It is now for the Catholics of the United States to rear a monument there to enclose what time has spared us of the “Angel Guardian of the Ottawa Missions.”
John Gilmary Shea.
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Miscellanies. By Henry Edward, Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. First American Edition. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co., 9 Barclay Street. 1877.
The various papers contained in this assortment of miscellaneous articles from the pen of Cardinal Manning consist of addresses before several Academias or other societies, contributions to the Dublin Review, and short essays, most of which, we believe, have been before published in English magazines or newspapers, or in the form of pamphlets. They are on current topics of immediate interest, well adapted to the times, and written in a plain, popular style. One general tone of defence and explanation of the Catholic cause in respect to matters now of conflict and controversy between the Catholic Church and her opposers runs through them all, giving a real unity of purpose and objective aim to the collection, various and miscellaneous as are its topics. The most important and interesting papers, in which the force of the whole volume, of all the cardinal’s principal works, of the efforts of his entire career as a prelate in the church, is concentrated and brought to bear upon the central point of anti-Catholic revolution, are the first and last. The first one is entitled “Roma Æterna: a Discourse before the Academia of the Quiriti in Rome on the 2615th anniversary of this city, April 21, 1863.” The last one is entitled “The Independence of the Holy See,” and we do not know whether or not it was published before it appeared in the present collection. It has always been characteristic of the cardinal’s mind, and of the doctrinal or polemic expositions of Catholic truth put forth by him, to perceive and seize the principle of unity. While he was still an Anglican archdeacon he embraced and advocated general principles of Catholic unity, so far as he then apprehended them, with remarkable clearness and precision. These principles led him into the bosom of Catholic unity, and their complete and consequent development in all their conclusions and harmonious relations has been the one great aim and effort of his luminous and vigorous mind since he became a Catholic ecclesiastic, both as an orator and as a writer. This clear, direct view of the logical order and sequence of constitutive, Catholic principles made him one of the most thorough and firm advocates of the spiritual supremacy of the Holy See, before and during the sessions of the Vatican Council. The Papacy, as the very centre and foundation of Christianity, and therefore the principal point of attack and defence in the war between the Christian kingdom and the anti-Christian revolution, has been the dominant idea in the mind of Cardinal Manning. The indissoluble union of the papal supremacy with the Roman episcopate, and therefore the dependence of Christendom on the Roman Church as its centre, its head, the great source of its life, is the topic to which at present his attention is more specially directed. The Roman Church, and, by reason of its near and close connection, the Italian Church, as the permanent, immovable seat of the sovereign pontificate, is identified with the prosperity of Christendom. The head and heart of the Catholic Church are there, whereas other members of the great, universal society of Christians are only limbs, however great and powerful they may be. The logical and juridical mind of Cardinal Manning grasps in its full import the whole Roman and Italian question of present conflict as the vital one for all Christendom. And, as we have said, the first and last papers in his volume of Miscellanies are of permanent value and importance, on account of his clear and masterly exposition of this great controversy. We will quote a few salient paragraphs in illustration and confirmation of our opinion on this head:
“It is no wonder to me that Italians should believe in the primacy of Italy. Italy has indeed a primacy, but not that of which some have dreamed. The primacy of Italy is the presence of Rome; and the primacy of Rome is in its apostleship to the whole human race, in the science of God with which it has illuminated mankind, in its supreme and world-wide jurisdiction over souls, in its high tribunal of appeal from all the authorities on earth, in its inflexible exposition of the moral law, in its sacred diplomacy, by which it binds the nations of Christendom into a confederacy of order and of justice—these are its true, supreme, and, because God has so willed, its inalienable and incommunicable primacy among the nations of the earth.... The eternity of Rome, then, if it be not an exact truth, is nevertheless no mere rhetorical exaggeration. It denotes the fact that Rome has been chosen of God as the centre of his kingdom, which is eternal, as the depository of his eternal truths, as the fountain of his graces which lead men to a higher life, as the witness and guardian of law and principles of which the sanctions and the fruit are eternal.... I shall say little if I say that on you, under God, we depend for the immutability not only of the faith in all the radiance of its exposition and illustration, and of the divine love in all its breadth and purity and perfection; you are also charged with the custody of other truths which descend from this great sphere of supernatural light, and with the application of these truths to the turbulent and unstable elements of human society.... You are the heirs of those who renewed the face of the world and created the Christian civilization of Europe. You are the depositories of truths and principles which are indestructible in their vitality. Though buried like the ear of corn in the Pyramids of Egypt, they strike root and spring into fruit when their hour is come. Truths and principles are divine; they govern the world; to suffer for them is the greatest glory of man. “Not death, but the cause of death, makes the martyr.” So long as Rome is grafted upon the Incarnation it is the head of the world. If it were possible to cut it out from its divine root, it would fall from its primacy among mankind. But this cannot be. He who chose it for his own has kept it to this hour. He who has kept it until now will keep it unto the end. Be worthy of your high destiny for His sake who has called you to it; for our sakes, who look up to you as, under God, our light and our strength” (“Rom. Ætern.,” pp. 3–23). These words were spoken fourteen years ago, but they are reaffirmed now by their new republication, and the similar language of the closing paper of the volume.
In this last paper, on “The Independence of the Holy See,” the cardinal speaks more particularly and definitely of the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See. As the spiritual supremacy of the Pope, in his office as Vicar of Christ and successor of St. Peter, is closely bound to his Roman episcopate, and the unity of the church depends on the Roman Church, the “mother and mistress of churches,” so the peaceful and uncontrolled exercise of the supremacy depends on the freedom of the Pope in Rome. This freedom is secured only by complete independence, which requires the possession of both personal and political sovereignty as its condition. This citadel of all Catholic and Christian interests being now the very object of the most resolute and uncompromising attack and defence—the Plevna of the war between the Catholic religion and the anti-Christian revolution—the cardinal, as a wise leader and strategist, directs his principal efforts to sustain and advocate the right and necessity of the Pope’s temporal sovereignty. The spoliation of this temporal sovereignty has for its necessary effect, says the cardinal, “the disintegration and the downfall of the Christian world” (p. 860). Consequently, as the cardinal continually affirms, the redintegration and reconstruction of the Christian world require the restitution of that same sovereignty. “There is one hope for Italy. It is this: that Italy should reconcile itself to the old traditions of the faith of its fathers, and should return once more to the only principle of unity and authority which created it” (p. 848). “If the Christian world is still to continue, what is happening now is but one more of those manifold transient perturbations which have come through these thousand years, driving into exile or imprisoning the pontiffs, or even worse, and usurping the rightful sovereignty of Rome. And as they have passed, so will this, unless the political order of the Christian world itself has passed away” (p. 804).
In these last words is presented an alternative of the utmost consequence and interest. Is the perturbation and disintegration final or transient? If final, the church goes back to the state of persecution, the reign of Antichrist is at hand, and the end of the world draws near. When Rome falls, the world. If the Roman and Italian people, as such, have apostatized, or are about to apostatize, then the Roman Church, the foundation, sinking in the undermined and caving soil beneath it, will bring down the whole crumbling fabric of Christendom and of the universal world. If, therefore, there is any ground to hope that this evil day is not yet, but that there is a triumphant epoch for the church to be awaited, it is of the utmost consequence not to exaggerate the present revolution in Italy and Europe into a national and international apostasy, but to show that it is a revolution of a faction whose power is but apparent and temporary. This is the cardinal’s conviction, and a large part of his argumentation is directed to its proof and support. “Why, then, is this gagging law necessary in Italy? Because a minority is in power who are conscious that they are opposed by a great majority who disapprove their acts. They know, and are afraid, that if men speak openly with their neighbors the public opinion of Catholic Italy would become so strong and spread so wide as to endanger their power. And this is called disturbing the public conscience. The public conscience of Italy is not revolutionary, but Catholic; the true disturbers of the public conscience of Italy are the authors of these Italian Falck laws.... I know of nothing which has imposed upon the simplicity and the good-will of the English people more than to suppose that the present state of Italy is the expression of the will of the Italian people” (pp. 842–47).
We cannot exceed the limits of a notice by adding more extracts or giving the cardinal’s proofs and reasons. We trust our readers will seek for them in the book itself. As there is no one more intelligently and consistently Catholic and Roman in all his ideas than the cardinal, so there is no one who can so well explain and interpret the same to the English-speaking world. He is not only a prince of the Roman Church by his purple, but an intellectual and moral legate of the Holy See, by his wisdom, eloquence, and gentleness of manner, to all men speaking the English language, a sure teacher and guide to all Catholics, whose words they will do well to read and ponder attentively.