Church and State by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 11, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 47.

"Church and State."

By Editor

UNDER the above heading the Catholic Standard gives a six-column report of a sermon by Bishop Ireland, of St. Paul, Minn., before the Plenary Council at Baltimore. The subject of the sermon was "The Church the Support of Just Government," and the text was Rom. 13:1. The speaker professed the highest love for this country, and claimed that the Roman Catholic Church is now, and always has been, the champion of liberty; that slavery, tyranny, and despotism have always vanished before it. The two short extracts from the sermon, which follow, indicate the kind of liberty that the Catholic Church fosters:—

"Among the brightest pages of history, and the most honorable for the human race, are those which tell the battles of the church in defense of liberty. She fought for the possession by herself of liberty. Never did the Catholic Church bend the neck under the yoke of temporal prince. She held directly from Christ, and she permitted no sovereign of earth to rule over her."

"The church fought the battles of civil liberty. During the Middle Ages she was recognized as the arbiter of nations; her popes judged and deposed sovereigns."

These two extracts show the spirit that has always actuated the papacy. It is the same spirit that would be manifested by any church having authority over the civil government. Once let the "National Reform Party" gain its ends, and Protestantism will exhibit the same spirit. And Rom. 13:1 will be quoted in justification of it, too. "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God." What powers, it will be argued, can be higher than those commissioned to bear Heaven's own message—the gospel? People do well to deprecate the rapid spread of Romanism in America, but should not be oblivious of the rapid strides of a movement which is destined to subvert true liberty as surely as ever the Catholic Church did.