p. 21 | Cornered at Last! by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 15, 1875

Cornered at Last!

By Editor

We warned our readers that Catholic prelates are astute logicians, and exceedingly skillful in evasion. Their dexterity in stating a proposition which seems to be innocent, and yet contains all that they claim, has been illustrated in Church History for ages. When Mr. Gladstone’s pamphlet appeared, English Catholic prelates denied that there was any occasion for it; the loyalty of Catholics, even with the Syllabus, they claimed to be unquestionable. But the Pall Mall Gazette pushed the argument to this point: Suppose, it said, that France should go to war with Italy for the restoration of the temporal power and that England should side with Italy, and send a fleet to Civita Vecchia, what would be the duty of English sailors? Should they obey the Queen, who commands them to fight, or the Pope directing them not to fight? The Tablet, Archbishop Manning’s organ, answers, They are bound to obey the Pope. This is an admission of Mr. Gladstone’s thesis—that Catholic loyalty to the Crown is controlled by a paramount allegiance to a foreign sovereign—the Pope.

It may be said that this is not at present a practical question; but it may become a practical question at any moment. Abstract principles of conduct in time will assume concrete forms. The principles now professed by the Church must, when applied, provoke collision with every government in the world. Suppose, for instance, Catholic taxpayers should be directed by their ecclesiastical superiors to resist the collection in the United States of the school tax; the question whom to obey would become very practical. Some resistance to the collection of this tax has already been made in the Dominion of Canada, though thus far it is confined to the priesthood.—The Methodist.