THE VATICAN DECREES

IN THEIR BEARING ON

CIVIL ALLEGIANCE.

INTRODUCTION.

MR. GLADSTONE, in his Expostulation with the Catholics of the British Empire on the Decrees of the Vatican Council, writes as follows:

'England is entitled to ask and to know in what way the obedience required by the Pope and the Council of the Vatican is to be reconciled with the integrity of Civil Allegiance.''

When I read these words, I at once recognized the right of the English people, speaking by its legitimate authorities, to know from me what I believe and what I teach; but in recognising this right I am compelled to decline to answer before any other tribunal, or to any other interrogator. If, therefore, I take the occasion of any such interrogation, I do not address myself to those who make it, but to the justice and to the good sense of the Christian people of this country.

The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance. By the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone. P. 43.

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Mr. Gladstone followed up this demand upon his Catholic fellow-countrymen by an elaborate argument to prove that it is impossible for Catholics, since the Vatican Council, to be loyal except at the cost of their fidelity to the Council, or faithful to the Council except at the cost of their loyalty to their country. I therefore considered it to be my duty to lose no time in making the subjoined declaration in all our principal journals.

SIR,-The gravity of the subject on which I address you, affecting, as it must, every Catholic in the British Empire, will, I hope, obtain from your courtesy the publication of this letter.

This morning I received a copy of a pamphlet, entitled "The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance." I find in it a direct appeal to myself, both for the office I hold and for the writings I have published. I gladly ac-. knowledge the duty that lies upon me for both those reasons. I am bound by the office I bear not to suffer a day to pass without repelling from the Catholics of this country the lightest imputation upon their loyalty; and, for my teaching, I am ready to show that the principles I have ever taught are beyond impeachment upon that score.

It is true, indeed, that in page 57 of the pamphlet Mr. Gladstone expresses his belief "that many of his Roman Catholic friends and fellow-countrymen are, to say the least of it, as good citizens as himself." But as the whole pamphlet is an elaborate argument to prove that the teaching of the Vatican Council renders it impossible for them to be so, I cannot accept this grateful acknowledgment, which implies that they are good citizens because they are at variance with the Catholic Church.

'I should be wanting in duty to the Catholics of this country and to myself if I did not give a prompt contradiction to this statement, and if I did not with equal prompt

ness affirm that the loyalty of our civil allegiance is, not in spite of the teaching of the Catholic Church, but because of it.

The sum of the argument in the pamphlet just published to the world is this:-That by the Vatican Decrees such a change has been made in the relations of Catholics to the civil power of States, that it is no longer possible for them to render the same undivided civil allegiance as it was possible for Catholics to render before the promulgation of those Decrees.

'In answer to this it is for the present sufficient to affirm

1. That the Vatican Decrees have in no jot or tittle changed either the obligations or the conditions of civil allegiance.

2. That the civil allegiance of Catholics is as undivided as that of all Christians, and of all men who recognise a Divine or natural moral law.

'3. That the civil allegiance of no man is unlimited; and therefore the civil allegiance of all men who believe in God, or are governed by conscience, is in that sense divided.

4. In this sense, and in no other, can it be said with truth that the civil allegiance of Catholics is divided. The civil allegiance of every Christian man in England is limited by conscience and the law of God; and the civil allegiance of Catholics is limited neither less nor more.

5. The public peace of the British Empire has been consolidated in the last half century by the elimination of religious conflicts and inequalities from our laws. The Empire of Germany might have been equally peaceful and stable if its statesmen had not been tempted in an evil hour to rake up the old fires of religious disunion. The hand of one man, more than any other, threw this torch of discord into the German Empire. The history of Germany will record the name of Dr. Ignatius von Döllinger as the author of this national evil. I lament, not only to read the name, but to trace the arguments of Dr, von Döllinger in the pam

phlet before me. May God preserve these kingdoms from the public and private calamities which are visibly impending over Germany. The author of the pamphlet, in his first line, assures us that his "purpose is not polemical but pacific." I am sorry that so good an intention should have so widely erred in the selection of the means.

'But my purpose is neither to criticise nor to controvert. My desire and my duty as an Englishman, as a Catholic, and as a pastor, is to claim for my flock and for myself a civil allegiance as pure, as true, and as loyal as is rendered by the distinguished author of the pamphlet, or by any subject of the British Empire.

'November 7, 1874.'

&c. &c.

Subsequently, in reply to questions proposed to me, I further wrote as follows:

To the Editor of The New York Herald.

'Dear Sir,—In answer to your question as to my statement about the Vatican Council, I reply as follows:

'I asserted that the Vatican Decrees have not changed by a jot or a tittle the obligations or conditions of the civil obedience of Catholics towards the Civil Powers. The whole of Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet hangs on the contrary assertion; and falls with it. In proof of my assertion I add

1. That the Infallibility of the Pope was a doctrine of Divine Faith before the Vatican Council was held. In the second and third parts of a book called "Petri Privilegium (Longmans, 1871), I have given more than sufficient evidence of this assertion.

2. That the Vatican Council simply declared an old truth, and made no new dogma.

3. That the position of Catholics therefore in respect to civil allegiance, since the Vatican Council, is precisely what it was before it.

'4. That the Civil Powers of the Christian world have hitherto stood in peaceful relation with an Infallible Church, and that relation has been often recognised and declared by the Church in its Councils. The Vatican Council had, therefore, no new matter to treat in this point.

5. That the Vatican Council has made no decree whatever on the subject of the Civil Powers, nor on ciyil allegiance.

This subject was not so much as proposed. The civil obedience of Catholics rests upon the natural law, and the revealed law of God. Society is founded in nature, and subjects are bound in all things lawful to obey their rulers. Society, when Christian, has higher sanctions, and subjects are bound to obey rules for conscience sake, and because the Powers that be are ordained of God. Of all these things the Vatican Decrees can have changed nothing because they have touched nothing. Mr. Gladstone's whole argument hangs upon an erroneous assertion, into which I can only suppose he has been misled by his misplaced trust in Dr. Döllinger and some of his friends.

'On public and private grounds I deeply lament this act of imprudence, and but for my belief in Mr. Gladstone's sincerity I should say this act of injustice. I lament it, as an act out of all harmony and propo'tion to a great statesman's life, and as the first event that has overcast a friendship of forty-five years. His whole public life has hitherto consolidated the Christian and civil peace of these kingdoms. This act, unless the good providence of God and the good sense of Englishmen avert it, may wreck more than the work of Mr. Gladstone's public career, and at the end of a long life may tarnish a great name

'Westminster, Nov. 10, 1874.'

&c. &c.

Having thus directly contradicted the main error of Mr. Gladstone's argument, I thought it my duty