He then proceeds to speak of the relation of the State to the education of the young, by saying that it is "not called upon to discharge this great parental duty, but to keep the natural educators in their work," by permitting it to "be carried on under the direction of the Church, the depository and teacher of religious doctrines." This is as if he had said that the State shall be forbidden to participate in the work of education even to the extent of teaching patriotism to its youth, for the reason that such State education has the tendency to substitute love of country for fidelity to the pope; and for the further reason that all education that can be tolerated should "be carried on under the direction of the Church" and confined exclusively to "religious doctrines." He expresses the same idea more fully by insisting that all other kinds of education are "devoid of all the external practices and duties of the Christian faith, and calculated to familiarize young people with 'freedom of conscience' and indifferentism;" that is, to encourage them in the belief that popular freedom is worth striving after, and that people are more prosperous and happy when governed by laws of their own making than by those dictated by the ambition of those who claim that they alone are divinely chosen to govern mankind. He sees nothing in such religious liberty as our institutions establish but "irreligion and libertinism," to which it has given rise, and against which he strives hard to enlist all the supporters of the papacy.[208]
From the papal standpoint his arguments are sound and logical, because the general enlightenment of the mind, which enables it to investigate and understand the causes of things, and makes it competent to form conclusions of its own, tends to create self-reliance and opposition to oppressive laws; and has, on these accounts, been odious to the popes ever since they acquired temporal power and made the Church, by means of it, the most potent instrument in maintaining monarchism. Therefore the student of history finds that the papacy has grown weaker as the world has increased in enlightenment. But from the standpoint of our free institutions, both his positions and reasoning are radically wrong and indefensible, because they assail the freedom of conscience which our institutions guarantee to every individual, and our common-school system, which is more responsive to the public sentiment and will than any other measure of our public policy. The plain and manifest import of what he has said is this: That if he were allowed full liberty in this country to dictate what shall and what shall not be regarded as true religion, we would have neither freedom of conscience nor public schools. And this, by his subsequent elevation to the pontificate, constitutes to-day, the greatest if not the only danger which threatens our free, popular form of government.
By his election as pope, Leo XIII occupies a different position from that filled by him as Cardinal Pecci. In the latter he defended the papal doctrines and recommended them for strict observance by the faithful; in the former he dictates and commands, allowing no discretion and submitting to no disobedience. Therefore it is manifestly proper, as well as necessary, that we in this country shall know to what extent the religious doctrines of the cardinal are embodied in the authoritative teachings of the pope. In this latter capacity he has undoubtedly flattered himself, as Pius IX did, that he has at his back and subject to his command, two hundred millions of obedient subjects throughout the world, and has, consequently, availed himself of his first consistorial allocution to prepare them for submission, by announcing that he has been chosen "to fill on earth the place of the Prince of pastors, Christ Jesus!" He must have known, when these words were traced by his pontifical pen, that Christ was never the pastor of an organized Church with a constitution of either spiritual or temporal government; that when the primitive Churches were established by the apostles, they were independent of each other; that none of these ever had a bishop or a presbyter with temporal power in his hands; that this power was not acquired until after the fall of the Roman Empire, according to Pius IX, and not until several hundred years later, according to himself; and that even then it was wrenched from the people by the aid of ambitious monarchs and their armies, and maintained by the false and forged "donation of Constantine," the pseudo-decretals of Isidore, and other means long since repudiated in all parts of the world, and not now defended except by the most mendacious. Yet, with this knowledge in his possession, he strangely complains that the "Apostolic See" has been "violently stripped of its temporal sovereignty" in disobedience of the divine law—pretending thereby that Christ exercised and possessed such sovereignty when upon earth, and that he, as his only representative, is his legitimate successor!
His mind must have been overflowing with exhilaration, when, giving full play to his imagination, he fancied himself thus elevated above and superior to all other human beings. But, like many others who indulge in similar flights and "build castles in the air," the excesses of his fancy were checked by the conviction that the world was, at last, a practical reality in what concerns its welfare, and that the Italian people, who had for many centuries submitted to papal dominion, would not permit him to place the crown of temporal royalty upon his head. Seemingly saddened by this melancholy conviction, he found himself constrained to announce to his "venerable brothers" of the episcopacy that the papacy had been "reduced to a condition in which it can in no wise enjoy the full, free, and unimpeded use of its powers," well knowing that it had not been deprived of any of its spiritual authority except that involved in his right to wear a temporal crown and govern the people arbitrarily as a temporal monarch. And then, under the stimulant of hope, he imposed upon them the religious obligation to labor for the restoration of this lost temporal power, by reminding them how gloriously Pius IX had served the papacy by his efforts "to re-establish the episcopal hierarchy" in Scotland, in the face of the Government of England and the religious sentiment of the Scotch people. Under the influence of these mingled emotions of despondency and hope, his pontificate commenced. What fruits it is destined to bear are hidden in the womb of time. What he intends to accomplish, so far as he can, it is the duty of the civilized world to understand, not by what any cardinal, archbishop, bishop, or priest shall say, but as he himself has chosen officially to announce it. No other man upon earth besides him has the right, according to the papal theory, to prescribe a single tenet of religious faith, because he alone occupies the place of Christ upon earth!
FOOTNOTES:
[206] Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Pages 200-214.
[207] Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Pages 219 to 222.
[208] Life of Leo XIII, pp. 230 to 239.