“THE CIVIL AUTHORITY OF THE POPE.”
THE following are the propositions concerning the authority of the pope, which we mentioned in last week’s REVIEW. The Osservatore Romano—Roman Observer—is the official organ of the Vatican. The subject discussed is “The Civil Authority of the Pope.” For this translation of it we are indebted to the Literary Digest of Jan. 13, 1900. It is especially opportune, as in this very number of the REVIEW this lesson in the Missionary Reading Circle is on that part of Daniel 7 which relates to the papacy. The propositions run as follows:— “1. The church is a completed organization established as such by God upon earth, the invisible head of which is Christ, the visible head of which is the pope in Rome. “2. The church is a religious organization with the purpose of serving mankind in securing eternal salvation. “3. But the church is at the same time the kingdom of God here upon earth, and therefore can not be of this world, as it does not originate in the world. “4. Since the kingdom of Jesus Christ comes from heaven, it has also been created for heaven, and has there both its origin and its consummation. “5. The divine founder, Jesus Christ, is intrusted with both the highest priesthood and the highest kingly power; he rules and governs the religio-spiritual body that constitutes his kingdom and is the kingdom of God. “6. In the church, therefore, the idea of a kingly power and of a priesthood is intimately and indissolubly connected; and as the church upon earth has been established upon Peter, and Peter is upon earth its head in the place of Jesus Christ, its heavenly Head, thus, too, everything that is in Christ and in the church can also be claimed for Peter. “7. Accordingly, like Christ, Peter is both a priest and a king. “8. The priesthood embraces the authority of the magistracy; the royal power includes the power to govern, as the church is a real and perfect society. “9. Every society of necessity has a fundamental law and a permanent government. Without the former, there would be no moral unity; and without the latter, no social unity. “10. The pope is accordingly the master [maestro] of the law, and the head of the government of the society and the kingdom of Jesus Christ, being invested and delegated for this purpose by Christ himself. “11. Accordingly, both as a teacher and as the head of a government, the pope has no one over him except Jesus Christ. “12. The pope can accordingly be dependent upon no one except the power and the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. “13. Then the pope has no equal upon earth nor any superior (in tutto e da per tutto). “14. It is a logical conclusion that the pope of a necessity in every particular in which the spiritual association of Jesus Christ comes into relation to human society must be the sovereign. “15. The pope is accordingly the sovereign in the church and also in the world, in the divine and in human society, over against men and nations, over against princes and potentates. “16. As the church is universal, it includes each and every other society; as it is the kingdom of God, it covers also all other kingdoms; as the pope is the sovereign of the church, that is, of the kingdom and the society of Jesus Christ, he is also the sovereign in every other society and in every other kingdom. “17. The sovereignty of Christ, which is the same as the sovereignty of God, is the basis of every other authority; every other authority is founded upon this, whether it be human or divine, civil or political, private or public, authority. “18. Therefore the religious and the spiritual sovereignty of the pope includes also the civil and the political authority throughout the world.” Then follow certain propositions in which this position is strengthened. Proposition 22 reads: “The truth of this claim is vindicated (a) by faith; (b) by reasons; (c) by history.” We quote as follows from this argument:— “1. No word of the Bible contradicts the doctrine of the authority of the pope in all civil affairs. “2. Jesus Christ has established his church as a free institution, and has given it the right to make use of all human means for its purposes in order to protect this freedom. “3. The civil authority of the pope is helpful to the church, and harms nobody. “4. The pope can not be the subject of anybody; hence must be an absolute sovereign. “5. The pope was never the subject of any earthly prince or power. “6. The pope has at all times been sovereign, even in the period of the catacombs, when he had independent territory and an organized society, which he controlled as a real and effective sovereign. “7. In the times when the Christians lived in the catacombs, marriages were celebrated, baptisms administered, and all the affairs of this world were administered under the auspices and direction of the bishop of Rome. “8. As soon as the pope emerged from the catacombs, the emperor left Rome. Thus the history shows that the pope has never been the subject of any human authority.” This weighty and significant discussion closes with the following “Conclusions:”— “1. Jesus Christ has made his church free. “2. He has thereby made it sovereign. “3. The church, and accordingly the pope also, must be free and sovereign. “4. The pope is free, and must be free, not only in religious and spiritual, but also in temporal and material, respects. “5. The pope can accordingly, neither in spiritual nor in temporal respects, be a subject; he must be a sovereign and a ruler. “6. When, therefore, the pope declares that he must be absolutely free and a ruler in temporal respect also, it is contrary to the faith, contrary to reason, and contrary to history to maintain that this is not correct.” The Italian government confiscated the whole edition of the Osservatore Romano containing these “new definitions of papal authority.” In 1889 it was obliged to do the same thing. “Rome never changes;” and Lord Macaulay has well said that the knowledge of any past event “is valuable only as it leads us to form just calculations with respect to the future.”