The Pope of Rome | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 7, 1871

The Pope of Rome.

A. D. SEPTEMBER 13, 1870. The Italian troops of Victor Emanuel, king of Italy, are entering Rome, to occupy the papal territory. We might say, Now the papal tyranny ends; but we dare not. What the end will be I know not. It is not 1116 years since Pope Stephen wrote to Pepin, king of Paris, sending him a letter, a forged letter, purporting to be from St. Peter, ordering him under pains and penalties to render certain assistance to the See of Rome. Up to this time, the Pope, as any other ecclesiastic, was subject to the ruling monarch. A. D. 755, Pepin, on receiving this order from Heaven, and the rude barbarian supposed it to be from Heaven, moved his savage troops immediately upon the Italian States. There was but a feeble resistance, and here I will repeat the words of the Catholic writers:—

“In one short campaign, of the year 755, the valiant monarch of France wrested from the Lombards, the exarchate of Ravenna, with the greater part of its dependencies, Bologna, Ferrara, and the Pentapolis, which stretches along the Adriatic coast, from Rimini to Ancona, and in its midland directions as far as the Appennines. All this extent of territory, with two and twenty towns (cities), now by right of conquest belonged to King Pepin, either to be retained or to be disposed of by him, as in his wisdom he should judge fit. By a solemn grant, he bestowed the whole upon Pope Stephen III.” “During the first seven centuries the See of Rome, like other Episcopal Sees, had no ‘temporal possessions.’ By a new revolution of human events, the temporal power may be torn away, the spiritual power will remain unimpaired to the end of time.” (Reeves’ Cath. Ch. Hist. pp. 294, 295.) These “events” seem to have arrived.

On Friday, Sept. 2, Napoleon, with McMahon and 120,000 soldiers, was surrounded in Sedan (in the north east of France) by the Prussians, and captured. When Pepin the French king bestowed the temporal possessions upon Pope Stephen III., A. D. 755, the Prussians were unconverted. The Prussians were, by a bloody war waged by the knights of the Teutonic order, “compelled” to be Catholics, in A. D. 1230, by the “execrable ruffians,” says Fortin iii. 311. Now they are largely Protestants (sixty per cent), and have broken the vertebra of popery.

Saturday night, Sept. 3, a mob tore down the throne in the Tuileries. Sept. 4, a republic was officially proclaimed. Sept. 15, the Prussians are massing their army around Paris. The great danger is, that Prussia will now face about, and fight for Napoleon instead of fighting against him; and assist the tyrant in crushing the people. Austria and Russia, it is said, have formed an alliance; but this may mean no evil. God grant that it may mean the annihilation of the Turkish power in Europe. In any event, we hope that the pope will not be able to assume, in future, any temporal power in Italy, but that God may overrule coming events to his own glory.

Sept. 20, 1870. The Italians have surrounded Rome.

Sept. 21. The pope urges resistance.

Sept. 22. Some ten are killed, fifty wounded.

Sept. 23. Rome is taken, and the pope dethroned.

Sept. 24. All political prisoners are liberated. Perino had been in prison 17 years.—Christian Pulpit.