Cardinal Farley, the Pope, and the War
By W. W. PRESCOTT
VERY significant are some of the comments made by Roman Catholics upon the greatest war of the ages, now in progress in Europe. Among the utterances worthy of note is one by Cardinal Farley in a sermon preached by him in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York City, on Sunday evening, October 4, it being his first public address after his return from Europe. We quote a paragraph from the report of his sermon which appeared in the New York Times of October 5:— “Had the people of Europe heeded the pleas of the late pontiff, had they heeded the teachings and warnings of the church, they would not now be engaged in a bloody war. But they did not heed. Almost every nation in Europe was persecuting the church, trampling on its rights, driving it into the corners of the land. And now they are paying the penalty. They are suffering for their sins against God.” This is an exhibition of a principle of interpretation which was quite largely in vogue in the Middle Ages. Any individual or any nation that was not subservient to the Pope was regarded as liable to divine vengeance, and every experience which could possibly be cited as an evidence of such a visitation was trumpeted abroad. It was usually the case, however, that a disregard of the Pope’s will was held to be a more heinous sin than the transgression of God’s law, and the alleged visitation of divine wrath more often fell upon the unfortunate heretic than upon the common sinner. There is one weak point in Cardinal Farley’s logic which it may be proper to point out. He declares that the nations of Europe are now “paying the penalty” for their refusal to heed the warnings of the church, and for trampling on its rights; but he neglected to explain how it happens that Belgium, which has been lauded as a model Catholic country and which did nothing to precipitate the war, is suffering more severely than any other nation. What answer could Cardinal Farley make if a Protestant should claim that Belgium was plainly “paying the penalty” of her acceptance of a false religion and of her refusal to heed the call to come out of Babylon? Of interest in this connection is an utterance by Cardinal Manning, of England, in 1874. Mention of this is made by Dr. Alexander Robertson, in an article entitled “Rome and Germany,” in the Liberator (Ottawa) for September. Referring to a possible military invasion of England, Dr. Robertson declared:— “I believe that the Pope and the church formed the resolution to bring it about, soon after the fall of the temporal power, in 1870, when a league was founded of all Catholics throughout Christendom for the restoration of that power. And the fact was fully and clearly announced by the church four years later. Cardinal Manning then said: ‘There is only one solution of the difficulty, a solution, I fear, impending, and that is the terrible scourge of Continental war, a war which will exceed the horrors of any of the wars of the first empire. And it is my firm conviction that, in spite of all obstacles, the vicar of Jesus Christ will be put again in his own rightful place. But that day will not be until his adversaries will have crushed each other with mutual destruction.’ [See the Tablet (London), Jan. 24, 1874.]” According to this philosophy the hope of the restoration of the Pope’s temporal power rests upon the expectation that the nations opposed to this papal policy would be ground to pieces in “a war which will exceed the horrors of any of the wars of the first empire,” and that from this fearful ruin the professed vicar of Christ, the Prince of Peace, would reap great benefit, and would “be put again in his own rightful place.” That the Roman hierarchy confidently expect that whoever may lose in the present terrific struggle, the Papacy will gain, becomes more clear as the conflict goes on. We submit some evidence of this. In an editorial with the title “The Pope as Arbiter in the Present War” the Indiana Catholic (October 2) declared:— “There is no other power now on earth that nations can turn to in the awful war which is devastating Europe.” The Rome correspondent of the Western Watchman, in a letter dated October 8 and printed October 29, speaks with positiveness concerning the result of the war to the Papacy. We quote:— “That the prestige of the Papacy will be enormously enhanced by the European war is beyond doubt; nations will see there is but one man on earth who can be trusted in all trials, crises, and wars to be perfectly impartial. His training in diplomacy and his knowledge attained in foreign courts give at home a feeling of strength and security. This is welcome, particularly to those who recognize the need a pontiff has for keenness and determination when dealing with Italian and French anticlerical statesmen.” In an article on “Peace,” by Rev. John P. Durham, printed in the Marion (Ind.) Leader-Tribune of October 4, the same view is presented in these words:— “Looking out over the world, we can see but one great figure who may come forward and be ‘the peacemaker,’ the Pope. What other individual could arbitrate between Germany and Austria on the one side, and Great Britain, France, Russia, Belgium, and Japan on the other? — Though The Hague Conference, ruled by the materialistic spirit of the age, excluded him, the world must receive him as the arbitrator of peace.” History records many cases where the Papacy has been able to take advantage of the misfortunes of men and of nations for its own aggrandizement, and it is perfectly clear that it has not forgotten how to advance its interests in this way. From the beginning of this present war, we have been sure that Rome, following her old-time policy, would seek in some way to regain that power over the nations of Europe which, to her great grief, has waned so seriously in recent years. We suggest to our readers that they should not become so absorbed in the political and spectacular features of this war that they forget to watch the Papacy. The Sick Man of the East may be on his deathbed, but there is a man in the West who is very much alive, and is hoping to secure a new lease of power over the nations. Watch him.—The Protestant Magazine, December, 1914.