Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 427, May, 1851

According to the theory of development, if a doctrine be said to be evolved from Scripture, it is not from the plain, but the mystic sense, from "the spiritual or second sense." Thus, any doctrine may be drawn from Scripture – and there is to be but one interpreter – the "one living infallible judge." Let us see a specimen of this honest interpreter. Pope Innocent III. (who dethroned our King John) thus explains the text of Genesis i. 14, – "God made two great lights." "These words" (says that Pope) "signify that God made two dignities, the Pontifical and the Royal; but the dignity which rules the day – that is, the spiritual power – is the greater light; and that which rules the night, or the temporal, is the lesser. So that it may be understood that there is as much difference between Popes and Kings as between the sun and the moon." Pope Boniface VIII. thus applies to himself the tenth verse of the first chapter of the Prophet Jeremiah – "See I have this day set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out, to pull down, and to destroy." "Here," says the Pope, "the Almighty is speaking of the power of the Church, to create and to judge the temporal power; and, if the temporal power swerves from its duty, it shall be condemned by the spiritual; and since Peter said to Christ, 'Ecce duo gladii,' ('Lord, behold here are two swords,') therefore the Pope has both the temporal and spiritual swords at his command; and since also Moses writes – 'In principio Deus creavit cœlum et terram,' and not in principiis, therefore there is only one princedom, and that is the Papacy." Be it remembered the Papacy has never receded from any claim of power.

If such be the interpretations from Scripture, the Fathers and Councils of the ancient Church are handled according to pleasure. Whatever they say in opposition to the Papacy is of no authority; and the power of "correcting them" is assumed. Directions are given for the "Index Expurgatorius," that passages shall be expunged; nay, the Fathers of the Church, it is said, should be grateful for the correction – for the Fathers of the Church are the children of the Pope, and when "the Pope revises the lucubrations of his children, and corrects them when it is necessary, he discharges an office gratifying to the writers, and useful to posterity, and, in good truth, he then performs a work of mercy to his sons." Neither Scripture nor ancient Church must stand in the way of the Pope's will. In them the mystery was in a "seminal state" undeveloped. There is, according to this theory of development, but one real authentic inspiration, and that in the breast of the present Pope. Nay, it is asserted, that though the Pope for the time being should decree that which his successor contradicts and interdicts, the falsehood was true at the time, and for the time, as is the new developed truth. Thus – dreadful blasphemy! – God may be false; but man, one man, must be infallible. To support this infallibility the development theory is necessary. Now, it is this theory reduced to practice which at once makes the Papacy dangerous and hard to deal with. We have no security as to what it shall decree – as to what it shall establish as Christian doctrine, built upon no really Christian foundation. It is possible it may retain the name, and forsake Christianity altogether. We can be sure but of one thing, that it will never cease to proclaim, and to endeavour to enforce, its own supremacy. It has two capacities, mutually involved, each brought into play as occasion serves; and each serving, subtending to the other. It is both political and spiritual. But times and circumstances, we are told, are changed. True, but is the Popedom changed? It only wants the power. Pius V., who pretended to depose our Queen Elizabeth, and ordered her subjects to rise in rebellion against her, is now worshipped as a saint. Gregory VII., who deposed the Emperor Henry IV., has still his festival-day; and these words are in the second Lesson (not taken from Scripture) – "He" (St Gregory) "stood like a fearless wrestler against the impious attempts of Henry the Emperor, and deprived him of the communion of the faithful and of his crown, and released all his subjects from their allegiance to him." Roman Catholic sovereigns have prohibited the printing this second lesson; but is it withdrawn? "As far as the Roman Pontiffs are concerned, it is read in every Church at this day." But, more than this; though formerly suppressed by the Parliament of France, 1729, it has found its way into the Paris and Lyons edition of the Roman Breviary of the year 1842. The Church of Rome, by eulogising these acts in her Liturgy, "shows her desire that they may be repeated."

But let us look to that which comes still nearer to us. The Church of Rome requires the oath of Pius IV., as declared in the Canon Law, to be taken by all her ecclesiastics. In the "Roman Pontifical," printed at Rome by authority, in the year 1818, the oath is thus given as required from the bishops: – "To be faithful and obedient to his Lord the Pope, and his successors; to assist them in maintaining the Roman Papacy and the royalties of St Peter against all men; to preserve, defend, augment, and promote its rights, honours, and privileges; to persecute and impugn, with all his might, heretics and schismatics, and rebels against his said Lord; to come when summoned to a Roman council; to visit the threshold of the Apostles (the city of Rome) once in every three years, to render an account to his Lord the Pope of all the state of his diocese, and to receive his Apostolic mandates with humility; and if he is unable, through any lawful impediment, to attend in person, to provide a sufficient deputy in his stead." Let us ask who are "rebels against his said Lord." Is it without design that the Papacy, which weighs nicely the force of words, in the recent brief speaks, not of the British Empire, but the "Kingdom of England?" Is no recognition intended of his claim to the disposal of the Kingdom of England, once surrendered to him? Does he not look upon all the Queen's subjects in England as rebels to him, "their Lord?" Can, we ask, a bishop taking this oath, and obeying its imperial mandates, and going to the "Roman Council," be said to owe any allegiance to his own lawful sovereign in England? Put the case, that it shall appear advisable to the "Roman Council" at which such bishop shall be summoned – either at the instigation of some foreign power, or with a view to promote the Pope's interests – that the Queen of England's council shall be thwarted, and that a rebellious spirit shall be encouraged and fostered in Ireland: to which sovereign shall the said bishop pay obedience? Will it not be that one whose "mandates" he has sworn to "receive with humility?" Is there any one at all acquainted with our politics of the last half-century who will doubt that mandates injurious to the interests of England have been received, and have been obeyed? Need we refer to the Irish Rebellion of 1795? We shall there find an account of one Dr Hussey, an Irish priest, who had been bred at Seville, and was recommended by Burke to superintend the recently erected College of Maynooth, how he frequented the camp at Schaunstown, and tampered with the soldiers. We need not refer to the notorious fact of priests in active rebellion. "Bartholomew massacres" are thought old wives' tales, and impossible in modern times. Impossible! – is human nature so changed, and in so few years? Many of us remember the first French Revolution, to say nothing of very recent most cruel revolutions. By the Report of the Secret Committee of the House of Lords in 1797, it appears that it was decided by the conspirators that all persons who, from their principles or situation, may be deemed inimicable to the conspiracy, should be massacred; and the first proscribed list was calculated by one of their leaders at 30,000 persons. We would not dwell upon these atrocities; but we entreat those who speak so confidently of altered "times and circumstances" to consider for a moment what times they have lived in, and are living in. It is true we in England have been mercifully spared; but while even we were boasting of peace, cruel revolutions were commencing throughout Europe, brutal assassinations performed, for a fanaticism which belongs to human nature, and may readily be called into action either by religion or politics. Nay, we say more, that, according to the "development" theory, we know not how much of religion political fanaticism may take up, nor how much of revolutionary politics religion may assume. The Roman Pontiff has had to fly for his life. Their boasted threshold of St Peter has been deluged with blood. We do not mean here to charge our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects with any of these diabolical intentions – far from it; but we must say that we do not see, in countries where their teaching has prevailed, any remarkable abhorrence of them. And we gather from the tenor of history that such atrocities grow out of events – and events of great importance grow out of creeds – and a struggle for religious supremacy (and the Papacy must ever strive to that end) always tends to persecution; and what shall we say, when persecution is a duty of obedience, and the consciences of the many are merged in the infallibility of a Pope? The history of the Popes shows a frightful list of these claimants of infallibility.

Few who speak or who write on this Papal Aggression approach the principle of toleration with any doubt; but surely toleration has its limits. "Civil and religious liberty: " under that banner we may have strange armies – destroyers.

Religious development is going on beyond the Popedom. The assumption of a kind of religion, or more properly a cant of religion, is the homage vice pays to virtue. The subverters of all social order are propagandists of a new religion. What are St Simonites? Even Red Republicans associate themselves to a kind of creed; and perhaps many take up one, purposely that they may demand a civil and religious liberty. We do not subscribe to the doctrine that "full and complete liberty" is to be given to every society that proclaims itself of a civil polity, or of a religious agreement. The principles of creeds should be ascertained, before full scope be given to them – and the principles of civil communities, before a state is justified in arming them with power. There are societies that can, and societies that cannot, live together peaceably, with equal power. There is a strong conviction in the public mind, (and certainly justified,) that if Popery can once reach an equality in visible power with the Church of England, or even with Protestant Dissenters, a system of persecution would commence.

The present aggression is of a two-fold character. It is against the Church, which it ignores; and the sovereignty of England, which it both insults and defies. It sets up bishop against bishop – altar against altar. It takes up a position of authority, and impudently declares that it neither can nor will recede one step. Hear the "Bishop of Birmingham" so styled, Dr Ullathorne. He thus writes to Lord John Russell: – "There is one point for your Lordship to consider – the hierarchy is established; therefore it cannot be abolished. How will you deal with the fact? Is it to force a large body of her Majesty's subjects to put the principle of the Divine law in opposition to such an enactment?" Here is obstinate defiance; but there is more. He proclaims that the Pope's brief is a "Divine law." Is not this the Pope's supremacy over the supremacy of England's sovereign? And if England's sovereignty maintains its own, what kind of warfare are we to have from Rome? Of course, the first step will be an Irish rebellion, or the attempt to raise one. Then is our Queen to be excommunicated – the old game played – the interdict, the absolving from allegiance, and the curse? Is the Pope, the foolish man, who has been driven from his Popedom, and just kept in it again by French bayonets, in his disappointment to enact the spite of a witch turned out of doors, and look back and spit, and take a revengeful pleasure in seeing the Canidian venom take effect? And of a truth it may be said Lord John Russell, Earl Grey, and some others of the Government, grow somewhat pallid from the poison; it has at any rate reached them. Lord John Russell thought it absurd to deny titles, which he now brings in a bill to interdict; Earl Grey would have the Roman Catholic Bishops sit in the House of Peers – and has given strange encouragement to them in the Colonies. Their titles have been smuggled into a Charitable Bequest Bill. It is a hard thing for a Minister to eat his own words, tainted too by the Pope's venom. But, besides this, there appears to have been a connivance with this aggression, or an unpardonable ignorance, on the part of the Ministry. Whence is the suddenly conceived indignation that breaks forth in the Durham Letter? The event had actually taken place long before. Dr Wiseman was gazetted, as Archbishop of Westminster, at Rome on the 22d January 1848; in the Gazette he is called, "His Eminence the most Reverend Monsignore the Vicar-Apostolic, Archbishop of Westminster." What was Lord John Russell doing then? Was he practising "mummeries" that, in his after mind, bore similitude to those of Rome? He had not then been exorcised by Dr Cumming! He has now, however, been tutored to make mighty preparations, to doings of large professions for little ends. If he has not done worse, he has made a burlesque for the page of history, and the age of his Administration ridiculous to posterity.

Dr Wiseman, it has been shown, was gazetted in Rome, January 1848. If the Government knew that fact, did they know, do they know, the exact position in which that ecclesiastic is? Mr Newdegate, in the House of Commons, very clearly shows this position, that "Cardinal Wiseman is a legate of the Pope – a legate à latere, armed with still wider powers than Dr Cullen, and who, as he (Mr Newdegate) believed, merely delayed interfering with our social, civil, and temporal affairs, until that House should have separated for the recess." He showed them "that, from the earliest periods of our history, it had been contrary to the constitution and common law of the country that a legate of the Pope, and especially a cardinal, should come into this country without the leave of the sovereign, and without an oath taken that he would attempt nothing against the realm and liberties of the people." – "He found that there was a meeting of the clergy of the Established Church, a few days ago, at Zion College, at which Dr M'Caul, quoting from a recognised authority of the Catholic Church, stated that the order of Cardinals was literally a part of the Papacy and constitution – the privy council, which was the body corporate of the Pope; and then gave an account of how the office and power of the cardinal was wielded throughout. From that account it appeared that the office of cardinal, when the Pope assumed the temporal attributes of the Emperor, was converted into that of privy councillor; and that the cardinals ought not to be absent from the Papal court, except by reason of being sent out as legates. Cardinal Wiseman, then, could only be there as legate. Van Espin, whose works were recognised at Maynooth, also said, that whatever might be the case with other legates, cardinal legates were called legates à latere, because they were taken from the side of the Pope. He believed that Cardinal Wiseman had been asked whether he had taken the oath of privy councillor, and that his answer was that he had not. But he had taken the oath of archbishop in full, and that would be an excuse for not taking the oath of privy councillor; but he (Mr Newdegate) could find no possible authority for the omission. However, the oath of the archbishop was strictly the oath of privy councillor, binding the party to discharge temporal functions; and with this remarkable addition, that for the recovery of such rights and property as had been alienated from the Romish Church he would do his utmost. He wanted to show that Cardinal Wiseman, by his own act as cardinal priest, adverted to that very function, of labouring to the utmost for the recovery of the goods of the Church. It was a very long time since there had been a cardinal legate in England; and for this good reason, that it was contrary to the ancient statute law of this realm that these temporal officers of a foreign potentate should reside among us. Even Cardinal Beaufort, the brother of Henry VI., had found it necessary to have a special statute enacted in his favour, before he could reside in England as cardinal legate. Cardinal Wolsey was appointed legate at the express instance of Henry VIII.; and Cardinal Pole, after he had been compelled to leave England because he resisted Henry VIII.'s proceedings with the temporalities of the Church, was appointed legate in England, not upon the motion of the Pope, but at the desire of Queen Mary. In the time of Elizabeth, the cardinal whom the reigning Pope had sent to England as nuncio, received in the Netherlands, whence he had sent to request permission to enter England, a prohibition from entering the realm, on the distinct ground that the ancient statutes of the realm declared that no legate from the Papal Court might reside in England. Happy would it have been for this country, (emphatically adds Mr Newdegate,) had the advisers of the present Queen emulated the firmness of those of Queen Elizabeth."

How much better would it have been to put in force an existing and old law, which can only be said to be obsolete because the offence against which it provided was obsolete, than to nullify it by a new and uncertain one, satisfying no one, and such as no one believes will, and perhaps the framer does not intend should, be obeyed. Sir Edward Sugden is of that opinion, and can there be a better legal authority? The people of this country have more confidence in old than new laws: they were made with more precision; and it was not then the practice to smuggle into them expressions for ulterior though hidden use. It is the boast of modern legislation, that a coach may be driven through our acts of Parliament. Queen Elizabeth, who would not suffer the legate to touch our shores, right royally said, "I will not have my sheep marked with the brand of a foreign shepherd." Modern liberality would be content to see Queen Victoria the Pope's sheriff. Is it to be borne, that a cardinal legate, whom existing laws exclude, should be allowed to organise a conspiracy of priests, all, not only virtually, but in word and deed, abnegating allegiance to their lawful sovereign? It is their business, it is in their bond, to persecute the majority of their countrymen as heretics, and to effect in the British dominions as much evil as shall so weaken their country as to make her unable to resist the foreign usurpation of their Pope, or even those of our enemies with whom he may be in league. It is surprising that Mr Gladstone should palliate the doings of the Synod of Thurles, and seem to justify them on the right of civil agitation allowed to other leagues. But surely the difference is great. Political agitators, bad as they often are, do not bring the authoritative dictum of a religious synod. The Synod of Thurles denounces with an authority more potent than the law of the land; they appeal not to reason, to policy, but to obedience. The law is given out by the legate, and enforced by the Synod. They know the danger of mooting questions between landlord and tenant; and it is the very danger which tempts them to it. It is in fact a threat, and the first move of its action. It is almost a declaration to this effect: – The Pope, and we in his name, have right to the land, to dispose of it as we please; and if you in the slightest degree resist or interfere with us, we will stir up those who shall take it from you. They know the threat extends to the life as well as property. All means with them are lawful for the one end. Do we, in all these fruits of the aggression, and of the Ministerial favour which created it, see the promised gratitude of the Roman Catholics? Every obstacle to the free exercise of their religion had been removed; and we were to have peace, but have it not, because, from the vantage-ground of their emancipation, a dominant supremacy was to be superadded. The hierarchy is not for the use of the Queen's Roman Catholic subjects, but for the Pope and his priesthood's power. Even the time it has been allowed to be here, while there was a law that might instantly have been put in force, is a submission to it. It is tampering with illegality and with insult; neither the one nor the other should be suffered to remain a day. The dignity of England is deteriorated by delay. And what has this delay – this sufferance of the evil done, but added to its growth? It is worse than ridiculous, it is mischievous to be furious against an enemy, as our Prime Minister was in his Durham Manifesto, and not to crush his power. All the fury and fierceness is made to appear cruelty for the time and weakness after; and thus the enemy gets more than he had before. The difficulties attending the dealing with this aggression now cannot be denied. They have been greatly enlarged by the mode of proceeding adopted. Parliament, or the executive, might have instantly demanded reparation for the insult, and the law have been as immediately enforced.

The difficulties now must not be denied; and they increase day by day, and will be sure to increase with new legislation. Suppose we have in the British dominions a Roman Catholic population of seven or eight millions. It is too vast a number to ignore, even though the "Protestant brotherhood" out of the Church should desire so to do. If we were a strong Government we might, and ought to do this – to enact that every Romish priest, having sworn obedience to a foreign potentate, has so far renounced his allegiance to his lawful sovereign, and therefore should be subject to a registration, and, with some limitation, be considered an alien.

We might abrogate "Catholic Emancipation," seeing that it was a compact broken by one of the contracting parties. But although we believe all this would be just and fair, and safe, and that one day or other – after, perhaps, frightful rebellions – it will be done, it is nearly certain we cannot do it now. The whole system of government is on another principle – it is called a "Liberal" one. It is that of reconciling to you those of whose dispositions you cannot be certain, if they will be reconciled; and you renounce the government of fear, of which you may be certain, and for which you need but consult your own breast. There is no general liberty where even comparatively a few evil-doers have no fear. The Government has put itself in the position in which it can scarcely do anything that is not mischievous; for if effectual suppression is out of the question, there is only left a something to do which will satisfy none, and will irritate beyond measure the Roman Catholics in Ireland. We can only look to a future day for the registration of the priesthood, and allowing them defined rights, and the imposing restrictions, by which they shall no longer denounce from altars and preach rebellion.

There are other evils, likewise, attending this hierarchy introduction, which require immediate remedy – the evil of their convents and nunneries. These are the real instruments of the Papal tyranny. How are they increasing! In 1847 there were in this country thirty-four convents – in 1848, thirty-eight; and in 1851, fifty-three.

The country is demanding, and well it might, a legal inspection of these houses. It cannot be borne that young inexperienced women of the most tender age, with the common feelings of nature undeveloped, ignorant alike of themselves and the world, should be entrapped, imprisoned in these so-called religious houses, perhaps for life, and their properties seized for the benefit of these religious establishments. Who knows anything of the inmates? If they are miserable, they are shut out from the notice of the world, which is ignorant of their lives and of their deaths – how they live or how they die – in regrets, in a repentance they believe sinful – broken-hearted. The recent disclosures, coming as they do unexpectedly, not as things got up, appear providential, offering, as they do a most wholesome check, as well as creating abhorrence, disgust, and, an active enmity to the whole system. These disclosures have not been without their effect on those who have seemed inclined to look upon the Romish Church not unfavourably.