The Political Lesson of the Gathering, namely, All are called upon to recognize in the Papal States the Model State of the World—Survey of those States.
"Opportuneness of the Centenary of St. Peter for reviving the True Idea of the Political Order among States," is the heading of an article in the Civiltá Cattolica for 1867. The first words are, "He who comes to Rome finds St. Peter become a king"; a proposition of which we should modify the predicate, saying, He who comes to Rome finds a king, professing to be St. Peter. "He (i.e. Peter) has joined the tiara of the Pontiff to the crown of the Prince." Why did not the writer say the "tiara of the Apostle"? That would be too great an offence against antiquity. It is the tiara of the Pontiff, as if Peter had taken over that office from Nero.
However, these are but the introductory notes. The writer proceeds to expound the political effects of baptism. Christianity has not changed the civil power as to its substance, but as to its relations, by making a change in the subject of power. That subject is no longer mere man, but man made Christian by baptism. This doctrine—which frequently reappears as the theological basis of reconstruction—is more fully stated by M. Veuillot: "They will not deny that the true human race is baptized humanity.... It is, then, baptism which constitutes humanity, and all that has not been introduced into the Church by baptism is, in reality, only a sort of raw material, which as yet awaits the breath of life" (p. cxii.). In order to prevent any conflict between baptized man and the law of the Church, the civil power must be subject to the Church. Suarez is quoted to the effect that as a man would not be rightly constituted unless the body were subject to the soul, neither would the Church be rightly established unless the temporal power were subject to the spiritual. And hence, the political conclusion is firmly drawn: "The idea of such a subordination is realized in the pontifical government. Because, owing to the peculiar character of him who here holds the temporal power, it cannot rebel against the spiritual power, civil law can never here set itself against evangelical law, nor is any political act possible which should offend against morals."
The last affirmation will appear boldest to those who best know what political acts have been done in the Roman States, and in the present reign. No one of these acts could offend against Christian morals! for the all-sufficing reason that Peter had become the king, and Peter does no wrong. Thus we find infallibility, as received in the court creed, covering measures of taxation and police, as well as lotteries and monopolies—an abuse of the doctrine made still more obvious by what follows, in which the infallibility of the Government is grounded on its immaculate conception, and consequently perfect nature. Since in the Pontifical States "the laws must be sanctioned by him who holds the place of God on earth, him whom God has given to us for guide and teacher, they can never be in conflict with the divine will.[68] The infallible Depositary of evangelical interests can never sacrifice them to earthly ones. Though in such a government the two powers [spiritual and temporal] are distinct in form, they are in complete harmony and duly co-ordinated one with the other, presenting to lay States the perfect example of the Christian civil power."
It is granted that lay States can never equal this example, but they ought to imitate it. By their very conception they can never be free from the original taint, owing to which it becomes possible for "the temporal power to rebel against the spiritual power." Not only is it possible, but, by their nature, they are predisposed to that sin of sins. But all rulers of lay States are to know that in becoming subjects of the Church the subjects of civil power have been changed, though the substance of civil power has not been changed. We do not stay to inquire what may be the substance of civil power, after its subjects have been lifted above obedience to it by another human power, higher than itself in all things wherein the two may come into collision.
In conclusion, the faithful are told that the centenary of St. Peter, by bringing together people from all parts of the world, will give to them the opportunity of beholding "a State in which peace, morality, and justice reign. It is like an oasis amid the desolation of the desert; and it is so because the political order is in full harmony with evangelical law."
The approaching pilgrims, in comparing the oasis into which they were about to enter, with the deserts from which they had emerged, would be able to judge by the experience of centuries as to whether, where Peter reigns, the lifting up of the subject above lay government into the supernatural order had led to the elevation of the laity to supernatural goodness, or to the lowering of the clergy to the level of political officials.
Two writers, as dissimilar as Addison and Edgar Quinet, had, in some degree, anticipated the comparison here challenged, each speaking from a point of view suited to his own day and mode of thinking. The Englishman remarks how great is the difference between Roman Catholic populations where they touch upon reformed countries and where they are under the unbroken influence of the Papacy. Ignorance, superstition, and crime gradually deepen till the Alps and the Pyrenees are passed, when all these become strikingly worse.
The Frenchman says that there was only one model country in Europe. This was correct; for France had never cast out the influence of the Reformation, or made away with all the Protestants; and had, moreover, been the hotbed of what Quinet calls the philosophers. Italy, again, had always been a stronghold of the so-called philosophers, although all the Protestants had been consumed. In Spain, however, as he points out, the Inquisition had really fulfilled its mission; both Protestants and philosophers having been annihilated, schools and letters having been reduced to order, and the whole nation having been made to move for more than two hundred years on the Papal lines. The consequence was the total ruin of religion in the country.[69]