Rome and Human Governments

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 6, 1908

Rome and Human Governments

A PRESS report from London states that a great deal of discussion is being indulged in throughout Europe, both within and without the Catholic Church, due to a recent utterance of the pope on government. This utterance tends to show that the “sovereign pontiff” holds extremely undemocratic views. In a recent address to the members of the anti-slavery congress at Rome, the pope said:—

A government, in order to govern well, must be despotic and tyrannical.

This remark was suppressed in the official report of the address, but its authenticity is vouched for by those who were present. It is pointed out that it is these principles which the pope holds strongly that are governing his actions toward France. Robert Dell, the Paris correspondent of the Nation, says, in reference to this feature of the pope’s policy:—

The political policy of the pope is the same everywhere. It is a deduction from fixed principles, the application of which would be as fatal to a constitutional monarchy as to a republic, for they involve the destruction of political liberties and the control of the state by a theocracy.

These principles, says the report, the pope has more than once expressed, but never quite so plainly as in the foregoing remark. And it matters not how many American Catholics proclaim the love of the pope for this country, the policy of the hierarchy is expressed in the utterance of the pope above quoted. The undying purpose of the papacy is to bring the whole world under the domination of one head who shall rule over things temporal as well as spiritual; and that rule we may expect to be “despotic and tyrannical.”