Authority Against Authority by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 17, 1909

Authority Against Authority

By C. M. S.

In the Catholic Standard and Times (Philadelphia) of May 1, the editor, in an article entitled “Not a Catholic Country,” quotes these two sentences from Archbishop Kendrick, of Baltimore, which appear in his book, “The Primacy of Peter:” —

It is a stale calumny that Catholics are vassals or subjects of the pope. He claims no temporal dominion over us, and we everywhere profess, with his full knowledge and entire approbation, unqualified allegiance to the respective civil governments under which we live.

It is interesting, and may not be unprofitable, to place alongside that declaration one made in a work by M. I. Rhodes, entitled “His Holiness Pope Pius IX.” This work bears “the approbation of the Lord Bishop of Beverly,” in England, and has been published at New York, Boston, and Montreal. The author says (page 11): “Our first duty, however, is toward our most holy Pope Pius IX, who at present so nobly fills the chair of St. Peter.” He further declares “it to be the general duty of all Catholics, whatever their country may be,” and “of all men, if they did but know it, to protect the rights of the holy see.”—Pages 47, 48. Then to be more explicit, he gives this amplification of the ideas contained in the above quotations:—

Suppose it be said, “I acknowledge the spiritual authority of the Holy Father; but why am I, an Englishman [or American, we may add], to come forward in a political way, and use all my exertions to protect the temporal rights of a foreign prince?” My answer at once is plain. The pope is not a foreign prince to any Christian, to any human being [italics ours].—Ibid., page 48.

That makes the pope to every Catholic a domestic prince in his country. Will he refuse to obey his prince? If it is a “stale calumny” to state that “Catholics are vassals or subjects of the pope,” the Catholic must admit that the “calumny” originated with one who would be quickly anathematized if the church really believed he was calumniating the Catholic Church.

C. M. S.