A DANGER TO THE REPUBLIC.
By Converted Catholic
THE compulsory submission of Archbishop Corrigan to the authority of Monsignor Satolli, the papal delegate, is the most striking manifestation of the power of the Roman Church in this country that has yet appeared. The pope of Rome is lord and master of all who believe in him as the vicar of Christ, and Satolli is the pope's alter ego in the United States—lord and master of every Roman Catholic in our great republic. Until he forced Archbishop Corrigan to cry for pardon and mercy, people were at liberty to question the extent of Satolli's power. Now all must admit that his authority in the United States is supreme. Nothing like this manifestation of the Roman power has ever before been witnessed in this country. To find a parallel we must go to Europe and to the middle ages, when emperors as well as bishops bowed beneath the yoke of the popes. History is full of instances where the supreme rule of the popes was manifested from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries. The Emperor Henry IV. at Canossa, kneeling before Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII., and in penitential garb craving absolution and mercy, is only one of many striking pictures illustrating this formidable power. The right to despose kings and other rulers, and release their subjects from all allegiance, has not only been claimed by the popes and embodied in the canon law of the Roman Church, but it has been exercised many times, and the civil power had to yield to the authority of the pontiff. The canon law of the church is as binding to-day as it ever has been, and the execution of its decrees is suspended only in cases where through adverse circumstances it cannot be carried out. If the pope of Rome should issue a decree releasing his subjects—all the Roman Catholics—in this country from their allegiance to the republic, he could enforce it by excommunication and interdict, and compel them at the peril of eternal damnation to execute his orders. That is the canon law and theology of the Roman Catholic Church. Such an order, however, will not be issued until the Romans are so entrenched in power that they will seem to be the defenders of the liberties of the country. The work will be done in secret when Americans are unprepared.