CHAPTER I. MEANING AND EFFECT OF THE VATICAN DECREES. I. IN setting out to prove my first propositionnamely, that the Vatican Decrees have in no jot or tittle changed either the obligations or the conditions of Civil Allegiance'-I find myself undertaking to prove a negative. The onus of proving that the Vatican Decrees have made a change in our civil allegiance rests upon those who affirm it. Till they offer proof we might remain silent. It would be enough for us to answer that the Vatican Council in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church has simply affirmed the revealed doctrine of the Spiritual Primacy, and of the Infallibility of the Visible Head of the Christian. Church; that the relations of this Primacy to the Civil Powers are in no way treated; and that the civil obedience of subjects is left precisely as and where it was before the Vatican Council was convened. (1) However, I will first examine what proofs have been offered to show that the Vatican Council has made the alleged change; and I will then give positive evidence to show what the Vatican Council has done. From these things it will be seen that it has neither changed, nor added to, nor taken away anything from the doctrine and discipline of the Church, but has only defined what has been believed and practised from the beginning. 17 The arguments to prove a change are two. First. Mr. Gladstone has argued from the third chapter of the Constitution on the Roman Pontiff, that his powers have received a great extension. Mr. Gladstone, so far as I am aware, is the first and only person who has ever ventured on this statement. His argument is as follows: He dwells with no little amplification upon the 'introduction of the remarkable phrase,' 'ad disciplinam et regimen Ecclesiæ,' into the third chapter; that is, 'non solum in rebus quæ ad fidem et mores pertinent, sed etiam in iis quæ ad disciplinam et regimen Ecclesiæ per totum orbem diffusæ pertinent.' He says, 'Absolute obedience, it is boldly declared, is due to the Pope, at the peril of salvation, not only in faith and in morals, but in all things which concern the discipline and government of the Church' (p. 41). Submission in faith and morals is 'abject' enough, but ‘in discipline and government' too is intolerable. 'Why did the astute contrivers of this tangled scheme, &c. (p. 39). 'The work is now truly complete' (p. 40). This he calls the new version of the principles of the Papal Church.' When I read this, I asked, 'Is it possible that Mr. Gladstone should think this to be anything new? What does he conceive the Primacy of Rome to mean? With what eyes has he read history? Can he have read the tradition of the Catholic Church? As one of the astute contrivers,' I will answer that these words were introduced because the Pontiffs and Councils of the Church have always so used them. They may be 'remarkable' and 'new' to Mr. Gladstone, but they are old as the Catholic Church. I give the first proofs which come to hand. Nicholas I., in the year 863, in a Council at Rome, enacted: Si quis dogmata, mandata, interdicta, sanctiones vel decreta pro Catholica fide, pro ecclesiastica. disciplina, pro correctione fidelium, pro emendatione sceleratorum, vel interdictione imminentium vel futurorum malorum, a Sedis Apostolicæ Præside salubriter promulgata contempserit: Anathema sit." This was an iron gripe' not less formidable' than the third chapter of the Vatican Constitution. It may be said, perhaps, that this was only a Pontiff in his own cause; or only a Roman Council. But this Canon was recognised in the Eighth General Council held at Constantinople in 869.2 Innocent III. may be no authority with Mr. Gladstone; but he says, what every Pontiff before him and after him has said, ' Nos qui sumus ad regimen Universalis Ecclesiæ, superna dispositione vocati.'" Again, Sixtus IV., in 1471, writes: Ad Universalis Ecclesiæ regimen divina disponente clementia vocatis,' &c. If this be not enough, we have the Council of Florence, in 1442, defining of the Roman Pontiff that 'Ipsi in Beato Petro pascendi, regendi ac gubernandi Universalem Ecclesiam a Domino nostro Jesu Christo plenam potestam traditam esse.' ' 1 Labbe, Concil. tom. x. p. 238, ed. Ven. 1730. 2 Ibid. tom. x. p. 633. See Petri Privilegium, 2nd part, p. 81. 3 Corpus Juris Canon. Decret. Greg. lib. ii. cap. xiii. Novit. 4 Corpus Juris Canon. Extrav. Comm. lib. i. tit. ix. cap. i. Finally the Council of Trent says:- Unde merito Pontifices Maximi pro Suprema potestate sibi in Ecclesia universa tradita,' &c. 1 I refrain from quoting Canonists and Theologians who use this language as to regimen and discipline. It needed no astuteness to transcribe the well-known traditional language of the Catholic Church. It is as universal in our law books as the forms of the Courts at Westminster. The Vatican Council has left the authority of the Pontiff precisely where it found it. The whole, therefore, of Mr. Gladstone's argument falls with the misapprehension on which it was based. What, then, is there new in the Vatican Council? What is to be thought of the rhetorical description of Merovingian monarchs and Carlovingian mayors,' but that the distinguished author is out of his depth? The Pope had at all times the power to rule the whole Church not only in faith and morals, but also in all things which pertain to discipline and government, and that whether infallibly or not. Such is literally the only attempt made by Mr. Gladstone to justify his assertions. But what has this to do with Civil Allegiance? There is not a syllable on the subject, there is not a proposition which can be twisted or tortured into such a meaning. The government of the Church, as here spoken of, is purely and strictly the Spiritual government of souls, both pastors and people, as it was exercised in the first three hundred years before any Christian State existed. But next, it the Vatican Council has not spoken of the Civil Powers, nevertheless it has defined that the 1 Sess. xiv. cap. vii. |