Of course, to those who deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, all this reasoning goes for nothing; but Prince Bismarck does not profess to do so. Where, then, was this law to be found? Had it a keeper, a guardian, a propounder, one to whose care its divine Founder had entrusted it, guarded against the possibility of mistaking its teachings, or did he leave the dead letter to commend itself in a variety of ways to a variety of minds? Were all men blessed from birth with perfect intelligence and personal infallibility, there would have been no need of leaving anything more than the dead letter of the law, as in that case all would have agreed as to its meaning. But as men do not as a rule lay claim to perfect intelligence and personal infallibility, without going further into the question here, it seems obvious to common sense that, if Christ left a law to the world, he left it in somebody’s keeping: he left a government and a head, as the representative of himself. This representative is the Pope, whom all Christendom recognized for so many centuries, not as king of this mundane world, but as the supreme head of the universal church of Christ.
In time, he came to have a patrimony of his own, which was freely given him, and has been recently very freely taken from him. That patrimony he did not rule infallibly as king. His policy as an earthly monarch might even be defective, like that of any other ruler; but, in the domain of faith and morals, he, when speaking ex cathedrâ, could not err, and Christendom bowed to his decisions.
Here it is, then, that Catholics bind their faith in the Pope; not in Pius IX. as ruler of Rome, but in Pius IX. as the successor of Peter, as the vicar of Jesus Christ, as his living representative on earth. When, therefore, Christendom departs from Christianity, from the law of Christ upon which it was founded, and devises measures or promulgates doctrines in opposition to the law of Christ, Catholics look to the decision of him with whom the Word abides to say if this be true or untrue, right or wrong. He pronounces, and they believe and obey. He simply says this is or this is not the law of Christ—the law that rules the government as well as the governed. If governments enforce wrong with the strong arm, you must use all lawful resistance; but, rather than deny the truth, you must die as your Saviour died.
The tendency of governments to-day is to say: “We bow to no law, we recognize nothing higher than ourselves, and the laws we make must be obeyed without question.” This is going back to the ante-Christian era, and reviving the worship of force. Such is the tendency to-day: disbelief in Christ; disbelief, consequently, in his doctrines, in his church, in Christianity, in the head of his church. To be Catholic, consequently, is to be anti-national, in the eyes of the state, when in reality it is to be the truest citizen of the state. Home employed a Christian legion, and, though in bravery and devotion to the empire that legion knew no superior, many of its members were martyred because they recognized a spiritual power higher than the state.
And therein Catholicity is compelled to oppose the state: dating from Christ, believing in Christ, building itself upon Christ, its followers members of the church of Christ, it follows the state in all things save where it transgresses the commandments of Christ; hence the non possumus.
Coming back, then, to the present question, Catholics believe the Pope to be the infallible head of the Catholic Church, not the absolute emperor of the kingdoms of this world. Jesus Christ, whose vicar he is, himself proclaimed, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Nations may assume what form of government best suits them; all that is nothing to the Pope. A Catholic is absolutely free in this country, for instance, to vote whatever ticket he may please, Republican or Democratic. As far as those names and their meaning go, Catholicity has absolutely nothing whatever to do with them. But a political party erects what it calls a platform, raises a party-cry, and, as in the present instance in Prussia, calls itself liberal, and its liberalism attempts to wipe out absolutely the Catholic religion from the land and from the world if it could. Is it in human reason to expect Catholics not to allow their religion to influence their votes in such a case as that, or in such a case as the Irish university question, or in any similar case that might occur here?
What are votes given for? Surely to protect ourselves against tyranny of every form, and to secure our proper representation in the body to whose care is entrusted the government of the country. God forbid that religion should not influence politics! Why should it not? Let it alone; leave it free to do God’s work; leave it its churches, its colleges, its schools, its hospitals, its asylums, its associations, its free worship, its beliefs, and its institutions. But if you come, as Prince Bismarck has done, to say to religion, I will take from you your schools, which are your own private property; I will take from you your sacraments, which you believe to have been instituted by Jesus Christ; I will strip you of your ecclesiastical colleges, and educate your students myself; I will take your ordination out of the hands of your bishops, and ordain your priests myself; I will appoint your bishops as I please, and they who displease me are no longer bishops; I will take from you your head, the Pope, and make myself pope in his stead: all this will I do, but still you are at liberty to believe in and worship God—what must the answer be?
This is a mockery! This is paganism; it is violence, not law. We cannot obey. There, says Bismarck, or the state, that is treason. Why cannot you obey? Because the Pope, “that old conjuror of the Vatican,” forbids you. That is just the point: either the Pope must rule or I.
Because conscience forbids me, because human reason forbids me, because Jesus Christ forbids me, is the response of the Catholic. Catholics cannot consent to the doctrine that in the dominion of this world the state has precedence. What is the state? An accident. The Czar of Russia, the Sultan of Turkey, Bismarck, the British Parliament, the Commune, all these in turn call themselves the state. Government indeed is supreme, and to be obeyed, in its own sphere; but if there be no law higher than the material laws which men construct for themselves, and change as occasion demands, good-by to all stable government. If government be merely a creation of man, it must be subject to the varying temper of man; it cannot fix absolutely the rights of man; it can have no absolute title to his obedience. We utterly repudiate this doctrine, and refuse to accept anything as final which we construct for our own use. Its powers are limited as are those of all human institutions: once it oversteps these boundaries, it becomes tyranny. State to-day means Bismarck, to-morrow the Commune; it is a case of circumstances; and, if there lie no law beyond all this, no principles which are fixed and come from a Power above “this world,” one is as good as another. This power is religion, and the church is the embodiment of religion, and the Pope is the head of the corporate body, infallible indeed when teaching the universal church, else is he an accident the same as all the others.
Suppose our Blessed Lord were to come down in the flesh at this moment into Germany, what course would he take upon this question? Would he bow to Cæsar in this? Neither will his vicar nor his children. With the army at his back, Prince Bismarck does this wrong. It is said that he is driven to it for the unity of Germany. Germany was united without it. All the states cheerfully submitted even to Prussian preponderance, without thought of dragging in the religious question. The laws as they stood on that point were satisfactory. Well, Germany is united now; but it has become the union of galley-slaves, chained together, watched by a hard taskmaster whose blow is death. The enemy of true German unity to-day is Prince Bismarck.