced and placed his foot on his neck, while the cardinals thundered forth in loud tones, ‘Thou shalt tread upon the cockatrice, and crush the lion and the dragon.’ (Psalm 91:13.) Frederick exclaimed: ‘Pontiff, this prediction was made of St. Peter, and not of thee!’ ‘Thou liest,’ replied Alexander; ‘it is written of the apostle and of me;’ and, bearing all the weight of his body on the neck of the prince, he compelled him to silence. He then permitted him to rise, and gave him his blessing; after which the whole assembly thundered forth the ‘Te Deum.'” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 444.)

The next day Frederick Barbarossa, the degraded emperor of the great German nation, kissed the feet of Alexander, and, on foot, led his horse by the bridle as he returned from solemn mass, to the pontifical palace. And thus Alexander III. succeeded in accomplishing what many of his predecessors had striven for—actually placing his foot upon the neck of one of the greatest and proudest of earthly monarchs! The papacy had now risen to a height of grandeur and power which it had never reached before. The sword of Peter had conquered the sword of Caesar! This event gave so much joy to Rome that a picture of the pope treading under his feet the head of the emperor hung for a long time upon the walls of St. Peter’s Church at Rome, and was afterward painted in the hall of the Vatican. (“Journey into Italy,” by Montaigne, p. 321. Montaigne saw this picture in 1581.)

Alexander, now seated upon a throne higher than that of princes, found that while he had been so vigorously engaged in the prosecution of his ambitious projects, the internal affairs of the Church had become greatly deranged in consequence of the prevailing corruption among the clergy. The necessity for reform had also given rise to numerous heresies—as everything was called that did not favor the Court of Rome. He accordingly convened a general council at Rome, in 1179,(This is called the Third Lateran Council.) for the purpose, more particularly, of suppressing the Waldenses and the Albigenses. Among other decrees, this council enacted a canon, in which these humble and devout Christians are called “abominable” and “execrable heretics;” the faithful are admonished to take up arms against them, under the promise of indulgences; are released from all their obligations to them, even though they may arise out of treaty stipulations; are freed from all their oaths to them, however solemn; and are enjoined “to confiscate their goods, reduce them to slavery, and put to death all who are unwilling to be converted.” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 446.)

Thus we find the False Decretals bearing still other fruit—the legitimate offspring of the execrable principle introduced by Gratian, which justifies a resort to force, in order to compel the recognition of the Roman Catholic faith—a principle still maintained, in our own day, in the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX.! (See the Syllabus, Appendix D, proposition xxiv.)

Alexander, in obedience to the council, preached a crusade against the Vaudois, and sent thou sands of ignorant and rapacious fanatics among them to strip them of their property, to persecute and exterminate them. All readers of history are familiar with the terrible scenes which ensued. Under a legate of the pope, their peaceful valleys were invaded, “scaffolds were erected, the instruments of torture rent anew the victims of superstition; then reappeared all the frightful apparatus which the ministers of tyranny could carry with them. Thousands of heretics, old men, women, and children, were hung, quartered, broken upon the wheel, or burned alive, and their property confiscated for the benefit of the king and the Holy See.” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 447.)

The thirteenth century opened with Innocent III. and closed with Boniface VIII. in the pontifical chair, each of them ready to put in practice all the principles of the False Decretals, especially those which contributed to the augmentation of the papal power. The sixteen popes who intervened between them so conducted the affairs of the Church as to cause the historian Matthew Paris, a monk of St. Albans, to declare that he had rather die than assist in the prevailing iniquities. According to him, they practiced an “odious tyranny,” and their harpies snatched “even the last rags which cover the faithful to maintain the luxury of the court of Rome;” and so universal was the corruption, that he exclaimed, “Religion is dead, and the Holy City has become an infamous prostitute, whose shamelessness surpasses that of Sodom and Gomorrah.” Therefore, it was but the natural result of the condition of affairs at the beginning and end of this century, that both Innocent and Boniface should each endeavor to rival the most ambitious of their predecessors in extending and consolidating the power of the papacy.

Innocent III., after repossessing himself of some Italian possessions which his predecessors had lost, turned his attention elsewhere, so as to widen the fields of his conquests. He made an effort at negotiation with the Greek Christians, that he might bring them again under the papal dominion. But failing in this, he incited the Bulgarians to revolt against the Eastern emperor, caused a part of Servia to be detached from his empire, and made one of his own tools governor of that province. He quarreled with Philip, King of France, excommunicated him, and placed his kingdom under interdict, so that all the churches were closed for eight months, and the dead were left unburied! He pursued the grandson of Frederick Barbarossa, who was the legitimate heir to the throne of Germany, with his implacable hatred, and endeavored to dispossess him by declaring, first for Philip of Suabia, and then for Otho of Saxony, after the latter had made him large “presents!” He wrote to Otho:

“By the authority which God has given us in the person of St. Peter, we declare you king, and we order the people to render you, in this capacity, homage and obedience. We, however, shall expect you to subscribe to all our desires as a return for the imperial crown.” (Cormein, vol. i., p. 459.)

But after this pontifical gift of the German crown to Otho, he was defeated by Philip; when the pope, with the adroit cunning of a politician, recognized Philip as emperor. Philip, however, was assassinated soon after, and, thus being out of the way, the pope turned again to Otho and consecrated him as emperor at St. Peter’s in Rome, taking care to require of him an oath that he would defend the Church and its patrimony. Otho, failing in this to the extent demanded by the pope, was excommunicated, and all his subjects released from their allegiance to him!

Innocent was satisfied with nothing less than complete and entire submission to his will. And, true to the teachings of the False Decretals, he inaugurated measures of force and oppression to compel obedience to the doctrines of the Church. He issued a bull to his legate, Dominic, commanding him to put all the inhabitants of the city of Beziers, in France, to the sword;(*) and, in obedience to it, sixty thousand Vaudois were buried beneath its ashes, none being saved but young girls and boys, who were abandoned to the brutality of the soldiers. He resolved to crush out the rising spirit of popular liberty wherever it made its appearance, and, for this purpose, canceled the concessions which the English barons had obtained from King John, in the Great Charter of Liberties, and ordered that they be disregarded, under the penalty of excommunication. In all these acts, and others of a kindred character, he showed himself possessed of very high qualities as the leader of a party; but all that he did was prompted by but one motive—that of raising the papacy above all the thrones and governments of earth. This, with him, was an all—absorbing and controlling passion.

* Du Pin, vol. ii., p. 151. This Roman Catholic author shows the steps taken by Innocent II. to “exterminate” the Albigenses in Languedoc, Provence. Dauphine, and Arragon. In the year 1199, he confiscated their estates. He excited their princes to engage in a crusade for their destruction. And whatsoever was done to accomplish this end was either by his express direction, or had his pontifical approval—even the establishment of the cruel and bloody Inquisition. He leaves no doubt whatever upon this latter point, when he says: “The pope and the prelates were of opinion that it was lawful to make use of force, to see whether those who were not reclaimed out of a sense of their salvation might be so by the fear of punishments, and even of temporal death.” There had been already several instances of heretics condemned to fines, to banishment, to punishments, and even to death itself, but there had never yet been any war proclaimed against them, nor any crusade preached up for the extirpation of them. Innocent III. was the first that proclaimed such a war against the Albigenses and Waldenses, and against Raymond, Count of Toulouse, their protector. War might subdue the heads, and reduce whole bodies of people; but it was not capable of altering the sentiments of particular persons, or of hindering them from teaching their doctrines secretly. Whereupon the pope thought it advisable to set up a tribunal of such persons whose business it should be to make inquiry after heretics, and to draw up information against them: and from hence this tribunal was called The Inquisition.”—Ibid., p. 154.

The canon law, founded, as it then stood, mainly upon the pseudo—Isidorian, Gregorian, and Gratian forgeries, had already been constructed and construed with this end in view; and, therefore, the personal interest, no less than the ambition of Innocent III., led him to preserve all these forgeries with care, so that, in the course of time, the “pious fraud” might become sanctified by time, because perpetrated in the name of St. Peter! The result he hoped and sought for has been accomplished.

When Boniface VIII. became pope, in the year 1294, the affairs of the Church were in a very unsettled and disturbed condition. There were then, as there have always been, good and pious Christians among both clergy and laymen, with whom it was impossible to look unconcernedly upon the prevailing corruptions at Rome. Notwithstanding the Inquisition had been established by Pope Innocent III. for the purpose. of suppressing all inquiry into these corruptions, there were some of this class who had the courage to defy it, and to cry out against the immoralities and vices of the popes and those who basked in the sunshine of their favor.

Not being numerous or powerful enough, however, to constitute an effective body of reformers, their very weakness invited the continuance by Boniface VIII. of the means inaugurated by Innocent III., in order to stifle their investigations and put an end to their complaints. The resort to force to do this, having now become a fixed principle of the canon law, Boniface, in continuing to employ it, not only had the example of his predecessors to justify him, but acted in accordance with his own inclinations.

Ciaconius said of him, while he was a cardinal, “This cardinal had a great depth of iniquity, knavery, audacity, and cruelty, as well as a measureless ambition, and an insatiable avarice.” (Apud Cormenin, vol. ii., p. 31.) And many opportunities were offered him, during his pontificate, to exhibit all these characteristics.

Boniface made a cruel and unjustifiable war upon the family of the Colonnas. There were two cardinals of this family, and these he drove out of Italy, despoiling their property and seizing their castles. He quarreled with Philip, King of France, about his affair with the Earl of Flanders, one of his own subjects, and threatened to interdict the kingdom unless he would recognize his temporal power over him. He commanded the clergy of France not to pay anything to the king for the support of the Government without his consent. He declared, in a bull issued for the purpose, that “God had established him over kings and kingdoms, to pluck up, to destroy, to scatter, to build; that the King of France ought not to think he has no superior, and is not subject to the pope; that he who is of that opinion is a fool and an infidel.” He addressed himself thus to Philip:

“Boniface the bishop, a servant of the servants of God, to Philip, King of France: Fear God, and keep his commandments. We will you to know that you are subject to us, both in spirituals and temporals…. We declare them heretics who believe the contrary.” (Du Pin, vol. xii., p. 5.)

Here was an act ex cathedra, from the chair of Peter, and concerning the faith. It was performed by an infallible pope, and, therefore, binds the faithful no less now than the day on which the bull of Boniface was issued.

The king, dukes, earls, and barons of France united in a protest against these extraordinary demands, and the Assembly of the States resolved that France was not subject to the pope in temporals. The prelates also interfered on the side of Philip, and addressed Boniface in favor of reconciliation. The pope, in reply, declared that the doctrine of the French Assembly was “schismatical, because it tends to the establishment of two supreme heads,” (Ibid., p. 6.) and summoned the French prelates to Rome. This was forbidden by the king, and the controversy became exceedingly angry on both sides—one party asserting and the other denying the temporal authority of the pope in France.

Boniface convened a consistory in Rome, wherein one of the cardinals spoke “boldly for the authority of the pope over the temporalities of kings,” and Boniface did the same, insisting that he had the right to “depose” the king.

The king, on his part, listened to severe accusations against the pope, made by Nogaret, wherein he was charged with heresy, simony, robbing churches, tyranny, blasphemy, extortion, and many other crimes. The pope then issued his famous bull, Unam Sanctam, which was also an act ex cathedra, part of the faith of the Church. In this bull he declares “that the Church, which is one, has two swords, one spiritual, and the other temporal; that the temporal is subject to the spiritual; and that none can deny this truth without admitting of two supreme heads, with the Manichees.” (Du Pin, vol. xii., p. 7.)

We have already seen, elsewhere, the precise wording of this bull, and also that Pope Pius IX. has in his Encyclical declared it to be yet a part of the canon law, as containing principles by which his own pontifical conduct is regulated. And it remains only, in this connection, to be seen that Boniface, by virtue of his claim of infallibility, made it a part of the canon law of Rome.

Du Pin says: “This pope caused to be composed and published a new body of decretals, entitled Sextus, divided into five books, containing some decretals of his predecessors, from the time of Gregory IX., and many of those which he made in his own pontificate. This collection was not only rejected in France, but there was even a time when nobody durst make use of it, or quote it.” (Ibid., p. 9.)

In view of all the foregoing facts, it is impossible to doubt about the origin of the temporal power of the popes, or that it was the result of usurpation, fraud, and forgery. Even acquired as it has been, it would have been acquiesced in by the Christian nations if the ambition of the popes had not tempted them to extend it beyond the boundary of the Papal States. If they had been content to let it stand where the Gallican Catholics of France were willing to concede that it existed—in those states alone—the present pope might yet have been the “King of Rome.”

The eloquent pen of Bossuet was employed to defend the independence of the Holy See, so as to protect it from the jealousies of kings and princes; yet he assigned to it the “heavenly power of governing” only when it was “under the protection of Christian kings.” (Primacy of the Holy See,” by Kenrick, p. 267.)

Not satisfied, however, with this, the popes have struggled for centuries, with untiring assiduity, to place all the governments of the world under their protection; to ignore the right of the people everywhere to construct their own governments; to make both kings and people obey them; to convert all the nations into one grand Holy Empire, with whomsoever should occupy the papal chair as its absolute monarch; and by these means to put the whole world under their feet!

Passing along nearer to our own time, we shall have no difficulty in observing the progress of the struggle inaugurated by these papal usurpations, and in realizing how necessary it was to the happiness, and especially to the freedom, of mankind that these usurpations should be resisted. And the lessons we shall thus learn will not only be instructive in this view, but we shall be compensated for the performance of the task by seeing the condition into which the world would be thrown if its progress were now arrested, and the nations were thrown back into the darkness and superstition of the Middle Ages by the triumph of the principles announced by the present pope. If forewarned, we shall ourselves be to blame if we are not also forearmed.

Continued in Chapter XIV. The Native Britons Part 1




The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XIII. The False Decretals Part 1

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XIII. The False Decretals Part 1

Continued from Chapter XII. The Ninth Century.

False Decretals, a 9th-century collection of ecclesiastical legislation containing some forged documents. The principal aim of the forgers was to free the Roman Catholic church from interference by the state and to maintain the independence of the bishops against the encroachments of the archbishops, who were attempting to extend their power. (Source Britannica.com)

The False Decretals.—Nicholas I. governed by Them.—His Character. Adrian II.—John VIII.—John XII.—Benedict IX.—Three Popes at Same Time.—German Emperors create Popes.—Leo IX.—Hildebrand.—He becomes Pope as Gregory VII.—Principles established by Him. His Quarrel with Philip of France.—His Bull against Henry IV.—He adopts the False Decretals.—Pius IX. does the Same.—Gregory VII. stirs up Revolt in Germany.—The Emperor Henry IV. in Rome.—Death of Gregory VII.—His Successors maintain his Policy.—Urban II.—Calixtus II.—Adrian IV. grants Ireland to England.—The Gratian Decretals.—They authorize Physical Compulsion and Torture.— Arnold of Brescia burned by Adlian IV.—Alexander III. and Victor IV.—Alexander III. releases the Subjects of Frederick Barbarossa from their Allegiance.—His Character.—Submission of Frederick.—The Third Lateran Council.—Decree authorizing Waldenses and Albigenses to be put to Death.The Thirteenth Century.—Innocent III.—His Ambition and Usurpation.—His Claim of Divine Power.—He releases the Subjects of Otho from their Allegiance.—His Bull to put the Vaudois to Death.—The Inquisition.—Boniface VIII.—His Bull Unam Sanctam.— He caused a New Body of False Decretals to be composed.—Opposition of the Gallican Church.

WE shall leave our investigations incomplete, and our task unfinished, without further notice of the False Decretals and their contribution to the growth of the temporal power, inasmuch as the principles derived from them still remain a part of the canon law of Rome—those of the Encyclical and Syllabus of Pius IX. being taken in part from them—and as the present struggles of the papacy and its Jesuit supporters are designed for the purpose of reviving and enforcing them wheresoever they can obtain the power to do so.

Although there were many good and pious Christians among the early popes and clergy of Rome, yet there was enough in the vicious habits of many of those who constituted the priesthood, at the time when these Decretals are alleged to have been dated, to justify the assignment of them to the popes whose names they bear. Many of them yielded to the influence of the example of Pope Victor, and the effect was apparent in their ambition and that of the clergy, which existed to such a degree that religion was almost entirely neglected, except in the mere ceremonial requirements of the Church. We have the authority of Eusebius—who is quoted by all Roman Catholic ecclesiastical authors as reliable authority—for the condition of the priesthood in his time. There is no other author whose history covers the times to which he refers, and as a leading prelate, and a member of the celebrated Council of Nice, he had ample opportunity for ascertaining the true condition of affairs. He says:

“But some that appeared to be our pastors, deserting the law of piety, were inflamed against each other with mutual strifes, only accumulating quarrels and threats, rivalship, hostility, and hatred to each other, only anxious to assert the government as a kind of sovereignty for themselves.” (*)

* “Eccl. Hist.,” by Eusebius, bk. viii., ch. i. At another place, in his “Book of Martyrs,” when speaking of the prelates of the Church, Eusebius says that he had “thought proper to pass by” other events than those related by him—that is, “particularly the circumstances of the different heads of the churches, who, from being shepherds of the reasonable flocks of Christ that did not govern in a lawful and becoming manner, were condemned, by divine justice, as unworthy of such a charge……. Moreover, the ambitions aspirings of many to office, and the injudicious and unlawful ordinations that took place, the divisions among the confessors themselves, the great schisms and difficulties industriously fomented by the factious among the new members against the relics of the Church, devising one innovation after another, and unmercifully thrusting them into the midst of all these calamities, heaping up affliction upon affliction; all this, I say, I have resolved to pass by, judging it foreign to my purpose, wishing, as I said in the beginning, to shun and avoid giving an account of them.”—Book of Martyrs, ch. xii., pp. 374, 375.

And it is said by Cormenin that Marcellinus—who was pope in the year 304, and has been canonized as a saint even abjured the Christian religion, in order thereby to escape the persecution of the Emperor Diocletian! (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 48.) Even if these things were not true to the extent alleged, they were sufficiently so, beyond all question, to have had an injurious influence upon the cause of true piety, and to have placed the affairs of the Church in an unsettled and precarious condition, the precise extent of which it is now exceedingly difficult to ascertain. And this accounts, in a large measure, for the pertinacity with which these False Decretals have been assigned to those times.

Their authors well understood, at the date of their origin, and their defenders understand now, how easy it is to make history, and to make it acceptable to credulous minds, especially where there is no precise detail of facts to expose their falsehoods and assumptions. By all Roman Catholics who accept the teachings of the Church uninquiringly, these Decretals are regarded yet as true and genuine, because they have been put forth and endorsed by infallible popes, and because they are so instructed by their bishops and priests; while the bishops and priests deliberately employ them as the means of continuing their hierarchical power and authority, and thus gratifying their inordinate ambition.

Mosheim, after pointing out how different the ecclesiastical system of the ninth century was from that which prevailed in the ancient Church, says that the popes found it “necessary to produce the authority of ancient deeds to stop the mouths of such as were disposed to set bounds to their usurpations;” and he then proceeds:

“The bishops of Rome were aware of this; and as those means were deemed the most lawful that tended best to the accomplishment of their purposes, they employed some of their most ingenious and zealous partisans in forginq conventions, acts of councils, epistles, and the like records, by which it might appear that in the first ages of the Church the Roman pontiffs were clothed with the same spiritual majesty and supreme authority which they now assumed.

Among these fictitious supports of the papal dignity the famous Decretal Epistles, as they are called, said to have been written by the pontiffs of the primitive time, deserve chiefly to be stigmatized. They were the production of an obscure writer, who fraudulently prefixed to them. the name of Isidore, Bishop of Seville, to make the world believe that they had been collected by this illustrious and learned prelate. Some of them had appeared in the eighth century, but they were now entirely drawn from their obscurity, and produced, with an air of ostentation and triumph, to demonstrate the supremacy of the Roman pontiffs.

The decisions of a certain Roman Council, which is said to have been holden during the pontificate of Sylvester, were likewise alleged in behalf of the same cause; but this council had not been heard of before the present century, and the accounts now given of it proceeded from the same source with the Decretals, and were equally authentic. Be that as it may, the decrees of this pretended council contributed much to enrich and aggrandize the Roman pontiffs, and exalt them above all human authority and jurisdiction.” (Maclaine’s “Mosheim’s Church History,” part ii., ch. ii., p. 216.)

Dean Milman, one of the most learned and reliable authors of the present times, says: “The False Decretals do not merely assert the supremacy of the popes—the dignity and privileges of the Bishop of Rome—they comprehend the whole dogmatic system and discipline of the Church, the whole hierarchy from the highest to the lowest degree, their sanctity and immunities, their persecutions, their disputes, their right of appeal to Rome….. But for the too manifest design, the aggrandizement of the see of Rome and the aggrandizement of the whole clergy in subordination to the see of Rome; but for the monstrous ignorance of history, which betrays itself in glaring anachronisms, and in the utter confusion of the order of events and the lives of distinguished men—the former awakening keen and jealous suspicion, the latter making the detection of the spuriousness of the whole easy, clear, irrefragable—the False Decretals might still have maintained their place in ecclesiastical history. They are now given up by all; not a voice is raised in their favor; the utmost that is done by those who cannot suppress all regret at their explosion is to palliate the guilt of the forger, to call in question or to weaken the influence which they had in their own day, and throughout the later history of Christianity.” (“Latin Christianity,” by Milman, vol. iii., pp. 59, 60.)

That they are now, and have been for many years, regarded as forgeries by candid Roman Catholics, even among the ultramontanes, is undoubtedly true. Marchetti says: “Learned men of great piety have declared against these false collections, which Cardinal Bona frankly calls a pious fraud.”

“Baronius does not as frankly regard them as a fraud; nevertheless, he would not use them in his ‘Ecclesiastical Annals,’ lest it should be believed that the Roman Church needed suspicious documents to establish her rights.”

Marchetti also says: “We may conjecture that Isidore gathered the decretals of ancient popes which the persecutions of the first centuries had not permitted to be collected, and that, animated by a desire to transmit the collection to posterity, he made such haste that he overlooked some faults and chronological errors, which were afterward corrected by a more exact criticism.” (Apud Abbe Guettee, in his late work on “The Papacy,” p. 258 (note). )

While they are here rejected as false, or, at least, as suspicious, there is an evident disinclination to give them up. Yet Fleury, the great Roman Catholic historian, is too frank to participate in the imposture or to exhibit any such inconsistency. He thus disposes of them:

“The subject—matter of these letters reveals their spuriousness. They speak of archbishops, primates, patriarchs, as as if these titles had existed from the birth of the Church. They forbid the holding of any council, even a provincial one, without permission from the pope, and represent appeals to Rome as habitual. Frequent complaint is therein made of usurpations of the temporalities of the Church. We find there this maxim, that bishops falling into sin may, after having done penance, exercise their functions as before. Finally, the principal subject of these Decretals is that of complaints against bishops; there is scarcely one that does not speak of them and give rules to make them difficult. And Isidore makes it very apparent in his preface that he had this matter deeply at heart.” (“Eccl. Hist.,” by Fleury, liv., xliv.; apud Guettee, p. 260 (note).)

The purpose and immediate effect of the False Decretals were shown in the last chapter, in the encyclicals, decrees, and letters of Pope Nicholas I. It was during his pontificate that they took” their place in the jurisprudence of Latin Christendom,” (“Latin Christianity,” by Milinai, vol. iii., p. 58.) by becoming an essential part of” the law of the Church.” He introduced them at Rome with true pontifical audacity, and the whole history of his pontificate shows that he regarded them as contributing material aid to his ambition. He did not hesitate to employ them, most unblushingly, as a justification for his outrageous blasphemies and usurpations. (*)

* “Soon after receiving the new implements forged in the Isidorian workshop (about 863 or 864), Nicholas met the doubts of the Frankish bishops with the assurance that the Roman Church had long preserved all those documents with honor in her archives, and that every writing of a pope, even if not part of the Dionysian collection of canons, was binding on the whole Church.”—The Pope and the Council, by “Janus,” p.80. See, also, Church of France, by Jervis, vol. i., p. 34. D’Aguesseau says that these Decretals may be “more correctly styled the body of the pope’s law than of the law of the Church.” Apud Jervis, Church of France, vol. i., p. 36 (note).

Now, when it is remembered that he did not—become pope till the year 858; that previous to that time nothing of the kind had been known to exist at Rome; and that the assumption of all—absorbing supremacy was based upon these palpable forgeries, he must be a bold man, and greatly insensible to shame, who will, in this enlightened and inquiring age, attempt to excuse or palliate his conduct. Even during his pontifical reign, powerful as he became, the French, or Gallican, bishops were not subdued by his threats of anathema and excommunication.

After the Synod of Metz, in France, had sustained the claims of Lothaire to his kingdom, which Nicholas was endeavoring to wrest from him, he tore up its decrees, pronounced it to be “an assembly of brigands and robbers,” and “declared the French prelates to be deprived of episcopal power.” He excommunicated and anathematized all who opposed the measures of his grasping ambition. But Gonthier, Metropolitan of Cologne; Teutgard, Archbishop of Treves; John of Ravenna, and “a great number of other bishops,” addressed him a letter, wherein they called him “infamous,” “a greedy robber,” “the murderer of Christians,” ” iniquitous and cruel priest,” “sanguinary wolf,” “cowardly tyrant,” “the most infamous of the ministers of the temple of God,” “shameless cockatrice,” “,venomous serpent,” “dog,” and by other names equally expressive of indignation and contempt; and concluded in these words:

BISHOPS DENOUNCE NICHOLAS I.

“We doubt neither thy venom nor thy bite; we have resolved with our brethren to tear thy sacrilegious decretals, thy impious bulls, and will leave thee to growl forth thy powerless thunders. Thou darest to accuse of impiety those who refuse from love to the faith to submit to thy sacrilegious laws! Thou who castest discord among Christians; thou who violatest evangelical peace, that immortal mark which Christ has placed upon the forehead of his Church; thou, execrable pontiff, who spits upon the book of thy God, thou darest to call us impious! How, then, wilt thou call the clergy which bends before thy power, those unworthy priests vomited forth from hell, and whose forehead is of wax, their heart of steel, and their sides are formed of the wine of Sodom and Gomorrah! Go to, these ministers are well made to crawl under thy abominable pride, in thy Rome, frightful Babylon, which thou callest the holy city, eternal and infallible! Go to, thy cohort of priests, soiled with adulteries, incests, rapes, and assassinations, is well worthy to form thy infamous court; for Rome is the residence of demons, and thou, pope, thou art its Satan.” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 241.)

These bold and defiant words go to prove that there was, for a time at least, formidable opposition to the ambitious intrigues of the popes. The French and German clergy were so far removed from the neighborhood of Rome that they were slow to become the mere slaves of papal dictation. They looked rather to their own sovereigns for protection—which soon brought them all, sovereigns and subjects, under the pope’s censure and excommunication. And thus arose, out of these Decretals, that abhorrent and dangerous doctrine which so disgraced the Middle Ages, by which the popes claimed the power to release the subject from his allegiance to any disobedient prince, and to put any of the kingdoms under interdict, on account of matters merely temporal, and in no way concerning the faith of the Church.

An instance of this kind occurred under the pontificate of Adrian II., the immediate successor of Nicholas I. (*)

* Pope Adrian II. was a married man. His wife’s name was Stephania. He had a daughter, who was stolen away by the son of another prelate!—CORMENIN, vol. i., p. 250; MILMAN, vol. iii., p. 67.

When Lothaire, King of Lorraine, died, he left no rightful heir to his kingdom; and a claim to it was set up by his brother Louis, who prevailed upon Adrian to espouse his cause and to interfere in his behalf by the employment of his pontifical authority. The pope wrote to the lords of Lorraine, not requesting merely, but commanding them to support the pretensions of Louis. He irreverently and impiously made this command “in the name of Christ,” and threatened all the metropolitans, dukes, and counts with excommunication in the event of their disobedience. He told them that, if they did not obey him, they should “be struck by the arms which God has placed in our [his] hands for the defense of this prince;” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 255; Milman, vol. iii., p. 71.) thus perverting the religious functions of his office by using them to accomplish ends entirely worldly.

Charles the Bald, in the mean time, seized upon the dominions of Lothaire, and was crowned King of Lorraine with the consent of the people, and by the bishops of the kingdom. Pope Adrian was greatly incensed. He declared that all who should assist Charles in his diabolical usurpation “would fall under anathema, and be given up to the companions of the devil.” He told the bishops of Lorraine that by the coronation of Charles “they were preparing him for hell.” (Milman, vol. iii., p. 71.)

While he did not accomplish anything by this impertinent intermeddling with the affairs of a government over which he had no legal control, yet he exhibited the purpose to interpose his pontifical power between Charles and his subjects, and thus to make himself master of their temporal affairs. That he did it under the claim of authority assumed by previous popes, and affirmed by the False Decretals, there is no reason to doubt. Milman says, “He quoted against the king the irrefragable authority of passages from the pseudo—Isidorian Decretals” that is, from the pretended letters of Popes Lucius and Stephen. (Ibid., p. 76.)

ADRIAN II. STIRS UP REVOLT IN FRANCE.

And thus these miserable forgeries began early to bear their natural fruit. So strongly did Adrian rely upon them to sustain his presumptuous demands, that he ventured to censure Charles for having dared to insult his pontifical authority, and for not having prostrated himself at the feet of his legates! His letter to him concludes thus: “Impious king, we order thee to retire from the kingdom of Lorraine, and to surrender it to the Emperor Louis. If thou refusest submission to our will, we will ourselves go into France to excommunicate thee, and drive thee from thy wicked throne.” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 257.)

Finding Charles unmoved by his threats, Adrian sent legates into France to excite Carloman, the king’s son, to revolt against his father—a favorite mode of procedure with the popes of that age, and which they tried to justify to themselves and the world upon the ground that the good of the Church required it, and therefore that God approved it. Carloman willingly entered into the papal plans; but he was arrested by Charles before they were carried into execution, and severely punished. Charles then sent the pope’s legates back to Rome, accompanied by his own ambassadors, who bore a letter from Hinemar, Archbishop of Rheims, on his own behalf and that of the French bishops, in which Adrian was severely censured, and given to understand, in plain and most emphatic terms, that neither his anathemas nor excommunications would prevent Charles from holding on to the kingdom of Lorraine. At this the pope became perfectly infuriated, and immediately wrote to Charles, calling him an “execrable prince,” ordering him to surrender Lorraine to Carloman, whose treason he had already excited, and informing him that if he did not, he would send his legate into his “accursed kingdom” to deal with him as he should think proper. He commanded the French lords not to take up arms in defense of their king, the French bishops not to obey his orders—all “under the penalty of excommunication and eternal damnation.”

Charles now became irritated “by the audacity and insolence of this letter,” and instructed Archbishop Hinemar to give the pope to understand, in unmistakable terms, and without further equivocation, that he would no longer submit to this unwarrantable interference with the domestic affairs of France. Among other things, Hinemar’s letter in behalf of the king contained these strong words:

“We are established by God sovereign over the people, and are armed with a twofold sword, to strike the wicked and defend the good.” Bold as the pope was, and secure as he felt himself to be, in that ignorant and superstitious age, under the protection of the False Decretals, he now became alarmed at the intrepidity of the King of France. He knew that Hinemar had counseled the king to separate France from Italy, on account, mainly, of the controversy between the pope and the Gallican Christians, and he greatly dreaded this result, on account of the fact that the withdrawal of French protection would expose Rome to powerful and vindictive enemies in other directions. He was anxious to hold on to France by means of the alliance formed by his predecessors with Pepin and Charlemagne, and govern its kings, at least to the extent of being able to employ their military strength in defense of the papacy; but finding Charles not disposed to bow before him, either his courage failed him, or he resolved upon practicing such duplicity as other popes besides him have well understood how to employ. In this art he was a perfect adept. Consequently, he intermediately retracted everything he had said against Charles in a letter which, as a specimen of papal insincerity and hypocrisy, has scarcely a parallel.

It shows how unreliable has been the judgment of at least one of the great popes about the duty which men owe to God. What it is one day it is not the next, accordingly as the pope’s views of temporal policy may change, or as the papacy is the gainer or the loser! Here is what he said to the king:

“Prince Charles, we have been apprised by virtuous persons that you are the most zealous protector of churches in the world; that there exists not in your immense kingdom any bishopric or monastery on which you have not heaped wealth, and we know that you honor the see of St. Peter, and that you desire to spread your liberality on his vicar, and to defend him against all his enemies.

“We consequently retract our former decisions, recognizing that you have acted with justice in punishing a guilty son and a prelatical (prelate) debauchee, and in causing yourself to be declared sovereign of Lorraine and Burgundy. We renew to you the assurance that we, the clergy, the people, and the nobility of Rome, wait with impatience for the day on which you shall be declared king, patrician, emperor, and defender of the Church. We, however, beseech you to keep this letter a secret from your nephew Louis.” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 259.)

Thus we see how these False Decretals became a part of the canon law of Rome, how they were expressly prepared in aid of papal ambition, and how unblushingly they were employed to justify perfidious popes in assuming, as one of their official prerogatives derived from Peter, the right to dictate the temporal policy of governments, to. make and unmake kings, and to require universal obedience; such obedience as should be prescribed by an ecclesiastical hierarchy raised above all human laws, entitled to commit the highest crimes, and to perpetrate all sorts of wrongs with impunity and without responsibility to any tribunals except those which were the mere passive and submissive tools of the papal will.

True, the blow aimed by Adrian II. at the rights of the French king recoiled upon his own head, and taught him that the Gallican Christians, under the lead of Hinemar, were not as easily reduced to obedience as were those of Italy, upon whose necks he had already planted his pontifical heel. But his immediate successor, John VIII., endeavored to recover from the effects of this recoil, and to regain the ground he had lost by recognizing the refractory Charles as the legitimate sovereign of Lorraine and Burgundy. This he resolved to do, if possible, by imitating the perfidious policy of Adrian; so as to bring Charles, by flattery, into the meshes of his pontifical net—a result which he well understood could not be accomplished by threats. Accordingly, he offered to make him “the protector of the Holy See,” and for that purpose invited him to Rome. Charles could not resist the temptation, and, upon going to Rome, was crowned emperor by the pope, who, true to the papal policy, took care to say to him, as he placed the crown upon his brow, “Do not forget, prince, that the popes have the right to create emperors!” (Ibid., vol. i., p. 260.)

Charles was overcome by his ambition, and by accepting the crown upon these conditions reduced the empire over which he presided to the humiliating condition of a fief to the Holy See, and gave his sanction to the custom of crowning emperors by the popes; and, in the end, to the recognition of their authority over all the governments and temporal affairs of Europe. With what complacency such examples as this are referred to by the papal writers in proof of the pope’s supremacy! An agreement between kings and popes that they shall jointly govern all mankind is held up to the world as a part of the law of God! Shall this example of the ninth century be repeated in the nineteenth? Or shall those who are now seeking to repeat it be rebuked by the voice of popular indignation, which shall ring in their ears so long as they shall live?

But the end sought for was only reached by slow degrees and by gradual usurpations. It took many years of severe struggle on the part of the popes to consummate it, by the abolition of the old and the introduction of the new ecclesiastical system founded upon the pseudo—Isidorian Decretals. It required the combined intellect, courage, and unbending will of the three great popes, Gregory VII., Alexander III., and Innocent III., to do what all the other popes were unable to accomplish; that is, to elevate the papacy above all the nations, and place emperors and kings at their feet.

The author of “The Pope and the Council”—a book that deserves careful study, not merely because of the great ability it displays, but because it is written by a Roman Catholic, though opposed to papal infallibility—thus speaks of the times following immediately after the pontificates of Nicholas I., Adrian IL, and John VIII.:

“Nearly three centuries passed before the seed sown produced its full harvest. For almost two hundred years, from the death of Nicholas I. to the time of Leo IX., the Roman See was in a condition which did not allow of any systematic acquisition and enforcement of new or extended rights. For above sixty years (883—955) the Roman Church was enslaved and degraded, while the Apostolic See became the prey and the plaything of rival factions of the nobles, and for a long time of ambitious and profligate women. It was only renovated for a brief interval (997-1003) in the persons of Gregory V. and Sylvester II., by the influence of the Saxon emperor. Then the papacy sunk back into utter confusion and moral impotence; the Tuscan counts made it hereditary in their family; again and again dissolute boys, like John XII. (*) and Benedict IX.,(#) occupied and disgraced the apostolic throne, which was now bought and sold like a piece of merchandise; and at last three popes fought for the tiara, until the Emperor Henry III. put an end to the scandal by elevating a German bishop to the see of Rome.” (“The Pope and the Council,” by “Janus,” pp. 80, 81.)

* John XII. was made pope A.D. 956, when he did not exceed eighteen years of age, and some authors represent him as only twelve. He was exceedingly dissolute, and was accused of incest with his own mother! Baronius, the great annalist, calls him “an abortion. “—CORMENIN, vol. i., p. 292.
# Benedict IX. became pope A.D. 1033, at twelve years of age. He was driven from Rome; and Sylvester III. was made pope A.D. 1044. Sylvester was driven out by Benedict, at the end of about three months, when the latter again mounted the pontifical throne. He then sold the tiara, for fifteen thousand pounds of gold, to John XX., who entered upon the pontificate A.D. 1045. Benedict soon dissipated the money, when he retook the “chair of Peter” from John— thus making three “vicars” at the same time! They finally agreed to hold their orgies together, and “filled Rome with adultery, robbery, and murder,” and finally united in selling the pontificate to Gregory VI., and concluded the bargain “on the very altar of Christ itself!” Clement II. succeeded Gregory VI., when Benedict IX., “at the head of a troop of brigands,” again seized the throne. The emperor then made Damasus II. pope; and Benedict, getting rid of him by poison in a few days, once more placed the tiara upon his brow. The Emperor of Germany then put an end to these disgraceful scenes by giving the pontificate to Leo IX.—Ibid., pp. 328, etc.

The emperor having, by virtue of his temporal sovereignty over the empire (including Italy), obtained this recognized authority over the popes, they became, from necessity, more subject to Teutonic than to the Frankish influences by which they had been directed from the time of their alliance with Pepin and Charlemagne. The Saxon and Salique emperors had by that time placed Germany in the very front rank of the nations; and although the German people were devoted, from education and habit, to the Roman Catholic religion, even then they gave occasional evidences of that natural love of freedom which has since enabled them to reach a condition of superiority over the Latin races, and to assert principles which have become essential to all the advancing and progressive governments of the world. The emperors protected the popes of their own creation with strong hands; and but for this, it is almost certain that the Church at Rome would have been overwhelmed by Italian corruption, and have sunk out of sight. (“Hist. of the Popes,” by Ranke, p. 23.)

After the Emperor Henry III. had placed Leo IX., a German, in the pontifical chair, in preference to an Italian, it became well understood by all the aspirants for that position that, in whatsoever manner selected, no pope could be recognized as such without his consent. He swayed his temporal scepter over all parts of the empire, including the city of Rome. But this condition of affairs was submitted to by the Italians from necessity, not choice; and influences designed to counteract it were readily contrived. Among those most conspicuous in these counter—movements was the celebrated Hildebrand, afterward Pope Gregory VII., who employed all his acknowledged ability in the endeavor to persuade even the German popes that it was beneath their dignity to accept the tiara from a temporal prince. His ambition led him to abandon his cloistered life, that he might put himself into a position ultimately to become pope, and by these means he hoped to lay the foundation of that system of measures out of which subsequently arose, under his skillful management, that vast pontifical power which he wielded with so much success over emperors, kings, and peoples. For more than a quarter of a century before he became pope—passing through the reigns of eight popes—Hildebrand exercised a larger share of influence at Rome than any other man, not a pope, had ever done before. This commanding position was owing to his great courage, superior talents, and unbending will all of which were employed to gratify his inordinate ambition.

His leading and most cherished object was to overthrow the power of the emperors and establish the papal supremacy, not only at Rome, but elsewhere throughout the world. While Henry III. lived, he practiced his intrigues with great caution; but at his death, when Henry IV. became emperor, at five years of age, he took advantage of his minority, and more openly and daringly avowed his purpose. Although the popes Leo IX., Victor II., Stephen IX., Nicholas II., and Alexander II. all held their positions with the consent of these emperors, yet none of them was able to conduct the affairs of the Church upon any other policy than that dictated by Hildebrand, before whom they were all dwarfed into comparative insignificance. And when he himself became pope as Gregory VII., he had laid his plans so skillfully, that, while also compelled to obtain the assent of Henry IV. to his pontifical ordination, he had very clearly marked out his way to ultimate success.

He took his place at once in the very front rank of the leading men of his age. Like some giant oak which overshadows all the lesser trees of the forest, he rose to an immense height above all around him, and so impressed all Europe by the superiority of his intellect, that it required centuries to get rid of the influences of his pontificate. No man in history has received more fulsome praise or more violent censure; and while this is not the place to inquire which of these he most deserved, it cannot be denied that among all his other qualities none distinguished him so much as his ambition—his desire to make the papacy the governing and controlling power of the whole world, in both spiritual and temporal affairs. In this aspect of his character alone is it now proposed to view him.

Gregory VII. commenced his pontificate by asserting the right to dispose of kingdoms, in imitation of the example set by Pope Gregory I., nearly four hundred years before. He granted to the Count of Champagne, in consideration of large sums of money, the right to conquer the kingdom of Arragon; and authorized him and other lords to seize upon the territory held by the Saracens and erect it into an independent kingdom, subordinate to the papacy. He quarreled with Philip, King of France, and threatened him with anathema if he refused to obey him. He concerted measures to force all the bishops and priests of the Church to the practice of celibacy, so that, separated from all family and domestic, influences, they might constitute a great army, thoroughly and entirely devoted to the papacy. He roused up all the superstitious populations of Europe to undertake a holy war, by marching to Palestine and wresting it from the hands of the infidel; and failed to execute this purpose only because he feared the power of the Emperor of Germany, who opposed it. He took from the King of France the power of investing bishops, and excommunicated him for his resistance to his will. He directed the bishops of France to put the whole kingdom under interdict, and to tell the king, if he persisted in his refusal to obey him, that “the thunders of St. Peter will strike him, as God before struck Satan.” He summoned Henry IV. to appear before a council in Rome, under penalty of anathema, in case of disobedience; and when Henry threatened him in turn, he issued his bull of excommunication against him not because of his want of devotion to the faith of the Church, but on account of their differences upon questions merely temporal.

In this celebrated bull he appealed to the “holy mother of God, St. Paul, and all the saints in heaven,” to witness his sincerity, and then declared: “But since I have reached this throne by your grace, I believe that it is your will that Christian people should obey me, by virtue of the power which you [St. Peter] have transmitted to me of binding and loosing in heaven and on earth. Thus, for the safety of the Church, and in the name of God all—powerful, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I prohibit Henry, who by reason of an unheard of pride has elevated himself against us, from governing the kingdoms of Germany and Italy. I free all Christians from the oaths which they have taken to him, and I prohibit all from serving him as king; for he who would oppose our authority deserves to lose his crown, his liberty, and his life. I burden Henry, then, with anathema and malediction; I devote him to the execration of men, and I deliver up his soul to Satan, in order that the people may know that the sovereign pontiff is the rock upon which the Son of the living God has built his Church, and that the gates of hell shall never prevail against it.” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 370; “See of Rome in the Middle Ages,” by Reichel, p. 208; “Latin Christianity,” by Milman, vol. iii., pp. 437, 438.)

Gregory, far too bold for disguise, does not here pretend, as do many of the modern papists, that his right to interfere in the domestic affairs of Germany, so far as to dethrone the emperor and release all his subjects from their allegiance to him, was derived from the consent of the nations or from any human authority. He placed it upon the ground where the present pope and all his hierarchy understand it to rest; that is, upon the power to bind and loose—the power of the keys—as derived directly from God. In this sense he regarded it as a power sufficiently great and omnipotent to absorb all other power upon earth, by the possession of which, as the successor of Peter, he had the right to make and unmake kings, to construct and reconstruct governments, to wrest from those who disobeyed him all the territory held by them, and to bestow it upon those who would hold it in subjection to his authority, and to do any and everything, no matter what, necessary to put the whole world under his feet. He had deliberately formed the purpose of creating an absolute and universal monarchy in the Church, and a no less extensive and despotic civil monarchy which should overshadow all existing nations, and had the courage to declare that he was acting in obedience to the commands of God, who had given him, as his earthly vicar, full power over all mankind, so that he could open or close the gates of heaven or of hell to them at his pleasure. He desired to bind all the people of every nation by a bond of allegiance to the Roman pontiffs, as the successors of Peter, so that all the contests in which nations or men should become involved should be settled at Rome, where the sole power of arbitrament and decision should exist. (Maclaine’s Mosheim, part ii., bch. ii., p. 269.)

And the ground upon which he rested this enormous claim of authority shows that he had no other idea in his mind than that it rightfully belonged to him as the head of the Roman Catholic Church. He placed his right to command Philip of France expressly upon the ground that both that country and the soul of the king “were under the dominion of St. Peter,” by virtue of his right “to bind and loose, in heaven and upon earth,” well knowing, as he did, that the popes were indebted for all their dignity and dominion to the French princes, Pepin, Charlemagne, and their successors.

He pretended that Saxony was held as a fief in subjection to the papacy, because Charlemagne had given it as a pious offering to St. Peter. He maintained that Spain was the property of the Apostolic See; and that he had the right, by virtue of divine appointment, to exact homage of the Emperor of Germany, and the Kings of England, Hungary, Denmark, Poland, Russia, and all the powers and principalities of Europe, and to release their subjects from their allegiance in case of refusal, because they were all held in the same right. (Maclaine’s Mosheim, part ii., chap. ii., p. 270.) Therefore, when he found that there were many refractory bishops who were unwilling to be drawn away from the support of their own kings, he endeavored to incite them to disobedience and revolt, by such letters as the following, which he addressed to the Bishop of Metz:

“As for those who maintain that kings cannot be legitimately deposed by popes, I refer them to the words and the example of the fathers; and they will learn that St. Peter said, ‘Be ye always ready to punish the guilty, whatever their rank.’ Let them consider the motives which induced Pope Zachary to depose King Childeric, and to free all the Franks from their oath of fidelity. Let them learn that St. Gregory in his Decretals [A.D. 590—604] not only excommunicated the lords and kings who opposed the execution of his orders, but that he even deprived them of their power. Let them not forget that St. Ambrose himself drove from the temple the Emperor Theodosius, calling him a profane man, sacrilegious, and a murderer.

“Perhaps these miserable slaves of kings would maintain that God, when he said to St. Peter, ‘Feed my lambs,’ excepted princes; but we will demonstrate that Christ, in giving to the apostle power to bind and loose men, excepted no one. The Holy See has absolute power over all spiritual things: why should it not also rule temporal affairs? God reigns in the heavens; his vicar should reign over all the earth. These senseless wretches, however, maintain that the royal is above the episcopal dignity. Are they, then, ignorant that the name of king was invented by human pride, and that the title of bishop was instituted by Christ? St. Ambrose affirms that the episcopate is superior to royalty, as gold is superior to a viler metal.” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 371; Milman’s “Latin Christianity,” vol. iii., p. 445.)

Here we have an example of the manner in which precedent may be made an apology for the most flagrant usurpation. Without pretense of authority for the construction he gave to the words of Christ when he conferred the power to bind and loose upon the apostles, except that derived from the examples of Popes Gregory I. and Zachary, the bold ambition of Gregory VII. prompted him to declare that this was sufficient for his purpose. He reached this conclusion manifestly because he regarded all popes, both good and bad, as infallible, and therefore incapable of error. In the same way the whole system of papal supremacy is built up: one pope proving the existence of his enormous spiritual and temporal power by another!

Thus, after the pontificate of Gregory VII. had ended, Alexander III. added him to the list of examples; and then Innocent III. added Alexander; and Boniface VIII. added Innocent; and now, in the nineteenth century, and in the face of all its progress, when the list is brought down to Pius IX., he invokes, in support of the doctrines of the Encyclical and Syllabus of 1864, the examples of all his “illustrious predecessors!”

Gregory VII. carried his interference in the affairs of Germany further than merely issuing papal bulls against Henry IV. He succeeded in stirring up revolt against him among the German nobles, who elevated Rudolph, Duke of Suabia, to the imperial throne, in opposition to Henry. The pope issued a decree in favor of Rudolph, again declaring Henry dispossessed of the crown, invoking upon his head the thunders of heaven, and declaring Rudolph “the lawful king of the Teutonic States.” Then, addressing St. Peter and St. Paul, he said:

“Now, blessed St. Peter and St. Paul, let the world know, by giving victory to Rudolph, that you can bind and loose in heaven; that you can give or take away empires, kingdoms, principalities, duchies, marquisates, countships, and the goods of all men; finally, that you take from the unworthy and bestow on the good, the pontificate, primacies, archbishoprics, and bishoprics. Let the people know that you judge spiritual things, and that you have an absolute power over temporal affairs; that you can curb the demons who are the counselors of princes, and annihilate kings and the powerful of the earth. Display, then, your greatness and your power, and let the world now tremble before the redoubtable orders of your Church. Cause especially the sword of your justice promptly to strike the head of the criminal Henry, in order that all Christians may learn that he has been stricken by your will.” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 375.)

Notwithstanding this solemn appeal to Heaven— this impious invocation of the apostles in favor of his political intrigues in Germany—the prayer of the pope was not heard, the empire of Germany was not taken from its legitimate possessor, and the world did not tremble before the thunders of the Vatican! The pride of Henry, which had been sorely wounded by his former humiliation by Gregory, became excited; and the slumbering energies of the German people became aroused at this insolent attempt to place them at the feet of the papacy. Henry raised a large army, overthrew Rudolph— who lost his life in battle—marched to Rome, convened a council of German ecclesiastics and nobles, deposed Gregory, and placed the Metropolitan of Ravenna upon the pontifical throne, under the name of Clement III. (Ibid.; “Hist. of the Catholic Church,” by Noethen, p. 340.)

After many varying fortunes, Gregory was enabled to drive the anti—pope Clement from the throne, but he soon sunk under the tremendous load which pressed upon him, and in the year 1085 died, uttering these words: “No, my hatred is implacable. I curse the pretended Emperor Henry, the anti—pope Guibert, and the reprobates who sustain them. I absolve and bless the simple who believe that a pope has power to bind and loose.” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 377.)

WHATEVER THE POPE COMMANDS IS RIGHT.

One other explanation by Gregory VII. of the principles upon which he acted will enable the reader to form a just appreciation of his character and ambition. It is given by Cormenin in these words:

“‘God is a spirit,’ says Gregory; ‘he rules matter; thus the spiritual is above the temporal power. The pope is the representative of God on earth; he should, then, govern the world. To him alone pertain infallibility and universality; all men are submitted to his laws, and he can only be judged by God; he ought to wear imperial ornaments; people and kings should kiss his feet; Christians are irrevocably submitted to his orders; they should murder their princes, fathers, and children if he commands it; no council can be declared universal without the orders of the pope; no book can be received as canonical without his authority; finally, no good or evil exists but in what he has condemned or approved.’ (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 377.)

Thus understanding the principles of this great pope, we are the better enabled to press our inquiries one step further, in order to understand the source of these principles, and the method adopted by him to justify and enforce them. And here, again, the exhaustive work of “Janus” comes to our assistance. This author says:

“Gregory collected about him by degrees the right men for elaborating his system of Church law. Anselm of Lucca, nephew of Pope Alexander II., compiled the most important and comprehensive work, at his command, between 1080 and 1086. Aiselm may be called the founder of the new Gregorian system of Church law, first, by extracting and putting into convenient working shape everything in the Isidorian forgeries serviceable for the papal absolutism; next, by altering the law of the Church, through a tissue of fresh inventions and interpolations, in accordance with the requirements of his party and the standpoint of Gregory.

Then came Deusdedit, whom Gregory made a cardinal, with some more inventions. At the same time Bonizo compiled his work, the main object of which was to exalt the papal prerogatives. The forty propositions or titles of this part of his work correspond entirely to Gregory’s’Dictatus,’ and the materials supplied by Anselin and Deusdedit.” (“Janus,” pp. 82, 83.)

This same author then goes on to show how, by these old and new forgeries, all based upon the pseudo— Isidorian Decretals, authority was found to justify every claim set up by the pope; how the pretended decrees of the popes were put in the place of the canons of councils, to supply all existing deficiencies; how they were made to justify the claim of Gregory of the right to give or take away kingdoms at his pleasure; how the bishops were made gods, so that no human tribunal could judge them; how even the lower clergy were made higher and more powerful than secular monarchs; and how Deusdedit, one of the forgers, falsely attributed to Boniface, the Apostle of Germany, the abominable sentiment that, “Even if a pope is so bad that he drags down whole nations to hell with him in troops, nobody can rebuke him; for he who judges all can be judged of no man: the only exception is in case of his swerving from the faith.” (“Janus,” p. 92.)

The main object of Gregory, and of all these forgeries, was to bring the Church to the point of recognizing the doctrine of papal infallibility as absolutely necessary to salvation. To accomplish this it was indispensable that the pope should, individually and personally, absorb all the powers of the Church, so that his decrees should become the law for the government of all Christians,without the aid or consent of either general or provincial councils. In the earlier ages general councils had always been assembled whenever it was necessary to settle questions of faith or discipline, and the canon law of the Church was rightfully composed only of their enactments.

Previous to the pontificate of Gregory there had been eight of these. The Council of Nice, in the year 325, condemned Arianism. The first of Constantinople, in 381, condemned the heresy of Macedonius. The Council of Ephesus, in 431, condemned the heresy of Nestorius. The Council of Chalcedon, in 451, condemned the heresy of Eutyches. The second of Constantinople, in 553, acted upon the disagreements between the Eastern and Western Christians. The third of Constantinople, in 682, condemned the Monothelite heresy. The second Council of Nice, in 757, condemned the Iconoclast heresy. And the fourth Council of Constantinople, in 869, deposed the Patriarch Photius, and restored Ignatius to his see.

None of these councils would have been held, or would have been necessary, if the doctrine of papal infallibility had prevailed in the apostolic times, or for centuries afterward. But Gregory was not satisfied with this old order of things—with the principles which prevailed before the Church of Rome was contaminated by the influence of papal ambition. Like those secular despots who governed their nations by laws of their own creation, without asking the assent of lords, nobles, or people, he resolved upon governing the Church without the consent of bishops, clergy, or laymen; in other words, to put himself in the place of God, as the sole dispenser of all spiritual and temporal authority. He loved absolutism be cause it gave him power, and he exercised power so as to make papal absolutism complete and universal. Therefore, he was the first pope who attempted the degradation of civil potentates, the first who “lifted the sacerdotal lance against the royal diadem.” (“Var. of Popery,” by Edgar, p. 217.)

And it should excite no surprise when we find him appealing “to the first forged document that came to hand as a solid proof” (“Janus,” p. 114.) of the lawfulness of his usurpations; or that he set up the false pretense that Charlemagne had made all France and Saxony tributary to the Holy See, and declared that there were documents in proof of it preserved in the archives of St. Peter’s! (Ibid.)

Great as he was, he had that bad ambition which has so often left its blighting influence upon the world, and which prompts its possessor to justify the means by the end in view. By the impious employment of sacred things to bring about mere temporal results, he left an example the influence of which has not yet died away at Rome. And, if his pontificate may yet be justly referred to as one of exceeding brilliancy and splendor, and if he may be pointed out as one of the cherished saints of the Church, to be loved and imitated by the faithful, the “truth of history” assigns this position to him only because the world judges by results, not details.

If we look only at the luster which rested upon the brow of the pagan Caesar, we are dazzled by its splendor; yet if we pause to inquire how he won the diadem, we almost hear the groans of the multitude of victims who were crushed beneath his heel. So, if we search accurately the history of this papal Caesar, we shall find him reaching his lofty eminence by trampling the most holy and sacrethings under his feet, by giving way to the promptings of an unholy and unjust ambition, and by setting such an example as led to the corruption of subsequent popes, and the demoralization of nearly the entire clergy.

The successors of Gregory VII. not only adopted his principles, but followed his example, so far as they were permitted by surrounding circumstances to do so. Urban II. (1088—1099) incited a crusade against the infidels in Palestine by holding out “the spoils” of victory as an inducement. Calixtus II. (1118—1124) gave to a monk the authority to subjugate the Church of England to the court of Rome, and of re-establishing his authority in France. Innocent II. (1130— 1143) hurled his anathemas at the head of Arnold of Brescia because he preached against the effeminate and corrupt lives of the priests and monks. Adrian IV. (1154—1159) excommunicated the King of Sicily, and granted the crown of Ireland to the King of England. (*)

* A feeble effort has been recently made to break the force of this important fact by a flat denial. The Rev. Father Burke, an Irish priest of great eloquence, in reply to a statement made by Mr. Froude, solemnly and fearlessly asserts “that Pope Adrian never issued any such document,” basing this positive statement mainly upon the ground that it was not heard of until about twenty years after its alleged date.—Ireland’s Case stated, in Reply to Mr. Froude, by Burke, lect. i., p. 36.

Bold affirmation of this sort may serve the purpose of a popular lecture, especially when delivered to an excited and sympathizing audience, but it amounts to very little against the weight of historic evidence. To say nothing of the numerous Protestant authorities in support of this grant, it is well attested by Roman Catholic historians. Lingard admits it, and states that it was read to a synod of Irish bishops, and afterward caused Roderic, King of Connaught, to hold his crown under the English king as long as he was faithful to him and paid tribute. He also shows that, in 1175, this grant was confirmed by Pope Alexander III., which last grant Father Burke also tries to prove a forgery.—History of England, by Lingard,’vol. ii., p. 94.

The Rev. Father Thebaud, a Jesuit, is the author of a very instructive work, published in 1873, entitled “The Irish Race in the Past and the Present,” in which he speaks of the grant of Adrian without denying it. He says it was not known to Pope Clement III. (1187—1191). He admits that when Henry II. sent his army into Ireland, the Irish people or clans and their chieftains acknowledged his authority, but thinks they did not do it in the feudal sense, claiming for them, what is probably true, that their pledge “to do homage” to the English king did not deprive them of their right to live in the Pale if they chose, and to be governed by the Brehon law (pp. 138—145).

A “History of Ireland” was published only a few years ago (1868), written by Miss M. F. Cusack, “Nun of Kenmare,” in which the existence of Adrian’s grant is spoken of as an undoubted fact. It is said that it was made by the pope because he was an Englishman. The author subjoins the original bull in a note, wherein she says, “There can be no reasonable doubt of the authenticity of this document.” She further says that it was published by Baronius, from the “Codex Vaticanus,” and annexed to a brief addressed by Pope John XXII. (1316-1334) to Edward II.; also that John of Salisbury states in his “Metalogicus” that he obtained the bull from Adrian (p. 275, n. 6).

All these things were done in the name of religion, by its perversion to uses never contemplated by Christ or the apostles. The character of St. Peter was wholly changed; instead of being a minister of peace and love, sent forth without staff or scrip to preach the Gospel, he was transformed into a temporal prince, ambitiously striving after the conquest and subjugation of the world!

The Gratian Decretals made their appearance about the middle of the twelfth century. (“Janus,” p. 115.) These were issued from Bologna, then renowned for having the best law school in Europe, and were put forth under the sanction of the highest ecclesiastical authority. They too, like their predecessors, were full of forgeries—all designed to promote the cause of papal absolutism. “Janus” says of them:

“In this work the Isidoian forgeries were combined with those of the Gregorian writers, Deusdedit, Anselm, Gregory of Pavia, and with Gratian’s own additions. His work displaced all the older collections of canon law, and became the manual and repertory, not for canonists only, but for the scholastic theologians, who, for the most part, derived all their knowledge of fathers and councils from it. No book has ever come near it in its influence in the Church, although there is scarcely another so choke-full of gross errors, both intentional and unintentional….. All these fabrications—the rich harvest of three centuries—Gratian inserted, in good faith, into his collection; but he also added, knowingly and deliberately, a number of fresh corruptions, all in the spirit and interest of the papal system.” (Janus,” p.116.)

A brief enumeration of a few of the principles, which by these new forgeries of Gratian became a part of the canon law of the Roman Church, will serve to illustrate still further the manner in which the papal system has grown. A system of religious persecution was elaborated. Protection was given by the Church to homicides and murderers, when the acts were done in behalf of the papal cause. It was made not only lawful, but a duty, to “constrain men to goodness, and therefore to faith, and to what was then reckoned matter of faith, by all means of physical compulsion, and particularly to torture and execute heretics, and confiscate their property.” It was provided that whosoever should kill an excommunicated person out of zeal to the Church was by no means a murderer; because all who are declared “bad” by the Church authorities “are not only to be scourged, but executed.” All who “dared to disobey a papal command, or speak against a papal decision or doctrine,” were made heretics.

The pope was placed upon an equality with Christ; these Decretals declaring that, “as Christ submitted to the law on earth, though in truth he was its Lord, so the pope is high above all laws of the Church, and can dispose of them as he will, since they derive all their force from him alone.” (Ibid., pp.119—121.)

If the reader has kept in mind the principles embodied in the false Isidorian Decretals, as well as those of the Gregorian code, and will add to them these equally flagrant forgeries of Gratian, he will be able to comprehend what was meant by the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church about the middle of the twelfth century, and what is still meant by it! It took more than a thousand years, from the close of the apostolic era, for these principles to grow and expand into the wonderful proportions they had then acquired; and even then the popes were indebted to the basest and most palpable forgeries for their existence.

Continued in Chapter XIII. The False Decretals Part 2




The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XII. The Ninth Century

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XII. The Ninth Century

Continued from Chapter XI. Pepin.

The Popes Subjects of the Eastern Empire.—The Ninth Century.—The Emperor Leo V. and Pope Pascal I.—Image-worship.—Church of St. Cecilia in Rome.—Louis le Debonnaire.—Factions at Rome.—Constitution of Lothaire.— Eugenius II. and Valentine.—Gregory IV.—Sergius. —Death of Pope Leo IV.—The Alleged Popess Joan.—Peter-pence. East separates from West.—Nicholas 1. claims Universal Power.—His Manner of exercising it.—Boniface VI. poisoned by Stephen VII.—Trial of Dead Pope.—The Pseudo—Isidorian Decretals.—Victor I. and the Celebration of Easter.—Polycarp and Anacetus.—Ireneus.—The Character of the Decretals.—The Papal System based upon them.—All False and Forged.

IF, as Pius IX. and his Jesuit allies affirm, the temporal power of the pope is included in the spiritual, and has, like it, a divine origin, it must necessarily have a like universality with Christianity itself. It is in this sense that it is claimed to belong to “the primacy of Peter,” and is considered essential to the pope’s ecclesiastical supremacy over the world. Our investigations into its origin and growth, therefore, should be limited only by the means within our reach.

If it is in reality divine, and necessary, either at Rome or elsewhere, to the existence and dissemination of true religion, and if the liberalism and civilization of society based upon principles in opposition to it are injurious instead of beneficial to mankind, then its legitimacy, with all its attendant authority and consequences, should be conceded, in order that the papacy may have supreme jurisdiction over the world, and be able to bring all laws and institutions into harmony with its own conceptions of the divine will. But if, on the other hand, it has been the result of usurpation, fraud, and imposture, and if the world has been improved and advanced in proportion as it has escaped and separated from its influence, then those who are now so clamorous for its restoration should be held to be unsafe counselors, and be dealt with accordingly.

But whether it is the one or the other—whether it is to be restored at Rome or in any other part of the world—the study of its history is in every sense instructive, inasmuch as we can in no other way be brought into familiarity with the papacy, or comprehend fully the nature and character of the extraordinary pretensions now set up in its behalf. We should not expect good and beneficent results to flow from that which is founded upon fraud and wrong, if it shall appear to have been thus founded.

The question is constantly recurring—why should there have been such delay in the establishment of this tremendous power, if Christ or the apostles designed that belief in its necessity should be made an essential and indispensable part of the system of Christian faith? Manifestly they did not so design, or they would have taught it by some word or sign which would have come down to our age, by the Scriptures, or by tradition from the apostles. But nothing of this kind has reached us by either of these modes. Paul was imprisoned and martyred at Rome by the civil authority; and, if Peter was ever there, he met a similar fate. The several persecutions through which the early Christians pass ed originated with, and were conducted by, the same authority. And nowhere, in any history of the first centuries, is there a single word affirming that either Peter or Paul, or any bishop of the Roman or any other church, possessed the power of a temporal prince. On the other hand, in those primitive days of the Church the bishops and clergy devoted themselves to the work given them to do by the Master, and made it the study and effort of their lives to imitate his example of benevolence, humility, and love. They did not strive after the honors, wealth, or power of this world after temporal scepters and the crowns of kings—but after the salvation of immortal souls. And yet he who today denies either the lawfulness or necessity of the pope’s temporal power, if he belongs to the Roman Church, is excommunicated because he violates the true faith; and if he do not, is denounced, cursed, and anathematized as a heretic. And whole books are written, with learning and wonderful ingenuity, to prove that Christ’s Church cannot exist without it!

The pope himself sends forth from his pretended prison his lamentations at its loss, and his followers forthwith combine themselves into a compact and formidable organization, demand assistance from the governments, threaten another bloody crusade, and pledge themselves never to remit their efforts until the crown of royalty is again placed upon the papal brow.

We have seen that this power did not exist in any form before the separation of Rome from Constantinople—of the West from the East—and also the effect of this separation upon its acquisition. This brings us to still more solid ground—to the investigation of events which, although not entirely free from difficulty, have a better foundation.

Mr. Hallam, who is accepted as undoubted authority on all hands, says: “The popes appear to have possessed some measure of temporal power, even while the city was professedly governed by the exarchs of Ravenna, in the name of the Eastern empire. This power became more extensive after her separation from Constantinople. It was, however, subordinate to the undeniable sovereignty of the new imperial family, who were supposed to enter upon all the rights of their predecessors. There was always an imperial officer, or prefect, in that city, to render criminal justice; an oath of allegiance to the emperor was taken by the people; and upon any irregular election of a pope, a circumstance by no means unusual, the emperors held themselves entitled to interpose. But the spirit and even the institutions of the Romans were republican.” (Hallam’s “Middle Ages,” ch. iii., part i., pp. 126, 127. Harper & Brothers’ ed., 1843.)

Archbishop Kenrick is not ingenuous when he quotes the first two sentences of the above extract to show the existence of the temporal power before the separation from Constantinople, and its increase “on her separation from Constantinople.” By the omission of all the latter part of what Mr. Hallam says, he fails to show the “undeniable sovereignty” of the empire, that an oath of allegiance to it was required, and that the emperor had the right to interfere even in the election of a pope. Why this omission? Manifestly because the whole of what Mr. Hallam says repudiates all idea of any sovereignty except that possessed by the emperors—a concession which even so fair a man as Archbishop Kenrick could not make while held in the toils of the papacy. But his omission is not so bad as his misquotation. For the purpose of making it appear that the immediate effect of the separation of Rome from Constantinople was a great increase of the temporal power, with the consent of the King, of France, he quotes the second sentence in the above extract from Mr. Hallam, thus:

“This power became more extensive on her separation from Constantinople.” (Kenrick, p. 261.) Mr. Hallam did not use this language. The word employed by him is “after,” not “on:” “this power became more extensive after her separation from Constantinople.” To say that the result was produced “on the separation,” is equivalent to stating that it followed directly as a consequence; where as if it were after that event, the growth may have been slow and gradual, each step the work of usurpation. And this is Mr. Hallam’s meaning, which Archbishop Kenrick endeavors to obscure by misquoting him.

The ninth century opened under the influence of the new order of things. For eight hundred years Christianity had existed in the world, and had grown, strengthened, and prospered, under the guardianship of bishops and priests who had no jurisdiction over temporal affairs. Even the bishops of Rome, with all their pride and ambition, had been limited in their authority to spiritual affairs, and the occasional claims they set up for an enlargement of their powers served only to show them that no such enlargement could ever be obtained with the consent of the people, and that if obtained at all, it must be the result of a combination with princes—a conspiracy against popular government. They well knew that it would be impossible to acquire the possession of unlimited power in Rome without the accomplishment of two things—successful revolt against the Eastern emperors, and the destruction of the Roman republic. The achievement of the first gave them the means of bringing about the last result.

The immediate consequence of the protection given to the popes by the French monarchs was the exercise of tyrannical authority over the inferior bishops and clergy, the object being to make the single will of the pope the governing, authority of the Church, not only in Rome, but all over the Christian world. Notwithstanding the recognized independence of the several churches during the apostolic times and for centuries afterward, and the unity of faith which had been then preserved by the diversities of local government, papal ambition soon became so all—absorbing as to see no other motive in the management of church affairs but its own gratification. Cormenin, referring to the change thus produced in religion, says:

“….holy traditions were despised, the morality of Christ was outraged; the orthodoxy of the Church no longer consisted in anything but the sovereignty of the pope, the adoration of images, and the invocation of saints; in sacred singing, the solemnity of masses, and the pomps of ceremonies; in the consecration of temples, splendid churches, monastic vows, and pilgrimages.

“Rome imposed its fanaticism and its superstitions on all the other churches; morality, faith, and true piety were replaced by cupidity, ambition, and luxury; the ignorance of the clergy was so profound that a knowledge of the singing of the Lord’s Prayer, the creed, and the service of the mass was all that was demanded from princes and ecclesiastical dignitaries.” (Cormenin, vol. i., pp. 211, 212.)

Pascal I. became pope in the year 817. Leo V., the Emperor of the East, and Theodore, Patriarch of Constantinople, sent nuncios to him with the view of reconciling the disagreement between the Eastern and Western Christians in reference to the worship of images. But the pope, fearing that a reconciliation of this kind would lead to the impairment of his papal influence and put an end to the alliance with France—and caring far more for his temporal power than for the restoration of harmony in the Church—refused to receive the nuncios, or to hear any suggestions of compromise. He drove them out of Rome in disgrace, and, relying upon the protection of the King of France, had the impudence, soon after, to send legates to Constantinople, and command the emperor to restore the worship of images.

How much, at that time, a few mild words, and the meekness and charity of true Christianity, would have done for the cause of genuine religion may be seen by those who will examine the history of those times. If the conciliatory spirit of the Eastern emperor had been reciprocated by the Roman pontiff, the East and the West might have been today united in Christian bonds, and the Church of Rome might have spread her spiritual influence over all the world. But other objects filled the mind of Pope Pascal I., who was determined to maintain his own authority, whatever the result to Christianity and the Church. His stubbornness invited, naturally, a corresponding degree of illiberality on the part of the emperor, who caused the pope’s envoys to be whipped through the streets of Constantinople, and the image—worshipers within his dominions to be treated with harshness and severity.

The pope now resorted to artifice to maintain himself. He invited the image—worshipers of the East to come to Rome, promising them protection. He rebuilt monasteries and churches for their accommodation, and, having exhausted his revenues in this undertaking, cunningly contrived an appeal to the superstition of his subjects, in order to extort further contributions from them. After rebuilding the Church of St. Cecilia, he placed her shrine upon its high altar; but the remains of the saint, who had been dead about six hundred years, were wanting to give sanctity to the place, and to excite the superstition of the attendants. With the view of discovering them, he convoked the people on Sunday, and, in their presence, fell into a supernatural sleep. After awaking, he declared that Cecilia had appeared to him in a vision, and pointed with her finger to the place of her interment! He visited the spot, took a spade, dug up the earth, and “discovered the body of the saint clothed in a robe of tissue of gold,” and with “linen rags freshly impregnated with her blood!” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 214; “Encyclopedia Americana,” vol. iii., p. 21, article Cecilia.)

These relics were removed to the church: the faithful were thereby excited to contribute largely of their wealth to the pontifical treasury, and an example was thus set which led to like imposture and fraud to such an extent that innumerable saints were fabricated in order that money might be raised by the sale of their bones—a practice which has been carried to such disgraceful and ridiculous extent that the wood of the true cross, the hair of the Virgin Mary, and that of St. John the Baptist, a part of the body of Christ himself, and hundreds of other equally impossible relics, have been, from time to time, fraudulently imposed as genuine upon the ignorant and deluded followers of the papacy. Such a state of things could not possibly exist without almost universal corruption and degeneracy at Rome, especially among the popes, priests, and lower clergy.

After the death of Charlemagne, Louis le Debonnaire, his son, became his successor as emperor, Germany having, been added to the dominions of France. He was both weak and superstitious, and was easily subjected to the will of the pope. He sent his son Lothaire to Rome to be consecrated by the pope, who, when he reached there, was both surprised and shocked at the general depravity of morals which prevailed. He called the attention of Pope Pascal to it, and obtained from him a promise of reform; but so soon as Lothaire had left Rome, the pope caused two venerable priests to be arrested, charged them with having been informers, had their eyes put out, and their tongues dragged out, in his own presence, as punishment for their desire to reform the morals of the pope and clergy!(Cormenin, vol. i., p. 214.)

The Emperor Louis became indignant when he heard of this, and sent ambassadors to Rome to investigate the facts. Before these Pope Pascal solemnly swore he had nothing to do with it! They then demanded the delivery of the murderers, but this the pope refused, because they “were of the family of St. Peter, and that it was his duty to protect them against all the sovereigns of the world! (Ibid.)

That factions should have grown up under such a pope as this is not at all wonderful. They were excited to such a degree that at his death two popes were elected—one by the nobles and clergy, and the other by the people of Rome. The latter being the strongest, succeeded in placing Eugenius II. upon the pontifical throne. Being a Roman, and the representative of the people, he was disposed to suppress the general immorality which prevailed among the clergy, and for this purpose sought the aid of the Emperor Louis to put down the opposing faction. Louis again sent Lothaire to Rome, accompanied by the venerable Abbot of St. Denis, in France, to ascertain the true condition of affairs. When he reached there, he heard the complaints of the people, who represented to him that they had been stripped of their wealth by former popes, and greatly oppressed by their tyranny. Lothaire, indignant at these abuses and outrages, commanded the pope to restore to the citizens their property which had been unjustly confiscated, and endeavored to provide against the repetition of these wrongs by the promulgation of a decree for securing to the people a voice in the government of their own affairs.

This constitution is important, as showing what might have been done for the cause of religion and reform, under an honest and unambitious pope, if Eugenius II. had lived long enough to provide for the faithful execution of its provisions. Among other things, it required that “equitable justice” should be rendered to the people; that “the exercise of the right of election of the chiefs of the Church” should not be impeded; that the emperor should be annually informed “in what manner justice has been rendered to the citizens,” and how the constitution was observed; that the people of Rome should be asked “under what law they wished to live, in order that they may be judged according to the law which they shall have adopted;” and that all the dignitaries of the State should take an oath of fidelity to the emperor, which should be of superior obligation to their promise of fidelity to the Holy See. (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 215.)

This liberal constitution restored tranquility among the Roman people, which was greatly promoted by the proceedings of a council called by Pope Eugenius II., and the enactment by it of decrees looking to the reform of the clergy. But Eugenius died, after a pontificate of only three years, before any reformatory results were secured; leaving the clergy of Rome in a state of utter and debasing ignorance. They only knew how to follow the prescribed rules, to explain the Pater and the Credo, and to exact contributions from the people. Many of the inferior clergy could not distinguish the names of angels from those of devils, and, says Cormenini: “They believed that God was corporeal; they knew neither the creed of the apostles, nor that of the mass, nor that of St. Athanasius, nor even the Lord’s Prayer.” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 217.)

Valentine, the successor of Eugenius II., would have done much to promote reform if he had lived; but it so happened that in those days the lives of such popes were of short duration. His pontificate lasted only five weeks. Upon his death Gregory IV., who was but a deacon, became pope. Though consecrated with the consent of the emperor, the latter wrote him, threatening to depose him if his conduct was not exemplary. At this Gregory became offended, and vowed that he would have revenge. This passion became more violent when, soon afterward, Louis compelled him to restore some property to the monastery of St. Mary, which he had illegally seized.

The first step incited by his pontifical vengeance was to stir up Lothaire to revolt against his father, under the promise that for this act of treason he should have the protection of the Church. History has recorded but few acts of perfidy so base as this. But it was a step in the road toward temporal and imperial power, and Pope Gregory IV. had no such conscientious scruples as forbade him to take it. He went to France to make his success more sure; and the French “Chronicle of St. Denis” says, that “the demons of hell animated all the children of Louis, and that Satan himself came in the person of the Bishop of Rome, under the charitable pretext as if he wished to establish peace between the emperor and his children, but in reality to excommunicate the monarch and the bishops who opposed the execrable wishes of these unnatural children.” (Ibid., vol. i., p. 219.)

The prelates of France, becoming indignant at the course of the pope, wrote him that if he persisted further in interfering with the temporal affairs of France, in violation of his oath of fidelity to the emperor, they would resist his ecclesiastical authority; and if he undertook to excommunicate them, they would defy him. Alarmed at this, he resolved upon leaving France. But before he carried this resolution into effect, his pride was excited by some monks who pretended to lay before him some declarations of the fathers and portions of the decrees of the Italian councils, which “declared him to be the supreme judge of all Christians.” Stimulated by these means, he again resolved to consummate his own and the treason of Lothaire. Then, pretending to desire a reconciliation between him and his father, he visited the emperor’s camp, where he was received with kindness.

While protesting to the emperor his “unutterable devotion,” he was engaged in producing defection among his troops, “by presents, promises, or threats.” Thus he succeeded in drawing away the troops from the emperor, and, after the pope left the camp, they went over to Lothaire, who made Louis prisoner, deprived him of his crown and royal robes, and made himself Emperor of the West, and King of France—all of which was directed and consecrated by this base and perfidious pope, whose conscience was not bound by either vow, pledge, or oath, however solemn. He was, nevertheless, infallible!

The people of France became excited to the highest degree by these movements. They refused to recognize Lothaire, drove him from the throne, and re-established Louis in power. Now it came his turn to be revenged upon the pope. For this purpose, he sent ambassadors to Rome to investigate his conduct; but, when they reached there, Gregory solemnly swore that he had rendered no assistance to Lothaire, that all his intentions were pure and innocent, and that he was devoted to Louis, whom he was ready to assist in punishing Lothaire, and his other children, for their treason! Louis, who was not only a weak prince, but kindhearted and excessively superstitious, forgave him and his children also, hoping to restore concord and quiet. But Lothaire, now realizing that the false-hearted pope had been making a tool of him to advance his own ambition, became furious at his new treachery, and ordered that both he and his priests should be treated with severity on account of it. This was also arrested by Louis, whose magnanimous conduct stands in striking contrast to that of this “execrable pontiff, who used religion as a plea to arm children against their father,” and of whom a Roman Catholic pen has recorded that he was a “cowardly, knavish, perfidious, and sacrilegious priest, destitute of principles and faith.” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 220.)

The death of Louis led to a violent contest between his children; and to such disturbance throughout France as rendered the government and all public affairs insecure. Pope Sergius, successor to Gregory IV., had also an occasion to show himself the patron of treason growing out of these disorders, and to contribute by that means his example to the many others which, by the force of precedent, go to make up the law of the papacy. Nomenoe, a duke of Brittany, revolted against the King of Brittany, Charles the Bald, but was opposed by the bishops of the province. Lothaire, who favored the duke, sent large presents to the pope, and bribed him also to take his side. He, accordingly, issued his papal decree commanding the bishops to recognize Nomenoe as king, under pain of deposition and anathema, thus invoking, as many other popes have done, both before and since, the aid of religion to accomplish worldly and ambitious ends. And while these examples present us with some of the instructive lessons taught by history, they also exhibit the manner in which the papal power grew, in a few centuries more, into enormous proportions.

The invasion of Italy by the Saracens put a stop, for a while, to the growth of the temporal power; but upon their defeat, under the pontificate of Leo IV., the affairs of the Church at Rome were thrown into such confusion that the few years following his death have never since ceased to be the cause of angry and acrimonious controversy. It is during these years when it is alleged that the Popess Joan occupied the pontifical chair, a matter not proper for discussion here. (*)

* This question is not without difficulty. Cormenin maintains that Joan was popess from A.D. 853, after the death of Leo IV., to 855, when the pontificate of Benedict III. commenced.—CORMENIN, vol. i., p. 225. But Butler, in his “Lives of the Saints,” denies the whole story, and calls it “a most notorious forgery.”—BUTLER, July 17th, article St. Leo IV. In this all the defenders of the papacy are agreed. In the chronological table of the popes published by the Church, they make Leo IV. pope up to A.D. 855, and Benedict III. his successor. But did he die in 853, as Cormenin asserts, or live until 855, as the papists assert? If he did, then there was either a Popess Joan, or an interregnum of more than two years. If he did not. but lived till 855, then there was neither the one nor the other. It is a question which may excite curiosity, but does not bear, in any form, upon that of the temporal power of the popes. Although Dr. Dollinger classes it along with the fables and myths of the Middle Ages, yet he says that there was no doubt, in the fifteenth century, about the existence of a female pope. According to him, her bust was placed in the cathedral at Sienna along with the busts of the other popes; and it was not till the seventeenth century that Pope Clement VIII. caused Joan to be “metamorphosed into Pope Zacharias.” John Huss, at the Council of Constance, referred to the Popess Joan, and was not contradicted.—Fables respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages, by Dollinger, pp. 30, 31.

About this time an event occurred Which contributed greatly to the increase of papal ambition. Ethelwolf, King of England, was a religious devotee—ardently enlisted in the papal cause. He visited Rome and had an interview with the pope, which resulted in his agreeing that the pope might levy Peter—pence all over his dominions, and in his agreeing to pay to him yearly large sums of money. Some historians allege that he made the kingdom of Great Britain tributary to the Holy See; but this, though not positively denied, is not stated by others. (Cormenin, vol. i., p.233; “Hist. of Eng.,”by Rapin, vol. i., p.309; “Hist. of Eng.” by Lingard, vol. i., p. 95.)

However the fact may be, it is certain that the interview between King Ethelwolf and the pope did give greater impunity to those popes who were resolved upon interfering in the affairs of the nations. It was soon after this that the Eastern Christians, despairing of any compromise of their disagreements with Rome, resolved upon making their final separation from those of the West. And Pope Nicholas I., thus rid of this perplexing controversy, was furnished with more leisure to increase his temporal authority. Surrounded by kings who were ready, as the German emperor did, to kiss his feet, and to put themselves under his protection, in order to keep upon their thrones, he resolved upon asserting, as one of the prerogatives of Peter, the right to rule over the world. In replying to a letter from the bishops of Lorraine, in which they declared their submission to him, he employed this extraordinary language:

“You affirm that you are submissive to your sovereign, in order to obey the words of the apostle Peter, who said, ‘Be subject to the prince, because he is above all mortals in this world.’ But you appear to forget that we, as the vicar of Christ, have the right to judge all men: thus, before obeying kings, you owe obedience to us; and if we declare a monarch guilty, you should reject him from your communion until we pardon him.”

“We alone have the power to bind and to loose, to absolve Nero and to condemn him; and Christians cannot, under penalty of excommunication, execute other judgment than ours, which alone is infallible. People are not the judges of their princes; they should obey without murmuring the most iniquitous orders; they should bow their foreheads under the chastisements which it pleases kings to inflict on them; for a sovereign can violate the fundamental laws of the State, and seize upon the wealth of the citizen, by imposts or by confiscations; he can even dispose of their lives, without any of his subjects having the right to address to him simple remonstrances. But if we declare a king heretical and sacrilegious, if we drive him from the Church, clergy and laity, whatever their rank, are freed from their oaths of fidelity, and may revolt against his power.” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 242.)

The same pope wrote to Charles the Bald, to incite him against the King of Lorraine, saying, “We order you, in the name of religion, to invade his states, burn his cities, and massacre his people, whom we render responsible for the resistance of their bad prince.” (Ibid., p. 243.)

He thus addressed an envoy from Constantinople: “Know, prince, that the vicars of Christ are above the judgment of mortals; and that the most powerful sovereigns have no right to punish the crimes of popes, how enormous soever they may be….; for no matter how scandalous or criminal may be the debaucheries of the pontiffs, you should obey them, for they are seated on the chair of St. Peter.” (Cormenin.)

Again: “Fear, then, our wrath and the thunders of our vengeance; for Jesus Christ has appointed us with his own mouth absolute judges of all men; and kings themselves are submitted to our authority.” (Ibid., p. 244.)

When the King of Bulgaria became a convert to Christianity, he persecuted those of his subjects who refused to follow his example; and Pope Nicholas I. thus wrote him:

“I glorify you for having maintained your authority by putting to death those wandering sheep who refuse to enter the fold; and you not only have not sinned by showing a holy rigor, but I even congratulate you upon having opened the kingdom of heaven to the people submitted to your rule. A king need not fear to command massacres, when these will retain his subjects in obedience, or cause them to submit to the faith of Christ; and God will reward him in this world, and in eternal life, for these murders.” (Ibid.)

It should surprise no one to know that this pope so boldly asserted his infallibility as to claim equality with God. According to Gratian, he issued a pontifical decree, wherein he said: “It is evident that the popes can neither be bound nor unbound by any earthly power, nor even by that of the apostle, if he should return upon the earth; since Constantine the Great has recognized that the pontiffs held the place of God upon earth, the divinity not being able to be judged by any living man. We are, then, infallible, and whatever may be our acts, we are not accountable for them but to ourselves.” (Ibid., p. 248.)

The Roman Catholic Church canonizes and places in her calendar of saints those whose devotion and piety she considers worthy of imitation. In this list she has placed seventy—six of her popes; and pointing out these saints to her children, she says to them that their lives exhibit “the most perfect maxims of the Gospel reduced to practice,” point out “the true path,” and lead, “as it were, by the hand into it, sweetly inviting and encouraging us to walk cheerfully in the steps of those that are gone before us.” They are called “the greatest personages who have ever adorned the world, the brightest ornaments of the Church militant, and the shining stars and suns of the triumphant, our future companions in eternal glory.” And “their penitential lives and holy maxims” are commended to the faithful, as furnishing “the sublime lessons of practical virtue.” (“Lives of the Saints,” by Butler, vol. i., preface, p. 46.)

Now, when we consider that this pope, Nicholas I., has been made a saint, (“Catholic Family Almanac,” 1870, p. 47.) and that what he did and said is held in the most sacred remembrance, we cannot fail to realize the importance of scrutinizing closely the language employed by him in the foregoing decrees and encyclicals, and of knowing also their effect upon the acquisition of temporal power, and the ultimate consequences to which they led. Why was he made a saint if his pontificate was not designed as a model for imitation? Why should he be imitated, if his principles and policy are not to be made the principles and policy of all time? He was infallible, and could not err! He was in “the place of God upon earth!” Therefore, the Church must be as obedient to him today as it was during his pontificate! The Encyclical and Syllabus of Pope Pius IX. sufficiently show that he so understands it.

Between the close of the pontificate of Nicholas I. and the beginning of the tenth century, eight popes occupied the chair of Peter, as it is called, and were all faithful to the policy of Nicholas, in so far as they had the ability to be so. One of these, Boniface VI., called by Baronius “an infamous wretch,” was poisoned by the agency of the Bishop of Anaguia, who became his successor, under the name of Stephen VII. (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 273.) This infallible pope caused the body of his infallible predecessor, Formosus, who had been pope from the year 891 to 896, to be exhumed from its burial-place, “to punish him for having usurped the supreme dignity to his detriment.” He assembled a council of bishops, had the dead body “placed in the pontifical seat, the tiara on its head, the pastoral baton in its hand, and clothed with the sacerdotal ornaments.” He appointed an advocate to defend him, and propounded to the dead Formosus questions, which the advocate so answered as to amount to a confession of guilt by Formosus! Whereupon Pope Stephen VII. impiously pronounced sentence of excommunication and deposition against the insensible victim of his pontifical vengeance, struck him a blow which prostrated the dead body at his feet, stripped off its pontifical robes with his own hands, cut off three of its fingers, ordered the head to be cut off, and the body to be thrown into the Tiber! (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 274.)

All this was done in the name of religion, under the criminal pretense of obedience to the Gospel of Christ, which everywhere places love, charity, and benevolence as among the highest cardinal virtues. It is no wonder, then, that Baronius, the great Roman Catholic annalist, who defended the papacy in everything in which it was possible to do so, spoke thus of the condition of the Church at this time:

“Never had divisions, civil wars, the persecution of pagans, heretics, and schismatics caused it to suffer so much as the monsters who installed themselves on the throne of Christ by simony and murders. The Roman Church was transformed into a shameless courtesan, covered with silks and precious stones, which publicly prostituted itself for gold; the palace of the Lateran was become a disgraceful tavern, in which ecclesiastics of all nations disputed with harlots the price of infamy.

“Never did priests, and especially popes, commit so many adulteries, rapes, incests, robberies, and murders; and never was the ignorance of the clergy so great as during this deplorable period. Christ was then assuredly sleeping a profound sleep in the bottom of his vessel, while the winds buffeted it on all sides, and covered it with the waves of the sea. And, what was more unfortunate still, the disciples of the Lord slept more profoundly than he, and could not awaken him either by their cries or their clamors. Thus the tempest of abomination fastened itself on the Church, and offered to the inspection of men the most horrid spectacle! The canons of councils, the creed of the apostles, the faith of Nice, the old traditions, the sacred rites, were buried in the abyss of oblivion, and the most unbridled dissoluteness, ferocious despotism, and insatiable ambition usurped their place. Who could call legitimate pontiffs the intruders who seated themselves on the chair of the apostles, and what must have been the cardinals selected by such monsters?” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 275.)

Such times as these were adapted to the practice of any kind of imposture and fraud which the popes and clergy considered necessary to strengthen the authority of the papacy. As an effective means of establishing a code of canon laws for the government of the Church, one Dionysius had previously compiled a body of decrees made by former popes. These went back no further than the pontificate of Siricius, in the year 385; (Ibid.,vol. i., p. 24; Milnan’s “Latin Christianity,” vol. iii., p. 191.) and had reference to matters of faith and the forms of church government. They gave no special impunity to crime, and were, in no very great degree, inconsistent with the principles prevailing in the apostolic times, except in so far as they recognized such pagan customs as were calculated to give popularity to the public worship of Rome. But they were unsuited to these times, in that they did not furnish a sufficient shelter for the corruption and imperialism of the popes, and did not sufficiently lay the foundation for their claim of dominion over the world. Something more was necessary; and the means of supplying this were not wanting. It consisted of the False Decretals, which are now universally considered to have been bold and unblushing forgeries. Yet, forgeries as they were, they constitute the corner—stone of that enormous system of wrong and usurpation which has since been built up by the papacy, to revive which Pope Pius IX. has now put forth his Encyclical and Syllabus, and numerous encyclical letters. These forgeries are attributed to one Isadore Mercator, of Seville, in Spain; but their real authorship is not entirely free from doubt. It is known, however, that they were carried from Spain to Rome by the Bishop of Mayence about the times we have been reviewing; times which, as there is no difficulty in seeing, were admirably adapted to such imposture.

Dr Dorner thinks that recent investigations have shown that they originated between the years 847 and 853, which period is covered by the pontificate of Leo IV. and the time assigned to the alleged Popess Joan; (“History of Protestant Theology,” by Dorner, vol. i., p. 30.) so short a time before the pontificate of Nicholas I. as to show that they constituted the authority upon which he based his extraordinary and impious assumptions of authority.

These pseudo—Isidorian decrees were designed as a compilation of the canons established as far back as the pontificate of Clement I., in the year 91, so as to fill up the gap between him and Siricius, who became pope in the year 385. During this period there were thirty—three popes, all of whom, except one, Liberius, have been made saints. We shall better understand the purpose and character of these decretals by going back to the times of their alleged origin.

The second century closed with the pontificate of Pope Victor I., who distinguished himself by having, with the celebrated Tertullian, adopted the heresy of the Montanists, (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 31.) and inaugurated the controversy in relation to the festival of Easter. The Asiatic Christians, following the custom established by the evangelists St. John and St. Philip, celebrated this festival, like the Jews, on the fortieth day after the first new moon of each year; and when Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna and a disciple of St. John, visited Rome about the year 167-168, and found that it was the custom there to wait until the Sunday after the fortieth day, he declined to adopt it, and it was agreed between him and Anicetus, who was then pope, that each Church, the Eastern and Western, should follow its own custom. Thus, up to this time, there was perfect equality between the Greek and Latin churches, each retaining its own independence of the other. But when Victor I. became pope, he was not disposed to let the affairs of the churches remain in this quiet and pacific condition—so admirably calculated to advance the cause and progress of Christianity. He was the first pope who employed the thunders of excommunication, which have since been used with such terrible effect upon both nations and individuals.

He excommunicated Theophilus for asserting that Christ was a mere human, and Praxeus for his attempt to abolish the distinction between the three persons in the Trinity. For the latter purpose, he assembled at Rome a council—the first ever convened by a pope of his own authority—and this exercise of power caused him to conceive the idea of the superiority of the Church of Rome over all the other churches. And hence, in order to establish this superiority, he resolved upon forcing the Eastern Christians to adopt the custom of Rome in reference to Easter; and thus inaugurated a controversy which gave rise to subsequent usurpations, and, in the end, to the final separation of the Greek and Latin Christians. This effort to make a matter of so small importance a cause of quarrel was, at its inception, resisted by many of the bishops; and Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, censured the pope for it, in the name of the Church in France—then Gaul. He yielded to the pressure of these opinions, but not without having contributed toward laying the foundation for the subsequent claim of supremacy.

His immediate successor, Zephyrinus, who became pope in the year 202, has also been accused of favoring the Montanists; but this accusation is probably unjust, as, imitating Victor, he excommunicated them, including Tertullian. Tertullian was so much esteemed for his piety, and on account of the services he had rendered Christianity in his “Apology” and other works, especially that against the heresy of Marcion, that his excommunication excited general indignation. And, in order to escape the consequences of this act, Pope Zephyrinus was driven to assert the claim of superiority made by Victor, hoping thereby to pacify the Western priesthood by the prospect of their sharing with him the power and authority he hoped to secure by a triumph over the Eastern Christians. Under these two pontificates, therefore— from the year 194 to 221— ambition first began to creep into the Church at Rome, and to stimulate its popes to substitute motives of worldly grandeur and wealth for that simplicity which had distinguished the humble fishermen who had followed the Saviour during his earthly but divine ministrations.

And thus we see the reason why these False Decretals are carried back to the times previous to Pope Siricius, in order to show that these popes, who were the alleged authors of them, predicated their claim of superiority upon the doctrines they contained, and designed them as the means of elevating the popes into earthly monarchs, and the whole priesthood into a powerful and irresponsible hierarchy.

The efforts now making to revive and re-establish them in this country make it important that the people should understand what they contain, so as to know what is meant by the temporal power of the pope, and what is proposed in the place of our Protestant institutions. They are, also, an additional key for the interpretation of the Encyclical and Syllabus.

In the first epistle attributed to Pope Clement I. he is made to represent himself as having immediately succeeded the apostle Peter in the pontifical chair, whereas it is well understood, and now conceded, that Linus and Anacletus were both bishops of Rome before Clement. But it needed authority of this kind to establish the assumption that Peter was the first pope, and this forgery answered the purpose. Besides, it recognized the book called “The Itinerary, or Book of the Voyages of St. Peter,” which is, undoubtedly, apocryphal.

There are four other epistles also attributed to Clement, all of which are manifest forgeries. In one he is made to speak of princes and other ecclesiastical officers of the Church, when, in the time of Clement, none such were known. In another he is represented as addressing an epistle to St. James, wherein he calls himself the successor of St. Peter, when James died before Peter. And Clement is made to approve the doctrines of the Nicolaitans, who taught, says Du Pin, “that women ought to be kept in common.” (For a thorough exposition of all these forgeries see Du Pin’s “Eccl. Hist.,” vol. i., p. 173.)

In a pretended epistle by Pope Anacletus, he is represented as a defender of Clement, when he died before Clement was Bishop of Rome. But he is made to speak of having received many things by tradition, in order to substitute tradition for fact — a thing which it was impossible for Anacletus to do, because he lived in the times of the apostles, when no tradition was necessary. The special object of this epistle, however, was to establish, by Anacletus, the proposition “that appeals from secular judges ought to be determined before bishops;” that “the privileges and laws of the Church ought to be confirmed;” that there should be “appeals from ecclesiastical judgments to the Holy See;” that there were “primates and metropolitans” in the Church: whereas it is well known that none of these orders existed, and none of these things were ever talked of or debated, until after the death of Anacletus.

In another epistle by the same bishop, it is said that he “would neither have bishops to be accused nor judged “a claim of immunity still persevered in.

The epistles attributed to Popes Evaristus and Alexander I., who were the immediate successors of Clement, contain nothing of special importance, but are made up of extracts from authors who lived long after their time, and refer to matters which did not occur for more than a century after they were dead.

Pope Sixtus I. is made to call himself an archbishop—a word not then used—and to speak of “appeals to Rome,” and “the grandeur of that Church,” and of the requirement “that all bishops wait for the pope’s decision, and are instructed by his letters”— which, says Du Pin, are “modes of speaking never used by the first bishops of Rome.”

Pope Telesphorus is made to say “that the laity and clergy could not accuse one another in judgment.” And two letters are ascribed to Pope Higinus, of no special import, but condemned by their containing quotations from the popes Leo I., Martin I., and Adrian I., who lived long after. There are also three letters from Pope Pius I., which are shown, in the same way, to be spurious.

Pope Anicetus speaks of archbishops, primates, and patriarchs—not instituted till long after—besides, says Du Pin, “many other things of the same nature.” There are also two letters from Pope Soter, which are also manifestly spurious.

An epistle by Pope Eleutherus “treats of ecclesiastical judgments in favor of the Court of Rome.” He is made to insist that “all causes relating to the Church ought to be determined there,” which, says Du Pin, “is a practice contrary to all antiquity.” This epistle is shown to be a forgery by abundant proofs. It copies a text out of St. John, and attributes it to St. Paul. It also contains passages from the writings of Pope Leo I. (A.D. 440), Felix III. (A.D. 526), Adrian I. (A.D. 772), from councils which had not met, and from the Theodosian code, when Theodosius was not emperor until nearly two hundred years after the death of this pope.

In an epistle by Pope Victor I. he is made to confer upon himself the further title of “Archbishop of the Universal Church,” and to speak of” appeals to Rome.” Its falsity is shown by the fact that it is addressed to Theophilus of Alexandria, who did not live till nearly two hundred years after. There is also another letter of his, directed to Desiderius, Bishop of Vienna, when there was no bishop of that name in Vienna till near the close of the sixth century.” (Du Pin, pp. 173—178.)

Pope Zeplhyrinus is represented as addressing an encyclical epistle, ex cathedra, to the bishops of Sicily, wherein he claims “final” jurisdiction in all cases relating to the trial of bishops, as belonging to the “seat of the apostles,” that is, Rome. He prescribes the rules which shall govern such trials, the chief of which is, that “an accused bishop” should not be condemned by “patriarchs and primates” until “they find that the person either confesses himself guilty, or is proved so by witnesses trustworthy and regularly examined, who shall not be fewer in number than were those disciples whom the Lord directed to be chosen for the help of the apostles, that is, seventy—two “— a number quite sufficient to prevent a conviction in any case. He then proceeds to declare, “Nor should anyone of superior rank be indicted or condemned on the accusation of inferiors,” and that all cases should be appealed to Rome. He claims for the pope the divine authority to bind and loose on earth and in heaven, as conferred by Peter and by the apostolic canons and constitutions. (*)

* Du Pin shows, incontrovertibly, that these canons and constitutions attributed to the apostles are also spurious.—Du PIN’s Eccl. Hist., vol. i., pp. 13—16.

He then provides what was most needed for establishing the power of the hierarchy, and securing perfect impunity to them by covering up and concealing whatever crime a bishop may commit, in these words:

“For bishops are to be borne by the laity and clergy, and masters by servants, in order that, under the exercise of endurance, things temporal may be maintained, and things eternal hoped for.” (“Anti—Nicene Library,” vol. ix., p. 145, Epistles of Pope Zephyrinus.)

Another epistle of this same pope, to the bishops of Egypt, is only worthy of notice because of the claim of power it sets up for the “Apostolic Church” at Rome, and the assertion that Peter was “chief of the apostles.” Both these epistles are shown to be forgeries, by the fact that they contain passages from Popes Leo I. (A.D. 440), Vigilius (A.D. 540), Gregory I. (A.D. 590), Martin I. (A.D. 649), Adrian I. (A.D. 772), and from the Theodosian code.

Pope Calistus is represented as also issuing encyclical letters upon sundry subjects. In one he says: “Let no one take up an accusation against a doctor [teacher or priest], because it is not right for sons to find fault with fathers, nor for slaves to wound their masters.” In another, to the bishops of Gaul, he says, “Those who conspire against bishops, or who take part with such,” are guilty of a crime, and are condemned, “not only by the laws of the Church, but of the world.” Defining the punishment prescribed for this offense, he is made to say it had been “ordained” by his “predecessors,” that if the inferior clergy were guilty of it, they “should be deprived of the honor which they enjoy;” that those who did not belong to the clergy “should be cut off from communion, and expelled from the Church;” and “that all men of both orders should be infamous; and that, too, not only for those who did the deed, but for those also who took part with such.” Assigning the reason for this extraordinary protection to the bishops, and severity to their accusers, he says: “For it is but equitable that those Who despise the divine mandates, and prove themselves disobedient to the mandates of the fathers, should be chastised with severer penalties, in order that others may fear to do such things, and that all may rejoice in brotherly concord, and all take to themselves the example of severity and goodness.”

Section II. is on “those who have intercourse with excommunicated persons, or with unbelievers.” No one is to “have any intercourse with such in speech, or in eating or drinking, or in the salutation with the kiss, nor let him greet such; because, whosoever willingly holds intercourse with the excommunicated, in these or other prohibited matters, will subject himself, according to the ordinance of the apostles, to like excommunication. From these, therefore, let the clergy and laity keep themselves, if they would not have the same penalty to endure. Also, do not join with unbelievers, neither have any fellowship with them. They who do such things, indeed, are judged, not as believers, but as unbelievers.”

Section III. treats of “those who ought not to be permitted to prefer an accusation, or to bear witness, etc.,” and says: “Those, again, who are suspected in the matter of the right faith should by no means be permitted to prefer charges against priests and against those of whose faith there is no doubt; and such persons should be held of doubtful authority in matters of human testimony. Their voice, consequently, should be reckoned invalid whose faith is doubted, and no credit should be given to those who are ignorant of the right faith.” Even as it regards one who is entitled to make an accusation against a bishop or priest, he must not do it, except in the presence of him whom he seeks to accuse. (“Anti—Nicene Christian Library,” vol. ix., p. 203, Epistles of Pope Calistus.)

These epistles contain passages taken from the Council of Nice, and the fifth Council of Rome, which were held long after; and from the popes Gelasius (A.D. 492), Syinmachus (A.D. 498), Gregory I. (A.D. 590), and Adrian I. (A.D. 772)—all showing their false and fraudulent character.

There is an epistle containing an ex-cathedra decree of Pope Urban I. addressed “to all Christians,” wherein it is prescribed that, instead of the practice which prevailed among the early Christians of holding property in common, it should be “left in the hands of the bishops, who hold the place of the apostles;” that the bishops should have “elevated seats, set up and prepared like a throne, ‘to show’ by these that the power of inspection and of judging, and the authority to loose and bind, are given to them by the Lord;” that the faithful should hold “no communication with those with whom they [the bishops] have none;” and that those “whom they have cast out” shall not be received. (“Anti—Nicene Library,” vol. ix., p. 217, Epistle of Pope Urban I.)

The forgery of this epistle is shown by the fact that it contains thoughts and words from Eusebius, who was not born until nearly one hundred years after, from Pope Gregory IV. (A.D. 827), and from the Theodosian code.

Pope Pontianus had but little time for issuing decrees; for his entire pontificate lasted only a few months. For the suspicion of wishing to disturb the peace of the Roman empire, during the reign of Alexander Severus, he was banished to Siberia, where he remained till about the year 235— 237, when he was brought back, “and expired under the scourge.” Eusebius makes his pontificate embrace five or six years, but there is great uncertainty about it. Nevertheless, epistles from him are placed among these palpable forgeries.

In the first, to Felix Subscribonius,” On the Honor to be bestowed on Priests,” he is represented as saying: “And, again, they are not to be accused by the infamous or the wicked, or the hostile, o rby members of another sect or religion. If they sin, they are to be arraigned by other priests; further, they are to be held in check by the chief pontiffs, and they are not to be arraigned or restrained by seculars or by men of evil life.”

In his second epistle, “to all bishops,” he is made to say: “Wherefore persons suspected, or hostile, or litigious, and those who are not of good conversation, or whose life is reprehensible, and those who do not teach the right faith, have been debarred from being either accusers or witnesses by our predecessors with apostolic authority; and we, too, remove them from that function, and exclude them from it in times to come, etc.” (Ibid., vol. ix., p. 232, Pope Pontianus.)

To show the forgery of these epistles, Du Pin says they “are made up of passages taken out of the vulgar Latin, St. Gregory, St. Jerome, Sixtus the Pythagorean: the rest is written in a barbarous style.”

An epistle from Pope Anterus, “On the Transference of Bishops,” was designed to prove, what no antecedent history shows, that Peter, as bishop, was transferred from Antioch to Rome. He says, “Peter, our holy master and the prince of the apostles, was translated for the sake of the common good from Antioch to Rome, in order that he might be in a position there of doing more service.”

At another place he recognizes the obligation of the old Mosaic law, “that whoever has not given obedience to the priests should be stoned outside the camp by the people, or, with his neck beneath the sword, should expiate his presumption with his blood;” (Deuteronomy xviii., 12. ) with the single qualification that “now, however, the disobedient is cut off by spiritual chastisement, and, being cast out of the Church, is torn by the rabid mouth of demons.” (“Anti—Nicene Library,” vol. ix., p. 240, Pope Anterus.)

Du Pin establishes this forgery by showing that the author speaks of a Bishop of Ephesus named Felix, when there was none such, and of a Bishop of Alexandria named Eusebius, which was untrue. He also shows that he was contradicted by the three councils, of Antioch, Sardica, and Chalcedon; and that he quotes from popes and others who did not live until after that time.

There are epistles from Pope Fabian, or Fabianus, who, according to Eusebius, was indebted for his election to the presence of the Holy Ghost alighting upon his head in the form of a dove! This pope employed the power of excommunication against Privatus, a bishop, for heresy; and inaugurated the ceremony of prostration at the feet of the pope upon the occasion of his election. Therefore there seemed, doubtless, to be a fitness in attributing some of these forgeries to him. The first of his epistles is addressed “to all the ministers of the Church Catholic,” and concerns “those who ought not to be admitted to clear themselves, and of the duty of having no fellowship with the excommunicated.”

Assuming that “by the divine precepts and the apostolic institutes” the pope is required to watch over “all the churches,” and exhorting the clergy to be “obedient and faithful children of the holy Church of God “—that is, of Rome—he says, “These men, and all else who do not teach the true doctrine, and hold not the true faith, cannot act as accusers of any true believer, because they are branded with infamy, and are cut off from the bosom of our holy mother, the Church, by the sword of the apostles, until their return to correct conversation and belief.” And he is made to repeat the same idea in other forms, thus:

“All who come under suspicion with respect to the Catholic faith cannot be admitted as accusers of those who hold the true creed;” and thus: “And therefore are charges, which are preferred by those who are objects of suspicion in the matter of the true faith, rejected.”

He is also represented as saying, “And if any one, setting aside the rules wittingly, sings with the excommunicated in his house, or speaks or prays in company with them, that man is to be deprived of the privilege of communion.”

He is then made to originate and invent, what every reader of ecclesiastical history knows to be untrue, the statement that Peter ordained Clement as his successor in the pontificate, and “addressed the people” at his ordination; whereas Peter died about the year 65—67, and Clement's pontificate did not commence till the year 91, nearly thirty years after! The words he is said to have used are these:

“Whence, also, the blessed chief of the apostles, Peter, addressing the people at the ordination of Clement, says this, among other things;” making him say that no man should be “on terms of friendship” with any one who was hostile to Clement; and also: “If, however, any one is not friendly, and speaks with those with whom he [the chief] speaks not, such a one belongs to those who seek to exterminate the Church of God; and though he seems to be with you in body, he is against you in mind and heart. And such a one is a much more dangerous enemy than those who are without, and who are openly hostile.”

All this is as entirely opposed to the spirit of true Christianity, such as Peter taught in obedience to the precepts and example of his Divine master, as it is consistent with that stupendous system of papal power and fraud which these forgeries were designed to build up.

There is another epistle of this same pope, addressed “to all the bishops of the East.” A portion of this has reference to the renewal of the chrism at the Lord’s—supper every year; but it does not fail to lay down the same instruction, attributed by these forged Decretals to his predecessors. These words are put into his mouth:

“The apostles themselves and their successors decreed of old time that those persons should not be admitted to lay accusations who are under suspicion,…. or who are doubtful in the matter of the true faith.” Also: “Those have neither the right nor the power to accuse the priests or the clergy, who are in capable themselves of being made priests legitimately, and are not of their order,” etc. And again: “The priests, too, whom the Lord has taken to himself from among all men, and has willed to be his own, are not to be dealt with lightly, nor injured, nor rashly accused or reprehended, save by their masters, seeing that the Lord has chosen to reserve their causes to himself, and ministers vengeance according to his own judgment….. For these are rather to be borne with by the faithful than made subjects of reproach, just as there is chaff with the wheat even in the last winnowing, and as there is bad fish with good even on their separation, which is yet to be on the shore—that is to say, at the end of the world. By no means, then, can that man be condemned by a human examination whom God has reserved for his own judgment, that the purpose of God, according to which he has decreed to save what had perished, may be unalterable.” He is then made to declare that all who have sinned shall “go down into the pit,” unless “restored by sacerdotal authority;” and to assign to the apostles the determination “that the accusing of priests should be a matter undertaken with difficulty, or never undertaken, that they ought not to be ruined or displaced by wicked men.”

By the assumption that he, as pope, is equal to the apostles, he is made to declare that if any one of the clergy “proves an enemy to his bishops, and seeks to incriminate them,” he shall be removed and given over to the curiae, or Court of the Inquisition at Rome, as its prisoner and slave for life, and “remain infamous without any hope of restoration;” and then this epistle proceeds,

“In like manner, we decree and ordain by apostolic authority that the flock should not dare to bring a charge against their pastor, to whose care they had been consigned, unless he falls into error in the faith; for the deeds of superiors are not to be smitten with the sword of the mouth; neither can the disciple be above the master,” etc.

Again: “After the example of Ham, the son of Noah, they are condemned who bring the faults of their fathers into public view, or presume to accuse or calumniate them, even as was the case with Ham, who did not cover the shame of his father Noah, but exhibited it for mockery. And in like manner those are justified by the example of Shem and Japhet, who reverently cover and seek not to display those matters in which they find that their fathers have erred.”

Then the mode of procedure against a bishop for violating the faith is prescribed, when the epistle says, “For his other acts, however, he is rather to be borne with by his flock and those put under him, than accused or made the subject of public detraction,” etc.

There is also a third epistle from this same pope, addressed “to Bishop Hilary,” wherein he is represented as repeating his decree in favor of priestly impunity, in these words: “We decree and resolve that those who are not of good conversation, or whose life is impeachable, or whose faith and life and liberty are unknown, should not have the power of accusing the priests of the Lord.” (“Anti—Nicene Library,” vol. ix., p. 249, Epistles of Pope Fabian.)

Epistles are also inserted from other popes, to wit: Cornelius, Lucius, Stephen I., Sixtus II., Dionysius, Felix I., Eutychian, Caius, Marcellinus, Marcellus I., Eusebius, Sylvester, Marcus, Julius I., Liberius, and Damasus I., so as to bring the Decretals down to the time of Pope Siricius, in the year 385; and thus, with those compiled by Dionysius, to render the code of canon laws complete. The great ecclesiastical historian, Du Pin, says of them all, that they “are full of several passages taken out of the fathers, popes, and councils more modern than the very popes by whom they are pretended to be written; and in which many things are to be found that don’t in the least agree with the history of those times, and were purposely said to favor the court of Rome, and establish her pretensions against the rights of bishops and the liberties of churches.

But it would take up too much time to show the gross falsity of these monuments that are now rejected by common consent, and even by those authors that are most favorable to the court of Rome, who are obliged to abandon the patronage of these epistles though they have done a great deal of service in establishing the greatness of the court of Rome, and ruining the ancient discipline of the Church, especially in relation to ecclesiastical decisions and rights of bishops.” (Du Pin’s “Eccl. Hist.,” vol. i., p. 178.)

These liberal quotations from the False Decretals—otherwise scarcely excusable—are necessary to show how the popes and the Roman Catholic hierarchy have laid the foundation of their enormous power and prerogatives. The system they have built upon this foundation would have been bad enough if what has been put into the mouths of these popes had been actually uttered by them. But when it is considered that these things are the corrupt inventions of priests of the ninth century, and that this fact is known to all intelligent Roman Catholics, and frankly admitted by many of them, it almost staggers human credulity to suppose that there are now any in the world who are willing to risk their reputation for integrity and candor by attempting to maintain a system thus originated and upheld.

There is nothing else, among all the nations of earth, bearing any resemblance to it—no other system by which it has been so daringly and perseveringly proposed to erect within all the governments a foreign and antagonistic power, independent of all human law, and irresponsible to human authority. By means of it emperors, kings, princes, and peoples have been brought down in abject humiliation at the feet of innumerable popes, who, claiming to be in the place of God on earth, have lorded it over them with a severity which never abated and an ambition that could never be satisfied. It is marvelous to contemplate the origin and progress of such a structure of fraud and wrong, to observe the popular degradation which it wrought out, as the means of securing the triumph of the papacy, and to see the patience with which the world now tolerates the insolent ambition which demands its reconstruction in the name of God and humanity!

This language is not too harsh. The pretense set up in these false and forged decrees deserves condemnation in even harsher and severer terms. They were designed to secure to the priesthood the most perfect impunity, and to place them so far above the people as to put it out of the power of the latter even to complain at their oppressions. They allow a bishop or priest to commit any crime he pleases—murder, robbery, rape, or seduction—and deny his responsibility to the laws of the country where he resides, or to any other law but that which the pope may enact! They command the members of the Roman Catholic Church to regard these bishops and priests as their masters, and to conceal and cover up whatsoever crimes they may commit, rather than bring disgrace upon the Church! They pronounce as unworthy of belief all who are not members of that Church, so as to render the conviction of a bishop or priest impossible upon their testimony before the court of Rome, even for the most outrageous offenses! They, in fact, authorize and license whatsoever a bishop or priest shall do, although he may drag his clerical robes into the very filth and mire of profligacy, prostitution, and vice!

Continued in Chapter XIII. The False Decretals




The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XI. Pepin

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XI. Pepin

Continued from The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter X. Part 2 The Council of Nice.

Introduction by the Webmaster

The Pepin in this article is Pepin the Short, the son of the Frankish prince Charles Martel. Pepin the Short was King of the Franks from 751 until his death in 768. This is confirmed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepin_the_Short. I got confused with another Pepin that came up first on Wikipedia, Pepin of Italy. The Wikipedia article says that this Pepin is the son of Charlemagne, and my article says the Pepin in it was king before Charlemagne! At first, I thought the author, Richard W. Thompson, may be in error, but then I realized that the Pepin he is talking about is the son of Charles Martel, not the Pepin who is the son of Charlemagne.

Temporal Power.—None possessed by Peter.—Alliance between Pepin and Zachary.—Double Conspiracy.—The Pope released the Allegiance of the French People.—Made Pepin King.—The Lombards in Italy. —The Pope bargained with Pepin, and was guilty of Revolt against the Empire.—Pepin seized Territory from the Lombards, and gave it to the Pope.—Both were Revolutionists and Traitors.—The Pope usurped what belonged to the Empire.—Pepin did not conquer Rome.—The Divine Right of Kings.—Pepin’s Second Visit.—Pope sent Letters to him from the Virgin Mary, Peter, etc.—He re—affirmed his Gift to the Pope.—Charlemagne.—Adrian I.—He absolves the Franks from all Crimes in Bavaria.—Makes Charlemagne Emperor.—He completes the Papal Rebellion against the Empire.—Charlemagne confirmed Pepin’s Gift.—He did not grant any Temporal Dominion in Rome.— He dictated the Filioque in the Creed.

ALL inquiry into the origin and history of the temporal power of the popes is necessarily attended with difficulty. It often requires a very discriminating judgment to separate fact from conjecture—that which is true from myths and fables. One reason for this is found in the fact that the papal writers are not agreed among themselves, either in reference to its real source, the time of its origin, or the precise occasion and manner of its recognition by the Church. This of itself excites in an intelligent mind a reasonable doubt of its legitimacy; for, however derived, there would be, if it were legitimate, some landmarks to verify its title. If it were divine, as Pius IX. asserts, there would be, undoubtedly, some word or act of Christ, or of his apostles, or of the primitive Christians during the first centuries, to attest a fact of so much importance, especially as it is now required that it shall be accepted as a necessary part of the true faith. If conferred by the nations, to preserve themselves from anarchy, some distinct historic record would have been made of it, as a guide to future ages.

In the absence of any convincing proof upon these points, the impartial mind will naturally run into the conclusion that its origin was, at least, suspicious. And if it is found that it had no existence in the Apostolic Age, and was not recognized as a part of the early Christian system, this other conclusion must inevitably follow: that it is the product of human ambition, resting upon authority which the popes have wrenched from the nations by illegitimate means, and not upon any divinely conferred upon Peter or the Church of Rome.

When the apostle Peter, in anticipation of the approaching end of his life, wrote to the Christians of Asia Minor, he affectionately admonished the elders or ancients as an equal, not as a superior in the papal sense; and was careful to tell them that, in feeding their flocks, they should not be “lords over God’s heritage”—or, as the Douay version has it, should not be “domineering over the clergy”—but that all Christians, old and young, should be clothed with “humility.” He claimed to be only an elder himself, and assumed no authority whatsoever beyond that possessed by other apostles — the authority to counsel and advise those to whom he wrote, that they should not “be led away with the error of the wicked,” or fall from their “own steadfastness.” With this fact kept in our minds, we shall be the better able to understand the history already detailed, and to interpret that which follows.

Glancing, then, at the centuries immediately following the age of Constantine, we find nothing better established than that the thrones of the European nations were disposed of by fraud, violence, and bloodshed. They were at the mercy of those monarchs who had the heaviest legions and were the most skillful in crime, especially those who were adepts in murder and assassination. By these means one line of kings was terminated and another established, as interest or policy dictated, the people all the while being transferred from master to master, with no other change in the character of their slavery than that which arose out of a change of tyrants.

Clovis the Great, who terminated the dominion of pagan Rome in Gaul by the battle of Soissons, in the year 486, established the French monarchy and the Merovingian line of its kings. His descendants, by regular hereditary succession, held the crown for more than two centuries and a half. Childeric III. was the last king of that line; and when we reach the termination of his reign we begin to stand on solid ground in our inquiries into the origin of the temporal power. The incidents connected with that event are inseparably associated also with the growth of the papacy, and in no other way than by an accurate understanding of them can we see how its enormous power has been acquired—how, by the successful union of Church and State, the divine right to govern the nations, and to dispose of crowns and peoples, has been established and perpetuated.

Childeric III. was the legitimate heir to the throne of France, and held it by virtue of the established and recognized law of the monarchy, there having been no break in the regular line of succession from Clovis for two hundred and fifty years. Pepin, son of Charles Martel, held the office of “mayor of the palace,” which placed him next to, but not upon, the throne. For fifty or sixty years his family had furnished to France some of the most distinguished leaders of her armies, and Pepin was in no sense inferior to any who had preceded him.

Childeric was a feeble prince, but he was the lawful king; and Pepin, stimulated by his ambition, conceived the purpose of supplanting him, and placing the crown upon his own head. The plan, however, was more easily formed than executed, as, notwithstanding his effeminacy, Childeric was esteemed on the ground of his being an immediate descendant of the great Clovis. This fact forbade any resort to direct force by Pepin, but his genius enabled him to contrive other effective means — the first of the kind known in history. Like all the descendants of Charles Martel, he was a champion of Christianity, and sympathized with the popes in their efforts to terminate their allegiance to the Eastern emperors; and hence he conceived the idea of bringing to his aid the authority of the Church of Rome to enable him to accomplish his ambitious plans. He therefore sent ambassadors to Pope Zachary, soliciting him to employ this authority to release the people of France from their allegiance to Chlilderic, in direct disregard of the laws of France, and to transfer the crown to him. (*)

* “Milman’s Gibbon’s Rome,” vol. v., p.28; “Latin Christianity,” by Milman, vol. ii., p. 410; “History of France,” by Michelet, vol. i., p. 111; “History of France,” by Parke Godwin, p. 393.

What had the Church of Rome, or its pope, to do with the internal and domestic affairs of France? or with the allegiance of the people of France to the legitimate possessor of its throne? Unquestionably there is no other fair construction to be put upon the conduct of Pepin than that it was an invitation to the pope to become a joint revolutionary conspirator with him against the lawful government of France. And both Pepin and Pope Zachary so understood it, as is manifest from their subsequent conduct, especially from the promptness with which the latter interfered in behalf of the former by the employment of his ecclesiastical power of absolution.

At that time the pope was a subject of the Eastern emperors, the successors of Constantine; and it will appear in the sequel that he the more readily lent his high authority to this end, because he saw in the success of Pepin the promise of erecting a power in the West which he, or his successors, could employ in sundering their own allegiance to the Eastern empire. His reasoning was, doubtless, this: that if Pepin, by his ecclesiastical aid, could make treason against Childeric successful in France, he, by the aid of Pepin, might make his own successful against the empire to which Rome belonged. Whatever the motive, however, the fact is attested by the unanimous voice of history, that Pepin did become king of France only by the aid of the pope’s exercise of spiritual authority, as the head of the Roman Church, which he unscrupulously employed for that purpose, while he was himself the subject of, and owed temporal allegiance to another monarch.

Seemingly unconscious of the obligation which rested upon him to keep the Church pure and uncontaminated, and not to employ the sacred things of religion for mere worldly and ambitious ends, he entered into the schemes of Pepin with the greatest alacrity (cheerful willingness). Without stopping to count the cost, either to religion or the Church, he complied with Pepin’s request in a manner which must have been exceedingly gratifying to him, and which placed him under obligations he was subsequently quite ready to recognize. In violation of the hereditary and legal right of Childeric, and in direct opposition to the established laws of France, he issued his papal brief absolving the people from their allegiance, and transferring the crown to Pepin, the ambitious and revolutionary usurper. And, as if he actually wielded the authority of God himself, he went even one step farther than this, by prohibiting the French people from ever thereafter exercising any freedom of choice in the election of their king, or from ever depriving the Carlovingian princes of the crown— that is, the descendants of Charles Martel.

Gibbon, speaking of this extraordinary use of spiritual power, says: “The Franks were absolved from their ancient oath; but a dire anathema was thundered against them and their posterity if they should dare to renew the same freedom of choice, or to elect a king, except in the holy and meritorious race of the Carlovingian princes;” (*) that is, having thus been brought under the spiritual dominion of the pope to such an extent as to allow him to dictate their domestic policy and dispose of their crown, the curse of God would rest upon them if ever thereafter the French people should dare to repeat the act of electing a king, except in the interest of the papacy and with the consent of the pope!

* “Milman’s Gibbon,” vol. v., p. 29. “To be crowned king in those days was to have the sanction of religion added to the reality of the earthly power. After that ennobling ceremony the office of king became invested with loftier attributes than merely the reverence of men. It was considered something divine and sacred; resistance to its authority grew to be not only rebellion, but sacrilege; and henceforth, however nearly a great noble might approach the monarch in power, he was immeasurably inferior to him in dignity and rank.”—History of France, by Rev. James White, p. 26.

A monarchy thus established could not be otherwise than devoted to the pope. Michelet, speaking of it, says: “This monarchy of Pepin’s, founded by the priests, was devoted to the priests.” (Hist. of France,” by Michelet, vol. i., p. 111)

There is no dispute about the main facts thus far. A modern Roman Catholic historian in the United States has put them in a succinct form; and, while he endeavors to convey the idea that it was altogether right and proper for the pope to absolve the French people from their allegiance to Childeric, yet he narrates the circumstances with commendable fairness and impartiality. (“Modern Hist.,” by Peter Fredet, D.D., p. 183, and note F., p. 494.)

The ecclesiastical historians are not less distinct in their statements. Dr. Waddington, referring to the usurpation of Pepin, says: “This occurrence is generally related as the first instance of the temporal ambition of the Vatican, or, at least, of its interference with the rights of princes and the allegiance of subjects.” (*)

* “Church Hist.,” by Waddington, p. 148; “Maclaine’s Mosheim’s Eccl. Hist.,” vol. i., pp. 194, 195; “The Old Catholic Church,” by Killen, pp. 389, 390.

Cormenin condemns the pope in decided language, and charges that he sent letters to Pepin, “encouraging him in his ambitious projects, and authorizing him, in the name of religion, to depose Childeric III., and to take possession of his crown.” (*)

* “Hist. of the Popes,” by Cormenin, vol. i., p. 188. That the Roman Catholic annalists claimed, in behalf of the pope, that he acted by virtue of “his apostolic authority ” in disposing of the French crown, is shown by Parke Godwin, in his “History of France,” vol. i., p. 394.

This politico—religious alliance between Pepin and the pope has most important aspects which cannot escape observation. On the part of the pope, it was the assertion of the divine right to dispose of the crown of France without regard to the wishes of the French people, and to compel them to obey him in the subsequent management of their own affairs. And it was equivalent to the assumption of like authority over all other nations and peoples. This is a claim before which the temporal power in the Papal States is dwarfed into insignificance; and yet the pope did not even possess this at the time of this extraordinary assumption. Manifestly it could not be conceded to him without bringing all the nations at his feet, and without taking away from the people, wherever they possess it, the power to make their own laws, select their own agents to execute them, and regulate their own domestic concerns. And it should not be overlooked, in view of its enormity, that it is precisely this same divine power to which Pius IX. now lays claim. With him there can be no higher or better evidence of right than the exercise of it by one of his infallible predecessors. And there will be no impediment to its universal recognition, whenever mankind shall be brought to the concession that the Church, through her infallible head, defines her own powers and jurisdiction.

The alliance began to bear its legitimate fruits without much delay. The Lombards had seized upon and held a great part of Italy, including the province of Ravenna, the capital of which, as the former residence of the great Ostragothic King Theodoric, and of the Greek Exarchs, had grown into rivalry with Rome. This territory belonged to the Eastern empire, whose emperors, it is alleged by the defenders of the papacy, were either not disposed or too feeble to defend it, and had been held about two years by its Lombard conquerors. But Astolphus, the Lombard king, was not satisfied with these possessions, and threatened to seize upon Rome, which still belonged to the empire. The pope, being unwilling to let Rome be brought under the dominion of the Lombards, fearing that its ecclesiastical power would be transferred to Ravenna, and the papacy be thereby made subordinate to the Exarchate, inaugurated immediate measures for resistance. Those who justify the exercise of temporal power by the popes, say that he petitioned the emperors to send assistance to Rome, to repel the contemplated attack of Astolphus.

Dr. Fredet, being too candid to deny that Rome then “belonged to the emperors of Constantinople,” but admitting that fact, says, “Pope Stephen sent to implore necessary succors from Constantine Copronymus, in whose name the government of Rome was still exercised.” (Fredet, p. 184.) These succors, if called for, were not furnished; and the same author, in assigning the reason, says that the “emperor was too deeply engaged in warring against the images of the saints to think of sending troops against the Lombards.” (Ibid)

Whatever the precise facts may have been, the question lay between the Roman people, in whose name the pope acted, and the emperor, to whom, as subjects, they owed allegiance by the existing law of nations. The pope, as a subject, also owed this allegiance no less than the people. His power was exclusively ecclesiastical, and possessing none over temporal and political matters, whatsoever he did in reference to these, he did, necessarily, as a subject. He could not get rid of the obligation of his allegiance by any act short of revolt against legitimate authority. And this relation in which he and the Roman people stood to the emperors must be kept in mind, in order to understand the full bearing of the subsequent events out of which the temporal power arose.

Dr. Fredet, referring to the condition into which the people were thrown by the neglect of the emperors, also says: “In this extremity the Romans embraced the last resource which was left them, that of calling the valiant monarch of the French to their assistance.” (Fredet, p. 184.) And upon the same subject he says, at another place:

“Thus, finding implacable enemies both in the barbarians [Lombards] and in their own sovereigns, the people, driven almost to despair, began to sigh ardently after a new and better order of things. The eyes of all were turned toward the pope, as their only refuge and the common father of all in distress. In this state of desolation, the sovereign pontiffs, unable any longer to resist the eagerness of the multitudes flying into their arms for protection and refuge, and destitute of every other means, applied to the French, who alone were both willing and able to defend them against the Lombards.” (Ibid., note G, pp. 495, 496.)

This statement presents, it is believed, the papal view in the most satisfactory light. And yet the reader cannot fail to observe how distinctly it asserts the revolutionary right of the Roman people, under the guidance of the pope, to throw off their allegiance to their lawful sovereigns, the successors of Constantine. And the resort to this remedy is both excused and justified, in the absence of any accusation of misgovernment or oppression against the emperors. They are charged with not having been sufficiently prompt and energetic in defending Rome against the threatened attack of the Lombards; not with having been guilty of any wrong or injustice toward either the Roman people or the pope. Modern revolutions have been inaugurated as the last and ultimate remedy for grievances which can be endured no longer without an abandonment of all natural rights; and yet it is against these that the fiercest anathemas of the papacy have been launched. Here, however, the pope is justified for having put the temporal affairs of Rome in the keeping of the French king, for the twofold purpose of defending them against the Lombards, and of acquiring the temporal power himself, at a time when the Roman people were not suffering any oppression from the empire.

Rome, for several centuries before that time, had acquired no distinct existence as a nation, and, as Dr. Fredet agrees, it belonged to the territorial possessions of the Eastern emperors. They had never abandoned their claim to it, and had never expressed a willingness to do so. Hence, the right of the Romans to act independently of the emperors, in order ultimately to resist their authority, was purely revolutionary, and cannot be justified, even in the modern view, unless it was a necessary measure of relief against severe and irremediable oppression. How such a right can be defended at all, consistently with the expressed opinions of the present pope and his defenders, it is difficult to understand. Can it be that they regard revolution as justifiable only when it inures to the benefit of the papacy?

The Eastern emperors, at the time referred to, were at war with the Arabs, a fierce and formidable enemy. (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 191.) The fact of having to carry on such a war as this may, in some degree, account for their alleged neglect of the Roman people. But, besides this, it is also true that the controversy between the Eastern and Western Christians, in reference to the worship of images, had much to do in fixing the relations between them, especially those between the emperors and the popes. It is the most probable and plausible view of the matter to say that, on account of this purely religious disagreement, and the violence to which it led on both sides, the pope was very ready to avail himself of the existing condition of affairs to throw himself under the royal protection of Pepin, and thus build up a powerful monarchy in the West, under the shelter of which he could consummate his contemplated revolt against the emperors. In the light of subsequent events this is the most natural conclusion, and several contemporaneous facts contribute to its support.

When the pope invoked the aid of the emperor; the latter instructed him to go to the court of Astolphus, the Lombard king, and to demand the restoration of Ravenna and the other cities he had seized, in the name of the empire; showing thereby that he had no idea of abandoning his authority and jurisdiction over any part of Italy. This imperial order was obeyed by Stephen III., who was then pope,(2) by visiting the court of the Lombard king and making the demand in the name of the emperor, and as his ambassador.

* He is sometimes called Stephen II., but erroneously, as Stephen II. was pope only a few days, and was never consecrated.

It was, however, refused by Astolphuis, who had no idea of willingly surrendering the advantages he had acquired by the possession of Ravenna and other cities. The pope not only expected this, but had prepared for it by taking other steps independently of the emperor, and without his knowledge. These exercise a controlling influence in deciding upon his motives. He had already addressed him self to Pepin, and had also written to the French dukes, “beseeching them to come to the rescue of St. Peter,” and promising them, says Cormenin, “in the name of the apostle, the remission of all the sins they had committed, or might commit in the future, and guaranteeing to them unalterable happiness in this world, and eternal life in the next.” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 191.)

He had also made up his mind, before he set out for Pavia, where the Lombard king held his court, that he would go directly to France, and hold a personal interview with Pepin, for the better explanation and understanding of his alliance with Pope Zachary, and of their mutual relations in consequence of it. (Ibid.) From these facts it is perfectly apparent that he had deliberated upon his revolt against the empire, and plotted the means of carrying it out before he left Rome.

That he was guilty of both duplicity and perfidy is beyond all question; for, while acting as the official ambassador of his sovereign, he was at the same time engaged in making a hostile treaty with a foreign monarch. He was not deterred by the consideration of any misfortune which might befall the empire. After the refusal of Astolphus, he hastened on to France, and negotiated another alliance with Pepin, without reporting his failure to the emperor. He had set out upon his revolt with resolute steps, and, conscious of the strength of the military power he was invoking, cast his eyes no longer toward Constantinople, except with a view to plan more successfully the measures by which he hoped to sunder his allegiance to the empire. By the laws of nations, as they now exist, this would be treason; but, however it may have been then considered, the pope doubtless sought for his justification in the fact that Constantine Copronymus was an iconoclastic emperor, and Pepin was a faithful son of the Church, and the head of a monarchy which, “founded by the priests, was true to the priests.” It was the most natural thing in the world for him to conclude that, as the papacy had been the means of enabling Pepin to make his own revolt against Childeric III. successful, Pepin would reciprocate the favor by helping him to break off his allegiance to the Eastern emperors. Such combinations among ambitious and aspiring men have been frequent in the world, yet history gives no account of any other that has been followed by so long a train of consequences.

Pepin, no doubt anticipating advantages to himself, readily consented to comply with the request of the pope. He marched his army against the Lombard king, and compelled him to surrender up all the Italian territory occupied by him. And here at this point we see the advantages which the papacy achieved by the alliance; for Pepin, entirely ignoring the claim of the empire, caused the territory to be surrendered to the pope, in the name of “the see of Rome!” And the pope accepted the royal present with as little compunctions of conscience as if he were a subject of the King of France, instead of the emperor of the East. The territory thus surrendered included Ravenna, Bologna, Ferrara, and the Pentapolis, all of which, it is said by the papal writers, was conveyed by “solemn grant,” in order that Rome, with these territories as an appendage to it, should be erected into an ecclesiastical State, with the
temporal power to govern it in the hands of the pope. This, it should be observed, was in the year 754—seven and a half centuries after the commencement of the Christian era—and constitutes the only basis of the papal claim to temporal power which has the slightest plausibility about it, or is in any sense defensible. Without stopping now to inquire why, if this power were absolutely necessary to Christianity and the Church, it was so long permitted by Providence to be deferred, there are several questions arising out of the foregoing circumstances too important to be passed by.

Was there any such “grant” as is alleged to have been made by Pepin, conferring title to the surrendered territory upon the pope? One would suppose, if there had been, that it would have been produced before now, in order to settle the many controversies that have taken place on the subject. Its existence has been frequently denied, and its exhibition has been invited and challenged in a variety of ways. The limits of the grant have been often controverted, some popes endeavoring to enlarge and others to contract them. An inspection of it at any time would have settled all these questions. But, although it has been said that it is preserved in the Vatican at Rome, it has never yet been produced!

Fontanini, in his defense of the jurisdiction of the pope, “intimates that this grant is yet extant, and even makes use of some phrases that are said to be contained in it.” But, as is well remarked by Dr. Maclaine, this “will scarcely be believed. Were it, indeed, true that such a deed remains, its being published to the world would be undoubtedly unfavorable to the pretensions of Rome.” He refers also to the fact that, in a dispute between the Emperor Joseph I. and the pope concerning Commaehio, the partisans of the latter constantly refused to exhibit the deed; and also to the further fact that Bianchini had given a specimen of it “from a Farnesian manuscript, which seems to carry the marks of a remote antiquity;” and then says: “Be this as it may, a multitude of witnesses unite in assuring us that the remorse of a wounded conscience was the source of Pepin’s liberality, and that his grant to the Roman pontiff was the superstitious remedy by which he hoped to expiate his enormities, and particularly his horrid perfidy to his master, Childeric.” (“Maclaine’s Mosheim,” vol. i., p. 195, note.)

It is a rule of law that, when a party pretends—to have in his possession evidence that would explain any matter of controversy in which he is involved, the fact of his withholding it should be construed unfavorably to his pretensions. Therefore, as more than eleven hundred years have elapsed since the conquest of Pepin from the Lombards, and during all this time no “grant” from him to the pope has ever been produced, it is not unreasonable to conclude that none such was ever made. And yet it is true, doubtless, that Pepin did put the pope in possession of the conquered territory, and confer upon him, as far as he could, the authority to govern it, as the head of the Roman Church, but without any attempt to convey it by deed.

If history were entirely silent upon the subject, this much might be inferred from the nature of their relations to each other, they being such as to create upon the part of each the reciprocal obligation to do anything the other should require. The pope made Pepin a king, and why should not Pepin aid the pope to break his allegiance to the Eastern emperors and become a king also? Whatever would justify the act of revolt in the one case would equally justify it in the other. If the pope had ecclesiastical authority sufficient to legalize the treason of Pepin against Childeric, the French legions had physical power enough to legalize the pope’s treason against his lawful sovereign. Therefore, in this spirit of mutuality, and in entire disregard of all legal rights, “the splendid donation was granted, in supreme and absolute dominion, and the world beheld, for the first time, a Christian bishop invested with the prerogatives of a temporal prince.” (“Milman’s Gibbon,” vol. v., p. 32; “The Temporal Power of the Papacy,” by Legge, p. 23.)

It is insisted by many who defend the temporal prerogatives of the popes, that this donation of Pepin only restored to them jurisdiction which they had previously possessed. Even Archbishop Kenrick, in support of this assertion, has been tempted, when speaking of the act of Pepin, incautiously to say:

“This can scarcely be considered a mere donation, since a great portion, if not all, of the territory had already belonged to the pope; whence Stephen IV., in the year 769, urged the French princes, Charles and Carloman, as a mat ter of duty which they owed to St. Peter, to see that his property, usurped by the Lombards, should be fully restored.” (Kenrick’s “Primacy,” p. 261.)

The mind of the learned archbishop must have been some what confused when he wrote this. He first states as a fact the ownership of territory by the popes before the donation of Pepin, in the year 754, during the pontificate of Stephen III., and, to establish this, cites the action and claim of Pope Stephen IV.,in the year 769—fifteen years afterward! This is neither logical nor satisfactory. But the important question at last is, whether or no the statement of fact is to be relied on. It is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile it with the historical narrative, if, indeed, it is not positively contradicted. Dr. Fredet, manifestly, does not believe it; on the other hand, he directly contradicts it. He insists that the donation of Pepin was “a solemn grant to the see of Rome of that part of Italy which is, on this account, called the Ecclesiastical State, and has ever since composed the temporal dominion of the popes.” But he immediately says, “Before that time they [the popes] had been subject, in civil matters, to the Roman or Greek emperors.” (Fredet, p. 185.)

And such is, undoubtedly, the fact, as history abundantly attests. This is conclusive upon the subject: that the authority and jurisdiction of the Eastern emperors over Rome never absolutely ceased until Charlemagne was made emperor of the West, in the year 800—nearly half a century after the alleged donation of Pepin. It took the popes all this time to sunder entirely the ties of their allegiance to the East, and it was only then accomplished by the strength of the French armies. The prowess of Charlemagne made their usurped jurisdiction over civil matters secure; and until then, both by the laws of the empire and the law of nations, the popes were the subjects of the emperors, and owed to them the duty of allegiance and fidelity.

History does not inform us that there was any political quarrel, or cause of quarrel, between the government at Constantinople and the people of Italy or Rome. So far as their civil affairs were concerned, everything was satisfactory and harmonious. The whole existing disagreement arose out of the question of the worship of images, and was therefore entirely religious. (*)

* The iconoclastic controversy began under the pontificate of Gregory II. (715—731), and while Leo the Isaurian was emperor. It was carried on with great violence. There is great discrepancy among the Eastern and Western historians in regard to its earliest stages. The former charge Gregory II. with having immediately proceeded to the extremity of organizing a revolt against the empire, and of releasing the Italian people from their allegiance. This is denied by the latter. Du Pin does not credit it.—Eccl. Hist., vol. vi., p. 132. Dean Milman omits any reference to the charge. – Latin Christianity, vol. ii., p. 293—327. But Cormenin treats it as true, and records many alleged outrages committed by the pope, such as seizing the envoys, who were the bearers of conciliatory letters from the emperor, and putting them to death.—CORMENIN, vol. i., pp. 178, 179.

Upon this subject the difference was radical and irreconcilable; and there can be no reasonable doubt that this was the primary and inciting cause of the pope’s action. He could readily foresee his own weakness as the subject of an iconoclastic emperor, and the strength he would acquire by a close alliance with the French kings, and the establishment of a strong monarchy in the West, devoted to the Church and, more especially, to the papacy. Hence, the only legitimate inference from his whole conduct is, that he employed the influence of religion and of the Church to excite the minds of a superstitious and ignorant population against their civil government, in order to obtain from a foreign king, to whom he owed no allegiance, the concession of his temporal power, that he might thereby be enabled to break off his own lawful allegiance to the empire. Every step taken by the different popes who participated in these movements justifies this belief, and the result confirms it. Rome needed only that her popes should possess temporal power to make her superior to Constantinople; and for this prize the contest was carried on with unabated zeal until the final victory was won.

How could Pope Stephen III., while occupying the relation of subject to the empire, acquire title to territory or temporal power, by the donation of Pepin, a foreign prince? Was it within the power of Pepin to release him from his lawful allegiance? Did not all the rights transferred to him by Pepin inure to the benefit of the empire? Can a rebel, by treaty or alliance with a foreign power, acquire any legitimate rights against his government or his lawful sovereign?

It is necessary that these questions shall be decided in order to understand the nature of the donation from Pepin to the pope—whether or no any temporal power was rightfully acquired by means of it, even if it be conceded to have been to the full extent claimed by the papal writers.

It is believed that the law of nations has undergone no change in reference to these matters, from the earliest ages of Christian civilization. By its provisions a rebel can ac quire no rights in his own behalf as against his own government; for whatever he may do, whether by himself or by foreign aid, is considered only as resistance to lawful authority. A successful revolt is another and different matter. In that case, rights are obtained and held only by revolutionary force, and when they become accomplished facts, are, in the judgment of modern nations especially, entitled to the highest consideration.

The American idea is, that the best nations in the world have been the result of revolution; which is justified or not, according to the degree of wrong and oppression it is designed to resist. But those who defend the temporal power of the popes derive no assistance from this doctrine; for one of the most prominent features in the papal teaching is the doctrine which denounces revolution and resistance to legitimate civil authority. If the conduct of Pope Stephen be measured and judged by these teachings, he undoubtedly brought himself, not only in open hostility to the law of the empire, but to the law of nations and of God. Nor will the papacy be aided by what is called the doctrine of accomplished facts, for it has invariably taught that no rights are conferred by them when they grow out of resistance to lawful authority, no matter how long they may be enjoyed; as the pope shows in his Encyclical of 1864, and as will abundantly appear hereafter.

The conclusion is unavoidable, that the popes acquired no rightful authority by the donation of Pepin. The territories donated were held by the Lombard king only by conquest, and had only been so held since the year 752—but two years. (“Fall of the Roman Empire,” by Sisniondi, p. 312; “History of the Church,” by Fry, p. 186, London.)

The superior title of the empire had not been abandoned, but still existed. If Pepin had taken them from the emperor, then his title might have been defended; and in that event he could have disposed of them as he pleased. But he took them from the Lombards, not from the empire, which left the title of the empire a subsisting and valid claim, which could only be extinguished by force or treaty. Neither of these modes having been resorted to, they could be taken by the pope only as a subject, not as an independent prince; having no right, by the law of nations, to acquire such title as Pepin attempted to confer upon him. He could only hold them in trust for his sovereign. Therefore, as he owed lawful allegiance to the empire, the title conferred upon him by Pepin inured to the empire. If he claimed, or attempted to exercise, power independently of the empire by virtue of it, he was, by the law of nations, guilty of usurpation. And hence it follows that the temporal power of the popes derived from the donation of Pepin was not legitimately obtained, but was usurped by a flagrant violation of the law of the empire, and the law of nations.

The controversy about the worship of images was used as a pretext for its acquisition, but the real motive is exposed by the whole transaction. It was to build up a civil power in the West, with the pope as a temporal prince, which should make the West more powerful than the East, and restore to Rome her old pagan distinction of “Mistress of the World.” And such is the “truth of history,” when it is extracted from the mass of contradictions.

Dr. Fredet was too sagacious not to have seen the force of the suggestions here made, and he has endeavored to counteract their influence. He is compelled to admit that, at the time of the defeat of the Lombards by Pepin, the emperor, Constantine Copronymus, continued to maintain his claim to the territory embraced in the donation of Pepin. He says:

“At this juncture two ambassadors arrived from Constantinople, to claim for the emperor the restitution of the cities and provinces which had been usurped by the Lombards.” (Fredet, p.185.) But then, in order to avoid the force of the argument that, as these territories were held by the Lombards by usurpation, their recapture inured to the nationality to which they legitimately belonged, he says also, at another place:

“It is a principle laid down by civilians, and founded on the law of nations, that he who conquers a country in a just war not undertaken for the former possessors, nor in union with them, is not bound to restore to them what they would not, or could not, protect and secure.” (Ibid., note (g), p.496.)

But if it be conceded that this is the statement of a just principle, it is broad enough to disprove the claim of temporal power based upon Pepin’s donation. The reconquest of the territory held by the Lombards was, in the eye of the law of nations, “undertaken for the former possessors.” The emperor, it is true, did not solicit aid from Pepin; but the pope, who was his subject, did. Pepin was bound to know, and did know, that the pope was in revolt against his sovereign. Consequently, there were but two aspects in which he could have viewed his interference—either that he was acting in behalf of the emperor, at the solicitation of his subject, or was acting in behalf of a rebellious subject against his lawful sovereign. If the former, then, by the law of nations, his donation inured to the empire; if the latter, he violated that law by becoming a party to an armed rebellion. But, in point of fact, Pepin did not render assistance to the pope, as against the emperor, but moved his army against the Lombards, and left the pope, after his donation, to settle the question of his treason with the emperor. Therefore, his donation to the pope was made to him as a subject, not as a prince; and, consequently, as a subject can take no title to territory which had once belonged to his sovereign after its recapture, the donation of Pepin inured to the empire, and not to the pope.

If, thereafter, the pope was enabled to maintain his title to it, he could only have done it by successful revolution, which would bring it within the doctrine of accomplished facts, now repudiated by the papacy. In any view of it, we cannot escape the fact that whatever temporal power the popes acquired by these proceedings was obtained by usurpation.

Why did the French king make a donation of territory, with the authority of temporal government, to the pope? This was about the middle of the eighth century, and for more than seven hundred years the Church had existed without a temporal ruler, without a king, and without a crown to place upon the brow of a king. There had been, up to that time, six ecumenical councils of the Church,(*) and by none of them had it been declared, as an essential part of Christian faith, that the pope was infallible, or that his temporal power was necessary to the successful government of the Church, or to the successful propagation of the truths of the Gospel.

* The first Council of Nice, A.D. 325; the first Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381; the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431; the Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451; the second Council of Constantinople, A.D. 553; and the third Council of Constantinople, A.D. 682.

Why, therefore, this gift of a temporal crown? Manifestly, it was the reward which Pepin paid to the pope for enabling him to maintain his treasonable resistance to the King of France, by means of which he hoped to destroy a rival political power in the East, and transfer the scepter of universal dominion to the West. It was the legitimate fruit of the alliance between the king and the pope, by which the former gave political power in exchange for the ecclesiastical protection of the latter. The king made himself a party to the treason of the pope, and the pope made himself a party to the treason of the king. They were joint conspirators against lawful authority; one against his lawful king, the other against his lawful emperor—both against their national allegiance. Each had a worldly object alone—the acquisition of princely power; and therefore they both stand condemned by every just principle of international law, as they would do were their conduct now to be adjudged by the unbiased judgment of all the leading nations.

During the late rebellion in this country (America) ten of our States held possession of all their territory, by military force, for several years— more than twice as long as the Lombards held Ravenna. They excluded the authority of the National Government, defied its power, and erected a government of their own. Suppose Napoleon III., the “favorite son of the Church,” had marched his army from Mexico into these States, taken possession of them, and turned them over to the temporal government of Pope Pius IX., whose throne he was then holding up, then the pope would have had precisely the same temporal power over all these ten States as Pope Stephen III. acquired by the gift of the King of France! The statement of such a proposition sufficiently refutes it; and yet there are those who habitually exhaust argument and eloquence in supporting the validity of a title thus acquired. Toleration does not require that these things shall be passed over in silence, nor is its spirit violated by their arraignment at the bar of public opinion.

But there is a view of the question of temporal power, designedly passed over until now, which is of sufficient importance to be considered. Suppose it be conceded that the pope did acquire temporal power by the donation of Pepin, what, then, was its extent? We have already seen, what all readers of history know to be true, that this donation only included the Italian territory held by the Lombards, and taken by Pepin from Astolphus, the Lombard king. This was Ravenna, Bologna, Ferrara, and the Pentapolis— but not Rome. The Lombards did not hold possession of Rome. Pepin did not have any authority over Rome, for he made no conquest of it; nor did he pretend to donate it, or any temporal authority over it, to the pope. If he had the authority, and did confer temporal power over the territory he took from Astolphus, then he made the pope prince over that territory alone, and not over Rome. In Rome he remained a subject to the emperor, and could derive no right there from the donation of Pepin. Whatever temporal power, therefore, he acquired in Rome must rest upon some other foundation than the donation of Pepin. As the papists pretend to assign no other, it is necessarily the result of usurpation.

It has been remarked that the motives of both Pepin and the pope were worldly—that they had reference alone to temporal dominion. This is a legitimate inference from all the facts. The faith or creed of the Church, as it had come down from the Council of Nice, was in no way involved in any of the pending matters of controversy, except as it was connected with the disagreement about the worship of images. There were no prevailing heresies calculated to disturb the harmony of the Church. (*)

* There is nothing to be found in the proceedings of the first six ecumenical councils favoring the worship of images. The Emperor Leo, therefore, when he attempted to put a stop to it, did not violate any expressed article of faith. A council of three hundred and thirty—eight bishops was held in Constantinople, in the year 754, which condemned it. But this council was repudiated by the Roman Christians.—Du PIN, vol. vi., p. 133. The second Council of Nice was held under the pontificate of Adrian I., in the year 757, and is called ecumenical, although the number of bishops who attended it were less than those who assembled at Constantinople. It condemned the council at Constantinople, anathematized those who repudiated the worship of images, and authorized that kind of worship, by introducing it for the first time into the confession of faith.—Du PIN, vol. vi., p. 139.

The heresy of Macedonius, which denied the Godhead of the Holy Ghost, had been disposed of by the first Council of Constantinople, in 381; that of Nestorius, which affirmed that there were two distinct persons in Jesus Christ, by the Council of Ephesus, in 431; that of Eutyches, which denied the two distinct natures, divine and human, in Jesus Christ, by the Council of Chalcedon, in 451; and the Monothelite heresy, which asserted Jesus Christ to have no human will separate from the divine will, by the third Council of Constantinople, in 682. Harmony, therefore, pervaded the Church in all its religious departments. Its faith was unagitated, its creed unassailed.

But the pope, looking out from the midst of this internal peace and concord upon the troubled political elements in France, had his own ambition excited, and did not stop long to consider of the means of gratifying it. The step taken by him was as fatal to true piety, as it has in the end, after centuries of agitation, proved to be to the papal power he so ambitiously acquired. By it, he pulled down the Church from her high mission of saving souls, dragged her sacred robes in the muddy pool of earthly politics, and put her upon a career of corruption which has caused her own children to afflict her with mortal stabs. He declared to Pepin that it was the will of God that he should take the crown from the head of Childeric, and put it upon his own head! Pepin needed no other persuasion than this to make him a devotee of a religion so favorable to his ambition. It was the very faith which of all others suited him the best. He was easily persuaded to aid a pope who taught a doctrine so palatable to him, and to make it the religion of France, because it confined all subsequent kings to his own line! He staked all his fortunes upon the hazard. And he won the prize; while the venerable Church, which was thus turned away from her peaceful paths, and made to enter upon an ignoble mission, received a cruel and paralyzing blow. Centuries have passed since then, during which she has experienced the most varied fortunes, but she is yet reeling under that blow.

We have but to look at the manner in which the popes employed their spiritual authority in order to promote temporal and secular ends, to see how the Church was made to violate the injunctions of its founder, the example of the apostles, and the peaceful teachings of the early Christians. The retrospect reflects no credit upon those who became the active agents in these measures, but is made necessary by the enormous pretensions now set up in behalf of the papacy. And it will serve to show, also, how necessary it is for the best interests of mankind that the nations shall not again suffer the Church and the State to be united. (Emphasis the Webmaster’s)

As perfidy seemed to be a common vice in those days among both popes and kings, Pepin had scarcely retired with his army from Italy, before Astolphus, the Lombard king, made preparations to break his treaty by threatening to retake the provinces he had surrendered and lay siege to Rome. Pope Stephen III. again had recourse to Pepin, urging him in the most imploring terms to return to Italy and defend his “donation” to the Holy See. With him the great question was the possession of the exarchate of Ravenna, supposing that, unless that were destroyed, it would become, in the hands of the Lombards, who were Arian Christians but defended the worship of images, too formidable as the ecclesiastical rival of Rome. It is quite certain that this was the chief ground of quarrel between the pope and Astolphus; and that, “if the pope had allowed the Lombards to occupy the exarchate, they would have been loyal allies of the pope.” (“Latin Christianity,” by Milman, vol. ii., p. 424, note 1.)

The pope, therefore, could not keep his anxiety within moderate bounds, and addressed several letters to Pepin. In one of them, according to Cormenin, he says: “I conjure you by the Lord our God, and his glorious mother—by the celestial virtues and the holy apostle who has consecrated you king—to render to our see the donation which you have offered it;” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 193.) thus again invoking the aid of religion in securing temporal power to himself. But Pepin was not so ready as before to embark in an enterprise which offered no further prospect of gain to himself; and, indicating some indifference to these appeals to his religious sentiments, the pope was driven to a still more desperate expedient—that of sending him several letters purporting to have been written by the Virgin Mary, angels, martyrs, and saints, and one by St. Peter himself, all of which, it was alleged, had been sent down from heaven for the purpose! The translation of that from Peter is thus given by Dean Milman:

“I, Peter the Apostle, protest, admonish, and conjure you, the most Christian kings, Pepin, Charles, and Carloman, with all the hierarchy, bishops, abbots, priests, and all monks; all judges, dukes, counts, and the whole people of the Franks. The mother of God likewise adjures you, and admonishes and commands you, she as well as the thrones and dominions, and all the hosts of heaven, to save the beloved city of Rome from the detested Lombards. If ye hasten, I, Peter the Apostle, promise you my protection in this life and in the next, will prepare for you the most glorious mansions in heaven, and will bestow on you the everlasting joys of paradise. Make common cause with my people of Rome, and I will grant whatever ye may pray for. I conjure you not to yield up this city to be lacerated and tormented by the Lombards, lest your own souls be lacerated and tormented in hell, with the devil and his pestilential angels. Of all nations under heaven, the Franks are highest in the esteem of St. Peter; to me you owe all your victories. Obey, and obey speedily, and, by my suffrage, our Lord Jesus Christ will give you in this life length of days, security, victory; in the life to come, will multiply his blessings upon you, among his saints and angels.” (*)

* “Latin Christianity,” vol. ii., p. 424. Cormenin gives this same letter, in a somewhat different translation, but one which does not make the sense materially different from the above. The original Latin, taken from Labbe, may be found in “The See of Rome in the Middle Ages,” by Reichel. London ed., p. 65. For Cormenin’s translation, see “History of the Popes,” vol. i., p. 193. Du Pin refers to this letter as “in St. Peter and Stephen’s name,” but does not publish it. Du Pin’s “Ecclesiastical History,” vol. vi., p. 108. He attributes it to Pope Stephen II., when the transaction occurred during the pontificate of Stephen III.

Archbishop Kenrick, although he alludes to the relations between Stephen III. and Pepin, does not directly mention this letter, neither admitting or denying it; yet he gives a quotation from a letter which could scarcely have been any other than this.—The Primacy of the Apostolic See, by Kenrick, part ii., p. 261.

We can account for this letter and its contents only upon the supposition that its author considered himself as standing in the place of God on earth, or that he was entirely indifferent to the means employed, provided they produced the result he sought for. The ignorance and superstition of the age was such as to encourage this mingling together of divine and temporal things; and Stephen III. was the kind of pope to avail himself of it, notwithstanding the impious and blasphemous character of the act. He understood the temper and position of Pepin, and knew that he considered himself indebted to Pope Zachary for his crown, and to the priests of France for the encouragement of that popular superstition which enabled him to maintain it under pretense of “divine right.” And he did not miscalculate. Whether Pepin believed that the letter came from heaven, and directly from St. Peter, or that the pope, as God’s vicegerent, had the prerogative right of committing so palpable a forgery, it is of no present consequence to inquire. He yielded to the entreaties of the pope, and again advanced into Italy with his army; acting, doubtless, from the conviction that, if he did not, the clergy would persuade the people of France that he was defiant to the commands of the apostle, and deserved the anathemas of the Church. This time, however, his movements were attended with no other immediate consequences than the re-surrender of Ravenna to the pope, and probably the confirmation of his former donation.

Cormenin speaks of the subsequent deposit of his “deed of gift” upon the confessional of St. Peter, by Fulrad, the counselor of the French king; (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 193.) but we have already seen that the probabilities are against the existence of such a document, and that the gift of Pepin was only verbal.

Astolphus, the Lombard king, did not long survive these events. He died in the year 756, when a controversy arose about the Lombard crown between Didier, Duke of Istria, and Ratchis, a monk. The latter gained Pope Stephen to his support by promising not to disturb him in his possession of Ravenna, and that he would make large donations “to enrich St. Peter”—an object of which the popes have never lost sight. But Pepin did not favor this arrangement, and took the side of Didier. The pope then, from policy alone, abandoned the cause of the monk, and recognized Didier as the lawful sovereign of Lombardy. He was not disposed, however, to change sides so readily without some reward, and succeeded in obtaining from Didier a concession of the city of Fuenza and the duchy of Ferrara, and some other places—so true was he to the purpose of enlarging the papal domains and the establishment of the temporal power. He soon after died, in the year 757, and was succeeded by Paul I. The events of the three next pontificates have no special bearing upon the question we are considering, except as showing that the controversies about the worship of images between the popes and the emperors continued, and that Didier still cherished the purpose of seizing upon the exarchate of Ravenna. All the plottings and political intrigues of him and the popes had reference to that object, each being resolved to possess it at every hazard.

Pepin died in the year 768, and left the kingdom to his two sons, Carl and Carloman, the former of whom, at the death of his brother, became the sole possessor of the crown, by the name of Charlemagne.

In the year 772, Adrian I. became pope. During his pontificate, which last ed twenty—three years, the politico—alliance between the papacy and the French king bore other fruits, not less conducive than those already borne to the advancement of papal power.

When Charlemagne became king he found all the nations of Europe in a state of comparative decrepitude; and, inheriting the sentiments and courage of his father, resolved upon making the French monarchy the controlling and all absorbing power in the West. Not satisfied with the possession of France and Western Germany, he extended his dominion into Italy, Spain, and other parts of Germany; which of necessity brought him into immediate intercourse with the popes. Fully informed of the advantages his father had derived from their employment of the ecclesiastical power in his behalf, he readily saw that his interests required him to make a similar use of them. He therefore gathered about his court distinguished “foreign priests” from all the leading nations; who, besides being men of great learning, were “the light of the Church” and the kinsmen “of bishops and of saints.” (Michelet, vol. i., p. 114.)

He professed strong attachment to the Roman Church and its religion, and there is no reason for supposing that he was insincere. But, as he understood it, the Church and its teachings were designed as aids to his political power. Beyond this, it is probable that he cared but little for either. With these opinions, he was readily induced, by the influences around him, to strengthen the ecclesiastical power in France. “Being,” says Michelet, ” sure of the pope, whom his family had protected against the Greeks and Lombards,” he displayed his great sagacity as a statesman by these movements, designed as they were to bring all the authority of the Church to bear upon the measures of his reign.

Two measures were specially conspicuous. He “confirmed the institution of tithes,” which required that one—tenth of all the taxes levied upon the people should be paid to the churches and the priests. He also freed the Church from secular jurisdiction —that is, made it independent of the State—by a law, found in his Capitularies, in these words:

“It is our pleasure that neither abbots, nor presbyters, nor deacons, nor sub-deacons, nor any priest whatsoever, be brought before the public and secular tribunals, but be delivered for trial to their bishop.” (Micbelet, p. 115, note.)

His munificence (benevolence) toward the clergy was unbounded. “Hie augmented their wealth, he enlarged their privileges, he confirmed and extended their immunities; and, were it not that he was one of the greatest and wisest princes who ever reigned, some writers would not have hesitated to place him among the weakest of mankind.” (Waddington, pp. 149, 150.)

And his direct dealings with the pope were not less distinguished for their liberality. He was a consummate statesman—far the greatest of his age—and was quite willing to leave the popes to the gratification of their ambition when it did not interfere with the success of his own measures. One object he was specially desirous to accomplish; this was, to sustain the popes in their defiance of the Eastern emperors, that thereby the seat of empire might be transferred from the East to the West.

Besides his wars with the neighboring nations, Charlemagne had a quarrel with the Duke of Bavaria, which furnished him an opportunity of availing himself of the alliance between the pope and his father, aid of making religion serve the purpose of promoting both his own and the pope’s ambition. Pope Adrian I., in full sympathy with his purposes and plans, took his side against the Duke of Bavaria, and launched a terrible bull of excommunication against him and all his subjects—not for any offensive act against religion or the Church, but on account of objects entirely temporal. It is necessary to observe the character of this bull, in order to understand the progressive steps toward the acquisition of temporal power, and to see with what little remorse of conscience sacred things were mingled with political controversies, and made subservient to ambitious ends. If, in order to make an act infallible, it must concern the faith alone, and be addressed to the Universal Church, then it would be unjust to say that this bull was stamped with that character. But if, when the pope speaks in the name of God, he speaks ex cathedra, then Adrian I. was infallible when in this bull he declared “that the Franks were ab solved in advance from all crimes they might commit in the enemy’s country; and that God commanded them, through his vicar, to violate girls, murder women, children, and old men, to burn cities, and put all the inhabitants to the sword.” (*)

* Cormenin, vol. i., p. 204. Such a bull as this would seem almost incredible, if it were not found in the history of a Roman Catholic author. But this is the pope who absolved Offa, King of the Mercians, in England, from the crime of killing Ethelbert, the king of the East Angles, upon the condition that he should allow Peter-pence to be collected in England. The same author says that “avarice was his ruling passion,” and that “he displayed remarkable political skill in the management of the Church, His supple and adroit spirit knew how to bend before power, in order to augment the authority of Rome, and extend her rule over the people.”—Ibid., p. 207.

The obligations between the pope and the king were, of course, reciprocal, and required each to serve the other—the one with the thunders of excommunication, and the other with the thunders of artillery. The pope had a quarrel with the Duke of Beneventum, because the duke refused him permission to make money levies upon his subjects for increasing the revenues of St. Peter; and Charlemagne, in return for the sanction which the Pope had given, in God’s name, of all the enormities his army might commit in Bavaria, despoiled the duke, by force, of five of his best cities, and added them to the domains of the pope! The alliance now began to bear richer and more abundant fruits, which had become so ripened as to be ready for plucking by either party, accordingly as temporal interest or ambition stimulated him.

Adrian I. died, however, before they were all gathered, and left it to his successor, Leo III., to compensate Charlemagne for his munificent gift. This was done by Leo in a manner well calculated to gratify the vanity of a less ambitious king than Charlemagne. He sent to him “the keys of the confessional of St. Peter, the standard of the city .of Rome, and magnificent presents,” and urged him to send some French lords to Rome, who should receive the oath of temporal fidelity from the Romans; (Cormenin, p. 207.) for, as yet, notwithstanding the donation of Pepin, the pope had not ventured to make any pretensions to the rights of a temporal king.

It had not then been revealed to him that the law of God made this necessary for the protection of Christianity and the Church! The presence of weaker and feebler kings than Pepin and Charlemagne was necessary to such a revelation as this. Charlemagne did not, of course, object to being made emperor, for that was one of his cherished objects; but, bad as the times were, he had so just a sense of shame, that he desired the vices of the Roman clergy to be first reformed. These were so flagrant that he considered it a reproach to Christianity that they should be tolerated under the very eye of the pope, and so wrote to Leo III., urging the application of corrective measures. Leo, unwilling to take issue with him upon the subject, indicated a wish to make the desired reform. But whatever efforts were made in that direction proved abortive on account of the opposition of the clergy of Rome, who organized a conspiracy against the pope.

Two priests, aided by the monks, made an attempt to take his life, seized him in the street, dragged him by the beard, sought to break his skull with stones, to put out his eyes, and pull out his tongue; and at last plunged him into a dungeon. He was, however, released, after several days of confinement; when, fearing a renewal of the attack, he invited Charlemagne to visit Rome, that he might more certainly secure his protection. The invitation was accepted, and the great king entered Rome in December, 800, when the pope, placing a crown upon his head, turned over to him that part of the empire with as cool impudence as if it were his to bestow, declared him emperor, crowned as such “by the hand of God!” Two objects were accomplished by this stroke of policy—the pope’s treason to the empire was made effectual, and Charlemagne was made “Emperor of the Romans,” which placed the diadem of the Caesars upon his brow. (Fredet, p. 191; Cormenin, vol. i., p. 209.) The Eastern emperors were now supplanted at Rome, and the King of France was placed at the head of a great Western empire!

Of course he could do nothing less, in return for the crown given him by the pope, than confirm the donation of Pepin, his father, to the Church; which it is said he did without hesitation. By this means he acquired the title of “the favorite son of the Church,” which title has been ever since applied to all the monarchs of France who have remained true to the Church and the papacy. He was also repaid by the pontifical blessing, and furnished with a copy of the canon laws of the Church, from which it was designed he should learn the nature and extent of his obligations of obedience to the pope, and the necessity of preserving the union between the State and the Church. (*)

* Du Pin says that “Adrian gave to Charlemagne the code of Dionysius Exiguus;” with additions “favorable to the pretensions of the Court of Rome.” These, he says, however, were “forged when the False Decretals were made, and perhaps by the same author.”—Du PIN, vol. vi., p. 115.

Most unfortunate has it been for France that this code of canon laws was ever assented to by her great king, or taken by him into her dominions. It tied her fast to the car of the papacy, and through tribulation, anguish, revolution, bloodshed, and every form of suffering, it has at last pulled her down into the abyss. The magnificence of her scenery, the grandeur of her cities, the fertility of her soil, the beauty of her climate, the bravery of her armies, the genius of her children, all combined, could not excite in the minds of her people a sufficient sense of their own manhood to save her. With her fate sealed to that of the papacy, she and it have sunk into a common grave. When her day of resurrection shall come, she must clothe herself in new robes, leave the papal wreck to decay amidst the debris of fallen and lost nations, construct with her own hands a new grandeur, and place her people where they yet deserve to be—far forward in the ranks of those who know what it is to shelter and protect themselves by institutions of their own creation, without the aid of kings or popes, or any other of the medieval forms of tyranny.

It is important to know, in this connection, the extent of the territory granted by Charlemagne to the pope, in order that the precise extent of the papal domains may be ascertained. Fredet confines it to the provinces granted by Pepin. Speaking of the popes becoming independent of secular princes, he says:

“This independence they obtained through the instrumentality of Pepin and his successor Charlemagne, who conferred on the popes such an extent of temporal power as might enable them freely to exercise their spiritual authority.” (Fredet, p. 185.)

At another place he says, “Charlemagne manifested his attachment to the Apostolic See by ratifying and augmenting the donation which Pepin had made in its favor;” but he does not state in what the augmentation consisted. (Ibid., p. 187.) He does not speak of any additional grant made in the year 800. Cormenlin is not more specific, although he speaks of large donations given to several churches in Rome. Waddington says “he renewed and even increased the grant” of Pepin. (Waddington, p. 149.) Reichel says he “ratified the donation of his father, Pepin, by ceding to the pope the exarchate and the Pentapolis.” (Reichel, p. 69.) Dean Milman is more satisfactory, and limits the grant to those cities which afterward paid homage and delivered their keys to the pope — Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Cesena, Sinigaglia, Iesi, Forlimpopoli, Forli, with the castle Sussibio, Montefeltro, Acerra, Monte di Lucano, Serra, San Marino, Bobbio, Urbino, Cagli, Luciolo, Gubbio, Comachio, and Narni, taken from the Duke of Spoleto. (Milman’s “Latin Christianity,” vol. ii., p. 427.)

Thus we are enabled to see that neither by Pepin nor Charlemagne was there any grant of temporal power in Rome made to the popes. If it was designed by either of them to make them temporal princes at all, their authority, by the very nature of the concessions, was limited to the provinces taken from the Lombards and from the Duke of Spoleto, and held by conquest. There was no conquest of Rome by Pepin or Charlemagne. After the grant of Pepin, the pope was left a subject of the Eastern emperor, still in rebellion. But after that of Charlemagne, his relations were changed, and he became a subject of the “emperor of the Romans.” It is perfectly manifest, from all the history of those times, that Charlemagne did not intend to leave a king in any part of his dominions with superior authority to his own, or even with equal authority. When the iron crown was placed upon his brow by the pope, he became the sovereign of the Western empire, which included Rome.

Mr. Hallam, referring to this sovereignty, says: “Money was coined in his name, and an oath of fidelity was taken by the clergy and people.” (Hallam’s “Middle Ages,” p. 22: Harper & Brother’s ed.) Undoubtedly, there was a considerable jurisdiction and authority conferred upon the popes, but it was subordinate to the jurisdiction and authority of the emperor. It was not temporal power in the sense claimed by the papacy. If so, the oath of fidelity would have been taken by the Roman people to the pope, and not to Charlemagne. It may be assumed, therefore, as a well—attested historic fact, that up to the time of Charlemagne's death, which occurred in the year 814, the popes possessed no such temporal power in Rome as conferred upon them the right to prescribe the laws, administer the government, or exact civil allegiance to themselves. Whatever power they exercised, beyond that necessary for the mere protection of the property of the Church, was usurpation. And when they carried this usurpation to the extent of uniting the Church and the State in the territory since known as the Papal States, they impaired the spiritual strength of the Church, retarded the progress of true religion, and laid the foundation for that series of unfortunate measures by means of which the people were held in ignorance, superstition, and civil bondage for hundreds of years, until they were rescued by the great reformation of the sixteenth century.

That the popes were both ready and willing to usurp temporal authority, is abundantly shown by history. In all the proceedings here recorded there was nothing of a religious nature—nothing that concerned the Christian faith—nothing to remind one of the devotion and simplicity by which the apostolic times were so much distinguished. They were the mere schemings of ambitious and selfish politicians, whose sole object was to concentrate temporal power in their own hands, as the means of bringing the people in subjection to themselves. They differ from similar acts of other despots only in this, that they were accompanied by an almost total disregard for the teachings of Christ and the apostles, while at the same time the name of God was constantly invoked to sanction every form of oppression and outrage. The popes even allowed the creed of the Church to be changed by the emperor, (*) in exchange for the privileges he conferred upon them.

* The controversy between the Eastern and Western churches in reference to the procession of the Holy Spirit—whether it proceeded from the Father alone, or from the Father and the Son—was carried on in an acrimonious spirit for many years. The Roman Church, while maintaining the latter doctrine, refused to permit the creed to be sung with the addition of the “Filioque.” Charlemagne, however, convened a council at Aix la Chapelle, in the year 809, to decide the question; and afterward commanded Pope Leo III. to confirm its decision, and to allow the “Filioque” to be added to the creed and to be sung with it. The pope, though “not pleased with this addition,” yielded to the dictation of the king, being afraid to incur his displeasure. —Du Pin’s Eccl. Hist., vol. vii., p. 114; History of Doctrines, by Hagenbach, vol. i., pp. 468, 469.

Wealth and power seemed to be the only objects worth striving for, and corruption became almost universal. The papacy was at once elevated beyond anything known in its previous history, and immediately commenced to interfere in temporal affairs. The popes, separating themselves from the Eastern empire, assumed to direct the domestic affairs of nations, impiously claiming that whatever power they had derived from Pepin or Charlemagne was the gift of God, and that, therefore, God had appointed them to rule the world in his name! They accordingly entered upon the career of territorial conquest, and succeeded in further extorting from Louis le Debonnaire, the son and successor of Charlemagne, the right of sovereignty over Campania, Calabria, Naples, Salerno, and the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, although Sicily did not belong to France by any title known to the law of nations, even in those days of lawless conquest. By these and other kindred means the popes acquired their temporal power, and used it so ambitiously, and with so little regard for the rights of others, as at last to reduce all the sovereigns of Europe into obedience. Cormenin says:

“The sovereigns of the West placed armies under their command, ruined empires, exterminated people in the name of St. Peter, and sent the spoils of the vanquished to increase the wealth of the Roman clergy, and to support the monks in idleness and debauchery.” (Cormenin, vol. i., p. 213.)

Influence and power thus acquired were used, of course, for selfish and sinister ends; for men in all ages have been in this respect the same. And it was so used by the popes that the government over the Papal States became altogether ecclesiastical. It was conducted entirely by the popes, by the assistance of their cardinals and priests, all of whom were created by the popes, and were the mere slaves and creatures of their will. The people were treated as if born only for the purpose of being ruled, and of contributing to the pride and elevation of their rulers. The popular degradation during the Middle Ages contributed to this; and, in order that there should be no change in this condition of affairs, and that the people should be kept so ignorant as not to aspire to any higher position, they were either deprived of all opportunity of education, or, if educated at all, it was only in ecclesiastical matters, and under the special direction of the priests, who took good care to see that their first and last lesson was obedience. Everything was ecclesiastical; and the power of excommunication, which was held in great dread by the ignorant population, was so perverted from its original meaning and design, that it was employed as the means of exacting submission to the papacy in all matters connected with the Government as well as the Church, and in the most common and trifling affairs of life. (*)

* “Very few of these exertions of the supreme authority of the Vicar of Christ have any bearing on the interests of religion. The political intrigues of the day, the temporal possessions of the Church, or the subordination of the hierarchy are, in almost all instances, the objects of the anathema. How the awful authority over the souls of men was degraded to the level of the pettiest interests is seen when some audacious scoundrels stole the horses of the pope during his progress through France. He promptly excommunicates the unknown thieves, unless the beasts shall be returned within three days; and he takes advantage of the opportunity to include in the curse some knaves who had previously pilfered his plate while staying at the Abbey of Flavigny—as he shrewdly suspects, with the connivance of the holy monks there.

That bishops were not disinclined to follow the example of their chief, and to use their control over salvation for their personal benefit, is apparent from the treatment of royalty in Wales about this time. Tewdwr, King of Brecknock, profanely stole Bishop Libian’s dinner from the Abbey of Llancore, when the angry prelate excommunicated him, and exacted an enormous fine as the price of reconciliation; and when Brockmeal, King of Gwent, and his family were anathematized by Bishop Cyfeiliawg for some personal offense, the fee for removing the censure was a plate of pure gold the size of the bishop’s face. A power so persistently and so ignobly abused requires something more than merely moral force to insure respect and obedience.”—Studies in Church History, by Henry C. Lea, p. 324.

The popes, having achieved success by tempting the ambition of kings, and conferring crowns and kingdoms upon them, on the condition that they should acknowledge the gift as made in accordance with the divine command, had no difficulty in making an ignorant and superstitious population believe that all the laws they prescribed were equally a part of God’s laws; that obedience paid to them was obedience to God; and, therefore, that any act of disobedience would not only deprive them of the protection of the Church in this life, but consign them inevitably to eternal tortures in the next.

And thus the Church and the State were completely united—the State obeying the Church. The Church, in fact, became the State by holding it in subordination. The people alone were punished; the ecclesiastics never. They were an exclusive and privileged class, who considered all others as mere “hewers of wood and drawers of water” for their superiors, of whom they were the chief. The great and controlling object was to make Rome what she had been in pagan times, the “mistress of the world;” so that the pope, as her pope—king, might make and unmake other kings, build up and destroy governments, and thus subject all mankind to his dominion, under the impious and shameless pretense that God had so provided in his law!

The foundation of the whole structure of government was this: that the pope was ordained king by Almighty God, and ruled by divine authority; and consequently, the subject was bound to passive obedience; and, not rendering this, offended God and committed a sin for which he deserved punishment at the hands of the Church! This is precisely the kind of government which Pope Pius IX. defends in his Encyclical and Syllabus, and which he prefers to any of those constructed after the modern forms, and especially to that of the United States. It is the kind of government which he requires his followers to defend as a necessary part of their religious faith; and it is the kind of government which his hierarchy in this country would substitute tomorrow, if they had the power, for the popular institutions under which our nation has grown to its present greatness and distinction.

Continued in The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter XII. The Ninth Century




The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter X. Part 2 The Council of Nice

The Papacy And The Civil Power – Chapter X.  Part 2 The Council of Nice

Continued from Chapter X. Part 1 Constantine .

Eusebius, after a general enumeration of the countries from which the “distinguished prelates” who attended the council came, says, “The prelate of the imperial city [Rome] was prevented from attending by extreme old age; but his presbyters were present, and supplied his place.” He does not refer to any other presbyters who were there, and certainly does not include Hosius among those who represented the Bishop of Rome, for two reasons: first, because he classes him amnong the prelates; and, second, because, in the preceding, sentence, referring to Hosius, he had said, “Even from Spain itself one whose fame was widely spread took his seat as an individual in the great assembly.” (“Life of Constantine,” by Eusebins, bk. iii., ch. vii.)

Hence, Hosius, who was Bishop of Cordova, and the only representative of Spain present, took his seat in his own individual right as one of the most distinguished prelates, and not as a mere presbyter or legate of the Bishop of Rome, of whom he was the equal in authority and the superior in fame.

Sozomen, referring to the absence of the Bishop of Rome on account of old age, says, “But his place was supplied by Vito and Vicentius, presbyters of his Church.” (*) Thus he makes two legates only from Rome, and not three; and does not mention Hosius as one of them.

* Sozomen, bk. i., ch. xvii. Du Pin calls them Victor and Vicentius, “Eccl. Hist.,” vol. ii., p. 251; and Tillemont, Vitus and Vincentius. See post.

Socrates makes no statement on his own authority, but refers approvingly to what Eusebius has said. He says nothing about Hosius being the legate of Silvester, but refers to his presbyters. Theodoret does not mention Hosius, but agrees with Sozomen as to the number of the papal legates, and with Eusebius, Sozomen, and Socrates as to their character—that is, that they were presbyters, and not bishops. He says Silvester “sent two presbyters to the council, for the purpose of taking part in all the transactions.” (Theodoret, bk. i., ch. vii.)

Hosius was not a presbyter of Rome, but was the Bishop of Cordova in Spain, as is stated by both Sozomen (Sozomen, bk. i., ch. xvi.) and Socrates, (Socrates, bk. i., ch. vii.) and could not, consequently, have been one of the papal legates. But not a word is stated by either of these authors about the Bishop of Rome being represented by Hosius, either as one of his legates or in any other capacity. They all concur in the precise contrary, that he was represented by presbyters, and not bishops; and Sozomen and Theodoret agree that there were only two of these. And why were they only presbyters? The answer is plain. Each one of the churches in Asia, Europe, and Africa had its own bishop, and its own distinct jurisdiction. They existed upon terms of perfect equality, none having any primacy or supremacy over the others. Therefore, when these bishops were summoned by Constantine, those who could not attend in person sent their presbyters—as the Bishop of Rome did—and those who attended represented their own churches. Hosius represented his own Church, and was a man of far too much celebrity to have surrendered his equality with his brother bishops to play an inferior part in the name of such a bishop as Silvester, of whom scarcely anything was known beyond the fact of his having been Bishop of Rome, until the false and forged legends of the monks in the fifth century assigned to him the connection with the Council of Nice, which has ever since been disingenuously repeated by the supporters of papal power and infallibility.

But who presided over the Council of Nice? Weninger says, “The sovereign pontiff presided, by his three legates.” Enough has been said to show that there was no such thing as a “sovereign pontiff” known or recognized in those days, especially not in the sense here meant; but that need not be dwelt on here. There were but two legates, and they were both presbyters only. Can any man of intelligence suppose that such an assembly, composed of so many distinguished bishops, at a time like that, when rank and station had attached to them far more of dignity and influence than they now have, would have submitted to be presided over by mere presbyters?

The supporters of the monkish fable have observed this difficulty, but have proved themselves equal to it by increasing the papal legates to three, and making Hosius one of them! There were a large number present, besides him, of eminent ability. Eusebius says, “Some were distinguished by wisdom and eloquence, others by the gravity of their lives, and by patient fortitude of character, while others again united in themselves all these graces.” And he speaks of men among them “whose years demanded the tribute of respect and veneration.” (“Life of Constantine,” by Eusebius, bk. iii., ch. xi.)

ocrates mentions two of” extraordinary celebrity,” the bishops of Upper Thebes and of Cyprus. Who of all these presided? There is no positive answer to this question. Manifestly, it was not considered a matter of any special consequence, and certainly not as in any way affecting the merits or validity of what was done, or the fact would have been stated. Eusebius says that, upon the assembling of the body, “the bishop who occupied the chief place in the right division of the assembly then rose, and, addressing the emperor, delivered a concise speech,” etc.,(Ibid., bk. iii., ch. xi.) but he does not say who this was. Nor does Sozomen, or Socrates, or Theodoret. But Eusebius shows enough to dispel the papal fiction and forgery, that one of the pope’s legates presided, by the statement of the fact, of which he had personal knowledge, that a “bishop,” and not a “presbyter,” presided.

Weninger says, “Osius, whom Athanasius styles the leader of the council, occupied the first place.” If this were an established fact, it would prove only this: that, in order to support the claim of Romish supremacy, its advocates originated the false assertion that he was one of the papal legates, without a single word of authority from any responsible or reliable quarter. Athanasius became Bishop of Alexandria in 326, the year after the council. He was present at the council as a deacon; and whatever is found in his writings in reference to it is entitled to the greatest consideration, and ought to be accepted as true. In his “Second Apology,” he calls “Hosius the father and president of all the councils,” (Du Pin, vol. ii., p. 251, note.) not specially of the Council of Nice. He certainly does not say here that he was the leader of that council.

Between the beginning of the fourth century and the Council of Nice there were twelve councils assembled. (See Du Pin’s ” Chronological Table of Councils,” attached to vol. ii. Of his “History.”) To which of these did Athanasius refer? If to all, including that at Nice, then it was merely probable that Hosius presided over that council. But it is more probable that he designedly employed general language, because, like Eusebius, Sozomen, Socrates, and Theodoret, he did not consider the presidency of the Council of Nice as a matter of any special importance; otherwise he would, undoubtedly, have stated who presided there, for he knew precisely what the fact was. At all events, he leaves it in doubt whether he intended to include Nice or not. And reasoning thus, Du Pin, the learned Roman Catholic historian, says, upon this question, “‘Tis not certainly known who presided in this council, but ’tis very probable that it was Hosius.” (Ibid., vol. ii., p. 251.) But, upon this hypothesis, he proceeds immediately to say that he did so “in his own name,” and, therefore, not in the name of the Bishop of Rome, or as one of his legates.

And in a note to this text it is stated that at least two writers, Proclus and Facundus, have alleged that Eustathius, Bishop of Antioch, presided. It then continues: “But it is more probable that Hosius presided there in his own name, and not in the pope’s; for he nowhere assumes the title of Legate of the Holy See, and none of the ancients say that he presided in this council in the pope’s name. Gelasius Cyzicenus, who first affirmed it, says it without any proof or authority.” (Ibid.)

But there is other cumulative evidence to the same effect, also from the very highest Roman Catholic authority. Tillemont, in his learned and instructive “History of the Arians, and of the Council of Nice,” disposes of this question in very decisive and expressive—language. Alluding to the council, and after stating that it was convoked by Constantine, and not by the Bishop of Rome, he says:

“Neither Eusebius nor the ancient historians say anything of St. Silvester’s sending any other legates to the Council of Nice, but the two priests, Vitus and Vincentius. There is none but Gelasius Cyzicenus who says that Hosius of Corduba had the same post. His authority, how inconsiderable soever it be, could not but be of weight, if it was not certain that he corrupts the text of Eusebius by inserting this and some other clauses.”

Then, referring to the pretense that Hosius presided over the council in the name of the Bishop of Rome, and to the language of Athanasius already quoted, he continues:

“We have even some authorities for believing that it was St. Eustathius of Antioch who presided in the council. For John of Antioch, writing to St. Proclus, about the year 435, gives him the title of “first” of the holy fathers assembled at Nice, and Facundus, the “first” of that council. It is collected from Theodoret that he had the first place on the right hand, and that he made a speech to Constantine in the name of all the bishops—which, of course, belongs to the president. It is thought the same might be shown from St. Jerome. The chronicon of Nicephorus calls him expressly the chief of the fathers at Nice. St. Anastasius Sinaita might likewise mean the same thing; and the title of president is found in a letter attributed to Pope Felix III., which would be much more considerable authority if there were not many reasons to induce us to believe that this piece is not older than the eighth century.”

In a note it is said: “Gelasius Cyzicenus, who lived at the end of the fifth century, is the first we find who says that Hosius was the pope’s legate in the Council of Nice, with the priests Vito and Vincentius. He even reports this fact as a thing very authentic, since he inserts it in the text of Esebius, as if it belonged to it. But it is not found there in the printed copies. Valesius takes no notice of anything like it in the manuscripts. And it is even evident that the text of that historian cannot be read, as Gelasius quotes it, without a manifest corruption and perverting his sense.

“All that can be said of this pretended delegation of Hosius, is that all the historians mention his assisting at the Council of Nice, and speak of legates who were sent thither by the pope; but that no author more ancient than Gelasius, nor perhaps any more modern who is worth notice in this matter, puts Hosius in the number of those legates. Even the ‘Synodicon,’ which in other respects is full of faults, does by no means place Hosius among the pope’s legates.” (“History of the Arians and of the Council of Nice,” by Tillemont, vol. ii., pp. 599, 600, 669, note iv. London ed., 1732.)

Thus is this falsehood, which originated nearly two hundred years after the Council of Nice, completely disposed of by authorities which no honest searcher after the truth can disregard. Until it was invented as a cover for papal usurpations, not one word was to be found anywhere, in any history, showing, or tending to show, that Hosius was one of the pope’s legates, or presided in his name. The forgery has its parallel only in the “False Decretals,” which soon followed it.

If he did preside in any other name than his own, it is far more likely to have been in that of Constantine than of the Bishop of Rome. Constantine convened the Council, and was present; the Bishop of Rome had nothing to do with it except to send his representative, as he was prevented by old age from attending in person, like other bishops. We know nothing of the relations between him and Hosius, except that they were bishops of distinct and independent churches, one in Italy and the other in Spain. But we do know, as Du Pin says, that Hosius “was much esteemed by the emperor,” and that he was, according to the intimation of Eusebius and the statements of Sozomen and Socrates, the messenger by whom he sent his letter of rebuke to Alexander and Arius. This would give some plausibility to the belief that he presided in the emperor’s name. But this is of no importance, since the question before us involves simply the truth or falsehood of the pretense that Hosius presided in the name of the pope. This is shown to be not only unsupported by a word of proof, but absolutely false—a bold and unblushing forgery!

Weninger says again: “The fathers were guided in their deliberations by these instructions [those of the pope to his legates], as well as by the symbol of faith prescribed by Silvester and brought from Rome.”

If history did not furnish the most positive proof of the falsity of what is here asserted, it might be supposed to be true, because of the frequency of its repetition and the apparent sincerity with which it is made. But, like what has gone before it, it vanishes before the “touch-stone of truth.”

The council was disturbed at the very beginning by angry discussion among the discordant bishops. Says Eusebius: “Some began to accuse their neighbors, who defended themselves, and recriminated in their turn.” He continues: “In this manner numberless assertions were put forth by each party, and a violent controversy arose at the very commencement.” The contending parties seem to have addressed themselves not merely to the assembly itself, but to the emperor. Manifestly, he was regarded as the ruling spirit of the council. He, probably, did not at tempt to employ his imperial authority to control its deliberations, but it is unquestionably true that they were mainly influenced by the deference paid to it by a majority of the prelates. It is probable, even, that many of them were absolutely governed by it. Eusebius says as much in this: that, notwithstanding the violence of the discussion, “the emperor gave patient audience to all alike, and received every proposition with steadfast attention, and, by occasionally assisting the argument of each party in turn, he gradually disposed even the most vehement disputants to a reconciliation.” By his address, and his eloquence in the Greek language, he persuaded some, and convinced others, “until at last he succeeded in bringing them to one mind and judgment respecting every disputed question.” The result thus produced was, “that they were not only united as concerning the faith,” but also as to the time of celebrating the feast of Easter. Whereupon the “points” were “committed to writing, and received the signature of each several member,” and a festival was solemnized in honor of God. (Life of Constantine,” by Eusebius, bk. iii., chh. xiii., xiv.)

In all this there is no mention made of the Bishop of Rome, or of any instructions from him, or of any formula of faith prepared by him, or of anything said or done by his legates. The emperor himself is the front figure in the assembly. All others are in the background.

Sozomen says that after Constantine had burned all the complaints of the contending bishops against each other that had been handed to him for investigation, he took part in the deliberations of the council. He heard each party for and against Arius, and, after the condemnation of Arius by the council, sent his followers into banishment by an imperial decree. The “Confession,” or “Symbol of Faith,” was decided on with his approval. This is not inserted in Sozomen’s history, because he thought “that such matters ought to be kept secret” from “the unlearned,” and to be known only “by disciples and their instructors.” (Sozomen, bk. i., ch. xx. 306) But he nowhere mentions any instructions from Rome, or any participation by the pope’s legates in the proceedings of the council.

The account given by Socrates agrees with that of Eusebius, from whom it is taken, but he gives the “Confession of Faith,” and points out the manner of its adoption, without any reference to the Bishop of Rome or his legates, or any instructions from him. (Socrates, bk. i., cb. viii.)

Theodoret is somewhat specific as to the manner in which the creed was adopted, predicating his statement upon the authority of a letter written by Athanasius immediately after the council to the Christians of Africa. Alluding to the bishops, he says “they all agreed in propounding” certain declarations of faith; yet he does not include the Arians among these, for they stated their “conclusions” in such a way as, according to him, to expose “their evil design and impious artifice.” He states the final adoption of the “Symbol of Faith,” and gives also an important letter from Eusebius of Cesarea, the historian, which throws much additional light upon the character of the proceedings, and the personal agency of Constantine in fixing the terms of the formulary.

It shows, indeed, that the word consubstantial (of the same substance, nature, or essence)— the most important and conspicuous word in the creed— was inserted upon his suggestion alone. When the creed, as agreed upon by the bishops, was laid before the council, it did not contain this word, yet it is here stated that it was “fully approved by all;” and the letter continues:

“No one found occasion to gainsay it; but our beloved emperor was the first to testify that it was most orthodox, and that he coincided in opinion with it; and he exhorted the others to sign it, and to receive all the doctrines it contained, with the single addition of one word—consubstantial.” (Theodoret, bk. i., chh. viii., xii.)

With such facts as these staring them full in the face, it is but little less than the boldest imposture for the papal writers to pretend, as they do, that the proceedings of this council were controlled by instructions from Rome, and that the formulary of the creed was prepared there and forwarded by the legates of the pope. In what estimate can they themselves hold the theory of papal primacy and supremacy when it has to be upheld by such wholesale perversions of history?

The introduction of the one word, consubstantial, into the creed by an emperor who, whatever may have been his Christian convictions, was not yet baptized into the Church, led to one of the fiercest and most protracted controversies the Church ever had. The insertion of it, after the assent of all the bishops had been obtained to a form of creed without it, shows the degree of influence which Constantine had over the council, how completely it was the creature of his imperial will, and how idle and violative of truth it is to say that he would himself have yielded, or have permitted others to yield, to the dictation of the Bishop of Rome. The latter may have commanded respect by his age and piety, but he had no right to command any obedience beyond the limits of his own ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which he may have asserted himself, or which had been assented to by other bishops; whereas it is well known that Constantine so wore the robes and wielded the imperial power of Caesar as to brook no disobedience to his royal will, whether exercised in the affairs of State or Church.

Having convoked this council of his own accord, he felt that he had the right to overlook, if not to dictate, its proceedings, as the most certain and expedient mode of bringing discordant elements into harmony, and saving the cause of Christianity from discomfiture. If any instructions from Rome had been presented, he would have heeded them or not, as may have suited his designs. That he was master of everything done there is sufficiently apparent from all the proceedings; and if it were not, Theodoret shows that he was, at another place.

When certain accusations of a criminal character were made against some of the bishops, and laid before him, he put them aside till the close of the council, when he burned them publicly, and declared he had never read them, saying “that the crimes of priests ought not to be made known to the multitude, lest they should become an occasion of offense or of sin. He also said that if he had detected a bishop in the very act of committing adultery, he would have thrown his imperial robe over the unlawful deed, lest any should witness the scene, and be thereby injured.” (Theodoret, bk. i., ch. x.)

Most amiable and considerate emperor! Most fortunate bishops! Yet it ought not to be supposed that any very large number of those who were assembled in this celebrated council needed this kind of royal protection, as it is not to be doubted for a moment that many of them were of that class of sincere Christians in whose care the cause of true Christianity and genuine piety is at all times safe. Those who had control of the proceedings were, doubtless, in a great degree, the instruments of Constantine; while such as were really devoted to the welfare of the Church were left to acquiesce, from fear of the royal displeasure, and to return to their churches, and there regulate, by their example, the Christian deportment of their flocks.

Weninger makes another equally unsupported assertion when he says that “at the close of the council all the acts were sent to Rome for confirmation.” His object is to maintain by it the propositions, first,that the decrees of a general council are not valid without the approval of the pope; and, second, that this approval was obtained before those passed by the Council of Nice took effect. Nothing of the kind then occurred. There is not a word or syllable of evidence to that effect.

Eusebius says that, after the council had closed, Constantine “gave information of the proceedings of the synod to those who had not been present, by a letter in his own handwriting,” which letter he gives at length. It is imperially addressed by “Constantinus Augustus to the Churches.” He tells them, “I myself have undertaken that this decision should meet the approval of your sagacities;” and commands them to receive it as a “truly Divine injunction, and regard it as the gift of God;” because “whatever is determined in the holy assemblies of the bishops is to be regarded as indicative of the Divine will.”

He does not refer to the Bishop of Rome at all, either with reference to his approval or otherwise. And when counseling unity of practice in regard to the festival of Easter, he does not refer to the practice at Rome alone, or to the decrees of its bishops, or to any other particular church, to show what that unity is, but tells them that it consists in the practice which prevails in Rome, Africa, Italy, Egypt, Spain, Gaul, Britain, Libya, Greece, Asia, Pontus, and Cilicia; thus ignoring, to all intents and purposes, the claim of Roman primacy, if any such were then made. Eusebius also alludes to a letter from the emperor to the Egyptians as “confirming and sanctioning the decrees of the council.” (“Life of Constantine,” by Eusebius, bk. iii., chh. xvi.—xxi., xxiii)

Sozomen alludes to the letter mentioned by Eusebius, written by the emperor to the churches, as well as that to the Alexandrians, and says he “urged them to receive unanimously the exposition of faith which had been set forth by the council;” making no reference to the pope’s approval. (Sozomen, bk. i., ch. xxv.)

Socrates gives this letter to the Alexandrians, and another to the “bishops and people,” as well as that to “the churches.” They all set forth the binding obligation of the decrees of the council, without any reference to the pope, or his connection with them in any way. (Socrates, bk. i., chli. ix.)

And Theodoret states the same facts, and inserts the same letters. (Theodoret, bk. i., chh. ix., x.)

It is not pretended by any of these authors that the decrees of the council were ever submitted to the pope, or that it was supposed to be necessary. The very reverse is true, both as it regards the fact and the universal sentiment then prevailing. However much Rome may have desired her triumph over the old apostolic churches, she had not then achieved it.

The reference to the proceedings of the council, and to the eighteenth and twenty—ninth canons, made by Weninger, to show that it fully recognized the primacy of Rome and the infallibility of the pope, not only does not help him out of the difficulty, but gets him deeper into it. We give him the benefit of his statement in his own words. He says:

“A yet more cogent proof is furnished us by the very acts of the council itself. The eighteenth canon rules that the Church, faithful to the teachings of the apostles, has reserved all cases of importance to the arbitration of the Holy See: Cujus dispositioni omnes majores causas antiqua apostolorum auctoritas reservavit.’ Can there be any case of greater importance—’major causa’— than a question about matters of faith?” (Weninger, p. 106.)

Now, it so happens—unfortunately for this author and the cause he supports at the cost of so much candor—that there is not one word in the eighteenth canon of the Council of Nice which the most skilled and practiced ingenuity can torture into what he has here alleged. On the contrary, the sentiment and action of the council, so far as it acted at all, was precisely the reverse. The eighteenth canon is not even upon the subject referred to, and makes no reference to it whatever. There are no such words to be found in it as “Cujus dispositioni omnes majores causas antiqua apostolorum auctoritas reservavit.” It has relation to presbyters receiving the Eucharist from deacons, and is in these words, as translated by Boyle:

“CANON XVIII. Of Presbyters receiving the Eucharist from Deacons.—It having come to the knowledge of the great and holy council, that in certain places and cities the Eucharist is administered by deacons to presbyters; and neither law nor custom permitting that those who have no authority to offer the body of Christ should deliver it to those who have; and it being also understood that some deacons receive the Eucharist before even the bishops, let, therefore, all these irregularities be removed, and let the deacons remain within their own limits, knowing that they are ministers of the bishops, and inferior to the presbyters. Let them receive the Eucharist in their proper place, after the presbyters, whether it be administered by a bishop or a presbyter. Nor is it permitted to deacons to sit among the presbyters, as that is against rule and order. If any one will not obey, even after these regulations, let him desist from the ministry.” (*)

* “Historical Views of the Council of Nice,” by Boyle (1836), p. 62. These “views” may also be found attached to Cruse’s Eusebius, Boston ed., 1836.

If it be objected that the translation here used is by a Protestant divine, it is answered that to the same effect is that of the learned Du Pin, a doctor of the Sarbonne, and Regius Professor of Divinity at Paris. (Du Pin, vol. ii., p. 253.) And the great Tillemont, whose authority. as a Roman Catholic historian is unquestioned, speaking of it, says: “The eighteenth canon humbles the pride of some deacons who administered the Eucharist to priests. It likewise forbids them to sit among the priests—that is, to sit in the church as priests.” (Tillemont, vol. ii., p. 644.)

Here it is abundantly shown that there could not, by any possibility, have been in this eighteenth canon anything of the kind alleged by Weninger, and that his statement amounts to an entire perversion of its meaning—that it is, in fact, a palpable misrepresentation of it. Whether originated by him or some other defender of the papacy, is of no consequence, since the forgery and its object are both apparent. That it is a forgery, like the “False Decretals,” anybody who will take the pains to investigate may easily see. The Council of Nice did not intend, in any part of its proceedings, to confer supremacy over the other churches upon that at Rome, or upon the Bishop of Rome, or to recognize it as existing. The jurisdiction of the several churches, as established by “ancient usage,” was defined by the sixth canon, which is thus given by Du Pin:(*)

* The Nicene Council did not, in the sixth canon, consider the question of primacy at all. Referring to that part of it which points out such rights of the Bishop of Rome as were analogous to those of the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, Dr. Hefele says: “It is evident that the council has not in view here the primacy of the Bishop of Rome over the whole Church, but simply his power as a patriarch.”—History of the Christian Councils, by Hefele, p. 394. Elsewhere he quotes approvingly from another: “The Council of Nicaea did not speak of the primacy.”—Ibid., p. 397. He also says the sixth canon “does not consider the pope as primate of the Universal Church, nor as simple Bishop of Rome, but it treats him as one of the great metropolitans who had not merely one province, but several, under their jurisdiction.”— Ibid., p. 397. St. Augustin spoke of Pope Innocent I. as “President of the Church of the West”—not as primate of the whole Church.—Ibid., p. 399. St. Jerome considered the Bishop of Alexandria as Patriarch of Egypt, and the Bishop of Rome as Patriarch of the West, each having authority only in his own patriarchate. —Ibid., p. 400. The Synod of Arles, in 314, regarded the Bishop of Rome as having jurisdiction only over several dioceses.— Ibid. Justinian spoke of the ecclesiastical division of the world, in his day, as divided into five patriarchates— Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem —each independent of the other.—Ibid.

“We ordain, that the ancient custom shall be observed which gives power to the Bishop of Alexandria over all the provinces of Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis, because the Bishop of Rome has the like jurisdiction over all the suburbicary regions (for this addition must be supplied out of Ruffinus); we would likewise have the rights and privileges of the Church of Antioch and the other churches preserved; but these rights ought not to prejudice those of the metropolitans. If any one is ordained without the consent of the metropolitan, the council declares that he is no bishop; but if any one is canonically chosen by the suffrage of almost all the bishops of the province, and if there are but one or two of a contrary opinion, the suffrages of the far greater number ought to carry it for the ordination of those particular persons.” (Du Pin, vol. ii., p. 252. Boyle’s translation (p. 59) is substantially the same, though somewhat different in phraseology.)

Tillemont says it was the opinion of Baronius that the necessity for this sixth canon grew out of the resistance by Melitius, the Bishop of Lycopolis, and founder of the sect called Melitians, to the authority of the Bishop of Alexandria; and thus refers to the canon:

“This canon orders that the rights and pre-eminences which some churches had of old, as those of Alexandria and of Antioch, should be preserved. It regulates particularly the jurisdiction of that of Alexandria over Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis, by that which the Church of Rome had.”

He then proceeds to show that Ruffinus confines the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome to the “suburbicary churches” only; and, thus limited, he considers it to have included no other churches than those existing, in Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. (Tillemont, voi. ii., p. 640.)

This canon, as interpreted by both these great Roman Catholic authors, as well as by Boyle, means this, and nothing more: that as the Bishop of Alexandria had power and jurisdiction over the churches in the provinces of Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis, and the Bishop of Rome had like power and jurisdiction over those in the diocese, or suburbs, of Rome, so should the Bishop of Antioch and the bishops of the other churches have like power and jurisdiction, each within his provincial limits, each province being required to preserve, according to the ancient custom, the rights of its metropolitan church. There is not one word about the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome beyond his diocese; not a word about his authority over any other churches but those within the Roman suburbs; not a word about appeals to him in cases of disagreement about the selection and ordination of bishops outside his provincial limits; not a word about the Church at Rome as the “mother and mistress of all the churches;” not a word about the “Holy See” of Rome; not a word about any obligation to obey the Bishop of Rome, any more than the bishops of other churches; and not a word about the pope, either in his pretended capacity of “Head of the Church,” or any other. With all this before him, it was necessary that this author should have been trained in the Jesuit school, in order to fit him for the task of unblushingly shutting his eyes to it.

But Du Pin leaves no room for doubt about the meaning of the council, or the interpretation of its decrees, when he says: “This canon, being thus explained, has no difficulty in it. It does not oppose the primacy of the Church of Rome, but neither does it establish it. It preserves the great sees their ancient privileges—that is, the jurisdiction or authority which they had over many provinces, which was afterward called the jurisdiction of the patriarch or exarch (a bishop in the Eastern Orthodox Church ranking immediately below a patriarch). In this sense it is that it compares the Church of Rome to the Church of Alexandria, by considering them as patriarchal churches. It continues, also, to the Church of Antioch, and all other great churches, whatsoever rights they could have; but, lest their authority should be prejudicial to the ordinary metropolitans, who were subject to their jurisdiction, the council confirms what had been ordained in the fourth canon concerning the authority of metropolitans in the ordination of bishops.” (*)

* Du Pin, vol. ii., p. 252. The fourth canon provides that a bishop should be ordained by all the bishops, except where it is difficult to assemble them, etc., when it may be done by three, with the consent of the others by letter—its validity depending upon the metropolitan bishop of the diocese; which means that it shall not depend upon the consent of the Bishop of Rome, unless in his diocese.—Ibid.

It is important to observe scrutinizingly this language of this great author, for it is full of meaning. He says this canon “does not oppose the primacy of the Church of Rome, but neither does it establish it.” The reason is plain: no such primacy was then asserted, or had then been heard of, except in the pretenses set up by a few of the popes, or would have been tolerated by the bishops of the other churches. For these reasons, the canon was silent on the subject. But although it was silent in words, it rebuked in spirit this ambitious pretense, by defining distinctly the jurisdiction of each one of the “great churches,” and so defined it that one should not be considered greater or more privileged than another. No thought of primacy or superiority entered the minds of any of the leading bishops of the council, and if there had been one there to claim it for any particular church, he would have been sternly and indignantly rebuked. The whole history of those times, and everything known of this council, proves this, and whatsoever may be palmed off upon the superstitious and credulous part of the world to establish the contrary is false and forged, manufactured with the same disregard of truth and history as were the pseudo—Isidorian and other fabricated decretals.

The metropolitan bishops referred to in these canons had a recognized superiority over the other bishops of their provinces. Originally the bishops had assistants, or coadjutors, who aided them in the discharge of their episcopal duties, when disabled by old age or infirmity. It is supposed that some of these had episcopal ordination, and that others were only presbyters; but, in the end, they were all recognized as bishops, with limited and distinctly marked jurisdiction. This difficulty was remedied, however, when one was chosen superior to the rest, and invested with certain powers and privileges for the good of the whole. He became the primate, or metropolitan, that is, the principal bishop of the province to which he belonged.

Eusebius speaks of Titus as superintendent, that is, metropolitan, of the churches in Crete;(Eusebius, bk. iii., ch. iv.) and Chrysostom says that Timothy was entrusted with the government of the Church throughout Asia. (Bingham’s “Antiquities of the Christian Church,” bk. ii., chh. xv., xvi., where this subject is fully discussed.) And it was in this sense alone that the jurisdiction and superiority of metropolitan bishops was spoken of by the Council of Nice. Each province, or diocese, had its own metropolitan bishop, or primate, and the idea that the Church at Rome was, as it regarded the others, the metropolitan church, and its bishop primate over all, never was asserted in this council, or claimed by any body there, so far as any true history shows, or tends to show.

Weninger, pursuing his favorite idea, and seemingly resolved that it shall be no fault of his if it is not maintained, as the foundation upon which the claim of papal supremacy must rest, says also:

“The twenty—ninth canon [of Nice] reads as follows: ‘The incumbent of the Roman See, acting as Christ’s vicegerent in the government of the Church, is the head of the patriarchs, as well as Peter himself was.’ ‘Ille, qui tenet sedem Romanuni, caput est omnium Patriarcharum cicut Petrus, ut qui sit Vicarius Christi super cunctum Ecclesiam.” (Weninger, p. 107.)

It has already been clearly and sufficiently shown that no such matters as are involved in this statement were considered or acted on by the Council of Nice at all, in so far as either of the canons referred to is concerned. But, after perverting, and misquoting, and mutilating these, this author overleaps every possible difficulty at a single bound, and adds a canon which was never enacted by the council! There were only twenty canons in all passed by the Council of Nice! And such is the undoubted “truth of history.” Neither Sozomen nor Socrates give the number. Theodoret gives the number as twenty. These are his words: “The bishops then returned to the council, and drew up twenty laws to regulate the discipline of the Church.” (Theodoret, bk. i., ch. viii.) Du Pin says:

“These rules, which are called canons, are in number twenty, and there never were more genuine, though some modern authors have added many more.” (Du Pin, vol. ii., p. 252.)

There is this note explanatory of this text of Du Pin:

“Theodoret and Ruffinus mention only these twenty canons: though the latter reckons twenty—two of them, yet he owned no more, because he divided two of them. The bishops of Africa found but twenty of them, after they had inquired very diligently all over the East for all the canons made by the Council of Nice. Dionysius Exiguus, and all the other collectors of canons, have acknowledged but these twenty. The Arabic canons which Ecchellensis published under the name of the Council of Nice cannot belong to this Council.” (Ibid., note (k).)

Referring again to “the twenty canons,” he continues:

“I do not think that there ever were any other acts of this council, since they were unknown to all the ancient historians. There is a Latin letter of this synod to St. Silvester [then Bishop of Rome] extant, but it is supposititious, which has no authority, and which has all the marks of forgery that any writing can have, as well as the pretended answer of St. Silvester. Neither is that council genuine, which is said to have been assembled at Rome by St. Silvester for the confirmation of the Council of Nice. The canons of this council are also forged, which contain rules contrary to the practice of the time, and which it had been impossible to observe.” (Du Pin, vol. ii., pp. 253, 254. See, also, note (1))

Tillemont is not less explicit. In his “History of the Council of Nice,” he explains the contents of the twenty canons, and says:

“These are the twenty canons of the famous council, which are come to our hands, and are the only ones which were made. At least, none of the ancients reckoned them more than twenty. Theodoret mentions no more. When the Church of Africa sent to the churches of Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople for the canons of Nice, they sent them only the same twenty which we still have; and the twenty-two of Ruffinus contain no more than these twenty, only they are divided after another manner; insomuch that there is no room to believe that any more were made.” (Tillemont, vol. ii., p. 645.)

But Tillemont was fully informed of the efforts that had been made—like that of Weninger—to add to these canons, in order to build up and support the papal system. And, as a faithful historian and honest member of the Roman Catholic Church, he felt himself constrained to expose and denounce them. He says:

“We find many other determinations attributed to the Council of Nice, in the pretended letters of the popes Mark, Julius, and Felix; in a letter from St. Athanasius to Pope Mark; in Gelasius Cyzienus; and in an Arabic collection given us by Turrianus. But there is nothing more plain than that all these are apocryphal, without excepting Gelasius, who we know gives us very often suspected pieces.” (Ibid., P. 646.)

And he does not spare one of the infallible (!) popes who engaged in this nefarious attempt to add to these canons by forgery, in order to affirm the right of appeal to Rome! He says:

“Pope Zosimus alleges two canons of the Council of Nice, which allowed bishops and even other ecclesiastics to appeal to the pope. But the Church of Africa proved these canons to be forged; neither Zosimus nor his successors were able to prove the contrary; and it is acknowledged now that these canons belong to the Council of Sardica, (Which was not an ecumenical or general council.) and not to that of Nice.” (Tillemont, vol. ii., p. 647.)

It is not often that so much convincing evidence is found accumulating upon one point as there is upon this. So overwhelming is it, that no writer of the present day, unless he be a Jesuit, will venture to hazard the loss of his reputation for veracity by assigning any other than twenty as the number of Nicene canons. One of the most recent investigators of this question among the learned divines of England is Dr. E. B. Pusey, who published, a few years ago, a history of all the councils, from the assembly at Jerusalem, in 51, to the Council of Constantinople, in 381. Having before him all the authorities bearing on the question, he fixes the number of Nicene canons at twenty, without seeming to suppose the matter debatable. (Pusey’s “Councils of the Church,” p. 112. See, also, “History of the Christian Councils,” by Hefele, pp. 262, 434.)

Yet, directly in the face of all this, this Jesuit defender of the primacy and infallibility of the pope unblushingly publishes a false and forged canon, which he calls the twenty—ninth, to prove that the Council of Nice thereby declared the Bishop of Rome to be “Christ’s vicegerent in the government of the Church,” and “the head of the patriarchs as well as Peter was!” Can bold effrontery be carried further? The forgery, whenever and by whomsoever made, is bold and entire, made out of whole cloth. There is not a single word by any of the early “fathers” that can be tortured, by the utmost ingenuity, into such a meaning. On the contrary, we have seen that where the Bishop of Rome is spoken of in the sixth canon—and he is referred to in no other—he is merely called by that title, as all the other bishops are called by their titles, without any indication of preference to him over the others. He is never spoken of as “Christ’s vicegerent,” or as “head of the patriarchs,” nor is the Church of Rome ever alluded to as the “Apostolic Church.”

It cannot be too frequently repeated that this twenty—ninth canon is a downright forgery—one by which the world has been already sufficiently imposed on. It has been clung to by the supporters of the pope, as against the rights of the whole Church, because they know that if deprived of evidence that the first ecumenical council sustained their theory of papal infallibility, it necessarily falls to the ground. That it did not sustain it, and that there was no pretense of its existence then, is absolutely incontestable.

Continued in Chapter XI. Pepin




Daniel’s 70th Week: Christ or Antichrist? Unmasking Rome’s Prophetic Deception in the Rise of a New Pope

Daniel’s 70th Week: Christ or Antichrist? Unmasking Rome’s Prophetic Deception in the Rise of a New Pope

By Greg Bentley of Berean Beacon.

I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things. – Daniel 7:8

Few passages in Scripture draw such a sharp dividing line in prophetic interpretation as Daniel 9:24–27. The implications of this prophecy are enormous: who is the “he” that confirms the covenant? Is it Jesus Christ, as affirmed by nearly 18 centuries of faithful biblical interpretation? Or is it a future Antichrist, as declared by the Jesuits and echoed by modern dispensationalists?

The answer to that question determines how we view the papacy, the cross, and the end times. It’s no coincidence that the recent appointment of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost—now Pope Leo XIV—comes at a time of renewed confusion in the Church. While prophecy teachers fixate on Jerusalem, a new man of sin has ascended in Rome.
 

A Misplaced Prophetic Focus

For centuries, Protestant Reformers unanimously testified that the papal office is the Antichrist foretold in Scripture. Daniel 9:27, they rightly said, pointed to Christ, not a future villain. He alone confirmed the New Covenant by His blood, and in the midst of the week, caused sacrifice to cease (Hebrews 10:9-10).

But Jesuit Francisco Ribera (1585) re-engineered prophecy to deflect attention from Rome. By inserting an ever expanding gap between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel, he planted the seeds of futurism. Today the gap is spreading past 2025 years. This is quite the contrast because  faithful Bible believers and scholars knew the 70 week prophecy was a 490 year period. This deception grew through Darby, Scofield, and now permeates modern evangelicalism—leading countless souls to ignore the present Antichrist system seated on the throne of Rome.

The Rise of Leo XIV: A New “Man of Sin”

Upon the death of Pope Francis on April 21, 2025, the College of Cardinals elected Robert Francis Prevost as his successor, taking the name Pope Leo XIV. His election was heralded with religious ceremony—but it began not with the worship of Christ, but with a public prayer to Mary, the so-called Roman Catholic “Queen of Heaven”, invoking a name used by ancient idolaters condemned in Jeremiah 44.

This is no surprise to those who understand the nature of the office he occupies. According to 2 Thessalonians 2:3–4, the Antichrist sits “in the temple of God,” claiming divine authority. The pope sits in the heart of Christendom, masquerading as Christ’s vicar, yet directing worship and obedience to himself and false gods!

A Legacy of Abuse and Deception

More grievous still is the Roman Church’s continuing cover-up of rampant child trafficking and sexual abuse. Instead of confronting wickedness, Leo XIV has chosen to turn a blind eye—like his predecessors. Since the 1990s, when survivors first began to step forward, a pattern has emerged: denial, obfuscation, payoffs, and quiet transfers of predator priests.

Pope Leo has made no commitment to transparency, and his first public message signaled nothing of justice or repentance. Instead, it maintained the status quo—a policy of silence and symbolic gestures.

The secular watchdog group SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) responded to Leo XIV’s appointment with public concern and condemnation, stating:

“We are disheartened but not surprised. The Vatican’s track record has shown that popes are chosen not for reform but for continuity. The survivors of abuse remain unheard, and the children remain unprotected.”

The public outcry is telling, and the fruit is undeniable. Immorality, secrecy, idolatry, and blasphemy all mark this seat. Truly, the signs are evident that this man fulfills the role of the biblical Antichrist.

Those Who Follow Rome’s Doctrinal Guile

When professing Christians follow after Rome’s false doctrines, they forsake the identity of the Church as “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). Rather than uphold truth, they cast it to the ground—trampling underfoot the authority of Scripture, the sufficiency of Christ, and the integrity of the Church.

When the Church aligns with Rome’s pageantry, ecumenism, or prophetic interpretations, it surrenders its prophetic voice. To remain silent in the face of such open rebellion is not neutrality—it is apostasy.

A Call to the Remnant

We at the Berean Beacon affirm the testimony of the Reformers:

Martin Luther – “We are of the conviction that the papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist.”
John Knox – “The Pope is that man of sin and son of perdition.”
John Calvin – “Popery is nothing else than a monstrous empire… a kingdom of abomination.”

Dear reader, do not be deceived. The Antichrist is not coming—he is here, enthroned in Rome, continuing in deception, and cloaked in religious pomp. Dispensationalism has blinded the modern church to this reality, but the Word of God has not changed.

Conclusion: Christ Confirmed the Covenant

Daniel 9:27 is not about a future peacemaker—it is about the Prince of Peace who confirmed the covenant by His own blood. To interpret it otherwise is to rob Christ of His glory and to exalt the enemy in His place.

May the Lord awaken His people once again to the truth of prophecy, the fulfillment in Christ, and the boldness to declare:

“Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins” (Revelation 18:4).

 

Further Reading at the Berean Beacon