The Outcome of Its Present Struggle by J. O. CORLISS

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 23, 1908

The Outcome of Its Present Struggle

By J. O. CORLISS

Character of the Papacy—No. 9

The Outcome of Its Present Struggle

J. O. CORLISS

History has well demonstrated that supremacy has been the principal factor in formulating plans for the maintenance of the papacy. It still advocates that the pope is infallible, independent of the decisions of the church, or one of its councils. See decision of Vatican Council, also “Systematic Study of the Catholic Religion,” pages 93-103. It is this contention that has made it so difficult to persuade a pope to convene a council in which decisions might be voted, that would contravene some papal edict of the past, and so embarrass the existing administration. More than three hundred years, therefore, intervened between the Council of Trent, which closed in 1563, and the Vatican Council of 1869-70. The former was called as a dire necessity, in an attempt to secure the return to the Roman Church of the Lutherans, Calvinists, and others who had separated from that communion. The latter council was called for the express purpose of having a universal bishopric indorse the dogma of infallibility.

Judgment against this opinion had become so pronounced in some quarters that it was fast losing its hold upon the laity, especially the intelligent class. This sentiment, which was given birth by the Reformation, had been born anew, as it were, through the work of Napoleon in supplanting absolute monarchy with constitutional governments throughout Europe. Consequently, notwithstanding the artful manipulation of the council, in various ways, official sentiment was so divided that when a semi-private vote was taken July 13, 1870, in behalf of a church constitution committed to a modified dogma of infallibility, 451 voted in its favor, while 88 recorded themselves against it; 62 voted that they would accept it, if it was modified to suit their notion. These, with the 70 who did not vote, constituted a company of 671 members.

This result of the ballot was so startling to the court party, and judgment was so strongly expressed against the dissentients, that immediately following the vote, the latter departed from Rome, fearing to remain longer, leaving behind them, however, a formal protest against the proceedings of the council. A public vote was taken, nevertheless, on the adoption of the new constitution, July 18, when 535 bishops indorsed the proposition, and two, one of these an American bishop, Fitzgerald of Little Rock, Ark., had the courage to oppose it.

Thus a partial victory was gained for the infallibility theory. We say a partial victory, because that while in former times, according to Bellarmine, the pope was designated in some documents as “Vice-God,” and the Civiltà Cattolica presented him as the highest being on earth (Vol. III, page 259; Vol. XII, page 86), the Vatican Council was content to confine his infallibility to ex cathedra utterances; that is, official statements, or definitions of doctrine for the guidance of the faithful. This is virtually to acknowledge himself at all other times a mere “man of sin” in harmony with the description of the apostle as given in 2 Thess. 2:3, 4, 8. But viewing the situation from the standpoint of future history, the victory was intended to be more than partial. When it was voted to sustain a constitution which makes official utterances of the pope infallible, that voice placed the papal constitution, in the estimation of the Roman Church, above every other constitution, whether in a government of Europe or America. By implication that vote solemnly condemned all civil constitutions, or parts of constitutions, not in harmony with the decrees of the papacy. It matters not that some of the bishops present had perhaps sworn to observe the laws of the countries in which they resided, it became their bounden duty, upon the passage of the measure, and the duty of their loyal successors in office, to use every effort to abolish those laws, and so render void the constitutions under which such laws are administered. As before quoted in these papers, the policy of the church will of course be to “observe for a time a prudent economy” without, however, “any modification of her real principles.”

But so far as public agitation of the question was concerned, the decision of the Vatican Council settled matters. Not so, however, in regard to adverse private opinion. This has strengthened from that time forward until the present agitation of Modernist sentiment within the Roman Church has called forth from the papal throne a bull condemning its advocacy, and even demanding that the services of all teachers known to be tainted with the heresy, be dispensed with.

This edict is supposed to be in the

nature of a reply to an “open letter” from a group of priests in Rome, in which they say among other things that the church has failed to understand “the living forces of the time,” in consequence of which members are withdrawing from her communion, because her Christianity is but the “mere cold observance of traditional formulas and precepts.” This letter protests that the disintegration brought to their notice is not because church duties are too onerous, but because “the church has adopted an attitude toward democracy and science which has made her justly suspected by both these forces.” The insistence is, that if the church retains the respect of the masses, she must “transform and purify the form of her own government, so tenaciously monarchical and absolute, abandon or alleviate her ancient coercive methods,” and “recognize more freely the religious action of the laity.”

(To be concluded)

Mountain View, Cal.