“No more cunning plot was ever devised against the intelligence, the freedom, the happiness and virtue of mankind, than Romanism.”—Gladstone, Letter to Aberdeen.
“The principal and most efficacious means of practicing obedience due to superiors, and of rendering it meritorious before God, is to consider that, in obeying them, we obey God Himself, and that by despising their commands, we despise the authority of the Divine Master.
“When, thus, a Religious receives a precept from her prelate, superior or confessor, she should immediately execute it, not only to please them, but principally to please God, whose will is known by their command.
“If, then, you receive a command from one who holds the place of God, you should observe it as if it came from God Himself. It may be added that there is more certainty of doing the will of God by obedience to our superiors than by obedience to Jesus Christ, should He appear in person and give His command.
“St. Philip used to say that the Religious shall be most certain of not having to render an account of the actions performed through obedience, for these, the superiors only, who command them shall be accountable.”—Saint Ligouri, The Nun Sanctified.
“In the name and by the authority of Jesus Christ, the plenitude of which resides in His Vicar, the Pope, we declare that the teaching that the earth is not the centre of the world, and that it moves with a diurnal motion, is absurd, philosophically false, and erroneous in faith.”—Decree of Pope Urbain XIII. (signed) by Cardinals Felia, Guido, Desiderio, Antonio, Belligero, and Fabricius.
In consequence of that infallible decree of the infallible Pope, Galileo, in order to escape death, was obliged to fall on his knees and perjure himself, by signing the following declaration on the 22nd of June, 1663:
“I abjure, curse and detest the error and heresy of the motion of the earth around the sun.”
In obedience to that decree, the two learned Jesuit astronomers, Lesueur and Jacquier, in Rome, only a few years ago, made the following declaration: “Newton assumes, in his third book, the hypothesis of the earth moving around the sun. The proposition of that author could not be explained, except through the same hypothesis; we have, therefore, been forced to act a character not our own. But we declare our entire submission to the decrees of the supreme Pontiff of Rome against the motion of the earth.”—Newton’s Principia, by Fathers Lesueur and Jacquier, vol. iii., page 450.
“A Catholic should never attach himself to any political party composed of heretics. No one who is truly, at heart, a thorough and complete Catholic, can give his entire adhesion to a Protestant leader; for in so doing, he divides his allegiance, which he owes entirely to the church.”—Univers, the official Catholic paper of the Bishops of France, Mar. 28th, 1868.