The Papacy | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 11, 1866

The Papacy.

THE man of Sin is trembling within the Vatican. The great mother of harlots who has so long committed fornication with the kings of the earth, is beginning to experience the truthfulness of the prophecy that her power should be taken away, and that those who once supported her, should hate her and make her naked and desolate. More than two thousand years ago the word went forth that the dominion of this power should at a certain time be taken away to be consumed and destroyed unto the end, Dan. vii, 26, and that as its end drew near, it should plant the tabernacles of its palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain, Dan. xi, 45. The crisis of the papacy is evidently rapidly approaching; and if when compelled to move, the Pope should take up his residence in Jerusalem, where it is reported that a palace is already being built for him, would it not be a fulfillment of the prophecy last named, and afford us the surest index of the immediate coming of the great time of trouble such as never was, spoken of in the very next verse?

We shall watch events with interest; and time will soon determine this matter.

A writer from Rome to the London Herald, Aug. 3d, says:—

“The reports current in Rome, if not absolutely alarming, are such as to create considerable uneasiness. A letter is said to have reached the Pope within the last few days from the Emperor Napoleon, stating that in consequence of the progress of the revolution both at home and abroad, he should no longer be able to provide for the maintenance of the temporal power, and that the Pope must now prepare for the execution of the convention in December. The Pope received the intimation, it is said, with the greatest calmness, and said that he had long ceased to rely on the aid of man, and committed his cause and that of the church to God. Gen. Rufus King, the minister of the United States, subsequently waited on his holiness, and offered him the escort, if necessary, of the American squadron now cruising in the Mediterranean. The Pope declined the offer, with a strong expression of thanks, saying he had no intention of deserting his post, save in case of the most urgent necessity, or that the freedom of the church's action was coerced.”

Another says:—The crisis on the Roman question is near at hand. Napoleon has notified the Pope that the French troops will positively be withdrawn September 15th, and that consequently the Holy See will have to come to an understanding with the Italian government. That understanding will have to be reached when the Pope renounces his temporal power and Rome passes, as it will ere long, under the government of Victor Emanuel.”

A Boston paper has the following on the same subject:—THE DECLINE OF THE PAPAL POWER.—It is idle to suppose that the recent brief but decisive war in Europe will confine its results to the political condition of the nations which have engaged in it. While France has lost her dictatorship and sunk into one of the many co-ordinate powers, while Austria loses her influence in the west, and Russia suddenly finds a powerful nation between her and the rest of Europe, none of these has lost so much as the Papal power, which has suffered the greatest disaster of all. Not a single Catholic nation in Europe can be pointed out as a firm ally of the Pope. France, we have already shown in former articles, cares nothing for his temporal, and believes to-day more in the philosophy of Voltaire than the religion of St. Peter. Spain is orthodox, but the government is weak, and is governed by men who detest war for an abstract principle. Austria has lost her power on the Peninsular, and the sentiments of her Hungarian population will not allow her to exercise a temporal influence in spiritual matters; meanwhile the poor priests at Rome are left to depend on Heaven and Napoleon as their only protectors, while the former gives victory to the “infidels,” and the latter refuses to intervene and save the faithful.

In the future disposition of Italian affairs the voice of Prussia will be quite as potent as that of France has been. She will not forget the service which Italy has rendered her in absorbing the attention of a large part of the Austrian army, and it is not too much to expect that the Italians will be left to choose such a form of government as they may prefer. What then will become of the Pope and his temporal power? Italy can no longer contain him, for the recollection of Cardinal Antonelli and his despotic conduct is still fresh in the minds of that people, and there is no other part of Europe where the Pope, as a temporal potentate, would hardly be received, even as an exile. The only alternative for the Papal power is to ally itself with the democracy, and exist as it does in the United States. Then it will have nothing to hope or fear from kings, and it will have to depend on its own merits for support.

The latest correspondence from Europe informs us that the long expected crisis in the papal affairs is at hand. M. Drouyn de l’Huys has, it is said, addressed a dispatch to the Roman Government, informing them that the 15th of September was the date irrevocably fixed for the withdrawing of the troops from Rome, and that the Holy See would have to come to an understanding with the Italian Government on financial affairs and on the political situation; and the last foreign dispatches state that the negotiation is now going on.