p. 122 | Present Aspects of the Papacy

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

Present Aspects of the Papacy.

By John Norton Loughborough

Those who have carefully read our former articles must see conclusive evidence that the church of Rome, with its blasphemous assumptions of the attributes and the powers of the Deity, with its enforcements of its tenets by civil law, is the “little horn,” Dan. 7, “the man of sin,” 2 Thess. 2, and the leopard beast of Rev. 13.

As we have shown, in A. D. 538, the papacy attained to civil power in the manner predicted in the prophecy. The duration of its civil power was to be “time, times, and a half;” Dan. 7; “a thousand two hundred and three score days;” Rev. 12; “forty and two months.” Rev. 13. All these expressions relate to one and the same period; the 1260 years, which terminated in 1798. At that time a deadly wound was given to the papacy, when its dominion was taken away. This wound was in a measure healed in A. D. 1800, when, under the sanction of Napoleon Bonaparte, a new pope, Pius VII., was elected to rule in Italy. Since that time the civil power of the papacy has been consumed and destroyed to its end. Dan. 7:26. Italy, striving for its independence, has taken the city of Rome—the “seat” of the dragon which was given to the papacy, Rev. 13—as its own capital. For a time Victor Emanuel has tolerated the presence of the pope in the Vatican, in Rome, and has permitted the ambassadors of other nations to hold court with him there, but now he intimates

that this must cease; thus, virtually saying that the pope must leave.

As far as civil power is concerned, Rome is about dead with consumption, but as a church it has access to more territory than when Pius IX. commenced his reign. Says Macaulay of England, “The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the new world have more than compensated for what she has lost in the old.”

As a church, Rome will exist till Christ comes, although stripped of its civil power. It is to be “cast alive into the lake of fire;” Rev. 19; and be “destroyed by the brightness of Christ’s coming.” 2 Thess. 2. Daniel’s prophecy follows this power down to the point where the pope loses his dominion, and the Judgment is about to set. It was to speak “great words,” then, that were an astonishment to Daniel. This is as true, when we look at the facts, as the other points we have noticed.

We will take a look at the pope as he is, stripped of his civil power, yet still claiming to be the “Viceregent of the Deity.” “He wears on one of his fingers,” as successor of St. Peter, says Gavazzi, “what is called the fisherman’s ring, set with pearls, rubies, and diamonds, worth $8,000.” Strange, if that was Peter’s ring, and a sample of his condition, that his Lord had him resort to the expedient of angling for a fish which chanced to pick up a piece of money in its mouth, in order that they might pay tribute to Caesar.

Look at this humble (!) man, who has upon him the “three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.” He receives in his poverty, from Ireland alone, one penny a week for every house in Ireland, according to a stipulation made between Henry Plantagenet—Henry II. of England—and Pope Adrian IV. By this contract, Henry obtained the title of “Lord of Ireland,” by paying the penny tribute to St. Peter, called “Peter’s pence.” From 1849 to 1873, the gathering to the pope’s “meager purse of poverty (!) from this source alone, was $34,000,000 or $1,360,000 per year.

Again, let us look at him with his vow of chastity upon him, and see with what he is daily surrounded, and whether these surroundings are calculated to cultivate in him purity of thought. On this point, we will quote from Gavazzi’s description of the Vatican gardens which he calls the “pope’s retreat for leisure hours”:—

“Come down with me into these smiling, these most beautiful, gardens, in which you breathe such an air of voluptuousness that you begin to be in doubt whether you are not in those of Paphos or Cytherea. And to increase your doubts, at the end of the first alley behold a statue of Venus, as fine, as lascivious, certainly to please the tastes of the Vicar of Christ, to purify the heart of the Viceregent of God, to inspire the thoughts of the head of the church. That Venus is not without significance! Proceed a little further, and in the middle of an orange grove, near the romantic murmur of a hundred fountains, you meet a sort of summer-house for papal retreat. Let us enter this pavilion, which surpasses in richness the more modern form of its brother at the Quirinal, although used for the same secret purposes. See how elegantly it is adorned for female taste! What fragrance we breathe in that priestly recess, surrounded on every side with luxuriant flowers! We go to the apartments. Ah! you start on a sudden; your modesty is shocked! Everywhere bas-reliefs, statuettes, groups of Venuses and cupids, and pagan lovers of the most lascivious and bewitching forms, are the first objects that strike your eyes. This must surely be one of the ancient temples of Venus. No, no; undeceive yourself. The ancients were more chaste, more modest. This pavilion is the place where the so-called God on earth spends his leisure hours with the beauties of Rome, and with the imported belles from all the Catholic world. Into this sanctuary no man is admitted! When a man is a god, he must have also his mysteries! Remember that.”

But I was about to speak of the “great words” of this papal power. It has been claimed for the popes, all the way along, that they were infallible, that “the church can never err, can never teach officially, that is, in her capacity as the church of Christ on earth, any false doctrine or immorality, otherwise she would have done something wrong.” “The church cannot officially teach anything false, and in all her teachings and sanctions must be proper.” This they have taught of the church as a whole, but it remained for the Ecumenical Council of 1869 to declare a feeble old man, Pius IX., in his dotage, INFALLIBLE.

The reported statement of the pope, made before that Council is wonderful. I quote from the San Francisco Weekly Bulletin, of Dec. 18, 1869, as follows:—

“The telegraph reports the pope as saying in his Allocution to the Ecumenical Council, that ‘the church is stronger than Heaven itself,’ and therefore he deems it adequate to overcome all the schemes of impiety. Perhaps his holiness argues that if Heaven were strong enough it would overcome them; but it remains to be seen whether his church can give better proof of strength; for we read of an antipapal Council at Naples, sitting under the very eye of the Papal See, composed, too, of five hundred Italian delegates, together with twenty or more from other lands.

The French government, moreover, it is said, intimates that if the pope insists upon his infallibility, France will consider herself released from the concordats and the obligations therein assumed. Thus the opening of the Council is not promising, and its assumption of superheavenly puissance savors more of the ridiculous than the sublime.”

The Council took its vote on infallibility. The time was fixed for its decision to be announced. When the speaker arose to read the decision, it is said, there was a terrific thunder storm over Rome, and such a deafening roar of thunder that the words of the reader could not be heard. One enthusiastic bishop jumped up and cried, “This is a second Mount Sinai.” To a candid, thinking world it looked more like God thundering against them for their blasphemy—a foreshadowing of what was so soon to be their fate, and the end of their confident boasting.

In a few weeks’ time the French withdrew their army from Rome, and Victor Emanuel took possession of the city as the capital of his kingdom, and then a different tone came to the world in mourning strains, from the “infallible pope,” “stronger than Heaven itself.” Even before Victor Emanuel had entered Rome, Pius IX. felt the force of the blow that was coming, and said, in an address to the Sacred College, June 28, 1871:—

“We are, my very dear brothers, in the hands of a divine Providence. We have nothing to expect from human aid; for man has abandoned us. Why should we dissemble? It is better that I should tell you that the kings and governments, forgetting their promises, leave us to our fate. They have addressed us in fine phrases. They sent us the warmest congratulations on the day of our jubilee; but they are far from taking steps in support of their messages. We can hope for no help from any quarter. King Victor Emanuel will be here in a few days, and will be attended by the ministers of the Catholic States. We have done all that was in our power, but our efforts have failed. All is lost. You will tell me, perhaps, that we have still hope in France; but France can do nothing. She is going through a frightful crisis, which may be succeeded by others yet more dreadful. I repeat: All is lost, and only a miracle can save us. Turn, then, to the Almighty, and seek his interposition.”

Still later, we read in the papal allocution of the year 1873, as published in the New York Catholic Review, of Jan. 13, 1873, “Now there has been proposed in the Legislative Chamber, as they call it, a law not wholly dissimilar from that which, notwithstanding our protests and solemn condemnation, has already been put into execution in other parts of Italy, which must extinguish, even here in the centre of the Catholic faith, the religious congregations, and confiscate the goods of the church and offer them at public auction.”

In this same allocution, among other woes, the pope refers to Germany, and says the prelates and priesthood there “refuse to prefer the laws and the will of the civil empire to the holy laws of God and the church.” He says the same course is pursued in some of the Cantons of the Swiss republic, and for this reason “the government is persecuting the church.” In conclusion, the pope says of the situation, “The Lord has truly smitten us, venerable brothers, with his sword, hard, great, and strong; but let us endeavor to appease the divine anger in this acceptable time of the advent of our Lord.”

Feeling himself thus forsaken by man, smitten of God, the pope is casting about for help. Before this calamity came upon him, in the year 1866, as the result of secret workings in England to draw the Church of England back to Romanism, nearly two hundred of the clergy of the Church of England united in a letter to the Cardinal Patrizi, at Rome, stating their earnest desire for the restoration of communion between the Church of England and the Church of Rome. The cardinal replied, “Unconditional surrender is the only terms” the pope can think of.

The pope now sees that this work of “going back to the ceremonies of the Romish church” has gained ground in England. A call was recently made for a great council to be held in London to consider the subject, and, withal, to constitute the pope the arbiter of the nations, to settle all disputes that may arise between them, thus avoiding the necessity of war.

I presume the proposition seems like irony or insult to those nations who have for ages felt the iron heel of papal oppression, and are just now making earnest efforts to rid themselves entirely of papal dictation in civil affairs.

In close connection with the issue of this call for the council at London there appeared a pamphlet issued by Gladstone of England, in which he claims that the acceptance of the doctrines of the Ecumenical Council conflicts with the idea of a man’s being a genuine citizen of England, as he cannot be loyal and endorse the doctrines of the church there set forth. Archbishop Manning, head of the Catholic church in England, seems to be much agitated over this document. He denies that accepting the doctrines of the Vatican Council has any effect upon a man’s citizenship in England or any other country. He seems offended that Gladstone did not wait and see whether this was so or not. He hardly thought it was any concern now of Gladstone any way whether accepting the Vatican doctrines affected a man’s citizenship or not.

We are inclined to think that Gladstone’s knowledge of facts in the past was sufficient to arouse the fears expressed in the said pamphlet. He well understood that, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Bishop Bonner was called upon to take the oath of a subject of her kingdom. He refused to do so, and for this reason was by her deprived of his bishopric.

He was doubtless aware of the speech of Father Nugent at Liverpool, England, on St. Patrick’s day 1873, in which he said, “The labor of my life in this town, is that you should try to cultivate a national spirit, grounded upon our holy religion; for I believe in no nationality that is not based upon religion.”

He undoubtedly remembered also what Pius VII. wrote to his nuncio at Vienna in 1804: “The principle of the canon law is this; that the subjects of a heretic prince are liberated from all duty of fealty and of homage toward him.” Fresh in his mind must have been the statement of Lord Dunbigh, at a meeting at St. James’ Hall, London, in December 1867, where he said, “I am a Catholic first, and an Englishman afterwards.”

We have shown in former articles, that the Church of Rome claims a right to rule all nations; and to rule them, not only in harmony with the tenets of their church, but, when possible, without endangering the safety of their church, to submit to no other ruling. It is not in England alone that they are seeking for power, but in America also. Their rapid increase of power here as a church makes them feel their strength. At times they give a hint of what they are going to do when they get the power. As quoted already from the Shepherd of the Valley, St. Louis, they say, “If we once get an immense numerical majority in America, as we certainly will, religious freedom is at an end.”

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.

(Concluded next Week.)