The Footprints of the Jesuits

by Richard W. Thompson

That which can not escape observation in these opinions of the pope, is the extent to which he carries the doctrine of papal infallibility. In common acceptation among the bulk of Christians who accept the teachings of the Church at Rome, that doctrine is regarded as applying only to matters concerning religious faith, and not to matters of fact. These differ from the Jesuits, who insist that it includes both faith and fact; that is, everything spiritual in its nature, and such temporals also as pertain to the spiritual. Leo XIII takes the Jesuit ground, for facts would be necessarily mingled with faith in the politico-religious matters submitted to him by the Congress of editors and writers. When, therefore, he commands that all he shall do and say concerning the restoration of the temporal power and the interests of the papacy, shall be accepted as infallibly right and true, not to be called in question by any, he conclusively shows the effect of his early Jesuit education and training. And since he expects all Roman Catholics to accept this doctrine as a necessary part of their faith, it is specially important for the people of the United States to understand the extent to which he expects it to be carried wheresoever his spiritual authority shall reach. We are plainly and expressly told that it includes "politico-religious questions," and this is affirmed by him in the incident related by his biographer. The Jesuits themselves could say no more, and are careful not to say less in their definition of papal infallibility, for fear that some inquisitive minds might discover loopholes in the doctrine through which individual opinions might escape, and thus give approval to liberty of thought, of speech, and of the press, and to the forms of popular government which they underlie.

The pope does not intend to be misunderstood, and therefore takes pains not to leave the least doubt with regard to his opinions upon the great question of the right of a people to establish and maintain a government separated from and independent of the Church—as was done by the people of the United States when they formed their Government, founded upon their own will. He well knows that all governments of this character have been the result and are the fruits of the Reformation, and therefore, when he found it necessary for him to address a letter to the Archbishop of Cologne, touching affairs in Germany, he denounced them as "socialistic," or, in other words, as threatening to the peace and happiness of society. That he might not be misapprehended with regard to the character and forms of government he intended to condemn as of this character, he assigned "the sixteenth century" as the period when the seeds out of which they grew were sown, well knowing, as all intelligent people do, that the right of the people to govern themselves by laws reflective of their will then began to take root. That period is specially odious to him on account of the results foreshadowed by it, and because he sees in it the germs of those measures of public policy which have acquired such growth and strength as to undermine the pope's temporal power—without which the world seems to him to be given over to the dominion of evil. Intending therefore to show—what is manifestly a fixed purpose in his mind—what he regards as the source of the ills which threaten to overwhelm modern society with ruin, he availed himself of the occasion of his episcopal letter to the Archbishop of Cologne to say: "Hence, an impious thing never dreamed of even by the old pagans, States were formed without any regard to God or to the order by him established. It was given as a dictate of truth that public authority derives from God neither its origin, nor its majesty, nor its power to command—all that coming, on the contrary, from the multitude; and that the people, deeming themselves free from all divine sanctions, consented only to be ruled by such laws as they chose to enact." And following these opinions to their logical consequences, he pictures the condition into which society has been thrown by such institutions as the people have created for themselves by separating Church and State—as in the United States. He thus draws the sad and deplorable picture: "By spreading such doctrines far and wide, such an unbridled licentiousness of thought and action was begotten everywhere, that it is no wonder if men of the lower classes, disgusted with their poverty-stricken homes and their dismal workshops, are filled with an inordinate desire to rush upon the homes and the fortunes of the wealthy; no wonder is it that tranquillity is banished from all public and private life, and that the human race seems hurried onward to ruin."[201]

In contemplating the picture of modern prosperity and progress—that which is to be found mainly, if not only, where monarchs have been dispensed with or their hands tied by constitutional checks and guards—he imagines nothing discernible but "unbridled licentiousness of thought and action"—nothing but desolation, decay, ruin, death! In this way he accounts for his anxiety to regain the temporal power which the Italian people took away from Pius IX, so that by obtaining perfect liberty for himself as both a spiritual and a temporal monarch, he may disperse his ecclesiastical forces throughout the world, and so reform it as to get rid entirely of that "impious thing" called popular government, and teach the people that by assuming to make their own laws they have reached the borders of a gulf from which the papal arm alone can rescue them. Are these utterances of Leo XIII to be accepted as infallibly true, as he required those to be which he made to the public journalists who went all the way to Rome to ask his advice? In both cases the questions involved are politico-religious, and as he commanded the latter to have no opinions of their own—nor seem to have any—even Jesuit ingenuity and sophistry can discover no distinction between them. In the one case as in the other his meaning is clear and unmistakable—that these matters are all within his spiritual jurisdiction, and that whatsoever he has said or may hereafter say concerning them must be accepted as expressing the will of God. This conclusion can not be escaped, nor does he intend that it shall be; for instead of leaving his meaning to be discovered by reading between the lines, it is plain, palpable, and distinct. His eloquent biographer does not mistake him. When the same questions were discussed by him in an encyclical, and the same arguments substantially repeated, this eminent divine rapturously affirms that his utterances "were like the second promulgation of the law on which rest the foundations of the moral world."[202]

It thus appears, plainly and palpably, that the modern nations are confronted by the fact that the pope has denounced the making of laws by the people—that is, self-government—as an "impious thing," which inevitably leads to "unbridled licentiousness of thought and action," and is hurrying the human race "onward to its ruin,"[203] and that, with his own sanction and pontifical approval, the faithful are instructed to liken his commands upon this and other kindred subjects to the promulgation of the law to Moses in the mount! What more important and interesting question could be submitted to the modern progressive nations, and especially to the United States, than this? It is an arraignment of the chief fundamental principle of our civil institutions—a proposition to remove the corner-stone upon which our national edifice is resting. Our fathers separated Church and State deliberately and wisely, and more than a century of experience has assured to us a degree of prosperity unsurpassed anywhere in the world. Yet the pope—considering this the triumph of evil, of the State over the Church, and of Belial over Christ—invites us to come within the circle of his spiritual jurisdiction, so that every law of the people conflicting with the Canon law of the Roman Church shall be blotted from our statute-books, and our limbs bound with chains forged in papal workshops. If he could achieve this result, he would still admit our right to manage such of our affairs as did not conflict with the interests and policy of the Church over which he presides; but such as did, he would assert the spiritual and divine power to regulate himself. He would be content that we should carry on our industrial pursuits, sow and harvest our grain, build our houses and barns, construct our roads, and pursue our ordinary occupations in peace. But he would add tithes to our taxes, deny the right of civil marriage, put a stop to the erection of Protestant churches, plant his pontifical foot upon every form of dissenting worship, and demand in the name of religion that he should be recognized as both a spiritual and temporal monarch over every foot of soil set apart for the uses of the Roman Church, and over every devotee of that Church, in so far as its interests and necessities should require. And to make it sure that all these things should become lasting and perpetual, he would close all our school-houses, and turn all our teachers adrift, so that the minds of the pupils should be molded by Jesuit influence—as his own was—in order that the blessed period of the Middle Ages should be revived, and all memory of the Reformation be blotted out forever.

The pope's biographer, in order to show his readiness for the part he has to play in this revolution in our affairs, takes occasion to disavow and repudiate, in explicit terms, the doctrine of the natural equality of mankind as set forth in our Declaration of Independence—seeming to suppose that when the proper time shall arrive some modern pope may be found who will declare that immortal instrument null and void, as Innocent III did the Magna Charta of England. He makes his disavowal in these words: "The inequality which exists among men living in society arises from nature and its Author, just as from Him comes in the magistrate the right to rule, and in the subject the duty to obey."[204]

It is not to be supposed that this sounds well in any American ears. The author takes advantage of the general sentiment that all things have their source in God as their author, and assumes from this that because men are differently endowed by nature, intellectually and physically, they are therefore, by the laws of nature, politically divided into a superior and inferior class—the former to rule, and the latter to obey. This is the papal theory of society and government; but, from the standpoint of modern advancement, it will readily be seen that it contains two capital errors: it mistakes social for political inequality, and perpetuates the power to rule in one class, and the obligation to obey in the other, leaving the latter no chance of changing its condition of inferiority and submissiveness. It fails to observe that what men do in social intercourse is one thing, and concerns themselves and immediate associates only; whereas, what they shall do in civil and political intercourse is another thing, and concerns the community of which they are members. It does not follow, because they do not in their intercourse with each other enjoy social equality, that they should not share alike in political equality, in order thereby to promote the welfare of all. The contrary is far more reasonable and just—that civil and political equality shall prevail, in order that the whole of society may be brought, as nearly as possible, to the common ground of social equality; that is, that the opportunities for equality should be open to all. This is the progressive theory of government. But the papal and retrogressive theory, as set forth by Leo XIII and his biographer, is opposed to this, for the reason alleged by the latter that God and nature established "inequality," in order that the right of the superior class to govern, and the obligation of the inferior class to obey, shall remain perpetual. This fallacy was successfully maintained during the Middle Ages, and so long as Church and State remained united, because monarchism possessed sufficient power to enable the ruling class to hold the multitude in inferiority. But as the example of Christ, during his humanity, demonstrated that men could lead pious and Christian lives without regard to the character of the governments which ruled over them; that, in fact, civil governments can have no rightful authority over internal religious convictions—the influence of that example opened, through the Reformation, the way to such enlightenment as pointed out the necessity for return to primitive Christianity, in order to fit communities, organized as States, for equality of rights under governments of their own in so far as all things pertaining to their general welfare were concerned. This equality is not confined to aggregated communities alone, but extends to the individuals composing them in all matters not relating to the good of the whole. Among these, made prominently conspicuous under the civil institutions of the United States, is the natural right of each individual to worship God as his own conscience shall dictate, without interference from any quarter, so that by enlightenment he may realize the full sense of his own personality, and thereby increase his ability to add to the common stock of prosperity. Experience has shown that this could be accomplished in no other way than by disuniting Church and State; and therefore we, in this country, are well assured that the framers of our Government acted wisely in doing this, by assigning to the former the spiritual, and to the latter the temporal sphere, as was the case during the lives of Christ and the apostles. In furtherance of this end it became necessary that our Declaration of Independence should establish the proposition, as a fundamental principle, that all men are entitled, by the law of nature, to perfect equality of rights, and while our sense of security may lead us to bear with some degree of patience the papal censure of this principle, they are mistaken who argue therefrom that we can be persuaded, upon any conditions, to exchange that principle for one involving civil and political inequality, which the papacy recommends to us as alone in conformity to the divine law as the pope interprets it.

When the pope tells us that "unbridled licentiousness of thought and action" results from governments by the people, and that thereby "tranquillity is banished from all public and private life," and "the human race seems hurried on to ruin," he manifestly allows his zeal to outstrip his discretion. This arises out of his position, as well as the desire to regain the temporal power lost by his predecessor. He overlooks the fact that the most prosperous among existing nations are those where Church and State have been separated, and clings to the idea that he can not be reconciled to this prosperity without violating the divine command. One reason he assigns for this belief is that the "licentiousness of thought and action" which he considers the outgrowth of civil institutions responsive to the will of the people—where Church and State are separated—has excited the "lower classes" by the "inordinate desire to rush upon the homes and the fortunes of the wealthy." He certainly did not desire to be understood as intending to incite these "lower classes" into anarchy; but careful reflection would have enabled him to see that by announcing to them that those who have separated Church and State, and constructed popular governments, have sinned by breaking the divine law, he furnished to these "lower classes" who are obedient to his teaching, an argument by which many of them would readily justify themselves for rushing "upon the homes and fortunes of the wealthy." If disobedience to the papal decrees is heresy, as multitudes of popes and ecclesiastics have declared; if heresy may be lawfully suppressed by the extermination of heretics, as Innocent III instructed the faithful, and the Council of Constance decreed; if dissension from the faith of the Roman Church has the curse of God resting upon it, as Leo XIII has himself affirmed, there are those of these "lower classes" ready to become the avengers of the divine wrath by rushing "upon the homes and fortunes of the wealthy," under the pretext that they are wrongfully deprived of their rightful share of property, which God designed for the common uses of mankind. It is said that there are bandits not far from Rome who follow the capture of their victims by crossing themselves before the image of Mary; and while Leo XIII has no sympathy with these, and would readily aid in punishing them as outlaws, yet he can not fail to realize, in his calmer moments, that when he expresses "no wonder" at their acts of outlawry, because they are perpetrated upon those who are guilty of "unbridled licentiousness" and the sin of heresy, he suggests to them a pretext of which they are not slow to avail themselves. Manifestly he has suffered himself—like many other good and Christian men—to go too far.

The danger lies in the excess into which the pope and others who are intent upon the restoration of his temporal power, are betrayed by the peculiar conditions surrounding them. There can be no denial of the fact that this is a politico-religious question, and there is no attempt to deny it. Politically it involves the conversion of the pope into a king over the Italian people, not only without their consent, but against their protest. There can be no question more important to any people than this; for it directly involves their right to be free, independent, and self-governing. But it is made to assume a religious aspect by reason of the fact that the pope and his followers assume it to be a necessary part of the divine plan that the head of the Church shall be—whether the people of Italy consent or not—an absolute temporal monarch in Rome. This they make an essential part of religious belief, and everything contrary to it heretical. Consequently, whatsoever institutions recognize the right of the people to make their own laws and select their own agents to administer them, are placed under the ban of the papacy. This brings the papacy in conflict with all the modern nations which have separated the State from the Church; and as the pope can not maintain the papal theory without arraigning them as violators of the divine law, he can not avoid excesses without seeming to abandon, in some degree, his claim to temporal power. This politico-religion directly assails one of the fundamental principles of our Government, and the effort to induce any part of our population to accept it as religious faith, necessarily antagonizes the Government itself; for, although the question primarily and practically concerns the Italian people alone, the growth of this sentiment in this country could have no other tendency than to threaten our popular institutions and the right of self-government with ultimate overthrow. In the very face of this, the biographer of Leo XIII, and undoubtedly reflecting his sentiments, ventures to refer to the present Constitutional Government of Italy, in these words: "The occupation of Rome is an international wrong, which all Catholics are bound to denounce and oppose until it is done away with."[205]

This language is express, direct, emphatic. There is not the least obscurity about its meaning; and having the approval of the pope and of his American cardinal, together with his official blessing, it is undoubtedly intended to instruct every Roman Catholic in the United States that he shall treat the loss of the temporal power as an international question; and that the whole body of the faithful shall organize themselves into a politico-religious party, to bring the Government to interfere for its restoration; and not to cease the agitation, no matter what consequences shall follow, until this shall be accomplished. This is a serious matter—too serious to be passed by idly or inconsiderately. The restoration of the pope's temporal power is exclusively a foreign question, because it involves alone the question how a foreign people shall govern their own domestic affairs; whether, in other words, they shall govern themselves or have a king forced upon them, with absolute imperial power in his hands, to govern them at his own will and without their consent, as their ancestors were governed during the Middle Ages, and themselves also, until, imitating the example set them by the people of the United States, they grasped the scepter of government in their own hands by a patriotic and successful revolution. The Government of the United States has neither the right nor the power to interfere, any more than it has the right and power to dictate the successor to the throne of England upon the death of Queen Victoria, or who shall be the pope of Rome when Leo XIII shall die. Besides, by the separation of Church and State, this country can not have, by legal sanction, any politico-religious questions to agitate and disturb the nation, and put its peace in peril. This had been sufficiently done throughout the world before our institutions were formed, and to guard against its repetition here, our fathers properly and wisely excluded all such matters from the domain of American politics. The attempt to introduce them now can have but one meaning—the desire to unsettle the work so wisely done and thus far so patriotically maintained.

We must not permit the pope or his apologists to mislead us by the pretense that they do not propose to interfere with purely political questions, as they understand them. If deceived themselves upon this point, we should be careful not to be deceived by them; for it requires but little intelligence to foresee the evil consequences that would inevitably follow the introduction of politico-religious questions among us, especially such as tend to involve us in dangerous controversy with a foreign and friendly power. It would, beyond any reasonable doubt, lead to the formation of a politico-religious party, and incite tremendous and threatening commotion. The people would then be required to re-decide questions long since settled, as they supposed, finally. Such a controversy could have but one end, which might, however, have to be reached through turmoil and strife, if not tribulation; for the people would not be likely to decide themselves incompetent for self-government, or to acquiesce in the pope's jurisdiction over the fundamental principles of their Government, or to see their own authority so narrowed as to embrace only the administration of local and inferior affairs. If this battle is to be now fought, it has not been invited by the people of the United States. They are satisfied with the fundamental principles of their institutions as they are, and those will find themselves mistaken who shall endeavor to make their tolerance the fulcrum upon which the papal lever may rest, in order that they may be carried back to those "blessed ages" when unquestioning obedience to the pope, upon whatsoever subject he chose to embrace within his spiritual jurisdiction, was considered the highest duty of citizenship and the only road to heaven.