BELLARMINE AND ANTONELLI. 597 was in any sense indebted to human grants or concessions, or that it could be enlarged or diminished by them. When, however, Protestantism began its work, and the papacy reeled and tottered under the blows of the great Reformers, it required the genius and ability of Bellarmine to conceive and promulgate the idea of indirect power, so that the assailants of the direct power might be answered with an argument that was at least plausible. It is said that he was "driven to the theory of the indirect power by the desire of vindicating the popes and clergy of the Middle Ages against the attacks of Protestants and of the more ancient heretics," and that he "believed that he struck the middle and proper course, between the excesses of heresy and the opinion of the direct power, which he considered to be manifestly extravagant."(") If the great popes who originated, maintained, and acted upon the doctrine of the direct power were infallible—and the dogma of the late Lateran Council makes them so-then this doctrine became an essential part of the faith of the Church, which it would now be heresy to deny or change. It is a vain pretense, therefore, to talk about the indirect power, as Cardinal Antonelli does, it being merely the ingenious argument of a Jesuit of the sixteenth century, not promulgated by authority as a part of the faith, but as a mere shelter for the enormities practiced under the claim of direct power. If it be that the faith of the Church is immutable, and the popes all infallible and incapable of error, then the doctrine of the indirect power is heresy. Or, if the promulgation of it from the Vatican, under the official auspices of the present pope, makes it a necessary part of the faith at this time, then the popes who maintained the direct power were heretics. Let the papist take either horn of the dilemma, and his theory falls to the ground as utterly untenable, alike opposed to the divine and human law and the best interests of mankind. It is apparent, therefore, that Gregory VII. did not pretend to shelter himself behind any indirection, and that in asserting his primacy and supremacy he required it to be (17) Gosselin, vol. ii., p. 368 (note). recognized as a part of the faith, that the power of the pope over both spirituals and temporals was derived directly from God, and was not susceptible of any human limitation. This is the fair and only import of his language, previous ly quoted,(18) and of all his official acts when dealing with the European kings. Even in dealing with Philip, King of France-the favorite "Son of the Church "he forbade him lay investiture, and addressed a letter to the French bishops, declaring that if they did not obey him, and not the king, to whom by the law of France they owed allegiance, "he would, with God's help, use every means to wrest the kingdom of France from his hands."(") And his labored exertions to establish a holy empire or ecclesiastical state, in the form of a revived Jewish theocracy, indicates how completely, if he had succeeded, he would have absorbed all the spiritual and political power of the world. (20) Nor did Adrian IV., Innocent III., or Boniface VIII., up to the beginning of the fourteenth century, pretend to rest this supremacy upon any other ground than that asserted by Gregory VII. The blight of the Middle Ages was resting upon the world during their pontificates, and there was no necessity for moderation or disguise. Reason was not then free to expose or combat their errors or usurpations. There was no free thought or free press in those days. Prot estantism was not then born. The iron weight of the papacy rested upon all the nations, and even kings so crouched at the feet of these great pontiffs as to cause Dante to exclaim, "How many now hold themselves mighty kings, Who here like swine shall wallow in the mire, When Adrian IV. granted Ireland to King Henry II. and authorized him to subjugate the Irish people, he did so expressly upon the ground that it "belonged to the Holy See" by a divine right, and that he could dispose of it as seemed right to him; asserting, at the same time, the right in all the popes to dispose of every country where Christianity had been received. Innocent III. declared that his power (18) Ante, ch. iii. (19) Reichel, p. 205. (20) Ibid., p. 282. THE PAPAL CLAIM OF DIRECT POWER. 599 came directly from Heaven, and was based" on a divine ordinance;" and that the authority of princes was derived from him; wherefore he gave away crowns, disposed of governments, and transferred peoples from one allegiance to another, in the name of God and the Church. And Boniface VIII., in his bull Unam Sanctam-which remains a part of the canon law-set forth the doctrine that temporal governments should be conducted "for the Church," and that "for every human being subjection to the pope was necessary for salvation;" deriving the tremendous power he asserted directly from God alone. All the popes who at various times before the sixteenth century claimed this supremacy asserted the direct power over all nations. They universally regarded it as an attri bute attached to the papacy by Christ, descending to them. from the apostle Peter, and reaching out to the utmost bounds of the earth, in order that all mankind may in the end be saved. Whatever may have been said by others for them since then is no part of the original argument by which the power was sustained, but merely the invention of such limitations upon it as prudence and expediency have dictated. The original argument remains the same. If it does not, the power does. Its comprehensiveness is in no way lessened by shifting the method and grounds of its defense. While, since Bellarmine, a vast amount of ingenuity has been displayed in the discovery of various arguments, often conflicting, to reconcile the world to its exercise, the popes themselves, even when it has been held in abeyance, have treated it as a part of the faith-unalterable and forever the same. And Pope Pius IX. is not behind any of them in asserting it to be all-absorbing, and in denouncing and anathematizing every thing which stands in its way. His infallibility being now established, the Church has assigned to him. the incapacity to err, and the same incapacity to all his predHence it binds itself, and requires all its members to recognize the doctrines and principles advanced by any and all of them as the true "Catholic doctrines." And these doctrines being true, the inevitable and logical result, from which no ingenuity can contrive a loop-hole of escape, is that the divine and legitimate authority which the pope ecessors. has at any time acquired over any government or country by virtue of discovery, conquest, or compact, can not be displaced by any act considered as usurpation, or by any illegitimate act, no matter in what way it may have been consummated. As "the domain of the Catholic Church" was extended by the discovery of America by Columbus, acting for and in the name of the reigning pope, Alexander VI.,(*) and spiritual jurisdiction was thereby acquired over this continent in obedience to the providence of God, that jurisdiction, though disturbed for a time by revolution and usurpation, exists yet in all its original vigor! As temporal jurisdiction necessarily follows the spiritual, that also exists in a like degree, to be resumed whensoever by possibility it may be done, and it shall become prudent to attempt its recovery! The resumption of both these jurisdictions is commanded by Almighty God in order to secure the universality of the only true Church, against which "the gates of hell shall not prevail !" Thus has the Jesuit reasoned ever since the wonderful system of Loyola was contrived in aid of the papacy; and thus must necessarily reason all who accept the dogma of papal infallibility. The author of "Protestantism and Catholicity Compared," etc., understood all this when he wrote his book, as also did his American publishers when they recommended it as "peculiarly adapted" to the wants of this age, (1) It seems little less than profanation to assign infallibility to such a pope as Alexander VI., when all history assigns to him a multitude of crimesamong them an incestuous intimacy with his own daughter, Lucretia Borgia -as inconsistent with the life of a professing Christian as they are shocking to the moral sense of mankind. It was to this pope that the kings of Spain and Portugal referred the question of boundary between the American possessions each of them claimed by virtue of discovery. If he had merely decided what was submitted to him, it might be claimed for him that he was a mere arbitrator. But he went further, and "traced a line from pole to pole, through the Azores, or Western islands, and decreed, by virtue of his universal omnipotence, that all countries which were beyond this line—that is, the West Indies or America — should belong to the King of Spain; and those on this side-that is, the East Indies and the shores of Africa-to the King of Portugal." The only conditions were the payment of a large sum of money to him, and the conversion of the inhabitants to Christianity, by force if necessary.-CORMENIN, vol. ii., p. 154. WHEN ALLEGIANCE IS NOT DUE. 601 because it sets forth "the glorious character of the faith;" and he and they manifestly contemplated the occurrence of such events as would bring the world into a condition for the practical application of these doctrines. At all events, he felt it to be the duty of the papacy, in whose behalf he wrote, to keep them fresh in the minds of its devotees, so as to hold them in readiness for such a time, whensoever it should arrive. And, consequently, his work would have been left incomplete if he had failed to point out the ultimate results to be expected from these "Catholic doctrines;" that is, if he had not indicated "how the civil power may be lawfully resisted." To this special subject, therefore, he has devoted` a chapter, which begins thus: "From what has been said in the foregoing chapters, it follows that it is allowable to resist illegitimate power by force. The Catholic religion does not enjoin obedience to governments existing merely de facto; for morality does not admit a mere fact unsupported by right and justice." (") And then, referring to the teachings of St. Thomas, which we have already seen, in support of his proposition that “an equality of social and political rights" is impossible, he passes on to define what is meant by papal interference in the affairs of governments, and to show that it is nothing less than the direct interposition of God himself! He says: "For many centuries there has been inculcated in Europe a doctrine much criticised by those who do not understand it, the intervention of the pontifical authority between the people and their sovereigns. This doctrine was nothing less than Heaven descending as an arbiter and judge, to put an end to the dispute of the earth." ("") And this remarkable chapter is wound up by pointing to the times when the tempest of revolution has burst upon the world, and thrones have been overturned, and royal heads cut off "in the name of liberty;" to all of which he declares the Church says "this is no liberty, but a succession of crimes; the fraternity and equality which I have taught were never your orgies and guillotines "(")—thus placing all political revolutions along-side of each other, and seeming Balmes, ch. lvi., p. 336. (23) Ibid., p. 340. (4) Ibid., p. 343. |