and visible communion with the Roman Catholic church, and that the true home of religion is not so much in the cloister as in the family; and he was an outspoken and patriotic lover of liberty in distinction from all personal and absolute government. But this earnest, enthusiastic, eloquent, and popular orator gave so much offense to the Roman court by the liberality of his views, and especially by his address before the Peace League at Paris, July 10, 1869, that he was censured by the Carmelite General at Rome, and ordered "not to print any letters or speech, and to take no part in the Peace League or any other meeting which has not an exclusively Catholic and religious object." To this he replied in his letter of Sept. 20, 1869, withdrawing from his monastery as well as from his pulpit, and saying: "In acting thus, I am not unfaithful to my vows; I promised monastical obedience, but within the limits of the honesty of my conscience and the dignity of my person and ministry. I promised it subject to that higher law of justice and royal liberty' which, according to St. James the Apostle, is the proper law of the Christian. . . . . I raise, therefore, before the Holy Father and the Council, my protest, as a Christian and a priest, against those doctrines and those practices which are called Roman, but which are not Christian, and which, by their encroachments, always more audacious and more baneful, tend to change the constitution of the Church, the basis and the form of its teaching, and even the spirit of its piety. I protest against the divorce, as impious as it is insensate, sought to be effected between the Church, which is our eternal mother, and the society of the 19th century, of which we are the temporal children, and toward which we have also duties and regards. I protest against that opposition, more radical and more frightful still, to human nature, attacked and outraged by these false doctors, in its most indestructible and most holy aspirations. I protest, above all, against the sacrilegious perversion of the Gospel of the Son of God himself, the spirit and the letter of which are alike trampled under foot by the Pharisaism of the new land. It is my most profound conviction that if France in particular, and the Latin races in general, are given up to social, moral, and religious anarchy, the principal cause undoubtedly is not Catholicism itself, but the manner in which Catholicism has for a long time been understood and practiced. . . .” Father Hyacinthe, after withdrawing from his monastery, visited the United States; but his career as a Roman Catholic priest was ended by his "secularization" or deposition from the priestly office. Rev. Dr. John Joseph Ignatius Döllinger, professor in the university of Munich in Southern Germany, a Roman Catholic priest since 1822, a man of excellent character as well as of profound learning, accounted indeed the first of living Catholic divines, was summoned by his bishop, in the spring of 1871, to give in his adhesion to the dogma of papal infallibility within 10 days. He refused to accept the doctrine for the reasons that it is irreconcilable with the Scriptures as interpreted by the Fathers, and with the belief and tradition of churchmen in all ages; is supported principally by forged, ungenuine documents; is contradicted by the doctrines published by 2 general councils and several popes in the 15th century; is incompatible with the constitution of Bavaria and several other European States; was enacted by a council which was not free; and tends to the repression of man's intellectual activity and to a temporal and spiritual terrorism. Dr. Döllinger was, therefore, excommunicated. Neither he nor any one else, however learned or competent, is allowed to judge for himself in the Roman Catholic church. All must submit to authority, or cease to be Roman Catholics. The exercise of the right of private judgment is not tolerated within the pale of that church. See Chapters VI., XI., XII., XXVI. "The right of private judgment" is thus defined by an able English Protestant: "The right for which we plead is the right of each person to exercise his mind on every subject brought before him-to examine the claims of every teacher and every book which professes to have come from GOD-to try every doctrine pressed on his attention, by the Touchstone of Truth, the Sacred Scriptures-to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good'-to do all this, without permitting any human authority to prevent him, without bowing submissively before any such self-constituted human tribunal. "But he may err in the exercise of this right.' We grant it. 'To err is human,' even in things of vastest importance. But if a man must refrain from exercising a right because he may possibly err in using it, he must forego all his rights, and become a maniac or a fool. Men do not so act in secular affairs, and they should not in those that are religious. If a man errs in either, the fault is his own; if he errs in his judgment respecting religion, he is accountable to GOD." Without exercising this right of private judgment, no one can embrace or have any religion, whether Roman Catholic or any other; nor can the Roman Catholic or any other church prove itself a true church, or show that it is not a base imposture, without appealing to, and thus conceding for the time, this very right of private judgment. The recognition of this right is essential to the existence of both civil and religious liberty. No one who does not exercise it, knows or can know whether his own path leads to heaven or to hell. Since God has made mankind capable of reasoning and judging, it is certainly their duty, as God requires, to "prove all things," i. e., to put them to the proof, or examine them (1 Thess. 5: 21), to "judge " even what professed apostles say (1 Cor. 10: 15), to "be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh a reason" of their hope (1 Pet. 3:15), to "beware of false prophets" (Matt. 7: 15), to "try the spirits whether they are of God" (1 John 4:1); and in fulfilling this, our bounden duty, we, who are made after the similitude of God (Jas. 3:9), and who must give account, each of himself, to God (Rom. 14:12), must examine for ourselves and judge for ourselves in view of our solemn and individual responsibility to the God of truth and life and glory. CHAPTER XXIII. ASSUMPTION AND EXERCISE OF TEMPORAL POWER. For more than 1,000 years the popes of Rome have possessed and exercised temporal power in Rome and elsewhere, as is related in Chapter III. The extent and limits of the temporal power appertaining to the pope and to the Roman Catholic church have been differently stated by different Roman Catholic authorities. "The Catholic World" for December, 1870, in discussing the pope's "rights as the Vicar of Christ and the Vicegerent of God upon earth," speaks thus: "... We distinguish between the personal sovereignty of the Vicar of Christ, which consists in his independence of and superiority over all civil sovereignty, and his real and administrative sovereignty, which consists in his rightful possession of kingly power over a specific territory, with its inhabitants. The former is of divine right and inherent in his spiritual supremacy; the latter is of human right, and attached to that supremacy. In regard to the divine right of the personal sovereignty of the pope, we say, first, that it is a necessary consequence of the immunity of the whole hierarchy from the coäctive jurisdiction of temporal tribunals, always held by Catholic tradition as a right conferred by Jesus Christ. . . . . . The Council of Lateran (5th) under the Sovereign Pontiff Leo X., in its 9th session says: Since no power is given to laymen over ecclesiastics either by divine or human right.'. ... So, also, the Council of Trent, session xxv., chapter 20, de Reform., says: 'The immunity of the church and of ecclesiastical persons was established by the ordinance of God and by ecclesiastical sanctions.' It follows, of course, a fortiori [= from a stronger reason or ground], that the pope, as the supreme judge of all ecclesiastical causes and ..... persons in the external forum, is himself above all power, whether ecclesiastical or lay, and can be judged by no one..... It has always been the Catholic interpretation of this passage [Matt. 17: 23-26] that the successors of Peter are by divine right sovereigns, owing no subjection, even in temporals, to any civil authority, and that whatever obedience they have voluntarily rendered at certain times to emperors has been merely a condescension, like that of our Lord himself on the earth, practiced for the sake of the common good. .... "The temporal power of the popes over certain provinces adjacent to the city of Rome, and over the city itself, is derived . . . . 'from the munificence and liberality of sovereign princes, the voluntary and free gift of the people, long prescription, onerous contracts, and other legitimate titles' [Cardinal Soglia]. This is a human right, or right founded on human law and authority. It is, however, a perfect right, and one which, according to the principles of Catholic morality, cannot be taken back by the parties which originally conceded it. Moreover, as a right conceded to the Roman church for the benefit of religion and the service of Almighty God, it is classed among things sacred, which cannot be invaded without the guilt of sacrilege. "2 ... Among the "errors of our times" mentioned in the "syllabus" or list attached to pope Pius IX.'s Encyclical Letter of Dec. 8, 1864, are the 3 following, which were pointed out by the pope in 1851: 1 It is very certain-if we may exercise our Protestant" private judgment" (see Chapter XXII.)—that Origen, Augustine, Jerome, &c., were mistaken in assuming that the "tribute-money" in Matt. 17:24-27 (24-26 in the Vulgate and Douay Bibles) was paid to the Roman emperor in acknowledgment of his sovereignty: this tax was the didrachma or half-shekel tax (Ex. 30:13) paid to the sanctuary or temple at Jerusalem, from which burden of the Mosaic law Jesus and all his disciples are free, since they are children or heirs of God (Rom. 8:16, 17), and are not, as the Jews, under bondage to the law (Gal. 2:4. 3: 24-26. 5:1). Even Augustine sa v that all Christians are here placed on the same footing with Christ and Peter in respect to this tax or burden; for he says, "But the Savior, when he ordered it to be given for himself and for Peter, seems to have paid for all." It is therefore entirely unwarrantable to limit to Peter and his successors, or to the clergy, the freedom which is here declared to belong to all God's children, whatever their office or station. 2 For an answer to this argument, see Chapter III. |