p. 238 | The Pope's Troubles

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 10, 1868

The Pope's Troubles.

Is the Pope upon the point of abandoning his field—perhaps surrendering—that he has lately called an Œcumenical Council of all his bishops and archbishops, and in an apostolic letter addressed to all non-Romish religious organizations urges them to return to the bosom of the church? Does the military maxim which has been so often proved in conflicts of arms, hold good in religious revolutions also? Is there confusion, and not wisdom, in a multitude of religious, as well as military, counselors? Does this calling of a council, and the sudden change of the former curses and excommunications to entreaties and arguments, indicate that the Pope is about to abandon the field, and give up the fight?

Certainly the Pope has lately met with many sad reverses, and is no longer in condition to make a vigorous defense of his church against the assaults continually urged against both its spiritual and temporal authority. The restrictions placed on the latter by the success of the Germans and Italians have not been more exasperating or more significant than the curtailment of the former by the advancement made in general intelligence by the various nationalities of Europe.

The present year has witnessed a most striking indication of the changed power of the church of Rome. The revocation of the Concordat with Austria and the revolution in Spain are the hardest blows the Papacy has suffered during the century. If there were any two countries in which the Pope and his adherents and the world in general supposed that the Roman church retained its power, they were Austria and Spain. But

it appears that even in these countries the church has little power over the consciences of the people, and inspires no terror in the minds of the ruling monarchs.

A few months ago the newly-elected Parliament of Austria passed laws giving the Protestants the right to control their own schools and to teach their children whatever form of religion they pleased; allowing children of Catholic mothers by Protestant fathers to be reared in the Protestant faith, granting to Protestants the privilege of marrying according to their own forms and ceremonies without having their children pronounced illegitimate and debarred from all legal benefits, and finally permitting non-Catholic Christians to be enclosed in unblessed coffins and interred in unsanctified grounds without being eternally condemned in consequence.

The Pope solemnly protested against this dangerous innovation, and called upon the Emperor and the faithful to hold fast to the Concordat, which had, from time immemorial, given the education, and salvation, and perdition, of all souls to the church. But the newly-selected, Imperial Council approved what the new Parliament, fresh from the people, had enacted, and the bold and sturdy Prime Minister, Von Beust, said to the Emperor, “sign!” And Francis Joseph signed, and in reply to the Pope’s protest, shrugged his shoulders and said, “I had to sign or abdicate, and I did not choose to abdicate.” The sturdy Beust also replied to the Pope’s letter, and briefly, but plainly, told Pius IX that he was meddling in affairs that did not concern him. Meantime, just across the Austrian border, in the city of Worms, another reply to the protest of the Pope had been prepared; and on the very day of the publication of his complaint the Protestants of all Germany, headed by their king, dedicated a magnificent monument to Martin Luther on the spot where just three hundred and fifty-seven years before, he had defied Pope and priesthood, and set in motion the vast and increasing Protestant reformation.

The present revolution in Spain seems to indicate that the respect for Pope, and church, and priesthood, is not the blind spirit of reverence which Buckle thought “the capital and essential vice of the Spanish people.” It may have been, as the historian of civilization declared, “their sole national vice,” but it has not, as he feared, quite yet “sufficed to ruin them.” Like the people of many other nations the Spaniards have suffered intellectually from priestly influence; but they have not, as the late revolution has shown, been so broken in spirit as to accept without murmur an unworthy and ignominious submission. No more significant sign of the Spanish virtue, or more threatening to the Roman supremacy, has yet appeared than the banners carried in the procession at Madrid on October 3, at the reception of the revolutionist leaders, inscribed “Religious Liberty” and “Free Education.” Queen Isabella and her whole race in Spain and France have ever been faithful children of Rome. She has frequently protested her spiritual allegiance to the Pope, and often offered to send troops to the defense of Rome when she could hardly have mustered a loyal squad to defend her own person. Her vehement protestations and offers of aid were made, to propitiate France and the rest of Catholic Europe. She could send no troops to the Pope for the reason that the Spaniards refuse to serve in the Papal army. That little squad of ten thousand men is almost wholly composed of Swiss, Austrians, and Frenchmen. There is one Italian battalion, but no German nor Spanish organization of any character.

The Pope's firmest foothold seems to be in South America; and should the cry of “united Italy” be once more inspired by the Republican movement in Spain, the Holy Father may yet turn longingly to the scene of his early labors as a Dominican friar in Brazil. But, alas! one of the most vigorous of the allies of Brazil has just chosen a former schoolmaster and editor to be its President. And what has the Pope to hope from a continent of republics, schoolmasters, and editors?—Harper’s Weekly.