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A Great Republic

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 1, 1912

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 89, No. 5.

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A Great Republic

By C. M. S.

In the New York Evening Journal of January 18, appeared a remarkable editorial in double-column style, and large bold-faced type. The article deals with the return of the newly appointed cardinals of the Catholic Church, and eulogizes the institution whose interests they are to serve. In this eulogy of the cardinals and the church occurs the following remarkable language:—
To understand the long life, the power that has lasted through centuries, the purpose that continues unchanged as men come and go within the great Catholic Church, it is necessary to realize that that church was the first great republic of our era, and that it is a great republic now. . . . Because of the weakness due to accident of birth, dynasties and kingdoms and empires changed, melted, and disappeared. But the Catholic Church went forward through the centuries, steadily, gaining in power, because from the first the government of the church was a republican form of government.
. . . The cardinals, a body of learned and powerful men, themselves selected because of special ability and regardless of birth or rank, elect in their turn the Pope to rule the church — just as our electoral college was established by the founders of this government to elect a president. . . . Many a royal and imperial accident of birth throughout the centuries knew what it was to bow his head, to the chosen ruler of the church, chosen because of ability, knowledge, devotion, and chosen on the basis of true republican government. . . . Cardinal Farley, welcomed with respect and pleasure by the entire citizenship, represents in his person the republican system of government that has done so much to make the Catholic Church the greatest useful power in the world. . . . It is well for those that read about him in this country to know that the church which has made him a cardinal has been for many centuries as truly republican in government as the system that puts a president in the White House.
For years the National Reform party has been claiming that the theocracy of ancient Israel was a republican form of government, and on the basis of this claim they have been trying to turn the government of the United States into a theocracy so that it might be more truly republican; but this claim of a Catholic editor that the Roman Catholic Church is the truest form of republican government, is one of the most astonishing statements that has ever appeared in an American journal.
Not only is the Catholic Church not a republican form of government, but it is utterly opposed to the entire republican idea of government. The representative idea of government is a government of the people, for the people, and by the people, the people themselves ruling themselves and appointing their own executive. There is nothing of this sort in the Catholic Church. The Pope of Rome is elected by the college of cardinals, and the college of cardinals is not elected by the people, but is appointed by the Pope. It is thus the very opposite of a republican form of government. It is a government of the people by a class without any respect to the wishes of the people. The cardinals elect the Pope and the Pope appoints the cardinals; the cardinals in turn elect another Pope and the Pope appoints more cardinals. The people have absolutely nothing to say about who shall be their ruler in this system of government.
The fundamental theory upon which republicanism is based is that the authority of government is derived from the people. But the fundamental theory of the Papacy is the very antithesis of this. Said the present Pope, in an encyclical issued in August, 1910, condemning that democratic French organization called the Sillon:—
The Sillon attributes primordially all public authority to the people from whom it is derived by the governments, but in such a manner that the origin of authority continues to reside in the people. This doctrine is contrary to the traditional doctrine of the church, and has been condemned formally by Leo XIII.
It is impossible to state more clearly than these two latest popes have stated it, that the Papacy is unalterably opposed to republicanism in principle and condemns it both in principle and practise.
More than this, the Pope is not an executive in the sense that the president of a republican form of government is an executive. The president of a republic is elected by the people to carry into effect laws which the people make. The Pope is elected by a group of men appointed by himself or previous popes, not for the purpose of carrying out laws made by the people, but to make laws for the people to carry out, whether they desire to do so or not. The idea of rule by the people and responsibility of the Pope to the people never has been sanctioned by the Catholic hierarchy and never will be. The papal government is a government for the purpose of ruling the people as it will and not as they will, — a government wholly irresponsible so far as the people are concerned.
When the people elect a president, that president is held amenable to the laws of the realm, and if he goes contrary to those laws, he is impeached and turned out of office; but the Pope makes the laws and compels the people to obey, and is accredited with infallibility. There is no impeachment of a pope, and no rule by which he can be governed by any other human being in the world. That system in place of being a republican form of government is the farthest possible remove from anything of that sort. Next to a republic comes the limited monarchy, the monarch ruling under a constitution, but the Papacy is not even a limited monarchy. It is an absolute monarchy in both temporalities and spiritualities without any constitution to govern it, or any rules, laws, or regulations by which the chief can be impeached in case his conduct is questioned.
The president of a republic is a ruler in a liberal sense of the word. He is the servant of the people. The Pope of Rome is not a servant of the people in any sense of the word. He is ruler of all who will permit him to hold sovereignty over them.
In a republican form of government there is a supreme court whose business it is to interpret the law, and its decision is final; it can not be reversed even by the chief executive himself. There is nothing of the kind in the papal system. The head of that system is the ruler, the legislator, the supreme court. He can not be impeached, his decisions can not be reversed, and no binding law can be made for his people that he does not make.
Between the hierarchy of Rome and a republican form of government there is absolutely no point of resemblance. Whatever the one does the other is in the very nature of the case estopped from doing. The papal system is not even a poor counterfeit of the republican form of government. It is its complete antithesis. C. M. S.