THE CHURCH AND THE STATE.
No injustice should be done to Leo XIII. If his position as the official head of a great Church were not sufficient to shield him against unfairness, his eminent Christian virtues should do so. Before his election to the pontificate he had acquired the reputation of being conspicuously great. He was, undoubtedly, the ablest defender of the prerogative rights of the papacy among the entire body of cardinals; and this distinction was well deserved. His arguments were then addressed mainly to ecclesiastics, and were designed to encourage them in their efforts to extinguish the revolutionary spirit which pervaded the Roman Catholic populations of Europe.
Now that he has become pope, the circle of his influence is enlarged so that it reaches the whole body of the Church of Rome through the medium of his hierarchy and priesthood; of whom it may rightfully be said, without intending offense, that they have no other spiritual work to do but what he assigns to them. That they may be fitted for this they have been deprived of all share in the responsibilities which pertain to the conduct of human affairs—all participation in the active operations of society and all those domestic associations which excite generous and kindly emotions and give to life its greatest charm. They are, consequently, molded by him into a compact organization, held in cohesion by the power of a common purpose, with the special design of assailing, in every part of the world, whatsoever he shall decide to be under the ban of his pontifical displeasure. With such a force at his command—unitedly resisting what he shall direct them to resist, and defending what he shall direct them to defend—he constitutes such a power in the presence of the nations as exists nowhere else. Reaching, therefore, vaster multitudes of people, and possessing more potential influence than any other man in the world, nothing should be permitted to impair our obligation to become acquainted with his present pontifical opinions and purposes, as well as with the habits of thought which prepared him for his present eminent position. It can not be rightfully complained that his pontifical opinions are interpreted in the light of those previously entertained and expressed by him—more especially since his biographer has made such liberal use of them to prove his fitness to become the potential head of the Christian world.
While cardinal, he availed himself of frequent opportunities to denounce the Italian Revolution as sinful, and supported all the measures designed to suppress it. He aided Pius IX by his advice and counsel, and defended the entire series of his pontifical measures—condemning as heresy every professed form of Christianity that did not recognize the obligation of obedience to the pope as a divinely-appointed temporal sovereign. He regarded all other Churches besides the Roman as impiously pretentious—having no legitimate right to exist—and consequently as under the Divine displeasure. As he considered unity of Christian faith essential to the unity of the Church, and the temporal dominion of the pope as absolutely necessary to both, he employed much of his time as cardinal in supplying the clergy of Perugia with arguments against the revolution, and in pointing out both its spiritual and temporal consequences. As part of his pastoral work he insisted that the destruction of the temporal power of the pope would necessarily and inevitably lead to infidelity and atheism, because it would open the door to the toleration of other religions besides the Roman. This, in his opinion, would inaugurate the reign of "irreligion and libertinism," for the reason that there was no middle state between obedience to the pope as an absolute temporal monarch, with complete authority over the faith and consciences of his subjects, and the ruin of society. He divided society into two classes: one faithful to Christ, and therefore obedient to the pope; and the other representing Belial—that is, Satan—because of the refusal of that obedience. Upon all these points his meaning was plainly expressed in eloquent and faultless style.
Although differing from Pius IX with regard to the duration of the temporal power—fixing it at "eleven centuries," and not as obtained at the fall of the Roman Empire, several hundred years previously—he, nevertheless, considers it a "divine institution," conferring upon the pope the "supreme and governing power in spirituals." Before explaining, however, what he intends by "spirituals," he insists that whatsoever they are, they can not become subject to any human interference or limitation in any part of the world, but must be everywhere complete and plenary. Upon this point his biographer assumes to assist him, by interjecting between his sentences, as a key to his meaning, the idea that the temporal power is "incarnate in a manner in the Roman pontiff;" that is, that in some strangely mysterious way, it so permeates the pope as to be made providentially inseparable from his personal as well as official existence! But, seeming not to realize the ridiculousness of his bold hyperbole, he omits to explain why this same power was not incarnate in the popes before they placed crowns upon their own heads at the fall of the Roman Empire. Perhaps he imagined that the incarnate principle was in its germ during the first ages of the Church, and that the process of its development into absolute imperialism was not complete until the peaceful alliance between the Eastern and the Western Christians was sundered by the invading armies of Pepin and Charlemagne, when these sovereigns imparted a portion of their royal prerogatives to the popes and protected them by military force. Whatsoever meaning may have been intended, it is manifestly designed to convey and enforce the sentiment as part of the doctrinal faith of the Church, that because the temporal power "maintains in their unity and integrity the Church and religion," therefore it is divine, and confers superhuman authority upon the pope over the sentiments, opinions, and conduct of mankind. "Besides," said Leo XIII, while yet Cardinal Pecci, "can it be intelligible that the living interpreter of the divine law and will should be placed under the jurisdiction of the civil authority, which itself derives its own strength and authority from the same will and law?" To this question he attempts no specific answer, but his meaning was well understood by those to whom it was addressed; that is, by the ecclesiastics whose minds had been molded by the same training as his own. It is this: That as the authority of the pope and that of the State are both derived from the same divine law, and as the pope alone is the "living interpreter" of that law, therefore the State must accept and obey what he shall declare as "the voice of God." Continuing, however, he embraces this same meaning in equally expressive terms. Happiness in this life he considers the only means of procuring higher happiness hereafter, and therefore the pope as "high priest" has "received from Christ the mission of guiding humanity toward the everlasting felicity;" that is, there is no other true religion than that announced and maintained by the pope; that all other forms are false and heretical; and that those who do not profess it will, in the great and unknown future, be cast into utter darkness, to weep and wail and gnash their teeth forever. And then, basing his conclusion upon this hypothesis, he breaks out in this ejaculation: "See, then, what upsetting of ideas it would be to make the high priest of the Catholic Church, the Roman pontiff, the subject of any earthly power;" as if God had so endowed all the popes—even Alexander VI (!)—with the faculty of inerrancy, that they alone, of all the ages, have had the mysteries of nature and revelation revealed to them! He never permits this idea of universal papal sovereignty to escape him without so expressing its meaning as to show that wheresoever or into whatsoever country he shall assert it, it can not become subject to any other law than that which the pope himself shall prescribe. It requires but little scrutiny to see that what he intends is, that when the pope sends his ecclesiastical representatives into any part of the world, his instructions must be to them a code of laws which they must obey at every hazard, although it may become necessary to violate whatsoever conflicting laws the civil authorities may enact. If the people of the United States were to submit to this, from the moment they should do so they would cease to exist as an independent nation, and their progressive prosperity would wither and die under the spiritual tyranny of papal Rome, as other republics have hitherto withered and died under the temporal tyranny of imperial Rome. And thus that ancient city which, by its iniquities, became the Babylon of the apostolic times, would again acquire the power to rebuild by unrewarded labor the monuments upon her seven hills, and to exult at the decay of the present progressive nations, as her great prototype did when she looked out upon the miserable but obedient populations who swarmed throughout the valleys of the Tiber.
Leo XIII lays down his premise with such assumed authority as not to admit of challenge, and logically argues from it certain satisfactory conclusions, without pausing to inquire whether the premise itself is true or false. In this respect he imitates some logicians who seem not to realize the difference between assumption and proof. For example, he insists that Christ established an independent Church and a dependent State, so that the former does not exist in the latter, but the latter must exist in the former, in its condition of dependence. He overlooks the fact that States existed before the Church, and that instead of interfering with their temporal affairs Christ paid tribute to them, and recognized the independence of each in its own proper sphere—the one spiritual and the other temporal. The spiritual obedience he exacted was to the divine law, in order to promote the spiritual welfare of individuals and consequently of society; the temporal obedience was to make secure the political rights of citizenship, including those of person and property. He did not consider States as capable of rewards and punishment in another life, but as mere aggregated communities who could bring them to an end by abandoning their territories. Therefore, he left the State to its own temporal government, independently of the Church, and not only obeyed its laws himself, but enjoined the obligation of the same obedience upon his disciples and followers; that is, of rendering "unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's." He gave equal independence to the Church, so that by administering to the spiritual welfare of individuals the temporal welfare of the State would be advanced and the common prosperity the better secured. And thus, by also rendering "unto God the things that are God's," the general welfare of the State would rest upon firmer foundations.
History, during all the ages since Christ, well attests the character of his plan. For more than five hundred years the Church and the State acted independently of each other, neither encroaching upon the sphere of the other, and Christianity progressed until paganism disappeared before it. When the ambitious popes brought on a conflict that separated the Western from the Eastern Christians, and accepted the crown of temporal dominion from Pepin and Charlemagne in consideration of the pontifical ratification of the former's treason to France, the world was plunged into the darkness and stupor of the Middle Ages, and they became enabled to employ their power of absolute monarchism to compel obedience from the State to the Church and the Inquisition, to produce unity of religious faith. When the cloud of popular ignorance became so dense as to be scarcely penetrable, and such popes as Alexander VI could assert their own infallibility with impudent impunity, and burn at the stake those who denied it, the necessity for reform became so urgent that the period of the Reformation was ushered in with such violence that the papacy, aided by the Jesuits, was powerless to arrest it. And when the Reformation gave birth to Protestantism, and enabled it to culminate, through the influence of free religious thought, in the civil institutions of the United States, such impetus was given to the liberalizing spirit of progress that monarchism in both Church and State would be hastened to its final decay, were it not that Leo XIII has thrown the great weight of his Christian character into the scale in favor of it and against the progressive spirit which has advanced the world to its present condition of prosperity and happiness. Those who advise us to turn back from this prosperity and happiness toward the Middle Ages, under the pretense that they are produced by the triumph of irreligion and licentiousness over Christianity, are, to say the least, counselors of evil.
Leo XIII reasons within a narrow circle; or, rather, within a number of circles, reaching always the same conclusion, that whatsoever is adverse to the papacy must be opposed until it is put out of the way. His spiritual power must be as comprehensive as he desires to make it—including whatsoever of temporals he shall decide necessary to its free exercise, or to the interests of the Church; and within this circle his jurisdiction must be so full, complete, and independent, that neither Governments nor communities nor individuals can place any limitation upon it, or violate the rules and principles he shall prescribe, without heresy. He is always explicit upon questions concerning the relations between the pope and Governments—never losing sight of the idea that he must be absolutely independent of them; so much so that while they must obey him when he shall think proper, in behalf of the Church and religion, to command their obedience, he shall be under no obligation to obey any of their laws which he shall consider in conflict with his pontifical plans or the interests of the Church. "He must be free," he says, "to communicate without impediment with bishops, sovereigns, subjects, in order that his word, the organ and expression of the divine will, may have a free course all over the earth, and be there canonically announced." Here, again, he gives prominence to the idea that he is the only interpreter of the divine will, coupling with it the additional one, that not only bishops, but sovereigns and peoples everywhere, must recognize and obey it; for obedience is necessarily implied, inasmuch as his commands would not have "free course" without it. No Government must possess the power to prohibit this, because he acts canonically; that is, his decrees, being an embodiment of the divine will, become part of the Canon law, which, having thus the stamp of divinity upon it, must be universally recognized and obeyed, no matter what Governments may do or say to the contrary. Practically it is the same as if he had said that the laws of all the Governments, touching matters embraced within his pontifical jurisdiction, must give way to the Canon law, because they are human and it is divine.
There are many methods of illustrating the effect of this papal doctrine which will occur to intelligent minds; but at this point one is sufficient. In the United States we have separated Church and State, and based our civil government upon the principle of toleration for differences of religious faith. But by papal decrees and the Canon law all this is declared to be heresy, and placed under the pontifical ban. Hence, the sovereign spiritual power claimed by Leo XIII, as pope, gives him the divine right, in the face of all our Constitutions, National and State, to anathematize the heretical form of our institutions, and to impose upon all who recognize obedience to him the obligation to oppose this heresy, and to eradicate it whensoever it is expedient to undertake it. Involved in this there is, also, the claim of additional power to reconstruct our Government so as to unite Church and State, and subordinate the latter to the former, by putting an end to all religious differences, and establishing the religion of the pope—whatever that is or may be—as the national religion.