That Temporal Power

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Apr 16, 1901

That Temporal Power

Under the title of “That Temporal Power,” the Northwestern Christian Advocate gives utterance to the following significant words regarding the restoration of temporal power to the pope: “With unceasing vigilance the eye of the pope has been looking for the auspicious hour when national and international complications would be such as to indicate the approach of the time when it would be safe and politic to begin the agitation, and, after these years of waiting, the first step has been taken looking to the putting forth of a demand on this behalf in more positive terms than have as yet been employed. It was not an accident that the first note of the proposed agitation should seem to come from an American, and from one supposed to be in sympathy with the national administration. Archbishop Ireland is not a novice in diplomacy, nor have his efforts to catch the popular breezes in this country been without a purpose, any more than have his journeys through European countries and his lingerings about the Vatican been incidents of personal pleasure. His North American Review article on the restoration of temporal power to the pope, so soon after his return from abroad, shows unmistakably the bent of his mind and the topic of his consultations while hobnobbing with the pope and cardinals in Rome, with princes, rulers, and diplomats in Europe, and indicates the burden of his soul. It is that for which he thinks and works with untiring energy, knowing that he echoes the united sentiment of the hierarchy, and believing that other exciting interests will absorb the attention of Protestant peoples so as to permit this agitation to become formidable without arousing any very serious opposition. . . . He only asks for a little bit of temporal power—just enough to give him independence of the national government and to make him a little potentate! He does not ask the restoration of sovereignty over the Papal States—not yet! Archbishop Ireland has read the story of the ‘Camel’s Nose.’ He desires to have the principle established; then claims and pretexts for expansion can be made and multiplied at will.” Neither politicians nor astute diplomats can hope to cope with the papacy: it takes primitive Christianity to do that.