APPENDIX. A. BISHOP'S OATH. THE following is the oath of allegiance to the pope, taken by every archbishop and bishop, and by all who are elevated to positions of official dignity by the pope. It is copied by Dr. Dowling from the treatise on the papal supremacy by Dr. Barrow (vol. i., p. 553), who copied it from "The Roman Pontificate, set out by order of Pope Clement VIII.," Antwerp, 1626, p. 59, etc. I, N., elect of the Church of N., from henceforward will be faithful and obedient to St. Peter the Apostle, and to the Holy Roman Church, and to our Lord, the Lord N., Pope N., and to his successors canonically entering. I will neither advise, consent, nor do any thing that they may lose life or member, or that their persons may be seized, or hands in anywise laid upon them, or any injuries offered to them, under any pretense whatsoever. The counsel with which they shall intrust me by themselves, their messengers, or letters, I will not knowingly reveal to any to their prejudice. I will help them to defend and keep the Roman papacy, and the Royalties oF ST. PETER, saving my order, against all men. The legate of the Apostolic See, going and coming, I will honorably treat and help in his necessities. The rights, honors, privileges, and authority of the Holy Roman Church, of our Lord the Pope, and his aforesaid successors, I will endeavor to preserve, defend, increase, and advance. I will not be in any counsel, action, or treaty in which shall be plotted against our said Lord, and the said Roman Church, any thing to the hurt or prejudice of their persons, right, honor, state, or power; and if I shall know any such thing to be treated or agitated by any whatsoever, I will hinder it to my utmost, and, as soon as I can, will signify it to our said Lord, or to some other, by whom it may come to his knowledge. The rules of the holy Fathers, the apostolic decrees, ordinances, or disposals, reservations, provisions, and mandates, I will observe with all my might, and cause to be observed by others. Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our said Lord, or his aforesaid successors, I will to my utmost persecute and oppose. [Hæreticos, schismaticos, et rebelles eidem Domino nostro vel successoribus prædictis pro posse persequar et oppugnabo.] I will come to a council when I am called, unless I be hin- I will thereby incur the penalties contained in a certain constitution put forth B. THE pastoral letter of the Second National Council of Baltimore contained thirteen articles. The third concerns the "Relations of the Church to the State," and is as follows: The enemies of the Church fail not to represent her claims as incompatible with the independence of the civil power, and her action as impeding the exertions of the State to promote the well-being of society. So far from these charges being founded in fact, the authority and influence of the Church will be found to be the most efficacious support of the temporal authority by which society is governed. The Church, indeed, does not proclaim the absolute and entire independence of the civil power, because it teaches with the apostles that "all power is of God;" that the temporal magistrate is His minister; and that the power of the sword he wields is a delegated exercise of authority committed to him from on high. For the children of the Church, obedience to the civil power is not a submission to force which may not be resisted, nor merely the compliance with a condition for peace and security; but a religious duty founded on obedience to God, by whose authority the civil magistrate exercises his power. This power, however, as subordinate and delegated, must always be exercised agreeably to God's law. mate judge of and delusion, hav lie Church. In granted in this re Church to possess eteries or school her of a necessary tablished. We ar the Church in he laws providing fo APPENDIX. 719 God's law. In prescribing any thing contrary to that law, the civil power transcends its authority, and has no claim on the obedience of the citizen. Never can it be lawful to disobey God, as the apostles Peter and John so explicitly declared before the tribunal which sat in judgment on them, “If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye." This undeniable principle does not, however, entail the same consequences in the Catholic system as in those of the sects. In these the individual is the ultimate judge of what the law of God commands or forbids, and is consequently liable to claim the sanction of the higher law, for what, after all, may be, and often is, but the suggestions of an undisciplined mind or an overheated imagination. Nor can the civil government be expected to recognize an authority which has no warrant for its character as divine, and no limits in its application, without exposing the State to disorder and anarchy. The Catholic has a guide in the Church, as a divine institution, which enables him to discriminate between what the law of God forbids or allows; and this authority the State is bound to recognize as supreme in its sphere, of moral no less than dogmatic teaching. There may, indeed, be instances in which individual Catholics will make a misapplication of the principle; or in which, while the principle of obedience to civil authority is recognized as of divine obligation, the seat of that authority may be a matter of doubt, by reason of the clashing opinions that prevail in regard to this important fact. The Church does not assume to decide such matters in the temporal order, as she is not the judge of civil controversies, although she always, when invited to do so, has endeavored to remove the misconceptions from which disputes so often arise, and to consult for every interest while maintaining the peace of society and the rights of justice. While cheerfully recognizing the fact, that hitherto the General and State Governments of our country, except in some brief intervals of excitement and delusion, have not interfered with our ecclesiastical organization or civil rights, we still have to lament that in many of the States we are not as yet permitted legally to make those arrangements for the security of church property which are in accordance with the canons and discipline of the Catholic Church. In some of the States we gratefully acknowledge that all is granted in this regard that we could reasonably ask for. The right of the Church to possess property, whether churches, residences for the clergy, cemeteries or school-houses, asylums, etc., can not be denied without depriving her of a necessary means of promoting the end for which she has been established. We are aware of the alleged grounds for this refusal to recognize the Church in her corporate capacity, unless on the condition that in the matter of the tenure of ecclesiastical property she conform to the general laws providing for this object. These laws, however, are for the most part based on principles which she can not accept without departing from her practice from the beginning, as soon as she was permitted to enjoy liberty of worship. They are the expression of a distrust of ecclesiastical power, as such; and are the fruit of the misrepresentations which have been made of the action of the Church in past ages. As well might the civil power prescribe to her the doctrines she is to teach, and the worship with which she is to honor God, as to impose on her a system of holding her temporalities which is alien to her principles, and which is borrowed from those who have rejected her authority. Instead of seeking to disprove the various reasons alleged for this denial of the Church's rights in some of the States, we content ourselves with the formal protest we hereby enter against it; and briefly remark, that even in the supposition, which we by no means admit, that such denial was the result of legitimate motives, the denial itself is incompatible with the full measure of ecclesiastical or religious liberty which we are supposed to enjoy. Nor is this an unimportant matter, or one which has not practical results of a most embarrassing character. Not only are we obliged to place church property in conditions of extreme hazard, because not permitted to manage our church temporalities on Catholic principles, but in at least one of these United States (Missouri) laws have been passed by which all church property, not held by corporations, is subjected to taxation; and the avowed object of this discriminating legislation is hostility to the Catholic Church. In concluding these remarks, we merely refer to the attempt made in that State to make the exercise of the ecclesiastical ministry depend on a condition laid down by the civil power. The bishops of the council sent to the pope the following dispatch, through the Atlantic cable: Seven archbishops and forty bishops, met in council, unanimously salute your holiness, wishing you long life, with the preservation of all the ancient and sacred rights of the Holy See. To which the following answer was received: ROME, from the Propaganda, October 24th, 1866. To the Most Reverend MARTIN JOHN SPALDING, Archbishop of Baltimore: The telegram which the bishops of the States of the American Union assembled in council had the happy thought to address to the Holy Father proved to be of great comfort and consolation to his holiness, and so highly did he appreciate its spirit that he ordered it to be immediately published in the official journals at Rome, for the edification of his Roman people and the faithful at large. His holiness looks with interest for the acts and decrees of the Plenary Council, which he expects to receive in due time, and from which he hopes a new impulse and continued increase to religion in the United States will result. He has, however, directed me to express directly to your amplitude, and through you to all your colleagues, his great pleasure, and to request you to thank them for the interest they have taken, and still take, in defending the Holy See and in vindicating its contested rights. Moreover, his holiness has learned with satisfaction that the papal loan is succeeding also, through the co-operation of the American episcopate. He thanks them particularly for this, and nourishes the hope that such co-operation will not cease, and that thence a prosperous result may be obtained. In the mean time, I pray the Lord that he long preserve and prosper you. ALEXANDER CARDINAL BARNABO, Secretary. THE E To Our Veneral Health and Apo It is well known with what great Pontiffs, have disc the person of the N vation of mankind, trous manner. Venera a ly had We (by the merit of Our own) treme grief of Our s roneous opinions, chiefs which redound discharge of Our Ap lustrious Predecesso Letters, and in Allo Letters, We condem We stirred up Your admonish and exhor to Us, that they shou contagion of a fatal APPENDIX. C. THE ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF POPE PIUS IX. 721 To Our Venerable Brothers the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and Bishops of the Universal Church having Grace and Communion of the Apostolic See. PIUS PP. IX. Health and Apostolic Benediction. It is well known unto all men, and especially to You, Venerable Brothers, with what great care and pastoral vigilance Our Predecessors, the Roman Pontiffs, have discharged the Office intrusted by Christ Our Lord to them in the person of the Most Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and have unremittingly discharged the duty of feeding the lambs and sheep, and have diligently nourished the Lord's entire flock with the words of faith, imbued it with salutary doctrine, and guarded it from poisoned pastures. And those Our Predecessors, who were the assertors and champions of the august Catholic Religion, truth, and justice, being, as they were, chiefly solicitous for the salvation of souls, held nothing to be of so great importance as the duty of exposing and condemning, in their most wise Letters and Constitutions, all heresies and errors which are hostile to moral honesty and to the eternal salvation of mankind, and which have frequently stirred up terrible commotions, and have damaged both the Christian and civil commonwealths in a disas trous manner. Wherefore those Our Predecessors have with apostolic fortitude continually resisted the nefarious attempts of unjust men, of those who, like raging waves of the sea, foaming forth their own confusion and promising liberty whilst they are the slaves of corruption, endeavored by their false opinions and most pernicious writings to overthrow the foundations of the Catholic religion and of civil society, to abolish all virtue and justice, to deprave the souls and minds of all men, and especially to pervert inexperienced youth from uprightness of morals, to corrupt them miserably, to lead them into snares of error, and finally to tear them from the bosom of the Catholic Church. And now, Venerable Brothers, as is also very well known to you, scarcely had We (by the secret dispensation of Divine Providence, certainly by no merit of Our own) been called to this Chair of Peter when We, to the extreme grief of Our soul, beheld a horrible tempest stirred up by so many erroneous opinions, and the dreadful and never-enough-to-be-lamented mischiefs which redound to Christian people from such errors: and We then, in discharge of Our Apostolic Ministerial Office, imitating the example of Our illustrious Predecessors, raised Our voice, and in several published Encyclical Letters, and in Allocutions delivered in Consistory, and in other Apostolical Letters, We condemned the prominent, most grievous errors of the age, and We stirred up Your excellent episcopal vigilance, and again and again did We admonish and exhort all the sons of the Catholic Church, who are most dear to Us, that they should abhor and shun all the said errors as they would the contagion of a fatal pestilence. Especially in Our first Encyclical Letter, |