The Footprints of the Jesuits

by Richard W. Thompson

But Cardinal Pecci—now Leo XIII—expressed himself more plainly and emphatically upon these points, in assigning the reasons why the pope should possess, and exercise throughout the world, this extraordinary spiritual sovereignty. It is necessary, he said, in order that the pope may be empowered "to keep off schism; to prevent the spread of public heresies; to decide religious disputes; to speak freely to rulers and peoples; to send nuncios and ambassadors; to conclude concordats; to employ censures; to regulate, in fact, the consciences of two hundred millions of Catholics scattered all over the earth; to preserve inviolate dogmas and morals; to receive appeals from all parts of the Christian world; to judge the causes thus submitted; to enforce the execution of the sentences pronounced; to fulfill, in one word, all his duties, and to maintain all the sacred rights of his primacy."

Having thus enumerated these extraordinary powers of the pope—such as exist nowhere else in the world—he goes a step further by defining the relations between the papacy and those Governments and peoples that have taken away, or refused to recognize, the existence of these powers. In this he refers, primarily, to the kingdom of Italy, which had committed the offense of abolishing the temporal power of the pope and separated Church and State; and, secondarily, to all other Governments throughout the world where the union between Church and State is forbidden; that is, where Governments of, and for, and by the people have been established. "Here, then," says he, "is what they are aiming at by taking from the pope his temporal power: they mean to render it impossible for him to exercise his spiritual power." This goes to the bottom of the question, and states plainly the idea present in his mind; that is, that the spiritual power, being superior to the temporal, necessarily includes it to the extent he shall think proper to assert—limited only by his pontifical discretion—so that the latter must to that extent be kept in subordination to the former, and obey its commands. For example, the pope considers it his duty to send an army of ecclesiastics to all parts of the world, and to exact from them implicit obedience to himself, so that wheresoever they shall find temporal laws forbidding them to perform their spiritual functions as he shall define them, he and they must be endowed with sufficient spiritual power to enable them to disobey those laws and set them aside when it becomes expedient to do so. He assumes that "every Catholic"—no matter where he is—accepts this as part of his religious faith, being instructed that the pope must possess such power over both spirituals and temporals as shall make him independent of every Government upon earth in all such matters as he shall declare to be within his spiritual jurisdiction. Quoting some obscure "lodge of Carbonarism in Italy," in order to show that where the pope does not possess the power he claims for him, irreligion, infidelity, and immorality must, of necessity, prevail, he declares that "it is no longer matter of policy; it is matter of conscience" to remove out of the way all impediments to papal supremacy, and that every Christian must stand by the pope in order to put down the enemies of religion, who are designated by him to be those who have taken away from the pope or deny to him any or all of the above enumerated powers.

He does not fail to make his denunciation as comprehensive and sweeping as possible, by characterizing as "irreligion and libertinism" the progressive advancement of modern nations, which prevails where Church and State have been separated. He attaches this character to all these, because, according to him, they are not faithful to Christ, or the Church, or the pope. He denounces the revolution in Italy as "the result of conspiracy, deception, injustice, and sacrilege," merely because it abolished the temporal power of the pope, without the least impairment of any single principle of religious faith that can be traced back to Christ, to the apostles, or to the primitive Christians. What seemed to him to be one of its deplorable and most odious consequences was the loss of power by the pope in consequence of the provision which placed the clergy upon equality with other citizens in regard to civil duties and rights, and made them responsible to the laws of the State, precisely as they are in the United States. This is a point upon which neither the pope nor the clergy will compromise, otherwise than upon compulsion. With them there is no heresy more flagrant than compelling the clergy to comply with any law requiring them to do what the pope forbids as prejudicial to the Church. The right of the pope to require of them disobedience to any such law, and their right to disobey it, is what they call independence, which, according to them, can not be impaired without violating the divine law. They submit to this in the United States, and wheresoever Church and State are separated, but always with the unchangeable purpose of securing, in the end, complete triumph for the law of the Church over that of the State. Hence, when, as the result of the revolution, the law of Umbria placed the clergy upon an equality with other citizens, and made them responsible to the laws of the State, as they now are in the United States, it was denounced by the present occupant of the papal chair as a sacrilegious violation of the divine law. Is this requirement any less "sacrilege" in the United States than in Umbria? The degrees of latitude and longitude do not vary the meaning of the divine law; but the difference in conditions may account for simulated acquiescence in the one case and open protest in the other.

He saw also, in the "diffusion of pestilential books, of erroneous doctrines, and heterodox teachings" another cause for the pontifical curse, inasmuch as it impaired the power of the pope to place restrictions upon the freedom of the press, which has opened the way to liberalism and made the crowns of kings insecure. But that which he condemned more than all, and considered the source of innumerable ills, was the fact that Church and State were separated, and each confined to its own distinct and independent sphere. Referring to the law of Umbria which required the clergy to accept this—as the clergy in the United States are required to accept it—he said: "They are offered, as the basis of reconciliation, to accept the condemned and false system of the separation of Church and State, which, being equivalent to divorcing the State from the Church, would force Catholic society to free itself from all religious influence." He manifestly intended to impress the minds of all who acknowledged obedience to the pope, whether in Europe, the United States, or elsewhere, with the sentiment that the only true religion in the world required, as a matter of faith, that Church and State should be united, with the latter subordinate to the former in whatsoever concerns faith and morals, and that where they have been separated their union should be restored. Having thus made this the solemn religious duty of "every Catholic" throughout the world, he has thereby placed himself, and is preparing them to be placed when the proper time shall arrive, in direct hostility to the principles which prevail in all modern liberal Governments, including that of the United States.[206]

In all this there is no disguise—nothing equivocal. Nor is there any reason why there should have been, inasmuch as these admonitions were addressed to a population reared and educated in the faith of the Church at Rome, for centuries obedient to the commands of the pope and his clergy, and in whose minds there was supposed to linger such sentiments of reverence for the papacy as would, if vigorously appealed to, stimulate them to demand the restoration of the temporal power. Therefore, the foremost man among the clergy—he whose eloquence stirred the heart and whose virtues were universally acknowledged—was chosen as the champion of the papal cause. But for events which have subsequently occurred—more especially his election to the pontificate—and the tolerant spirit which pervades our institutions, it is not probable they would ever have reached the people of the United States. And even now, since they have done so in the pope's biography, there are scarcely five out of every hundred thousand of our population who will ever read them, or, if they do, will turn aside from the multitude of their pursuits to investigate and scan them closely enough to discover their true meaning, plainly and fairly as it is expressed. By such investigation and discovery they would see that Leo XIII considers the following propositions irrevocably settled as religious dogmas: That God provided for the Italian people a form of civil government subject to the absolute dominion of the pope, as the only one that can be religiously tolerated; that revolution to set it aside and establish a popular and constitutional form of government in its place, violates the law of God, and is heresy; that self-government by the people is an abomination which can never obtain the sanction and approbation of the papacy; and that the people of Italy, in order to remain faithful to the Church, should continue forever obedient subjects of this imperial absolutism, no matter how severe its oppressions may become, or how much they may desire to rid themselves and their children of it. And it will be observed that the condition of Italy, in rebellion against the temporal absolutism of the pope, serves him to illustrate the principle which lies at the bottom of all his reasoning; that as God governs the world in equity, and has provided this imperial absolutism for that purpose, with the pope to preside over all that is spiritual and whatsoever temporals shall involve spirituals, therefore all other forms of government are founded upon "irreligion and libertinism," especially such as make the whole body of the people the source of civil power.

The integrity of Leo XIII is not questioned by any one. But he might be liable to the suspicion of insincerity if he had been personally enabled to contrast the present improved condition of the people of the United States, which has been reached within little more than a century of time, with that of the peoples who have for more than twelve hundred years been compelled to submit to the authority and spiritual dominion of the papacy. At all events, it is difficult, for minds impressed by the influences of free popular government, to appreciate either the force or merits of his arguments, when he attempts to make the temporal indispensable to the spiritual power, and asserts the divine right to maintain it when possessed, and the duty of acquiring it when not possessed, as equally indispensable parts of religious faith. The fact that the Italian people—otherwise devoted to the Church of Rome—repudiated this doctrine both politically and religiously, should have impressed his mind with its want of adaptability to the present condition of the world, distinguished as it is either by some form of progress or the popular desire for it among all the nations. Yet, instead of coming to some terms with this progressive spirit among the Italians—which needed only acquiescence in the loss of the temporal power—he was constrained by the united pledge of the College of Cardinals, at the time of his election, to persist in the protesting and aggressive policy of his immediate predecessor. And as he could not turn back without an entire abandonment of the temporal power, he has been likewise constrained to define the extent to which this power, if restored, must be recognized, as a matter of religious faith, beyond Rome and the States of the Church. Without this, the faithful would have been left to suppose that the restoration was designed only to force an absolute temporal monarch upon the people of Italy without their consent, and, therefore, that no religious motive for it existed. Consequently he defined the universal faith to be that, by the restoration of the temporal power, the pope would become again so absolutely sovereign and independent of all Governments that he could not "be placed under the jurisdiction of the civil authority" anywhere in the world, so that whatsoever he shall command in his "mission of guiding humanity," he must be obeyed, no matter what any civil authority may provide to the contrary; that is, that the laws of every State, in conflict with such religious dogmas as he shall announce, must become void and inoperative in so far as they may impede the measures directed by him. Entering upon particulars, he does not shrink from the responsibility of declaring, as we have seen, that the pope must have power to prevent schism and heresy, which includes the means necessary to suppress them; that is, to put an end to Protestantism and all that it has produced. He alone must decide "religious disputes," and every question involving dogmas and morality, and what he shall determine concerning all these must direct and guide the consciences of all "the faithful" throughout the world. And he shall have the right "to enforce the execution" of whatsoever judgment he shall pronounce, no matter whether against Governments, communities, or individuals. The word "enforce" is his own, evidently employed with a full understanding of its import; for the completeness of his style shows that it is not his habit to waste words, or to use them without deliberation. He could not have intended a resort to force as a primary remedy against heresy, but probably considers it justifiable when circumstances render it necessary, as in the cases of rebellious and obdurate heretics whose defiance of papal authority becomes flagrant. It is desirable, however, to follow him further, in order to become entirely familiar with the practical working of his doctrines, as he himself applied them to the state of affairs with which he was directly concerned, in carrying on the battle with "irreligion" and the revolution.

When the Archbishops and Bishops of Umbria deemed it proper to protest to the Piedmontese Government against its infringement of papal rights, Cardinal Pecci was chosen by them as specially fitted for that delicate and important work. As the population of Piedmont were Roman Catholic, and there had been no attempt on the part of the Government to interfere with what they considered the established faith of the Church upon strictly religious points, this protest was mainly intended to express opposition to the laws which regulated the relations of the clergy to the State, by requiring them to obey the public statutes, as they are required to do in the United States, and in such countries as have disunited Church and State. Up till that time they had been an exclusive and independent class, with privileges and prerogatives not enjoyed by the mass of citizens—such as exemption from taxes and from the support of the Government—and to the change in these relations this protest was intended to apply. The laws then existing were considered an irreligious invasion of the liberty of the clergy; that is, of their right of exemption from all governmental obligations. Consequently the feeling upon the subject became very intense among the clergy, as was to be expected after so many years of license and indulgence; and it furnished Cardinal Pecci with the opportunity of making an admirable display of his intellectual powers and eloquence. Without preface, he came to the question directly in these words: "It is a grievous error against Catholic doctrine to pretend that the Church is the subject of any earthly power, and bound by the same economy and relations which regulate civil society. The Church is not a human institution, nor is it a portion of the political edifice, although it is destined to promote the welfare of the men among whom it lives. It affirms that from God came directly its own being, its constitution, and the necessary faculties for attaining its own sublime destiny, which is one different (from that of the State), and altogether of a supernatural order. Divinely ordered, with a hierarchy of its own, it is by its nature independent of the State."

He makes the whole superstructure of his argument rest upon the foundation that as the constitution and all the faculties of the Church came from God, therefore it must of necessity have a "hierarchy of its own," and entirely "independent of the State;" that is, the clergy must be bound to obey the pope, and released from all obligation to obey the laws of the State, unless they also shall be approved by the pope. To require from them this obedience to State laws, "invades," according to this protest, "the sacred province of the priesthood," as well, also, as "the rights and liberties of the Church," because it tempts them "away from the due subjection to their superiors," who are governed only by the pope and the Canon law. And, in order to show that the Church can not tolerate liberalism in the form of the freedom of religious belief or of the press, this protest deplores the "licentiousness of the theater and the press, and the continual snares laid to surprise pious souls, to undermine faith by circulating infamous pamphlets and heterodox writings, and by the declamations of fanatical preachers of impiety;"[207] in other words, by Protestantism and Protestants.

Cardinal Pecci dealt more directly with the "irreligion and libertinism" of the present age in a Lenten pastoral "on the current errors against religion and Christian life." He here expressed himself with severe intolerance against those who proclaim that "man is free in his own conscience; he can embrace any religion he likes;" that is, he condemned the freedom of religious belief. He could not have done otherwise without causing his fidelity to the papacy to be suspected. Consequently, he made his meaning perfectly clear, so that none of the faithful could mistake it, and doubtless because the freedom of conscience is necessary to popular government, which, in serving the pope, he was obliged to condemn. Nevertheless, he was driven to the necessity of admitting that man is created "free and gifted with reason," but sought to break the force of the admission by insisting that this natural freedom must be subject to restraint, because God has imposed obligations upon him and dictated laws for him which he is bound to obey. He, however, gives no latitude to the individual and makes no allowance for his private conscience, but considers him incompetent to decide for himself within the scope of religious laws, and as fit only for obedience to authority; that is, the Church at Rome, and the pope who may, for the time being, preside over it. In setting forth the manner in which God has made known his laws for the direction and government of individual consciences, and how he requires them to be obeyed, he insists that they are only such as the Roman Church has announced, and that the natural right of the human reason to its freedom must be restrained into obedience to them, so that the only liberty of thought or conscience to be allowed must be that which centers in this obedience. To him any other freedom than this violates the divine law, and is heresy. But he plainly involves himself in the absurdity of supposing that to be freedom which is the very reverse of it; for there can be no proposition more palpably true than that a man has no freedom of thought or conscience when constrained, by a force he is powerless to resist, to exchange his own opinions for those of others. It may well be doubted whether opinions formed under the dictation of authority are in fact such. Fear of consequences may induce acquiescence in them, or even their avowal; but as the laws which govern the mind and conscience have no agency in their production, they are simple utterances of the lips which are not responded to by the heart. This must be the case with enlightened minds, except where pre-existing opinions are changed by the force of argument and new enlightenment. The papacy understood this, and therefore kept in ignorance the populations within the circle of its influence and jurisdiction; and Cardinal Pecci, instructed as his mind was upon general topics, was unable to conceive any other methods of human thought than those instilled into his mind by his Jesuit education, and which his official position made it necessary for him to maintain.

Controlled entirely by the idea of unresisting and uninquiring obedience to authority, without any regard for the dictates of individual conscience or the suggestions of reason, he announced the logical result of his own and the papal teachings in these words: "Nor is it left to the free will of man to refuse it, or to fashion for himself a form of worship and service such as he pleases to render." It does not require a man of learning to understand this; it is plain and palpable to any ordinary mind. He could have chosen no words more expressly condemnatory of the freedom of conscience; nor could he have more formally arraigned the people of the United States for having asserted the right of every man to worship God as his own conscience dictates, and having made that fundamental in their institutions and necessary to their existence. According to him this is heresy, because it draws the people away from obedience to the pope; and no man has the right to refuse this obedience, or "to fashion for himself a form of worship or service" which the pope shall condemn! He is immeasurably shocked at the idea that men should be permitted to entertain and express different religious opinions, and to reject the teachings of the pope, to whom alone implicit obedience is due! He had too much character at stake to disguise anything upon this point—leaving that to others in free countries, where the pretense of toleration may be maintained with the hope that it may ultimately pave the way to papal intolerance. Continuing, therefore, the same undisguised denunciation of the freedom of conscience, he says: "It would be not only impious, but monstrous, to maintain every form of worship is acceptable and indifferent, that the human conscience is free to adopt whichever form it pleases, and to fashion out a religion to suit itself." It is not necessary to comment here upon this bold and defiant assault upon our civil institutions. But it is well to remark that it ought to tinge the cheeks of those in this country who, in one breath, profess obedience to the pope who uttered the language here quoted, and in the next talk glibly about their advocacy of the freedom of conscience, which he has condemned as "impious" and "monstrous"—as an unpardonable offense against God!