“The milk-white hind was fated not to die.”
The radical party now in power in Italy may succeed in ruining their glorious country, but they may rest assured that this does not include, as her foes foolishly and stupidly imagine in every turn of her eventful history, the ruin of the Catholic Church. “What God has made will never be overturned by the hand of man.”
V.—THE SYLLABUS.
One of the principal offices of the Catholic Church is to witness, guard, and interpret the revealed truths, written and unwritten, which was imposed upon her by Christ when he said: “Go and teach all nations whatsoever I have commanded you.” This duty she has fulfilled from age to age, in spite of every hindrance and in face of all dangers, with uncompromising firmness and unswerving fidelity, principally by the action of her chief bishop, whom Christ charged to “feed his sheep and lambs” and “to confirm his brethren.” This Supreme Pastor, in watching over the sheep of Christ’s flock, has never failed to feed them with the truths of Christ, and, lest they should be led astray, he has pointed out and condemned the errors against these truths one by one as they arose.
Whatever some critics may have to say as to the form in which the Syllabus has been cast, or as to the technical language employed in its composition, this document nevertheless is all that it purports to be,—an authoritative and explicit condemnation of the most dangerous and subversive errors of our epoch.
“That last,
Blown from our Zion of the Seven Hills,
Was no uncertain blast!”
Were the Syllabus the product of the private cogitations of an Italian citizen named John Mary Mastai Ferretti, promulgated and imposed upon the unwilling consciences of Catholics by his personal authority, Catholics would indeed have reason to resist and complain. But the violent opposition, the hostility and hatred, that the Syllabus has excited among so many non-Catholics and leading minds is a cause of no little surprise.
“What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,