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ADDRESS
TO
PJ)PE PIUS IX.
ON HIS
ENCYCLICAL LETTER.
BY
JOSEPH MAZZINI.
LONDON:
TEUBNER AND CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1865.
PRICE
SIXPENCE.
�M m im w
—
�ADDRESS TO
POPE
PIUS
IX.
i.
By your last Encyclica you have flung your Anathema
over the civilized world, over its movement, over the
life which inspires it, as if the world, life, and move
ment were not things of God. As the tempest-tossed
mariner, seeing the waves rising higher and higher
around him, despoils himself, in desperation, even of
the things most needful to man, so you* maddened
by the restless terrors that surround the death-agony
of a despairing sinner, have thrown aside all spirit
of love, all sense of the sacredness of this Earth,
providentially designed to perfect litself, all idea of
progress defined or indicated by Christianity, all the
traditions which for eight centuries have constituted
the Papacy’s right to live, all that can make Authority
revered, and powerful for good.
The tone of those ill-advised pages is one of grief
and anger; but it is a dry and barren sorrow breathing
the egotism of one who sees his power threatened,
1—2
�4
assailed, condemned, the pitiful anger of one who
longs to doom his assailants to the faggot, but knows
himself powerless to do so.
Lost for ever in the judgment of mankind, unable
to rule a single day unsustained by the bayonet;
abandoned by the world which no longer recognizes
its spring of life in you—incapable either of self
transformation or of resignation, you expire—saddest
of all deaths—with a curse upon your lips.
Tempered by Nature to surround every great ruin
with a lingering affection, reverencing the Tradition of
Humanity and all the elements that compose it, pre
cisely because I long for and have faith in the Future,
—I had dreamed of a different death for the Institution
whose last days you are now hastening. Seventeen
years ago, you were surrounded by an applauding
Europe bidding you 11 Onward.” Before you was a
people, the Italian people, newly awakened to con
sciousness of their high destiny, who would have
served you both as arm and lever in the great work of
transformation. A single word of love from you, a
blessing called down upon Italy—so long unlooked for
from a Pope—would have been sufficient. Millions of
souls, forgetting the profanations, persecutions, and
corruptions of four centuries, would have rallied round
you, thrilling with expectant hope and blind belief.
At that time, although incredulous of any revival
of the past, yet thinking a benediction and a word of
new life from the dying Institution might prevent long
years of anarchy and rebellion,—I wrote to you:
“ Believe, and unify Italy. If God wills that old faiths
should now transform themselves; that, .starting from the
�5
foot of the Cross, dogma and worship should purify them
selves, and advance one step nearer to Cod the Father and
Educator of the World—you may, by placing yourself
between the two epochs, lead mankind to the conquest and
practice of religious truth.”1
I should have wished that mindful of the words of
Jesus :—Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come,
he will guide you unto all truth: for he shall not
speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that
shall he speak; and he will show you the things to
come,1 and understanding their sublime presentiment
2
that for direct revelation through the individual, sub
stitutes the continuous collective revelation through
Humanity—you might have said to the peoples, “ The
Spirit is with you if only you will seek after and
hearken unto it: it is where universal Tradition and
individual conscience accord; most gloriously revealed
where Genius and Virtue unite, and I am nothing
but one believer among millions.”
I could have wished that an Institution beneficent
and life-giving in the past, should have blessed in
dying the emancipation of souls, and taught that death
in the future will be the consummation of one mission,
and the initiation of another.
I could have wished that as men bow the head
before the death of Genius, and are moved to poetry
by the sinking of the sun into the invisible infinite, so
might they have learned through you to hail with
solemn and reverent affection the going-down of the
past.
1 Lettera a Pio IX., 8 Settembre, 184=7.
2 John xvi. 13.
�It was an illusion. It is decreed, perhaps to pre
vent mankind, ever unstable in their conception of
life, from losing themselves in the worship of the
dead past, that the last inheritors of worn-out Insti
tutions should present the hideous spectacle of one
who in dying clings convulsively to life, and resists in
impotent blasphemy God’s law of transformation.
So dies the Papacy. So will you die: powerless
to resuscitate life; unable to comprehend the solemnity
of death.
II.
Look around you. To whom do you speak?
Who now has faith in your words ? Foreign soldiers
protect you from the anger of your own subjects, and
those soldiers are the children of Voltaire, unbelievers
and materialists like their Master. They protect you
as the tools of a policy of dominion, seeking to gain
credit with the French Clergy, and to keep open the
way for the division of Italy into three. Were they
to leave you, you would have to try to defend your
self with a*rabble rout of mercenaries from every
country in Europe, or you would have to leave with
them. Your allies are the Neapolitan brigands; they
wear your crosses and your indulgences upon their
breasts; but cease to pay them for a single month, and
suppose that we could sink so low as to hire them in
our turn, and they would fight against you. The men
who hedge themselves around you, who flatter you,
and hail you as Pope, King, and Father of Souls,
would desert you; denying both you and your faith,
�7
the day on which you should’ remain without Princely
aid, alone with the people you call yours. I heard
that people’s curses upon your madness some sixteen
years ago, when we inhabited your rooms in Rome;
and there was one who, while the French hemmed us
in, secretly conspired for you, and was afterwards con
demned for theft by your own judges, came to me,
terrified by the solitude in which he found himself, to
reveal his three or four accomplices. I smiled, and
let him go free.
Of such stamp were then and are now the
believers in you, whilst those. of our faith died cheer
fully with the words “ God and the People,” on their
lips.
Some among the reigning ones of the earth, also
threatened by their dissatisfied subjects, send their
ambassadors to pay you hypocritical homage as Christ’s
Vicar, because their authority is founded upon the
same basis as yours; but no sooner does Christ’s
Vicar venture to interfere even in the most timid and
hesitating manner in their affairs, than they doff their
hypocrisy and prohibit their! bishops from publishing
your Encyclica. Numbers of those who were formerly
believing Catholics in Europe, still preserve the old
habits, and follow the rites and discipline of your
Church, partly because even the dead forms of a
Great Religion that is past, exercise a prestige over
the mind; and partly because mankind—which has
and always will have need of religion—abhors the
barrenness of scepticism, and clings to the Traditions
of the past rather than be driven into mere negation.
But when, in 1849, we aroused the people of Raly
�to a sense of their dignity as men, and called upon
them to elect an Assembly to represent them and
decree your fate, they sent a Republican Assembly to
Rome, which unanimously abolished your power.
And when you and yours endeavoured from Gaeta
to raise up the populations against that Assembly in
the name of the Catholic faith, it was only at
Ascolani—where escape into the Neapolitan territory
was certain—that you found some who for a few
days were willing to risk their lives for you.
An echo of the Catholic Tradition still lingers in
the souls of men, but faith in it is dead for ever. You
cannot yourself rekindle it even in your own heart.
The virtue of sacrifice has left you. Your Church has
lost the power of suffering, and of dying, if need be,
for the salvation of mankind. Before the dangers of a
difficult position created by yourself, your adherents
concealed themselves : you fled, and fled in disguise.
Who henceforth would die for a Pope transformed into
the lackey of the Countess of Spaur ?
Faith is dead. Your Authority is but the ghost of
Authority, and the terror inspired by the spectre has
been diminishing for four centuries. It is for us now,
free from every doubt, strong in the irrevocable assent
of Humanity, to take up the gauntlet with the
certainty of Victory.
In saying “for us,” I include all who, like me,
reject alike the barren negations of the unreflectingly
rebellious, who, because one form of religion is
exhausted, imagine that the eternal religious Life of
Humanity is destroyed, and the inefficacious preteUces
of a Church which has neither knowledge, will, nor
�9
power any longer to direct that Life; I include all
vvho, like me, abhor the loathsomeness of materialism,
and are ready to do battle against it in the name of
the Ideal; all who reverently seek the City of the
Future, a new Heaven and a new Earth destined to
gather together in the name and in the love of God
and of man, and in faith in a common aim, all those
who now wander through your fault, mid fear of the
present and doubt of the future, in moral and intel
lectual anarchy : I include those who know that from
epoch to epoch God utters a new syllable of eternal
Truth to Humanity that every religion is ah initiation
towards the one destined to succeed it; and that an
educational revelation ceaselessly descends in manner
varying with the times upon the Nations J that to
arbitrarily seek to limit that revelation to a given
fraction of time# to one sole people, or to a single
individual is the only heresy essentially denying God,
the' manifestation of His Life, and the unbroken and
continuous link existing between the Divine Thought
and Humanity, which is destined gradually to discover
and to incarnate that Thought upon earth.
I include all those whoianxiously interrogating the
signs of the Times, and observing on the one hand
the constant increase of egotism, the dissolution of
every Power, the impotence of every ancient authority ;
and on the other the universal agitation of the peoples,
the growing though confused aspirations of intel
ligence, the apparition of new elements demanding
admission into the social edifice, and. of new words
potent to move the multitudes, the tendency towards
a new morality vaster than the former, and recognize
�10
in all these things the indications of a new epoch, and
therefore of a religious transformation.
Finally, I include all who hail with me the idea
that the initiative of that inevitable transformation
may sooner or later be taken by a People now for the
first time called to National Unity.
We take up the gauntlet flung down to the world
by your Encyclica. We take it up, not in the name of
a blind misguided analysis which . confounds the
Thought with its manifestation, and Life with the
organs by which it is revealed ;—not in the name of
a philosophy that presumes to substitute itself for the
Religious Synthesis, while its true historic office is
merely that of verifying the exhaustion of one belief
and preparing the way for another ;—but in the name
of Religion itself, which you would annihilate by
dooming it to immobility,—of Morality, which should
be enlarged from epoch to epoch, and which you
destroy by enchaining it to a dogma, the narrowness
and imperfection of which has been demonstrated by
four centuries of discovery;—in the name of the
teachings of Tradition, showing that the Religious
Idea assumes different forms and a different worship
at each stage of the education of Humanity;—in the
name of Jesus who foretold the future triumphs of the
Spirit1 through his own death, and whom you would
degrade from the “ Master ” to the tyrant of man ;—
in the name of Human Life which has need of harmo
nization, unification, and sanctification through Reli
gion, of all of which you deprive it by condemning its
1 John xvi.
�11
I*
i
progressive manifestations, and maintaining a fatal
duality between Earth and Heaven ;—and in the name
of God Himself who is eternal Life, Thought, Motion,
and Enlightenment, and to Whose power of revelation
you would assign a limit and a date.
Religion is with us, not with you. You mate
rialize it by the exclusive adoration of one of its forms,
as if the living God could be enchained in a single
form ; as if any form of Religion could ever be other
than a finite symbol of the Truth which He dispenses
in the chosen measure of time > as if when one form
were exhausted, it were possible that God should
perish, or withdraw Himself from the world which is
naught other than a manifestation of His Thought;
as if it were possible to assign ^limit to the Thought
of God; as if any people, any epoch, or any religion
might presume to have comprehended that Thought
entire ; as if Humanity were not bound constantly to
labour and to advance in order to acquire a knowledge
of, and identify itself with, that portion of the Divine
Idea destined to be realized on earth.
III.
We believe in God, who is Intellect and Love,
Educator and Lord:
We believe therefore in a sovereign Moral Law,
the expression of His Intellect, and of His Love:
We believe in a law of Duty for all of us, and that
we are bound to love, to comprehend, and, as far as
possible, to incarnate that law in our actions :
We believe that the sole manifestation of God
�12
visible to us is Life, and in it we seek the evidences of
the Divine Law:
We believe that as God is one, so is Life one, and
one the Law of Life throughout its twofold manifesta
tion in the Individual and in Collective Humanity:
We believe in Conscience—the revelation of Life in
the Individual—and in Tradition—the revelation of
Life in Humanity,—as the sole means given to us by
God by which to comprehend his Design,' and that
when the voice of Conscience and the voice of Tradi
tion are harmonized in an affirmation, that affirmation
is the Truth, or a portion of the Truth.
We believe that Conscience and Tradition, if reli
giously interrogated, will reveal to us that the Law
of Life is Progress, progress indefinite in all the
manifestations of. Being, the germs of which, inherent
in Life itself—are gradually and successively developed
throughout the various phases of existence :
We believe that as Life is one, and the Law of
Life is one, the Progress destined to be wrought out
by Collective Humanity, and gradually revealed to us
through Tradition, must be equally wrought out by the
individual, and since that indefinite progress forefelt
and conceived by Conscience and proclaimed by Tradi
tion, cannot be completely realized in the brief ter
restrial existence of the individual, we believe it will be
»
fulfilled elsewhere, and we believe in the continuity of
the Life made manifest in each of us, and of which our
terrestrial existence is but one period:
We believe that as in Collective Humanity every
presentiment of a vaster and purer ideal, every earnest
aspiration towards Good, is destined—it may be after
�13
the lapse of ages—to be realized,—so in the indi
vidual, every intuition of the Truth, every aspiration—
even if at present inefficacious—towards Good, and
towards the Ideal, is a pledge of future development,
a germ to be evolved in the course of the series of
existences constituting Life:
We believe that as Collective Humanity in its
-advance gradually acquires a knowledge and compre
hension of its own past;—so will the individual in
his advance upon the path of Progress acquire in pro
portion to the degree of moral education achieved, the
consciousness and memory of the past stages of his
existence:
We believe not only in Progress, but in Man’s
solidarity in progress: that as in Collective Humanity
the generations are linked one with the other, and the
Life of the one fortifies, assists, and promotes the life of
the other—so, also, is individual linked with individual,
and the life of one is of benefit to the life of the rest,
both here and elsewhere :
We believe that pure, virtuous, and constant affec
tion is a promise of communion in the future, and
a lint—invisible but powerful in its effect upon bn man
action—between the dead and the living :
We believe that Progress, the Law of God, must
infallibly be achieved by all, but we believe that we are
bound to work out the consciousness of that progress
and to deserve it through our own efforts, and that
time and space are vouchsafed to us by God as the
sphere of free will, wherein we merit or demerit in
proportion as we accelerate or delay it:
We believe, therefore, in human free will, the
condition of human responsibility:
�14
We believe in Human Equality, that is to say, that
God has given to all mankind the faculties and powers
necessary to the achievement of an equal amount of
progress; we believe that all are both called and
elected to achieve it, sooner or later, according to their
own works :
i
We believe that all that tends to impede Human
Progress, Equality, and Solidarity, is Evil, and that all
that tends to promote them, is Good.
We believe in the duty of each and all ceaselessly
to combat evil, and to promote good by thought and
action ; we believe that in order to overcome evil and to
promote good in each of us, it is necessary to overcome
evil and to promote good in others and for others : We
believe that no man can work out his own salvation
otherwise than by labouring for the salvation of others:
We believe that the sign of Evil is egotism, and the
sign of Virtue, sacrifice:
We believe our actual existence to be a step towards
a future existence, the earth to be a place of trial
wherein, by overcoming Evil and promoting Good, we
are bound to deserve to advance : We believe it to be
the duty of each and all to sanctify the earth by
realizing here as much as it is possible to realize of
the Law of God: And from this faith we deduce our
Morality:
We believe that the instinct of Progress innate in
Humanity from the beginning, and now become a
leading tendency of the human intellect, is the sole
revelation of God to mankind ; a revelation vouchsafed
to all, and continuous :
We believe that it is in virtue of this revelation
�15
that Humanity advances from epoch to epoch, from
religion to religion, upon the path of improvement
assigned to it:
We believe that whosoever presumes at the present
day to arrogate that revelation to himself, and declare
that he is the privileged intermediate between God
and man, is a blasphemer.
We believe that Authority is sacred when, conse
crated by Genius and Virtue,—sole Priests of the
Future—and made manifest by the greatest power
of sacrifice,—it preaches Truth, and is freely accepted
by mankind as their guide to Truth; but we believe
that we are bound to combat and exterminate as the
offspring of Falsehood and Parent of Tyranny, every
Authority not invested with these characteristics :
We believe that God is God, and Humanity is His
Prophet.
Such, in its broad outlines, is our faith. In that
faith we reverentially embrace—as stages of the pro
gress already achieved—all the manifestations of Religion
in the past, and—as symptoms and previsions of future
progress—every earnest and virtuous manifestation of
religious Thought in the present.
In that faith we recognize God as the Father of
all; Humanity as one in community of origin, of law,
and of aim; the Earth as sanctified by the gradual
accomplishment of the Divine Design, and the indi
vidual—blessed with immortality, free will, and power
—as the responsible Artificer of his own progress.
In this faith we live; in it we will die; in it we
love, labour, hope, and pray.
In the name of this faith we bid you : Descend
�16
FROM THE SEAT
YOU USURP AT
THE PRESENT DAY ,*
and, verily, you will descend before this age has run
its course.
The faith promulgated in your Encyclica of the
8th December, 1864, renounces alike Earth and
Heaven, Humanity and the individual.
God is Affirmation, absolute : You pretend to sub
sist upon negatives alone.
With the errors against which you cry Anathema
in the 1st, 2ncT, and 3rd of the articles annexed to the
Encyclica, we have naught to do. We believe that the
sole source of Sovereignty is in God, and in His Law,
and we therefore reject alike the Pantheism that con
founds God with the manifestations of His Power, and
every Authority.which is not the realization of the Law
of God on earth.
Neither have we aught to do with those articles
among the long series you have published, which treat
of the old question—consequent upon the Christian
duality—between the Temporal and Spiritual Au
thority.
We believe in one sole Power, the dominion of the
Moral Law, and from it we deduce the legitimacy or
illegitimacy of every temporal Authority.
We believe in the Church, the fraternity of
believers, guardian and progressive discoverer of the
Law. But is that Church your Church ? Are you
the Depositary of that Authority which all of us
invoke as Supreme over every Power ?
�17
IV.
No : your Church only gathers around it a fraction
of mankind, a fraction diminishing daily. For six
centuries past, your Authority has neither generated,
directed, nor promoted Life. You deny the faculties
you are bound to direct; you deny—by denying the
work to be accomplished on earth—the instruments
given to us by God for its accomplishment. You
deny the initiation contained in Christianity towards
higher things. You deny the free action of Man,
without which there is neither merit nor demerit.
You deny (Art. 80) that you have any mission to
promote the civilization and progress of mankind.
You deny the giftfe of God to us all by substituting
for them a grace arbitrarily bestowed upon a few. You
deny the immortality of the life given by God, by
the decapitation of the Soul in Hell. You deny the last
ing communion of God with His creatures by decreeing
a dual Humanity, the Humanity of the Fall, and the
Humanity of the Redemption. You deny Morality
by denying our power to constitute—as far as in us
lies—the Kingdom of God on earth, and by allowing
our brother men to remain a prey to tyranny, misery,
ignorance, and injustice. You deny to the Nations
their right of affirming their own free life, of frater
nizing for mutual benefit with their sister Nations,
and of choosing Rulers deserving of their Trust.
You do but affirm one thing—that you have a
right to be a Prince, and to possess—without incurring
any responsibility towards Humanity—those worldly
goods which you bid us despise.
2
�18
There was a time—a time I regard with reverence
—when the Papacy did affirm and guide. Depositaries
and Guardians of the Moral Law; believing in their
mission of Justice and Liberty for all; intrepid against
all who sought to violate their power,—and ready to
suffer for their faith, which then was the faith of the
peoples,—the Popes, from the fifth to the thirteenth
century, aided and promoted the progress you now
condemn.
In that Rome they had taught the barbarian to
respect, they represented the Ideal of the Epoch, the
dominion of spirit over matter; love, opposed to brute
force; the equality of souls,—individual merit set up
against arbitrary power ;—election against birth; justice
against feudal and monarchical rute. They watched
over and preserved the relics of ancient Learning in
their Convents, they protected Art, consoled and
alleviated suffering, educated antagonistic races, and
called them to brotherhood in the name of God and
Jesus.
Then might Leo truly declare to Rome, the centre
of a second civilization :—“ Although thou hast by thy
many victories extended thy empire over land and sea, thou
hast conquered less by valour in war than by the spirit of
Christian peaces”^ -V
' X
Then did Nicholas I. write word to the Bishops:—
‘‘ Observe whether the Kings and Princes be truly such;
if they govern rightly, first themselves, and then the peoples:
Observe if they reign according to justice ; because if they
do not, we must view them not as Kings, but as Tyrants,
and arise against them, and against the vices by which
they are corrupted.”
�19
Then did Innocent III. dare to declare to a power
ful Seigneur :—“ Were we but to take into consideration
your crimes, we should not only cry Anathema upon you,
but should call upon your people to arm themselves against
you;” and the Seigneur humbled himself before the
menace.
And before these, a man of gigantic heart and
mind—though misunderstood even yet by the majority
amongst us—the son of the people, Gregory VII., had
declared to the world that “ the sword of the Prince
must be laid doivn, as all human things bow down, before
the Church of God ; the King owes obedience to the Pope.
The Apostolic Authority is as the Sun ; the regal power is
as the Moon, illumined by the reflection of its ray;” and
the people hailed that lofty doctrine with applause,
and the Teutonic Monarchy prostrated itself in peni
tence for its attempted resistance, before the Italian
Pope in Canossa.
But the Popes of that day were the representatives
of a Duty. A Bishop then declared, in Orleans, that
“ the rich and powerful were bound to recognize the equal
nature of the poor and servile, because one sole God reigned
from on high over all.”
Gregory VII. justified the boldness of his acts
by the holy confession that “ the Church had sinned,
because it had allied itself to the world and to worldly
men, because its ministers had sought to serve the Church
and the world at the same time;—that Churchmen were
culpable and unworthy; and that they were bound to
correct and convert themselves £ that regeneration must
begin from the highest among them; that he felt bound to
declare war to vice, and to unmask it to the world; to
�20
protect all who were persecuted for justice and virtue’s
sake; that all belonging to the Church were bound to show
themselves pure and irreproachable ; and that it was
reserved for the Pope to achieve the great work of esta
blishing the reign of Peace on Earth.”
But you are both a Prince and the servant of
Princes at the present day; the bayonets that con
ducted you back through blood to Borne belong to
the man of the 2nd of December. You reign through
force, not through faith : your party is corrupt and
corrupting ; the Sanctuary is surrounded by Neapolitan
brigands upon whom you confer your blessing, while
you have no word of comfort for the peoples who
invoke God’s liberty and equality.
Therefore do the peoples look, not to you, but to
us; to us, the Precursors of the New Church; to us,
who teach them both by word and example, that it is
possible to fulfil God’s Law on earth.
Your predecessors conquered the Nations in the
name of a Religion of spiritual liberty and equality;
you do but persuade, from time to time, some unhappy
maiden to accept the death of the Cloister while
yearning for life, or steal some neglected son of Israel
and display him in triumph to the multitude as a
Convert.
I know that Gregory VII. failed to realize his
sublime conception of the triumph of the ideal over
the material on earth. I know that the instruments
he sought to employ were unequal to the aim. ' The
cardinal point of the dogma upon which he leaned
for support was the duality, the antagonism between
Earth and Heaven, and it was impossible to found
Human Unity upon that dogma.
�21
Instead of teaching that Religion is Life itself, it
made of Religion a compensation for life, and taught
the individual that he must achieve his salvation
independently of the earth, and set before him an
ideal impossible of realization in the brief years of
terrestrial existence. It can only be realized progres
sively through Association, and that dogma in no way
contemplated association; it contained no conception
of the Collective Life of Humanity, nor of the law of
Progress we now recognize.
Gregory VII. was therefore compelled to have
recourse to despotic means: he failed in his en
terprise, nor could it be successfully renewed by any
Pope.
But though it was forbidden that the Popes should
guide the world upon the path indicated by the vaster
and more unifying dogma now dawning upon us, they
might have accompanied the world in its advance
towards it; they might and ought, like Gregory«¥II.,
ever ready to suffer martyrdom, to have remained the
Representatives of that portion of the Truth contained
in their own dogma, which owes its actual triumph to
its incarnation in us. Christianity did not ordain
association on this earth, but it laid the foundations
for it by declaring: “ There is neither Jew nor Greek,
there is neither lond nor free, there is neither male nor
female ; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”1
Jesus did not institute any Government of the
things of this world, but He laid down the principle
of all legitimate Government when He said : “ WhoPaul: Galatians iii. 28.
�22
soever will be great among you, let him be your minister;
and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your
servant.”1
Jesus commanded endeavour and research,2 He
promised all things to labour,3 He understood and
reverenced the power of man,4 He foresaw the future,
the Epoch of Truth freed from every earthly symbol.3
Your predecessors might and ought, you might
and ought to have accompanied us upon the path
of discovery and advance, in order to have left us,
as Moses left his people, on the borders of the pro
mised land, and have blessed us in dying even as a
dying father blesses the children who are to survive
him. You expire cursing the spirit of inquiry, cursing
the power of intellect, cursing faith in the discovery of
the Truth, cursing the peoples who seek their freedom,
cursing mankind and Life itself^ An Apostate from
Jesus and Humanity, you condemn yourself to expire
in isolation, deprived of all communion with your
brother men. We are compelled mournfully to cast
back the Anathema upon yourself. We may say to you
—as the French Bishops said to Gregory IV.—you
came to excommunicate us, return excommunicated.
No : Religion is no longer with you. Before the
Popes were, before Jesus came, God was with us.
God is with us, the servants of His Law, who carry
out the Tradition which is the revelation of His
Design. From the days of Innocent III., the Papacy
renounced alike life and mission, to worship self, its
1 Matt. xx. 26, 27, 28.
2 Matt. vii. 7; x. 26, 27, 28.
3 Matt. xxi. 43.
4 Matt. xxi. 21, 22.
5 John xiv. 16, 17, &c.
�23
own Power, the World. From the days of Innocent
III., Knowledge is ours, Art is ours, Progress in
intellect and in the purer adoration of God, is ours.
In the face of your decrees, and cancelling the sen
tence of your Inquisition, we discovered the laws that
rule the Stars, the ages of the earth’s existence
anterior to the Biblical hypothesis, the continuity of
Creation, the Unity of the Law that links earth to
Heaven, the chain of progress extending without inter
ruption from the earliest generations to our own.
Without you, against you—dissolving the dark
ness of the past, we discovered a portion of God’s
revelation in all those religions which you have stig
matized as impostures, a portion of the Design of
God in those epochs anterior to the Cross, upon
which you had cried Anathema, a portion of God’s
power in Worlds of the existence of which you were
ignorant.
Without a word of inspiration or encouragement
from you, and often condemned by you, we, the men
of Progress, did battle against Mahometanism in the
East of Europe, called back Greece to life, diminished
the sufferings of the multitudes, raised the banner
of Liberty among the oppressed Nations, and now,
emancipate the Negroes of America, and create Italy
in the face of your opposition.
Not to you, but to God do the Peoples look for
courage in the struggle, and faith to meet death with
smiles. The martyrs of Duty are found amongst
those whom you term unbelievers: the comforters of
the poor amongst those whom you doom to damna
tion to serve the Princes whose support you seek.
�Naught is left for you but undignified lamentation,
to live a mendicant, and to die cursing, unheeded, and
despised.
Descend then from a throne on which you are no
longer a Pope, hut a vulgar tyrant, upheld by the
soldiers of tyrants. You know that, were not those
soldiers ranged around your Conclave, you would be
the last Pope of Rome. Humanity has worshipped
in the Religion of the Father, and in that of the Son.
Give place to the Religion of the holy Spirit.
V.
*
As Pope, six hundred years of impotence,—the
betrayal of every precept of Christ,—your Church’s
adultery with the wicked Princes of the earth,—the
idolatry of the form substituted for the Spirit of
Religion,—the systematic immorality of the men who
surround you, and the negation of all progress sanc
tioned by yourself as the condition of your existence,
rise in judgment against you.
As Prince, the blood of Rome, and the impos
sibility of your remaining there a single day other than
by brute force, rise in judgment against you.
Reconcile yourself with God. With Humanity
you cannot.
JOSEPH MAZZINI.
January, 1865.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Address to Pope Pious IX on his encyclical letter
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Joseph, Mazzini
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 24 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Quanta cura was a papal encyclical, issued December 1864, that was prompted by the September Convention of 1864 agreement between the then newly emerging Kingdom of Italy and the Second French Empire of Napoleon III. France had previously occupied Rome with French troops in order to prevent the Kingdom of Italy from defeating the Papal States with the Capture of Rome. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Includes bibliographical references.
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Trubner and Co.
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1865
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G5253
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Papacy
Catholic Church
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Conway Tracts
Italy-Politics and Government-19th Century
Pope Pius IX
Roman Catholic Church
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Text
POPEDOM
THE ROMAN EMPIRE
IN ITS
SECOND ZPHA.SE;
NO
DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN IMPERIAL
PAPAL ROME.
ROME
AND
AMERICAN NATIONALITY IN DANGER.
BY
Pro!. .1. K PETKES.
“ And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of
blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman
was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold
and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand,
full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication. And upon
her forehead was a name written: Mystery, Babylon the great, the
mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. And I saw the.
woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood
of the martyrs of Jesus. ’’ (Apoc. xvii.)
‘ ‘ And in her was found the blood of prophets, and saints, and
of all that were slain upon earth.” (Apoc. xvih, 24.)
ST. LOUIS, MO.:
BY THE
INDUSTRIAL AGE ” PRINTING CO.
1872.
Sold by J. W. McINTYRE, No. 4, South Fifth Street.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
�Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
J. P. PETERS,
in the Ohice of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
�SCRIPTURAL VIEW
W THE
RO M AlLOHVBaH; ‘
I
There is in the second chapter pf Daniel
a great image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in
a vision, and thus described by Daniel ( ” Thou,
O king, sawest, and beheld a great image.
This image, whose brightness was excellent,
stood before thee; and the form thereof was
terrible. This image’s head was of line gold,
his breast and arms of silver, his belly and
thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part
of iron and part of clay. Thon sawest till
that a stone was cut out without hands, which
smote the image upon his feet, which were
of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.
Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the
silver, and the gold, broken to pieces, together,
and became like the chaff of the summer
threshing floors; and the wind carried them
�4
away, that no place was found fur them; and
the stone that smote the image became a great
mountain, and filled the whole earth.”
In explaining this image, Daniel says that
it is the representation of four great monarchies
or kingdoms which should rule successively
over the earth, and that, in the end of the fourth
or last monarchy, God would set upon earth a
kingdom (represented by the stone) which
should break to pieces all these, fill the whole
earth, and abide for ever and ever.
It is nniversally admitted, by both Protestant
and Romanist expositors, that these five mon
archies are:
(1) The Bab;^Ionian kingdom, represented
by the head of gold.
(2) The kingdom of the Medes and Per
sians, represented by tire breast and arms of
silver.
(3) The Grecian kingdom, represented by
the bellv and thighs of brass.
(4) The Roman empire, represented by the
legs of iron and the feet of iron and clay.
(o) The kingdom of Jesus Christ, repre
sented by the stone.
So far we are fully agreed. But the Roman
church, and most of the Protestant churches
�5
say that the stone smote tlie image 1872 years
>igo, when Jesus was born, and that henceforth
the kingdom of Jesus Christ is set upon earth.
But is it so ? Let us see.
As Philip, I might say instantlht |-If it be
so, “Shew it to us, and it sufficeth us;” fol? a
kingdom which is to be set under l;he whole
lieaven and to fill the whole earth, with a king
whom, when he comes, every 63/stall see;, a
Being who shall destroy the man of sin with
the brightness of his presence, and before whom
all creation shall clap for joy, verily/ verily, I
say such a kingdom must be visible/-and if
-already set up, the “ shew it to us” should be
the best and only answer to such a ridiculous
assertion. But, for argument’s sake, let us show
by the text that they are deceived and deceiving
others.
As the legs of iron and the feet of iron and
clay span the whole length of the Roman
empire, and as it is when it would have reached
the feet that the kingdom of Jesus Christ was
to be set up, let us read what Daniel says about
it: “ The fourth kingdom shall be as strong as
iron, forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and
subduethall things; and as iron breaketh all
these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. And
�whereas tliou sawest the feet and toes, part of
potter’s clay and part of iron, the. kingdom
shall he divided ‘ but there shall be in it of
the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou
sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And
as the toes of the feet were part of iron and
part of clay, so the kingdom (the Roman empire
divided) shall be partly strong and partly
broken. And whereas tliou sawest iron mixed
with miry clay, they (the kingdoms of the
Roman empire divided) shall mingle them
selves with the seed of men ; but they shall not
cleave one to anotuer, as iron is wot mixed with
clay. And in the days of these kings (the
kings of the kingdom divided) .shall the God
of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never
be destroyed ; and the kingdom shall not be left
to other people, but shall break in pieces and'
consume all these kingdoms (the kingdoms of
the Roman empire divided), and it shall stand
forever.”
From this explanation, it is evident (1) that
the Roman empire was to have two phases or
periods; that during its first phase, it should be
undivided and strong as iron (as represented by
the legs of iron); and that during its second
phase, it should de divided into two kingdoms
�7
(the one represented by the iron, and the other
by the clay) which would intermingle with the
seed of men, but without cleaving one to
another; that is, two kingdoms ill one, each
having its own rulers^ its own government/ its
own officers, its own citizens, its oWft laws; and
both ruling over the same countries simultane
ously; and (2) that, since the Stone emote the
image not upon his leg^ but upon big feet, the
kingdom of Christ was to be set up when the
Roman empire should be divided into the two
kingdoms we have just explained.
But, as there are ten toes in the feet, the
question may be asked : la each of the two
kingdoms formed of but one or of many king
doms ? There is nothing here that can help us
to answer that question ; but if we turn to the
seventh chapter of Daniel, where these same
four great kingdoms are represented by four
beasts, the fourth being the representation of the
Roman empire, we will find the question
answered.
II
After this I saw in the night visions, and
behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible,
and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron
teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, andr
stamped the residue with the feet of it, and was
�8
L*
diverse from all the beasts that were before it,
and it had ten horns. I considered the horns,
and behold, there came up among them another
little horn before whom there were three of the
first horns plucked up by the roots; and, behold,
in this horn were eyes, like the eyes of man,
and a mouth speaking great things. I beheld
till the thrones were cast down, and the An
cient of days did sit, whose garment was white
as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure
wool; his throne was like the fiery flame, and
liis wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream
issued and came forth from before him, thou
sand thousands ministered unto him, and ten
thousand times ten thousand stood before him.
The judgment was set, and the books were
opened. I beheld then, because of the voice
of the great words which the horn spake, I
beheld even till the beast was slain, and his bodydestroyed and given to the burning flame.... I
saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like
the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven,
and came to the Ancient of days, and they
brought him near before him. And there was
given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom,
that all people, nations, and languages, should
serve him. His dominion is an everlasting do
�9
minion, which shall not pass away, and his
kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. I,
Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of
my body, and the visions of my head troubled
me. I came near unto one of them thagg stood
by, and asked him the truth of all this. So. he
told me, and made me know the inte»iEta^ion
of the things (saying): These great beafts,
which are four, are four kings, which shall arise
out of the earth. But the saints of,the Most
High shall take the kingdom, and possess the
kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever. Then
1 would know the truth of the fourth beast,
which was diverse from all the others, exceeding'
dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nailsof brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and
stamped the residue with his feet; and of the
ten horns that were in his head, and of the oth
er which came up, and before whom three fell;,
even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth
that spake very great things, whose look wasmore stout than his fellows^ I beheld, and the
same horn made war with the saints, and pre
vailed against them until the Ancient of days
came, and judgment was given to the saints of
the Most High ; and the time came that the
saints possessed the kingdom. Tims he said :
�10
The fourth beast (the Roman empire) shall be
the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be
diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the
whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break
it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this
kingdom are ten kings that shall arise; and
another shall rise after them ; and he shall be
diverse from the first (ten), and he shall subdue
three kings (of the ten). And he shall speak
great words against the Most High, and think
to change times and laws; and they (the saints)
shall be given into his hand until a time and
timesand the dividing of time (1260 years.) But
the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away
his dominion, to consume and destroy it unto
the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and
the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole
heaven shall be given to the people of the saints
-of the Most High, whose kingdom is an ever
lasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve
and obey him.”
Here again, we see plainly (1) that the Ro
man empire was to have two phases or periods;
that, during its second phase, it should be
divided into two kingdoms: the one (the iron of
the feet) headed by ten kings (the ten horns)
arisen out of the Roman empire ; the other (the
�11
clay of the feet) headed by the little horn ;
(2) that the kingdom of the ten' kingsa should
be the Roman element (iron), while the king
dom of the little horn should be a foreign ele
ment (clay) which, min®
with the RonBh
element, should form the nda Roman ggjpire;
(3) that it is the little horn that should bear
supreme rule over it; aii^ (4) that the king
dom of Christ was to be set upflnot in the
days of the ancient Roman empire, but in
the days of the new one, in the days of the ten
kings and the little horn, even when this should
speak great words against God: “I beheld,
then, because of the voice of the great words
which the horn spake, I beheld even till the beast
was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to
the burning flame.”
Now, I ask: (1) According to these scrip
tures, vyas the kingdom of Christ to be set
up when the Roman empire should be undivided
or divided ? Certainly, when it should be
divided. (2) Was the Roman empire divided
when Jesus Christ was born ? Certainly not. Any
one who-has some knowledge of the history,
either profane or sacred, knows that, when
Jesus was born, the Roman empire was un
divided, with but one head whose title was:
'
�12
The Emperor and Supreme Pontiff of the
Romans {Romanorum Imperator et Summus
Pontifex}; which title shows obviously that
the kingdom was not then divided into two
kingdoms quite diverse from each other, one
secular, and the other ecclesiastical. But, to
cut short, Jesus Christ himself, the king of
the kingdom to be set up, will shut the mouth
of any one on this point. Asked by Pilate if
Ide was the King of the Jews, lie answered :
“ I am, but my kingdom is not of this time”
(the Greek word is not kosmos, which means
world in the sense of earth, planet, but
aiwn, which means world in the sense of time,
age—seculum in Latin).
Since, then, Christ himself has said that
He did not set up his kingdom when he came,
what are we to think of the Pope who says :
“I am the vicar of Christ;” and of the church
which he made, which says: “I am the king
dom of Christ?” AVell, they are liars and de
ceivers; and it is written : “Liars shall not in
herit the kingdom of heaven.” (1) I know the
Roman church’s seat is in Rome, whore she is
represented (Apoc. 17) as a “ a woman set upon
a scarlet colored beast (the Roman empire) ar
rayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked
'
!
�13
/
with gold and precious stones and pearls, hav
ing a golden cup in her hand full of abomina
tions and filthiness of her fornicatioit with this
name written on her forehead:, ‘ Mystery,
Babylon the great, thermoIhereof harlots and
abominations.” Can such a filthy thing be the
kingdom of Christ? (2) I kno^the pope
says : “ 1 am the vicar of Christ^ but Chrisfr
has said: “My kingdom is mot of this Wrld
(lime). Of what Christ is he the vigar, then,
since there is no room here for a vicar of Christ ?
Certainly not the Christ of the Bible. (3) I
know also most of the Protestant churches say:
The kingdom of Christ is C4in our heart,” or
“in heaven.” But hear the word of God:
“The greatness of the kingdoms under (not
in) the whole heaven shall be given to the peo
ple of the saints of the Most High; it . . . shall
fill the- whole earth.” Of two tilings One:
either the heart of those protestants is not a
human heart ; for how to put in the heart of
a man a kingdom which is to fill the whole
earth? or their kingdom is not the kingdom of
Christ spoken of in the Bible. (4) 1 know the
church of Home commands to pray, and the
Protestant churches pray (at least, as fafas I
know, don’t fprbid) the Lord’s prayer. But, if
�14
the one be the kingdom of lieaven, and the
others have that kingdom in their heart, what
do they pray for, when they say : Thy Icingdo m tome ?
These little remarks, backed by the plain and
incontestable texts of the Scriptures, show con
clusively that the kingdom of Christ is not vet
set upon earth, and that the one fancied by either
'Protestants or Romanists is nothing but a no
tion, not to say a humbug or a farce.
Therefore, the book of Daniel stating plainly
that it is when the Roman empire is swaying
its iron scepter overthe earth, that the kingdom
of Christ should be set up; and having proved
beyond dispute that it was not set up in the
days of the ancient Roman empire, neither
since, it follows necessarily that the Roman em
pire is still standing up, in its second phase.
But where is it? exclaims one; for all I know
of, is that there is a city by the name of Rome,
which once was the queen of the world (so I
am told), but now a very poor thing which,
kept under as a slave by the pope and the seven
catholic kings, has remained many centuries
without any earthly ruler or government. Is
that poor relict the Roman empire you speak
of?----- Here it is
�15
(N. B.—The ten kings shall- hate the whore,,
and shall make her desolate and naked, and
shall eat her, flesh, and burn her with Are.
—(Apoc. 17-16.----To the memorable dateflf ’89 niaTSWissigiietl
the time appointed by God for the Wgthfinng of
the Boman church’s sorrows^ Tn fintejirf the
kings’ ami Jesuits’ endeavors to raise lieiwq*
anew, she has been impotent raMetriew freia
the blow France, one of the seven heads of the
Roman empire, dealt to her then. The turningof the kings against her has been going on
since, and is still going on ; they have amide
and still make her desolatS but notBiaked as
yet; neither have they eaten her flesh gW burn
ed her with fire, in fulfilment of the will of
God; the kings’ work'is yet incomplete; and
this is the reason why, in explaining the second
phase of the Roman empire, I will explain it as
it was before ’89. For instance, suppose I
write : “ The pope exercises all the power of
the kings in their sight”; the most polite Cath
olic will say: ‘‘That’s untrue, sir, and the
proof is that the pope is king Emmanuel’s
prisoner.” Hence the necessity of this notice.)
�Id
III
THE SEVEN HEADS OF TILE ROMAN EMPIRE IN ITS
SECOND
PHASE.
“ And I stood upon the sand of the sea,
und saw a beast rise up out of the sea, hav
ing seven heads and ten horns, and upon his
horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the
name of blasphemy.
2. And the beast which I saw was like
a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a
bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion.
And the dragon (Satan) gave him his power,
and his seat, and great authority
3. And I saw one of his heads as it were
wounded to death; but his deadly wound was
healed ; and all the world wondered after the
beast (this healing is yet in the future).
4. And they worshipped the dragon which
gave power unto the beast, and they worship
ped the beast, saying,, who is like unto the
beast? who is able to make war with him?
5. And there was given unto him a mouth
speaking great things and blasphemies: and
power was given unto him to continue fortytwo months.
6. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy
�17
against God, to blaspheme his name, his tab
ernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
7. And it was given unto him to make war
with the saints, and to overcome them I and
power was given him overall kindreds, and
tongues and nations.
»
8. And all that dwell upon the earth shall
worship him, whose names are not Written in
the book of the Lamblslain from the founda
tion of the world.
9. If any man have an ear, let him hear.
10. He that leadeth into captivity, shall go
into captivity; he that killeth with the sword,
must be killed with the sword. Here is the
patience and the faith of the saints. (Apoc.
XIII.)
That this beast is identical with th® Roman
beast of Daniel vn, is plain from the fact that
(1) both come up from the sea; (2) both have
ten horns; (3) both make war with the saints
and overcome them.; (4) both speak against
God and blaspheme his name.
We have seen in Daniel ii that the Roman
empire, in its second phase, should be divided
into two kingdoms, represented by the feet of
iron and clay. The beast before us repre2
�18
seats the iron kingdom, that is, the kingdom
composed of the Roman element.
The ten crowned horns are the ten toes
of Nebuchadnezzar’s image (Daniel ii); also
the ten kings who should rise out of the Ro
man empire (Dan. in.); and also the ten kings
who should receive power one hour with the
beast (the Roman empire in its second phase)
and give it their power and their strength,
and make war with the Lamb (Apoc. xvn: 12,
LB, 14,). At the start there were ten kings,
but the little horn (with eyes like the eyes
of man, and speaking great words against God)
having- soon after subdued three of them to
form what was called the u papal or church’s
states” Jhiow united to Italy), their number
was then reduced to seven : France, Spain and
Austria are certainly three of them ; and Bel
gium, Portugal, Bavaria and Italy, probably,
the other four; were he willing, the Pope
could tell which they are.
The seven heads with the name of blasphe
my, are seven of the ten kings invested with
the leadership of the iron-kingdom. They arc
the representatives of the seven heads of the
ancient empire, and form collectively its eighth
head or new form.
�1!)
IV.
•
THE TWO-IIOENED LAMB---- TIIJJ UTILE llORX'.
(“ I considered the horns, anx^beholdShere
came up among them anther Kttle horn, be
fore whom there were tlirel fcf Aegl-st, horns
plucked up by the roots; Bi«behold, Mthis
horn were eyes like the eyes oifetan, and a
mouth speaking great things. 1, I l^hcSknd
the same horn made warafrith the saints, and
prevailed against them’*.. But the Judgment
shall sit, and they shall take away his domi
nion, to consume, and tofeesmy Wnnfa,the
end.” (Daniel vn:ted etc.)
11. “And I behel® anothe^Eeast Smiim
up out of the earth (he gas Eready in exist
ence as a bishop); and he had two horns like
a lamb (everywhere in the Bible a Iamb sym
bolizes Jesus Christ; so the maw, personized
here by a lamb, was to show himself as Christ
or his representative), and he spake as a
dragon, (look at it.)
12. And he exer.ciseth all the poicer of the
first beast (the beast described above) before
him (they are contemporaneous; he is the little
horn which sprang up among the ten), and
Causeth the earth and them which dwell therein
�20
to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound
was healed, (this is yet in the future.)
13. And he doth great wonders, so that he
makes fire come down from heaven on the earth
in the sight of men.
14. And deceiveth them that dwell on the
earth by those miracles which he had power to
do in the sight of-the beast, saying to them that
dwell on the earth, that they should make an
image, to the beast which had the wound by the
sword, and did live.
15. And he had power to give life unto the
image of the beast, that.the image of the beast
should both speak, and cause that as many
as would not worship the image of the
beast should be killed, (exactly the antetype of
Nebuchadnezzar’s image; and, if .the man
who made that living image in the likeness of
the ancient empire, was not changed into a
beast, as Nebuchadnezzar was, it is not that he
was in the least better than he, but because be
ing about to exercise all the power of the Ro
man empire, in its second phase, it was necessa
ry that he should have a man’s brain to rule it
according to the dragon’s.inspirations. But his
fate “ the lake of tire and brimstone,” which
r
�21
awaits him, is not better than Nebuchadnez
zar’s).
16. And he eauseth all, both small and great,
rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark
in their right hand, or in their foreheads;
17. And that no man might buyhor sell
(that is, make a living)! save he that have
the mark or the namj of the beast, or !he
number of his name (the right hand being fig
uratively used to represent action, and the
forehead to represent the Z/ttmy/i/, the mean
ing of this mark is, that this beast catteeth
all men to do or to believe as he commands,
and that no man might make his living or
save his life, except that he
as
he commands to do or to beli« e).
18. Ilere is wisdom. Let him that hath
understanding count the nunaber of the beast;
for it is the number of a man ; and his num
ber is six hundred three score and six=66G.
(Apoc. xin).
II. D.s and Reverend orthodox (sic) min
isters contend that the name of the beast is
to be found in the Greek, because (they say)
the Apocalypse was written in that tongue.
1 dare say that the name of the beast is not
to be found in the Greek, for these two very
�22
simple reasons : (1) Is it not natural that the
name of a man should be found in the lan
guage spoken by that man ? I think it is.
Now, the text says that the beast made an
image to the ancient Roman empire, whose
language was the Latin, and that he rules su
premely over the new Roman empire, whose
official language is the Latin, as every one
knows. What was the language spoken by
the image of the Roman empire in the recent
ecumenical council held in Rome? Was it
not the Latin ? Therefore, the name of the
beast must be found in the Latin. (2) God
says: “Come out of Babylon, my people, that
ye be not partakers of her sins, and that yo
receive not of her plagues ... If any man wor
ship the beast and his image, and receive his
mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the
same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of
God, and he shall be tormented with fire and
brimstone . . . And they have no rest day nor '
night, who worship the beast and his image,
and whosoever receivetli the mark of his name.”
Now, if' God command his people to come
out of Babylon, and warn all men, with ter
rible threatenings, not to' receive the mark of
the name of the beast, whose number is 666,
�23
does it not follow necessarily that Ais name
must be sucli that all may know it easily?
But, how can all know it, if it is to be found in
the Greek, which is neither spoken nor the
official language of any£jriiler whatever ? No,
the name of the beast cannot, must; not be
found in the Greek, but in the Bmo'uao’e
with which the beast signs his nameKSiich
is engraved with golden letters upon the
frontispiece of the Vatican : FJCarJflLLl
Del (066), the Vicar of the Son of God.
This is the title, the name! of the Pope,
and every one may know it, and ought to
know.
So far, we have seen the Representation of
the iron-kingdom, one of the two kingdoms
which should form the Roman empire, in its
second phase; we know also who is that little
horn which had eyes like the eyes of man,
and a mouth speaking great words against God ;
who is that lamb with two horns, but speak
ing as a Satan ; who is that man who made
an image which should both -speak, and cause
that as many as would not ’worship the image
should be killed ...!!! (Oh, St. Bartholomew!)
“And in her was found the blood of prophets
and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the
�24
eartli.” (Apoc. xvm: 24.) This is the his
tory of Popedom written beforehand by the
hand of God. Let ns see that image, the claykingdom.
V.
THE BEAST THAT WAS, IS NOT, AND YET IS.
“And there came one of the seven angels
which had the seven vials, and talked with
me, saying mito me: Come hither, I will
shew unto thee the judgment of the great
whore that sitteth upon many waters;
2. With whom the kings of the earth have
committed fornication, and the inhabitants of
the earth have been made drunk with the
wine of her fornication.
3. So he carried me away in the spirit into
the wilderness. And I saw a woman sit upon
a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blas
phemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
4. And the woman was arrayed in purple
and scarlet color, and decked with gold and
precious stones and pearls, having a golden
cup in her hand, full of abominations and
filthiness of her fornication,
5. And upon her forehead a name written:
Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of har
lots and the abominations of the earth.
�25
6. And I saw a woman drunk with the
blood of the saints, and with the blood of the
martyrs of Jesus, and when I saw ler, I won
dered with great wonder®
7. And the angel said unto naf^ AV 1 lerefoi'e
didst thou marvel ? I will tell thee the mys
tery of the woman and of the»as®iaS carrieth
her which hath the seven heads and the ten
horns.
8. The beast that thou sawest ze-t/s and A
not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless
pit, and ger into perdition ; and the|| that
dwell upon the earth shall wonder, whose
names were not written inftlie bwk of life
from the foundation of the worlflphen they
behold the beast that was, ™ nza and yet is.
9. And here is the mind whicli hath wis
dom : The seven heads are seven mountains,.
On which the woman sitteth.
10. And there are seven kings: five are
fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come;
and when he cometh, lie must continue a short
space.
11. And the beast that AVAS, and IS NO1\
even lie is the eighth, and is of the seven, and
goeth into perdition.
12. And the ten horns are ten kings, 'which
�26
have received no kingdom as yet. but receive
power as kings one hour with the beast (the
eighth head).
13. Tiiese have one mind, and shall give their
power unto the beast (the eighth head).
14. They shall make war with the Lamb
(Jesus Christ), and the Lamb shall overcome
them ; for he is the Lord of lords, and the-King
of kings; and they that are with him are called,
and chosen, and faithful.
15. And he said unto me : The waters which
thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peo
ples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
16. And the ten horns which thou sawest
upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and
shall make her desolate and naked, and shall
eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.
17. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil
his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom
unto the beast, until the words of God shall be
fulfilled.
18. And the woman, which thou sawest, is
the great, city which reigneth over the kings of
the earth.” (Apoc. xvii.)
Had not this beast ten horns and seven heads,
as the beast of Apoc. xui which, I have said,
is a representation of the iron-kingdom of the
�27
&
present Roman empire, verse 18th, alone would
be an evident proof that it represents the
Roman empire; for, when John wrote this
verse, Rome was the only ciay whichlRigned
over the kings of the earth. But, what does
that beast, which carries a worn aw represent?
It represents nothing less than
1. The Babylonian kingdom in its two
phases.
2. The Roman empire in its two phases—oj
in othe^ words,
* 1. Babylon and Rome, the queens of the
world (the first phase of both kingdoms).
2. Nebuchadnezzar’s and the Rope’s images,
the queens and the idols of the world (the
second phase of both kingdoms).
The angel said to John : £; I will tell thee
the mystery of the woman and of the beast
which carrieth her: The beast that thou saw,
cst was, and 7s not; arid shall ascend out of
the bottomless pit....... And they that dwell on
the earth shall wonder, when they behold the
beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
According to these statements, it is certain
(1) that this beast had existed formerly, and
had had two different phases; (2) that it had
^revived already in the Roman empire, in its
�9*3
40
<
♦
first phase; and (3) that it should revive
therein, in its second phase. Whither are
we to go to find the beast that was ? The
woman answers: To Babylon.
No one, who has read carefully only the first
chapters of Daniel, can fail to perceive that the
reign of Nebuchadnezzar had two very distinct
phases; the first ending, and the second com
mencing, at the setting up of his golden image.
In the first period of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar
is mainly a great and proud conqueror; but, in
the second period, he is a man entirely addicted
to religion ; a man whose arrogance, fanaticism,
and cruelty were never excelled by any man,
except by his antetype, the Pope of Rome. In
„ proof, let us read some verses of Daniel’s third
chapter:
“ Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image
of gold, whose height was three score cubits
and the breadth thereof was six cubits; he
. set it up in the plain of Dura, in the pro
vince of Babylon. And then (all the officers,
governors and peoples of his realm being
gathered together there) a herald cried aloud :
To yon it is commanded, O people, nations,
and tongues, that at what time ye hear the
sound of the cornet, flute, liavp, sackbut, psal-
�29
tery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall
down and worship the golden image that
Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up; and
whoso falleth not down and worshipped], shall
the same hour be cast into the midsSof a burn
ing fieryfurnace.
Twelve months after, as he walked in the
palace of the kingdom^M Babylon, the king
spake, and said : Is not this great Babylon,
that 1 have built for the house of the king
dom, by the might of my power, and for the
honor of my Majesty ? While the word was
in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from
heaven, saying: O king Nebuchadnezzar, to
thee it is spoken : The kingdom is departed
from thee. They slia.1 drive thee from men,
and thy dwelling shall be witBlie beasts of the
field, and seven times shall pas.. over thee.”
The same hour Nebuchadnezzar was changed
into a beast, driven from men, and remained
so seven years, during which the golden im
age continued to be worship] ed, Babylon re
mained without a ruler, and the kings, Nebu
chadnezzar’s prisoners, having become wor
shippers of the golden image, were allowed to
retake their thrones, conditioned that they give
their strength and power to promote the wor
�30
ship of the golden image, and prevent any
revolt or undertaking against Babylon, during
the seven years of Nebuchadnezzar’s illness.
Now, let us see liow far these two features of
the two kingdoms are represented in the bea<t
1 icfore us.
FIRST PHASE---- THE BEAST THAT WAS AND IS.
1. “ The beast is scarlet colored.” All the high
dignitaries of Babylon and Rome were array
ed iii scarlet, when officiating.
2. “The beast has ten horns, uncroicned.”
They are the ten kings conquered by Babylon
and by Rome.
3. “The beast has seven heads.” They are the
seven forms of government, Babylon and Rome
had had from their origin to their second
phase, the sixth (the imperial) being then in
existence, and the seventh, yet to come, in the
Roman empire.
4. “The seven heads are seven mountains, on
which the woman sitteth.” Babylon was set
on seven hills as well as Rome.
5. The woman—Babylon and Rome. Phy
sically, politically and religiously, Babylon was
a perfect resemblance of Rome.
6. “ The waters where the woman sitteth.”
�31
They are peoples, multitudes, nations* J and
tongues, which Babylon and Roma devoured,
trod down and brake, in pieces.^
SECOND PHASE—THE BEAST THAT
IVSWaNdIIS
NOT.
The second phase of NebSchajM^ijrTwign
was not yet in the Roman empire when John
wrote the Apocalypse it was to be BUhe
only, when the sixth head (theKmperial go
vernment), which was then, and the seventh,
which was to come, should, b^Jdleil Nev
ertheless, it is represented here beforehand :
for verse Sth says : The beast th^jz/mi^ saw
est was, and is not; and verse llthEfays: The
beast that icas, and is not, even he is the
eighth head: that is, the eighth form, the
second phase of the Roman- empire. So that,
the beast which stands before us, is, without
undergoing any change, the representation at
once of the two phases, both of the Babylo
nian kingdom, and of the Roman empire; no
difference between Imperial Rome and Papal
Rome. IIow are we to explain it ? I have
explained the beast that was and is, i. e. the
Babylonian kingdom and the Roman empire,
as they were before the setting up of Nebu-
�■cbadnezzar’s image and the Pope’s image.
Now, if we suppose—which is a reality—that
the woman, instead of representing Rome and
Babylon, represents both the golden image of
Nebuchadnezzar and the living image of the
Pope; the Babylonian idol and the Roman
goddess, or, in other words, Papal Rome in
stead of Imperial Rome, the same beast, which
represents the first phase of both kingdoms,
will also represent the second phase of both.
1. “The beast is scarlet colored.” All the
high attendants of the golden image wore,
and all the high officials of the Pope’s image
wear, the purple and scarlet color.
2. “ The beast has ten horns, uncrowned.”
They are the ten kings conquered by Rome
and Babylon, who, having recovered their lib
erty, became worshippers of the golden image
■and of the Pope’s image, were, as such, re
conquered by them, and held as their slaves.
3. “ The beast has seven heads.” They are
the seven forms of government Babylon and
Rome had, but risen again on the first beast
ot Apoc. xiii to be collectively the eighth
head of the new empire ; but, being worship
pers of the Pope’s image, they are worse than
fallen..
�,4. “The seven heads arc seven mountains on,
which the woman sitteth.’■ The golden image
and the Pope’s image,, being respectively the
image of Babylon and Rome, both sit on se
ven hills.
5. “ The woman.”—As 1 have said, she repre
sents Nebuchadnezzar’s image and the Pope’s
image. Physically, politically and religiously,
both are alike: both are arrayed in purple
and scarlet color, decked with gold and pre!
cious stones and pearls; both wan^to be the
idol of the world ; both lust after blood. The
only difference is that one “can both speak,
and cause” that as many as will not worship
the Pope’s image, be killed ; while the other
cannot.
6. “The waters where the woman sitteth.”—
They are peoples, multitudes, nations and
tongues, which the attendants of the golden
image devoured, trod down, and brake in
pieces, and which the Pope’s image devoured
and devours, trod and treads down, broke and
breaks in pieces.What is, then, that image which the Pope
made to the Roman empire, deadly wounded,
and yet alive? It is something so vile that
(rod represents it with miry clay, of which
3 V
�:u
ineir have made a queen and a goddess. It is
the clay kingdom, the Roman church, which,
mingling with the zron-kingdom of the ten
kings, form together the second phase of t-he
Homan empire, now known as Papacy, Pa
pally or Popedom. As this image was made
in the likeness of the ancient empire, and m>
one is a fit judge of an image, who does not
know the thing it reproduces, I ought to give
here in detail the constitution of the empire;
hut die limits of a tract forbid me to do so.
Wherefore. I will give here only the chief
features of it with their correspondents in the
image.
THE EMl’IUK.
1. Rome—She was the centre,
the house of the empire, the
<juc-en ot the world,- and reign
ed over the kings of the earth.
2. The Emperor—Romanorum
Jmperator et Summus Pontifex,
was his title. He was the Em
peror and supreme Pontiff of
the Romans. The State and
the religion of the state were
ruled then by one man; they
were not divided, as now, into
two kingdoms, called the State
and the Church ; and, besides,
the State had the lead on re
ligion, which was subordinate
to the State. The Pontificate
was then a secondary thing;
the head of the empire w*as
known chiefly as Emperor, and
not as Pontiff.
THE IMAGE.
1. The Roman Church—She is
i the centre, the house of the rei ligion of that named the queen
i ot the world, and reigns over
; the kings of the earth.
J 2. The Pope—Vicariw filii
j Dei is his title. He claims to
i be the vicar of Jesus Christ,
i and, as such, the right to an
universal dominion, Were his
title genuine, his claims would
be tindisputable; lor Jesus
Christ is not only the High
Priest, but also the Great king;
but his, unfortunately, being’ a
number one counterfeit, and
having but the spirit of Satan,
instead of the spirit of Christ,
to overcome his foes, he needs
the sword of the ten kings.
Wherefore they agreed, gave
him their power, and acknowl
edged him as their head, and
I the supreme ruler over the Ro' man empire, called now-a-days
�.
I Popedom. So that, he is rfe
[facto, not de jure, the Emperor
; and supreme Pont,iff of the Ro< 'V4'1’ ' * •■•-•’■•-■•*•'*■ i mans. The reason which pre.r?.
\
! vents people from seeing how
j rd possibly Popedom can be the
*i- >5 1 ...... ; Rom in wnpire in its second
F] phase, is that the State and-the
i religion, which formerly were
■ : ruledifhy one man (the Ernpe■
>*• / • ♦
•
i ror), form »ow two distinct
' r*:: * '■ > . -'- y *
? kingdoms, one headed by seven
■ kings, and the oilier, by one
; (the Pope), who bears supreme
: rule over both with the sainllv
I names of Vicar of Christ, His
: Holiness, the Holy Father who
’
•
|begot a church called the Holy
i Mother. Now, people itecus• :■
I tomed to see much, very much
i uncleanness and unholiness in
•
I'their governors, »ant good
spectach s to see in th* Holy
i Father, hand in hand with the
Holy Mol her i the .-nprwn? ruler
, i ©f the Roman empire.
3, Roman Citizenship—There \ 3. Roman Church Membership
were hut two ways to be a Ro- • —There are btrt two ways to
man citizen : 1st, bv birth ; 2d, • be a member of the Roman
by purchase.
'
. church: 1st, by will; 2d, by
_ '
; the Pope’s mark.
4. Classification of Citizens—: 4. Classification of the Church' »
There Were three classes or or- ' Members— There are three classders : 1st, the patrician order; : es or orders: 1, the cardinal’s
2d, the equestrian order; 3d, ‘order; 2, thebishops and arch
ilie plebeian order. The two bishops; 3, the curates, vicars,
first composed the aristocracy or and chaplains: The two first;
nobility; the third, the com-' orders compose the high clergy,
mon people.
and the third, the lower clergy.
f>. The Senate—It was exclu- I 5. The College of Cardinals—
sively composed of patricians. It is exclusively composed of
i cardinals.
6. “ Whoever is not a Roman i 6. “ Whoever is not a Roman
citizen is a barbarian, who, as I Catholic is a heretic, who, as
such, has no right to life, and ! such, has no right to life, and
with whom any Roman may i with whom any catholic may
deal as he pleases,” was the | deal as he phases,” is the
sanguinary maxim deeply rooted | bloody maxim deeply rooted in
in the mind and in the laws of | the mind and in the canons of
the Roman people.
i the Roman church.
7. “Rome is bound to war' 7. “The Roman church is
as Jong as there are barbarian I bound to war and send out her
people standing up, ” was an- ' propagandists in the countries
other bloody maxim of Rome. i of the heretics to. operate revoI lutions and overthrow tbeir
i governments, as long as there
'suT’jf?
‘
fli...
■■■
,
•
’
.
•'••■■■Vs.
�8. The Roman Slaves—They
were the conquered people who',
to save their lives, were bound
to receive the mart of bondage
with a hot iron on their shoul
ders. They and their progeny
were sold at auction to the Ro
man people) and their owners
could do with them according
to their will.
9. The Countries Conquered by
Rome—They; were divided into
provinces, tribes, wards (cu
riae), centuries, decuries, and
the natives, now reduced to
slavery, had to till the ground,
ere-while theirs, and to do all
kind of hard work to provide
lor the legions sent to watch
over them, and to furnish to
the lusts and rapacities of the
proconsuls, questors, military
tribunes, centurions, decnrions, and of the legists and
school-masters, sent by Rome
to inculcate to the poor slaves
her tongue, religion, laws and
customs.
10. The Emperor’s Ambassa
dors.—Legaii.
11. The Religion of Rome—
Paganism.
12. The Language of RomeThe Latin.
is a single one which does opt
worship her,” is another bloody
maxim of the Roman church.'
8. The Roman Church’s Slaves
—They are the faithful, who,
to save their lives, were bound
to receive the mark of the Pope
(the lamb beast, Apoc. xi«)
in their foreheads, or in thenright hand, that is, bound to
believe or do according to the
Pope’s will. They and their
progeny are bound not only to
worship his church, but to fur
nish her with gold, silver, pre
cious stones, pearls, line linen,
purple, silk, scarlet, horses,
chariots, etc., etc.
9. The Countries Conquered by
the Roman Church—They aredivided into provinces, diocceses, parishes, and annexes; and
the faithful have to till the
ground, and do all kind of hard
work to provide for the armies
standing to watch over them,
and prevent any attempt of
theirs for the recovery of their
liberty; and to furnish to the
lusts and rapacities of the car
dinals, bishops, archbishops,
curates, vicars, chaplains: and
of the Jesuits and all kind of
monastical teachers, sent by
the Roman church to iuculcate
to her worshippers her tongue,
her religion, her canons and
customs, and to be sicut cadavera (as corpses).
10. The Pope’s Ambassadors—
Legates, Nuncios.
11. The Religion of the Roman
Church—Paganism, "called Ca
tholicism.
12. The Language of the Ro
man Church—The Latin.
These are the main features of the harlot
which the Pope made in the likeness of the
Roman empire, 'to be the queen and goddess
of the world. This is the church which, with
the criminal assistance of the seven heads of
the present Roman empire has killed and
�37
•burned alive, by the millions, people who
would, not worship her, and devoured, and
^trodden down her worshippers, by thousands of
millions, during these long 126*0 years
!
“ And in her was found the blood of pro
phets, and of saints, and of all that were
slain upon the earth.” (Apoe. xvm, 24.)
American citizens, if I recall to your mind
the word of General LafayetH to General
Washington: "Beware of the Catholicsf
will say: uWc can’t-help it; we are a free
’country, and the Catholics have here the same
rights as other people.” Let me tell you a
word: Suppose that France, or Spain, or
Austria, would send here 20,000 soldiers com
manded by their able officers;
that this
little army would be incessantly debauching
the American soldiers, enlisting them into
their ranks, and receiving every year from
their own country great reinforcements, with
the avowed purpose of conquering you as soon
as they got the power to do so, would you
say : “We can't help it ?” I know you wouldn’t,
and I. hear you screaming
Sir, rather than
to allow such a thing we would light to the
last drop of our blood.’4 AV ell, the case is
just the same, if not worse. You have already,
implanted -on your soil, about 7,000,000
of people who have the mark of the Pope.
They want to get you and your beautiful
land* under the dominion of Popedom, They
are well disciplined, with shrewd and skillful
captains, colonels, and generals at their head,
�38
accompanied by their usual train of male and
female legists and school-matters, to teach you?
children to hate von (heretics), to abhor every
one and every thing which has not a catholic
scent, and to take fancy to their paganism,
whose pompousness and commodities arc so
attractive to the inflammable imagination of
the youth, and of the beautiful woman who,
chancing to have a husband not very amiable
(and how many such husbands!!), goes and
makes confession of her weakness at the feet
of a man who, having no wife, is all candy,
and gives her the very consolations she
needs. Thus, they are incessantly recruiting
soldiers from among your people,* receive
from the fatherland new recruits which maw
be counted every year by the hundreds of
thousands; and they will increase, increase,
increase their army till they get strength
enough to control your country ; and then,
adieu to your free institutions, either civil,
political, or religious ! Do not say, because
you see no swords nor muskets in their hands,
a there is no danger’' : Dome conquered bv
the sword, but the Itoman church conquers bv
* Interviewed by the St. Louis Democrat reporter, a few days
before these leaves went to print, Bishop Ryan said : We are
making a great many converts here. We have 300 priests in Eng
land who were formerly Protestant clergymen-; and we have quite,
a number here (clergymen, of course, since, he adds). Archbish
op Bayley, of Baltimore, was a Protestant minister.—Q. You are
making a good many converts in the South ? Yes, said the Bish
op, and in the North, too, and in the East and the West (good
news, reporter). The Pope is very well disposed toward Anu rica !
Said the violator of the amenities of social life (Pshaw ! ’
Of
course he is ; and were he not, your sycophancies could not fail to
effect that result.)
�39
•her propaganda, until she gets- a majority or
a government of her worshippeis; then she
•uses the sword and the flames against the
residue of heretics ; then. .. . sauce qui pent.!
Again, remember the man who, pitying a
bcnumed viper, took it in his bosom, carrying
his death about himself. Awake and look
mil !
AL word to the Sceptics—1 have just explain
ed the history of the Roman empire in its
two phases, written long beforehand, even at
......least one thousand' years before its second
phase, Popedom. Now, I ask youij Had we
not tiiis prophetic writ, could you, with all
your wisdom and transcendent faculties, have
ever imagined that this Roman churchws^ in
all. respects, the exact reproductionBof the an
cient'Roman empire ? That she is nothing
else than a grotesque and diabolic imitation
of Christ’s kingdom, fashioned jtal the Roman
empire, swaying her iron sceptre over the earth
as a goddess, devouring and treading down
peoples, multitudes and nations, and killing
■whomsoever will not worship lier|l Could you
ever have imagined that, had we i»t this holy
writ ? And if you could not, with that abomi
nation in your sight, nor^an^ man, of all who
have seen it these 1200 years, could, how could
Daniel and John, had they not been inspired,
have imagined it, they who lived so many hun
dred years before that harlot sat upon the Ro
man empire? Wherefore, be wise; and if you
wish people to believe that you are not entirely
�40
devoid ol sense, do not say any more that the
Bible was written by uninspired men; for, when
you say so, you blaspheme against the Holy
Ghost, and that is a sin which shall not be for
given in this world, nor in the world to come.
Qtws dii perdere volunt, Slullos faciunt—
Politicians, statesmen, editors, ministers and
priests, all have been puzzled to find out the
reason why France was so awfully beaten bv
Prussia, but with no success. Had they read
the Bible (the confirmer and rectifier of tlie pro
fane history), they would have found there the
true reason for it. As I have said. France ful
filled the will of God when she rose as one man
in ’89, and made her great revolution against
the whore; but she retraced, her steps in ’53,
when that man, whose name is Napoleon III,
sent troops to restore the Holy father to Rome
and protect his Holy mother, and kept thorn
there 17 years. Then God’s patience tired out,
rmd lie crazed him and his compeers so, that
they provoked to war the Teutonic lion, who
camo with the whip, and renewed, on a larger
>cale, with France the work done with Austria
in ’GG. So God compelled him to recall his
troops. This resistence of the French govern
ment.to the will of God was the true and only
cause of the ruin and humiliation of France;
and the same fate awaits all the Catholic States
which will not revolt against the whore, make
her desolate and nakedj'eat her flesh, and burn
her with fire.
�
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Popedom. The Roman Empire in the second phase: no difference between imperial Rome and papal Rome. American nationality in danger
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Z'K/V
•
VATICAN DECREES
AND
THE “EXPOSTULATION.”
BY
ROBERT RODOLPH SUFFIELD,
Minister of the Free Christian Church, Wellesley Road, Croydon; formerly
Apostolic Missionary and Prefect of the “Guard of Honour;"
Author of several Pamphlets in this Series.
PUBLISHED
BY
TEUBNER AND
CO.,
57 AND 59 LUDGATE HILL ; AND
THOMAS SCOTT,
11 THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
1874.
Price Sixpence.
•’V
�■t
f
LONDON:
PRINTED
BY C. W. REYNELL, 16 LITTLE PULTENEY STREB'
HAYMARKET, W.
�PREFACE.
Since the appearance of Mr. Gladstone’s “ Expos
tulation,” I have been repeatedly asked to express my
opinions as to the political bearing of the Vatican
decrees. The subject is of an extent and complication
beyond the limits of a pamphlet; but as some friends
are partial enough to urge me to make known, at
least in a general way, something of the result of my
thoughts and experience, I can no longer consistently
maintain the silence which I should prefer. Though
after the thoughtful and accurate statements which
have emanated from Mr. Gladstone, Lord Acton,
Lord Camoys, the Right Rev. Monsignore Capel, the
Very Rev. Monsignore Patterson, and the able com
ments upon the same in our leading periodicals, I
have little to add beyond the expression of my per
sonal experience ; the quotations, which at the request
of the same parties are appended to this brochure,
will explain to strangers my profound personal inte
rest in a question which has so intimately affected
my own life.
��THE VATICAN DEGREES
AND
THE “EXPOSTULATION.”
EOPLE cannot be allowed the pleasure of at the
same time affirming and denying a conviction.
The Neo-Catholics, headed by the Pope, and in
England by Archbishop Manning, declare the Vatican
decrees to be an undoubted expression of the Divine
will. The Old Catholics, represented by such men
as Bishop Reinkins, Dr. Dollinger, and Lord Acton,
declare them to be merely the utterances of what
Dr. Newman designated “ an aggressive and insolent
faction.” The Vatican Council is either ecumenic or
schismatic. Skilful men can find reasons on either
side, and consistent men may act out either conclu
sion. The Old Catholics deny the infallibility of
the Vatican Council. The Neo-Catholics affirm its
infallibility. Learning has ranged itself on the side
of the “ Old ” Catholics; diplomacy on the side of the
“ New.” The Roman Catholic Church has disappeared;
the Vatican Church has supplanted it. We have
too much appreciation of the learning of the “ Old ”
Catholics, and the diplomatic ambition of the ecclesi
astical rulers of the “ New,” to be able to regard as a
nonentity that momentous revolution. When men
the wealth of whose virtues and learning had enriched
the Papal cause could, in advanced years, sorrow
fully permit the Pope and some millions of adherents
to leave them, at once warning and anathematized—
P
�4
^he Vatican Decrees
warning those who leave, anathematized by those
who have left;—when acute diplomatists like Dr. Man
ning urge on a revolution with all the ardour
inspired by ambition, and in presence of the sorrow
ful laments and pathetic warnings of men who had
grown old in the service of a cause then about to
die,—surely a nonentity was just the last event
contemplated by anyone. The Old Catholics and
New Catholics alike beheld in that revolution the
inauguration of a new era of individual absolutism,
to be established as the embodiment of the Divine
will; and in the name of religion, of liberty, of
humanity, the Old Catholics raised their protest. In
the name of Pius IX. and of possession, the New
Catholics raised the war cry, which died off into
a perpetual anathema. Those men who contended
on the battle-field of thought, of history, of diplo
macy, until the fatal victory of July, 1870, were not
children contending for baubles : they were men who
entered the lists. Some contended for truth, others
fought for power. The triumphant faction being in
possession of the Vatican, in possession of the
Episcopal Sees, in the possession of the ecclesiastical
edifices, retained easily power over the masses. What
they sought, they have obtained. Whenever their
chief ruler issues any declaration which he means to
be infallible, it is infallible. Should any voice,
retaining a ring of the accents of liberty, dare to say,
“The subject on which you have decreed is out of
- the range of faith and morals, so you only therein
.decree as a man;” the Ruler replies, “You have
; accepted as Divine the Vatican decrees; you therein
-declared that you will be accursed, and forfeit your
eternal salvation, unless you inwardly believe and
heartily accept, and outwardly in practice conform to
that belief, that the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff
is over all the Faithful individually and collectively;
that his authority compels your entire and unreserved
�and the “Expostulation.”
5
obedience, not only in matters appertaining to faith
and morals, but also in all those that.appertain to the
discipline and government of the Church. You
have declared your internal assent to the Divine
decree, whereby you learn that this power is from
God, represents God, is full and supreme, and not
merely of inspection and direction; that it is superior
to all other power, extends everywhere, must never
be controlled, must always enjoy free and immediate
communication with its subjects wherever they may
be; that its judgments may never be reviewed, appealed
against, or disregarded; that to it alone it apper
tains to declare what belongs to its jurisdiction and
what domains of thought and of action (if any) are
exempt from its infallible utterances.”
Obviously the Vatican faction could not regard as
meaningless and powerless such expressions, cau
tiously worded and decreed after mature deliberation.
Their promulgation was enjoined. The Vatican party
must not be surprised if those who protested against
their formation desire their promulgation. What can
be done, what was meant to be done, what will be
done, we want all men to know I Vatican diplomacy,
having obtained the weapons, would rather that the
Faithful alone, and they but gradually, should realise
the weight of the sceptre which they have forged and
feebly yielded to an Italian priest. But we would
rather know and feel the metal of the weapon pre
pared for us. A sword sheathed in velvet is still a
sword. Chains concealed in the intentions of a pre
late, still are chains. They are meant for us, and we
should like to handle them. We have been recently
somewhat naively told that they will be “ convenient.”
Doubtless ; therefore the more that is known about
them the better. In a docile school the boys collect
the birch rods, and with wondering fear feel their
substance, and speculate on their effects. If the scholars
become too frightened, should panic threaten an in
�6
Hhe Vatican Decrees
convenient outbreak, the master and ushers will pru
dently explain that the rods will be hardly ever used;
that they are merely symbols of authority, quite
harmless, almost pleasant; that obviously it can make
no difference whether the rods are in the school-room
or on the trees ; they were only gathered at the urgent
request of the boys. All very good ; but still a boy
might like to know that they are there, are meant to
be used, and will be used.
In former times we English people knew what the
Popes could effect amongst those who revered in him
a Divine primacy, but not a Divine individual, irre
sponsible infallibility. What is prepared for ns now,
when the Papal authority is declared to be absolute,
immediate, personal—when his utterances must be
believed as well as obeyed ? Now that a circle of hell
fire is drawn around the Papal subject, he must either,
like the Salamander, kill his mental liberty, or live for
ever in the flames. People have said, Why in this
country, at a time of profound peace, when all the
Vatican Catholics are living in undoubted loyalty—
why call attention to the Vatican decrees when they
are consoling Roman prelates and harming no one ?
We reply, It is just the time when we should examine
the weapons forged for emergencies. If the English
people were in times of excitement to realise the mag
nitude of the triumphant revolution, we cannot tell to
what excesses some amongst them might be driven.
Those principles of religious equality which we have
been slowly conquering by the patient energy of men
whose passion is for justice might have been pushed
back for generations into the dregs of a cowardly and
insane persecution. All men, of whatever creed,
Roman or the opposite, ought to rejoice that this sub
ject should have been brought to the front and can
vassed at a moment when it appeals to no triumphant
bigotries. I am convinced that nothing can better
secure our Roman countrymen in England than what
�and the “Expostulation.”
7
is now taking place. Let all men realise what must
and ought to be the line of action of a consistent sup
porter of the Vatican Church, as contrasted with the
position of the Old Catholics; let all men, having rea
lised it, know what to expect; let all then renew within
their minds the intense conviction that under no cir
cumstances whatsoever must opinions be punished;
that the State has only to deal with actions, and
amongst actions only with those which obviously
affect the commonwealth ; then we shall be strong to
resist and to suppress that hurricane of anti-Roman
indignation which will soener or later arise, and which
might carry away many of our great principles of
liberty, if we were not prepared to meet it by a recog
nition of the causes exciting it.
No controversialist could have caught the public
ear and instructed the public mind. The foremost
man in England alone could do it; the statesman,
rich in scholarship and in thought, representing in
his own person whatever is the highest in culture,
the most illustrious in our national traditions, the
most reverent, religious, and tolerant in character;
he, the near relative of one Roman Catholic, the inti
mate friend of many, was, above all others, the man
to speak. Judging by the standard of expediency,
his words may politically injure him; judging by the
standard of rectitude, his Expostulation ” will be
recorded amongst the most honourable deeds of an
honourable career. Many will have cause to rejoice
at it; but, above all, must we, the disciples of Reli
gious Equality, rejoice that the people of England
should have been instructed in the words and bearing
of the Vatican Decrees when that instruction could
be received quietly, take its place in the public mind
harmlessly and prepare us against contingencies
wisely.
As to explanations, there are none to give.
Some Roman Catholics, like Sir George Bowyer,
�8
The Vatican Decrees
may not as yet understand the Decrees, and may,
in consequence of their known spirit of submission,
be allowed to write condemned propositions publicly,
trusting to their private repentance in the Con
fessional. But the common sense of the people of
England will easily perceive that the question is not
whether now the Pope may be enforcing loyalty or
not, but what all consistent subjects of the Vatican
Church must do when the Pope may enforce another
course. Regarding that, there can be no question.
Catholics will divide between those who accept the
Vatican Decrees and those* who reject them; the
latter will practically be in the same position as all
the Episcopal Churches, independent of Rome, e.g.,
the Greek, Russian, English, American, and German.
In saying that, we can easily surmise the future
action of Neo-Catholics as to Papal Decrees hostile
to our national interests. I do not mean to state that
their constant obedience to the Pope can be always
depended upon by him. Men do not always act in
accordance with their convictions, even under pain of
certain eternal damnation. But we must not forget
that no Neo-Catholic can approach the Sacraments if
he be engaged in any line of action forbidden by the
Pope; and all Catholics deem the Sacraments essen
tial to salvation ; moreover, disobedience to the Pope
in a grave matter would be understood to be invariably
a mortal sin. A soldier dying in a forbidden service
knows that he perishes for ever in Hell. It may be
said, practically, the Pope will probably not frequently
interfere—that will depend—one fact let us remem
ber, the Pope does not show much interest in matters
of merely personal or public virtue—he seldom thinks
it worth his while to issue a Decree against drunk
enness and such like faults. When dignified eccle
siastics in this country have taken up such merely
moral questions, it has been well known that it has
been chiefly to prevent the cause falling into the
�and the “Expostulation”
9
exclusive hands of Protestants. But the questions
connected with Papal power have never been allowed
to sleep. During the last years, Boman Catholics have
felt as if all religion and morality depended upon the
success of Papal political schemes. All the action of
the Pope has been to concentrate power in himself,
and to make it daily felt. His chief representatives
in England and Ireland have been appointed by the
Pope, in defiance of the wishes of the Faithful and
their clergy, and without the concurrence of one single
national vote. Regulations of a most arbitrary cha
racter as to marriage and education have been insti
tuted and enforced, in opposition to the wishes, in
terests and customs of the Faithful concerned.
It rends one’s memories to think of the noblehearted Roman Catholics of England, representatives
of ancient traditions of religion and of loyalty, their
lives as blameless and as beautiful as the poetic
legends of their Faith—they truthfully, through their
vicars apostolic, disowned all those Papal claims
which though often advanced and often recognised,
were not those “ Of Faith ”—on the strength of their
honest disclaimer they were restored to rights which
they ought never to have lost, and all the Liberals of
England rejoiced on that day when, in the Palace of
Westminster, the Roman Catholic nobles re-entered
the ancient hall, on each side of which the peers arose
to greet, them, the bearers of historic names, the re
presentatives of great traditions,—a principle greater
than all traditions arose and bade them welcome—it
was the principle of Religious Equality 1 What have
those men done, to use the eloquent plaint of Dr.
Newman, that the hearts of the just should be made
sad ? Rome, ever reckless of honour when power can
be grasped 1 what was it to Rome, that these sons of
crusaders and of martyrs had, on the strength of her
silence, plighted a word higher than the word of any
creed—the word of an English gentleman—and by
�IO
The Vatican Decrees
that word disowned and denied all the usurped pre
tensions of Rome. When the convenient time
arrived, a power that has never kept its word, com
pelled English gentlemen to violate theirs, to recant
all that they had said—it was the very triumph of the
Priest over the Man I—like the tyrant general who
seduced the honour of a virgin, and then presented to
her dishonoured gaze the corpse of the father she had
fondly hoped to have saved. The Roman Catholic
gentlemen yielded their honour to save their Church
—the Pope has presented to them as a corpse the
Church for which they interceded.
It is idle to point to the deeds of English Roman
Catholics in the days of old. In July, 1870, Italian
Priests and their coadjutors slew the old Church, and
intoned over it the Requiem. You find that Requiem
in the Vatican Decrees. Formerly, in periods of
discord, many Roman Catholics always sided with
the Pope, because they revered the primacy of his
dignity, the sacredness of his origin, and recognised
him as the centre of the Church’s unity ; other Roman
Catholics disobeyed him, resisted him, besieged his
capital, and yet, approaching the Sacraments, lived
and died in union with the Roman Church and its
creed, but resisting as exaggerated, or criminal, or
unpatriotic, actions and commands of the Roman
Pontiff. All that is past. The Pope was not
satisfied with the willing service of the free—some
to obey, others to oppose—and yet all to be one
with him in Faith and Sacraments. Those mystic
rites, tokens of spiritual memories, must wait
upon diplomacy, and be subject to his temporal
ambitions. Have all, or none. No wonder that in
many an English Roman Catholic home—many an
old home of chivalry, faith,.and honour—a sorrowful
choice presented itself; accustomed to regard visible
unity with the Pope as essential to salvation, some
accepted the Papal Sacraments and slavery, others
�v^ppaF*' • .. A't^V^.’T*.
- • <f ’ '*..- ' »/??,
and the “Expostulation.”
•’.*\;'/"r 7£ W
11
sought Free Sacraments and personality, and in so
seeking they deemed the “ Free ” more Christian, more
Catholic than the “ Papal.” The men on each side
we honour, but let us not amidst our sentiments of
homage to conscientiousness—nay, may I add, to
memory and to affection—let us not forget that the
Catholics, divided now into the Vatican and the Old,
represent different principles, opposing positions.
The Vatican faction has triumphed, and has suc
ceeded in establishing all the principles the most
fatal to the development of the human mind, of
human society, of religion, -of morals, of science, of
rational liberty. There is no explaining away what
has been done—either embrace it or disown it. Mr.
Gladstone’s “ Expostulation ” may display to view a
few of those on either side. But the side taken is
really to be easily discovered by a more obvious test.
Who receives Sacraments from a Neo-Catholic priest ?
Who refuses so to do ? The statements in Mr. Glad
stone’s “ Expostulation ” are so cautiously accurate,
that I need only refer to them; but we must remem
ber that the Vatican Decree is retrospective. The
“ Encyclical ” has become a compendium of articles
of faith; and every cause dear to a patriot and a
man of justice is cursed by its inhuman decrees.
You mock us with Italian irony, when in the presence
of the civilised world you first solemnly anathematise
science, civilisation, progress, and equal rights, when
you refuse your Sacraments and paternal fellowship
to those who cannot mentally believe the truth or
justice of your anathemas. When you declare that
those who cannot worship with you have no right to
worship anywhere; have, in fact, no rights outside the
walls of a prison or the steps of a scaffold, to which
you declare that your Church has divine power to
commit them; and then, when we read your decrees
and your admonition to civil governors to aid their
execution, and we read your own solemn utterances
�12
The Vatican Decrees
and tremble for the liberties which may be subjected
to your keeping—the liberty of the individual, the
liberty of the family, the liberty of the State, the
liberty of education, of science, of conscience—and
deliberate how we can preserve our liberty and
honour without violating yours, you assume the air of
injured innocence and wonder that we should call
attention to what really meant nothing at all, but
that, as we seem annoyed, you will put your heads
together, give us a nice explanation—a pill so care
fully sugared that even a Cardinal could swallow it.
But we say, we have had your explanations, you
thought about them well enough, you have promul
gated them to the world, we will learn your mind
from the words which you say are inspired—the
words of your Encyclicals and Vatican Decrees—not
from words which you can repudiate as soon as they
have succeeded in blinding. The indignant mind of
Europe has caught you “in flagrante delicto,” and
you turn round with a surprised smile and tell us you
meant no harm; you have taken bigotry, and into
lerance, and arrogance into your counsels, and com
bined together in a conspiracy against humanity—we
detect you, and you say, “ be quiet—what have we
done ? ” You send over your prelates to this England
of ours, and they talk glibly about liberty of worship,
and liberty of conscience, and liberty of speech, and
liberty of the press, and liberty of education, and
liberty of investigation, when they know—and now we
know—that they mean liberty for their own worship,
conscience, speech, education and press, but ana
themas against any one who dares even to think that
such liberty ought to belong to others. You forget
that our passionate devotion to the liberties you
anathematise are alone the cause why the Liberals of
England, headed by their great Statesman, declare
—“ Your equal liberties shall remain inviolate, by
virtue of the very principles you declare to be
�and the “Expostulation?
13
accursed.” Having said that, and meaning to act
upon it, and determined not to be driven from it by
any foreign or domestic influence, we have surely
proclaimed all that the very chivalry of principle can
demand. But you can expect no more.
If a body of Puritans had existed in Rome in the
days of the Papal sovereignty; if they had in solemn
conclave declared that they regarded the Pope as
anti-Christ, and all his followers accursed by God and
to be repudiated by man, that no Roman Catholic
ought to be allowed any religious educational liberty—
that the Puritan conclave had a Divine right to extir
pate all such liberties—that it was the duty of the
civil power to enforce whatever action the aforesaid
conclave deemed prudent to enact, with the view of
forcibly destroying the existence of the Roman
Catholic religion—that Roman Catholics possess no
rights, but may be tolerated when toleration becomes
a regretable necessity. Suppose these Puritans to
have received civil rights because the Pope imagined
their principles of hostility to have merged into merely
religious and theoretical difference, the Puritans de
claring such to be the case, and repudiating the state
ments attributed to them which had been subversive
of civil loyalty; supposing that a few years afterwards
these Roman Puritans met together, and declare that
all the opinions ever taught by their wildest divines
were part of the Gospel message; that they now
solemnly proclaim them as absolutely true, and held
firmly by all who join them ; that they have placed
themselves, for the protection of their principles,
under the control of the Emperor of Germany; that
at present they are perfectly satisfied with their posi
tion, and perfectly loyal. What would have been the
attitude of the Pope ? Prisons and scaffolds would
reply. But suppose the Pope to have been a secret
heretic, and, therefore, at liberty to follow the nobler
inspirations of conscience—suppose him to have an
unbounded confidence in the strength of his position
�14
’The Vatican Decrees
and the final, though often remote, triumph of the
Right; but suppose him also to be a man capable of
appreciating what is demanded by self-respect and by
regard to the feelings of the loyal. What then would
have been his policy ? Would he have invited to his
more secret counsels Puritans known to maintain
the entire and universal supremacy of the German
Emperor ? Would he have recognised the Puritan
emissaries appointed by the Emperor for the super
vision of his Roman subjects, especially if the Em
peror had publicly claimed him as his own subject ?
Would he invariably have taken the dictation of the
German emissary as to the chaplains for the Roman
army and Roman prisons P Would the citizens of
Rome have felt anxious to show special social con
sideration to the German emissary, whose chief func
tion it would be to keep the Puritans thoroughly
loyal to the Emperor, and ready to obey him when
ever occasion might demand ? If the Pope had so
acted in moments of weakness and romance, he would
have retraced his steps as soon as he recovered his selfrespect ; if a secret heretic, and so able to act nobly,
he would not begin to persecute the Puritans; he
would permit the Emperor to appoint his own emis
saries over the Puritan schools, Puritan institutions,
Puritan chapels, Puritan conclaves ; but he would not
permit the Emperor to appoint his own nominees to
public institutions, and then undertake to pay them ;
such refusal would not necessarily be the result of
fear, but of consistency and self-respect, and from a
conscientious desire not to encourage by favouritism the
further encroachments and pretensions of the German
Emperor. He would feel it due to his own subjects,
not to go out of his way to place in office of power
and of public trust those who continued obviously to
treat him as inferior to the Emperor. But if he
perceived other Puritans who maintained their inde
pendence of the decrees of the conclave, and though
�and the “Expostulation.”
15
sympathising with the Emperor on account of simi
larity of creed, yet obviously regretting his claims to
supremacy in all causes over the Emperor, the Pope
would treat such Puritans like any other of his
subjects, without adverting in public action to their
difference of creed.
Such, I presume, ought to be our line of action ,
as to the foreign potentate who has recently claimed.
Supremacy over all the baptised amongst our country
men. We ought to ignore utterly and entirely all the
Papal claims, and Papal emissaries, as such. A Papal
Archbishop should be to us simply an English citizen,
or, if a foreigner, a foreign visitor, and nothing more;
we ought not, on the ground of his being a Papal
prelate, to confer with him, and to arrange appoint
ments, or accept his appointments, and ask the wishes
of his foreign sovereign. To do so is contrary to
self-respect—to the national honour. If we had been
as anxious to consult the feelings and wishes of the
Irish people, and of the labouring classes of England,
as we have been anxious to defer to the wishes of an
Italian prelate, we should have but little discontent
in either country. Statesmen of large sympathies
have thought that they would be above all things
pleasing the English Roman Catholics and the Irish
people by finding out what would please the Pope,
and doing it. Oh, marvellous simplicity! Do not
the Irish remember full well that a Pope gave Ireland
to an English conqueror. That a Pope sent over a
Cardinal to help the English Government to suppress
national aspifations which were regarded with
apprehension at Rome ? Cardinal Cullen does not
enjoy the confidence of the Irish people; the prelate
they adore is the one who voted against the Papal
infallibility, an Archbishop whom the Pope would
depose if he dared. When he dies, he will probably
be succeeded by some docile canonist forawhom no
Irishman has voted. Dr. Cullen was appointed’by
�i6
The Vatican Decrees
Rome without the concurrence of the Irish clergy.
His objects are of a very matron-like character, and
not at all representative of the wishes of the Irish
people. If we want to legislate with a view to the
wishes and feelings and real living interests of the
Irish people, we must not ask the guidance of any
Roman Cardinal. The Irish ask for national equality,
and we offer them a “ concession ” about the normal
schools, or invite a Papal prelate to meet a Princess,
and give him precedence over whatever might have
represented the national aspirations. The Irish
people ask for liberty, and you give them chaplains.
The Irish ask for extension of the franchise, repeal
of penal enactments, a national militia, and a local
Parliament, and you say we cannot do those things
for you, but we will pay your chaplains, and confer
with your venerated Bishops as to any other conces
sion they may deem desirable. I do not venture on
this occasion an opinion whether or not the real
wishes of the Irish people can be accepted or not; I
merely, for my present purpose say, if you want to '
conciliate the Irish people you will not do so by fawn
ing upon the Pope and the clergy: they have their
objects; the Irish people have other objects. When
shall we give to nations the equal rights which we
more than give to the emissaries of a foreign power ?
Surely the loyalty of a nation is of more consequence
than the purchased conventional loyalty of a priest
hood.
But it may be said, anyhow in England, the way to
conciliate the gentry is to make much of the Papal
prelates. First of all I would say the English Roman
Catholic gentlemen needed no conciliation ; they were
loyal to the backbone; they had everything to lose
and nothing to gain by any change—any possible
change. When the Vatican Decrees were issued, about
two dozen men, distinguished by intellect, character,
and culture, refused submission, and thus virtually
�and the “Expostulation.”
*7
assumed the position of “ Old Catholics,” like, for
instance, Lord Acton, the best-read Catholic in Eng
land. But most of the Catholics adopted the new
dogma. Thus the Roman Catholics recognised by
Catholic emancipation are now represented by only
a few honoured names, but very small in number,
probably such as Lord Camoys, Lord Acton, Petre,
Trevelyan, Simeon, Riddell, Oxenham, Thynne,
Wetherall, Hernans, Blenherhasset, Maskell, Charlton,
and some others. The Catholics who have embraced
the new Catholicism are numerous and submissive;
they deserve our high personal admiration, for their
change, along with all their prelates, was most natural
to expect, and undoubtedly as conscientious on their
part as the action of the more learned of the laity who
remained “ Old Catholics.” But it must not be sup
posed that the New Catholics are, generally speaking,
grateful to Dr. Manning and the Papal faction for
the revolution brought, numerically, to so successful
an issue by their ecclesiastical tactics. English
Catholics have undoubtedly been more interested in
ecclesiastical matters than in political or national,
and thus they have been easily led over into the Papal
camp which their fathers renounced at the emancipa
tion ; but they inherit, along with all the old English
virtues, the old English contempt for Italian domina
tion. Our Government would have pleased English
Catholics better if there had been less courting of
ecclesiastics appointed by Rome, less seeking to carry
out mere ecclesiastical polity. Any one intimate with
the English Roman Catholic tone of thought must
be full well aware how bitterly English gentlemen
have bent beneath the yoke. It is worthy of note
that Dr. Manning was nominated Archbishop by the
Pope against the wish of the whole of the Diocesan
Chapter. Not one vote was given for him. The
English Roman Catholic families, grieved at his
appointment, knew what it meant, feared the results,
�i8
'Dhe Vatican Decrees
dreaded the priestly yoke and the papal absolutism ;
but, taught to submit, they did submit. It does not
follow that we need submit likewise. Truthfulness,
dignity, consistency, demand from us that we ignore
a Neo-Catholicism which we have never nationally
recognised. I am aware that for a time we may be
hampered by the grave political difficulty of being
bound to show special favour to the Episcopal Church
of England, and that the Neo-Catholics may
justly say, as you devote large sums of money to
promote worship and education, according to the
principles of Protestant or Ritualistic Anglicanism,
as the case may be, why should you not continue to pay
the Vicars Apostolic appointed by the Pope in some
of our colonies ? Why not continue the payment of
Neo-Catholic chaplains throughout India, in the Army,
and elsewhere ?—why not'perpetuatefor the promulga
tion of Neo-Catholicism the favour and the funds you
devoted for the Roman Catholicism which your Par
liament recognised ? Doubtless it is always difficult
to rise out of a false position; but unless these anoma
lies are rectified, dangers await us far more serious
than the transient unpopularity obtained by touching
existing abuses.
Protestants have not yet realised the momentous
character of the Revolution crowned at the Vatican.
No wonder; how could it be expected when intelli
gent Roman Catholics of lofty character and integrity,
like Lord Herries and Sir George Bowyer, do not
understand it ? I understand it, because as a Dominican
and theologian I studied the whole question during
the period of restless thought preceding the close of
the conflict in July, 1870. It was that study which
opened my eyes to the fallacy of the entire dogma of
infallibility. Heretofore, Roman Catholics were
only bound to bejieve in the infallibility of the
Church in union with the Pope and speaking through
the Pope. It was quite another question as to what
�and the 11Expostulation.”
19
was needed to constitute an ex cathedra decree.
Some affirmed that no decree was infallible unless
issued in presence of a general council and with its
concurrence; others affirmed that a decree was
proved to be ex cathedra when accepted by the
council dispersed; others affirmed that a decree was
ex cathedra if issued with great solemnity after
conferring with, and in union with, all the consul
tive congregations of the Roman Church. A Roman
Catholic vacillated amongst these views according to
the exigencies of history, conscience, common sense,
or controversy. The most opposing opinions could
be and were maintained by Bishops, scholars, and
laymen. But now the Vatican Decrees have declared
the Pope to be infallible whenever he intends to be
so, and on whatever subject he declares to fall within
the province of infallibility. Heretofore, the exercise
of the Papal power was limited in action as well as in
theory. National Churches and their Episcopate
disputed his decisions and refused to obey his
mandates. Those mandates could be only imposed
under peculiar circumstances, but the present Pope
has, during his long Pontificate, been concentrating
power in himself. He commenced by utilising the
prestige of his acknowledged position, and the
affection inspired by the kindness of his disposition :
but having attained an unprecedented power over all
National Churches through such means, he culminated
the strategy by first committing Bishops and the
Faithful everywhere to bombastic declarations as to
his divine and supreme prerogatives, and then taking
them at their word, and requiring the exaggerated
utterances of affectionate reverence to be formularised
into articles of faith. They were caught in the trap
they themselves had guilelessly fashioned. The Pope’s
well-known smile, half artful, half cheery, must have
welcomed the accomplishment of his long cherished
scheme. During the period of twenty years I was
�20
The Vatican Decrees
Apostolic Missioner throughout England and Ireland
I saw this power growing; we all dreaded it, for
we saw what an agency would be lodged in the
hands of a Pope abler than Pio Nono and less good,
yet what could we do ? The growing power was
not generally being used for criminal objects, it
was being exercised in England through eccle
siastics for the most part amiable and good. Thus
there was nothing suddenly done of a nature to
arouse and combine opposition; like the walls of the
Temple, the chains were forged amidst a silence only
disturbed by the reception of countless adulatory
addresses, and blessings, and indulgences prodigally
bestowed upon herds of people who listened to the
Holy Father as he repeated again and again the
story of his wrongs, his sufferings, his prerogatives,
and his similarity to Jesus Christ, after a fashion
which would have aroused the ludicrous in any minds
not sunk too low to be capable of appreciating the
ridiculous. But the result is far from being ludicrous.
The Pope has established over the millions of adhe
rents of the Vatican Church a two-fold tyranny—
over every man, woman, and child, within his Church—
the absolutism of a teaching which may never be
even interiorly doubted; the absolutism of a rule
which may never be with impunity disobeyed. This
two-edged weapon hangs like the sword of Damocles
over every one who dares to think, to write, to act, to
rule, or to serve. At present, the Pope has only one
great object of anxiety—the recovery of his former
provinces—but hereafter other objects may arise.
But more than the political and national consequences
I do acutely mourn over the crushing mental and
moral effect of such an absolutism over all conscience,
all lifp, all energy, all thought. My intimate acquaint
ance with the personal excellence of English and
Irish Boman Catholics, lay, cleric, and conventual,
makes me deplore the more bitterly a despotism,
�ana the “Expostulation.
which must gradually destroy all the higher develop
ments of character, and turn the descendants of the
fine old English Catholic families into abject Jesuit
ical serfs. In the name of God, may such never be.
Anyhow, may the people of England not expedite
that fall by the imprudence and injustice of a per
secution which would speedily unite those who may
otherwise partially dissolve; or, on the other hand,
by the misleading encouragement of patronage and
compromise. We have no right to help minds and
consciences into a bondage which, when embraced,
separates the bondsman from humanity—the Church
with its theocracy on one side : Humanity with the
devil on the other side: such is the Papal concep
tion. And, alas ! the separation between the Papal
subject and Humanity is complete: the outward
tokens of courtesy or affection may be observed ; but
what love worth anything can exist between the
blessed and the accursed; what even are the ministra
tions of mercy, if they are so designed, as out of
men’s affections and afflictions to forge the rivets of
their servitude ?
When we cease the legislation of religious favourit
ism, and commence the legislation of religious equality
—when we treat all sects and institutions with justice,
and the members of all sects and institutions with
courtesy as well as justice—then shall we be in a
position to apply the principles of common sense to
conventual institutions. If the friends of conventual
institutions realised the wide-spread dislike engen
dered by the multiplication of institutions where a
two-fold absolutism is veiled in entire secresy, they
would be the first to seek a safeguard. The odious
system of direction which during the last few years
has been pervading the Roman Catholic laity, we are
powerless to touch. But the friends of religious
equality should warn any persons if they are carrying
on a secresy which could be remedied, but which if
�22
’The Vatican Decrees
continued will ere long lead to an outburst of indigna
tion, a panic, and a persecution. Why should not
gentlemen who have relations in convents and com
munities of men—why should not the superiors of
such institutions propose a plan calculated to meet
real and known inconveniences, and thus, moreover,
to calm the just susceptibilities of the public mind ?
There ought to be a register preserved in the guest
room of every religious house, in which the real names
of all inmates should be entered; inaccuracy of entry
should be punishable by a fine; any person who could
assign a rational reason should, under suitable restric
tions, be enabled to examine such register. All this
might be arranged so as not to cause any inconvenience
to a conventual institution, but, above all, so as not
to affix any stigma of dishonour or apparent suspicion.
Nearly all the unpleasant rumours against convents
would have been suppressed at once had a precaution
so simple and inoffensive been adopted ; and, without
dragging into print allusions to excellent communi
ties of innocent and good people, I may be allowed to
remark that occasionally there have been incidents,
such as imbecile inmates kept in durance and also
sometimes persons secreting themselves in conventual
houses, and so evading the law, which easily give
countenance to those countless suspicions which keep
aggregating till they descend like an avalanche. The
true friends of lasting religious equality must combine,
along with the maintenance of these great principles,
to abolish favouritism, and to adopt in a spirit of fair
ness and consideration, remedies demanded, not by
bigotry, but by good sesne.
Let me remark, in conclusion, that all my state
ments as to the Papal doctrines imposed on NeoCatholics are founded, as may be easily verified, on
direct quotations from the Decrees and the Encyclical.
Much more remains behind—unsaid.
�and the “Expostulation”
23'
NOTE.
The book formerly deemed the best for the diffusion
of Roman Catholic doctrines was Keenan’s ‘ Controver
sial Catechism.’ It was based on a French Catechism,
and very widely circulated in Great Britain, bearing
the imprimatur of all the Vicars Apostolic of Scot
land. In it appeared the following, until withdrawn
in the year 1869 :—
Q.—Must not Catholics believe the Pope himself
to be infallible ?
A.—This is a Protestant invention : it is no Article
of the Catholic Faith ; no decision of his can oblige,
under pain of heresy, unless it be received and
enforced by the teaching body—that is by the Bishops
of the Church.
ADDRESS.
The following is a quotation from an address
delivered by the Rev. James Martineau at Liverpool,
September 25th, 1871, fourteen months after my
secession from the Roman Catholic Church. In
gratefully mentioning that ever-honoured and beloved
name, may I be permitted to record that, trained as I
had been to lean on the authority of others, my know
ledge of the existence of such a spiritual character as
his, developed in the ranks of Christian Theism, pre
sented to my hopes an encouragement and a stimulus
which the gentle diffidence of his genius would
neither have desired or imagined -
�24
The Vatican Decrees
“ Another event has taken place recently with which
I have had in some degree the privilege of a personal
connection. A very eminent and remarkable man
has given up his adherence to the Catholic religion,
and has thrown himself among us as a preacher of pure
and spiritual religion. I allude to the Rev. Robert
Rodolph Suffield. Now, before Mr. Suffield’s name
was heard amongst us, at his own request I early paid
him a visit at his retreat in the country. I had inti
mate intercourse with him, and learned precisely his
state of thought before he had made up his mind to
the step he has now taken, and I was equally struck
with the problem which was presented to his religious
sense — what is the real essence and nature of
Catholicism ? Now, I found that the view Mr. Suffield
took of Catholicism was this. He said, ‘ I see in the
Catholic religion the only example in the world’s
history in which the great and fundamental principles
of all natural piety and of all natural conscience are
made the actuating principles of the life of multitudes
and of nations. The great doctrine of the moral
government of God, the great truth of the absolute
supremacy of conscience, the great hope of a future
and better life—these things have imbued the Catholic
mind, the mind even of the youngest children of the
Catholic Church that have any intelligence at all.
They are realities to the Catholic people. They speak
of them with the same simplicity and openness with
which they would speak of the work of their plough,
of their spade, of their shuttle; with which they would
speak of the concerns of their houses and their homes.
There is no shyness concerning them. They are ab
solute realities to them, and rule their lives. We
know that they control the passions of young people,
and, if they go astray, by appealing to these images
in their hearts we can recover them again. They are
truly a power in life. And now,’ said Mr. Suffield,
‘ what I want to know is, whether outside the Catholic
�and the “Expostulation”
25
Church those truths have the same power and reality,
whether they take their places among the facts of life
with the same certainty and with the same efficacy.’
He looked upon the Catholic religion simply as an
instrumentality for bringing home to men the simple
natural convictions of the human heart, and making
them live in their consciences and lives. Catholicism
thus was to him nothing but a great system of natural
religion supported by the most artificial and unnatural
of authorities and supports. That is the view he took
of it, and he said, ‘ What I want to know is, if I dare
to throw away these artificial supports, shall I find it
possible to administer this spiritual theism to man
kind, and get hold of the hearts of men ? Or am I
to believe that it is impossible for the weak mind of
humanity to grapple those truths, unless you have a
false mythology, and all sorts of pictures and images
connected with them ? Does the religion enter by
means of the false imagination, or may we fling away
the false imagination and trust to the spiritual power
of religion ?’ That was the problem he had to solve
for himself, and he said, ‘I fear if I were to profess
myself a Protestant I should be propping up these
eternal truths with just as false and entangled a ma
chinery as if I were to remain in the Catholic Church,
Por, if there is no infallibility in the Catholic Church,
neither is there in the Protestant Scriptures, and
whether I take the one or the other, I throw away
natural truths, and fling myself instead on an artificial
and unnatural support.’ Well, I believe myself that
Mr. Suffield here expressed a great truth ; and I think
the changes which are now taking place in the Pro
testant Churches are all of this kind. The tendency
is to fling away the false dependence upon artificial
authority, and to go back to the primitive rights of
religion in human nature and in human life. I said
to him I should feel it an impiety and infidelity—the
only thing I should venture to call infidelity at all—
�i6
The Vatican Decrees
to doubt that what God had made true could vindicate
and justify itself to the human heart without any
human lies to back it up and support it. If we once
found that a thing was a lie, and was false, or even if
it was precarious, it was at the peril of all veracity
and of all fidelity that we dared to place that as a
means of underpinning, as it were, and supporting
an eternal and all-important truth.”
RESULTS OF INFALLIBILITY.
Meanwhile there are already signs of a coming conflict in
quarters where they might hardly have been looked for.
There is probably no section of the Church, beyond the walls
of Rome itself, where the dominant spirit is so fiercely and
fervently Ultramontane as among the Roman Catholics of
England. Nor is the phenomenon difficult to account for.
They form a small body in the midst of an unfriendly popu
lation, and the old Catholic families are at once united toge
ther and inspired with zeal by the long tradition of privations
and persecutions patiently endured for their faith. And then,
at the moment when legal disabilities and social ostracism
were beginning to be relaxed, came the irruption of converts
who had sacrificed most of them all the associations, inte
rests, and affections of half a lifetime for their adopted creed,
and whose leaders, as one of themselves has observed, were
withone illustrious exception, “ Ultramontanes before they
were Catholics.” The late Cardinal Wiseman, whose earlier
policy was of a very different kind, was completely carried
away by the current; his successor has been throughout the
guiding spirit of the infallibilist bishops at the Council, and
all the younger generation of priests have been trained on
the convert model. One of them insisted not long ago,
from the pulpit of a well-known Roman Catholic church
in the metropolis, that it is not to believe the infallibility of
the Pope’s official judgments ; every opinion on whatever
subject he expresses in conversation is infallible. Yet a reso
lute opposition is beginning to manifest itself among both
the clergy and laity of the Roman Catholic Church in Eng
land. We have given several examples of this before now,
and we mentioned the other day that the infallibilist address
presented under strong pressure for the adoption of the Eng
lish clergy had been by no means unanimously signed. Dr.
�and the “Expostulation.”
2"]
Rymer, President of the diocesan Seminary of St. Edmund’s,
Ware, scandalised the Tablet by writing to express his em
phatic disapproval of it. But the tone and language of the
letter of refusal addressed to its promoters by Father Suf
field, and published apparently by his ^request in the West
minster Gazette, is so remarkable that it deserves record
here. The writer is the best known and one of the ablest
and most active of the English Dominicans—a Cambridge
man, though not, we believe, a convert; and it is hardly
likely, considering the stringent discipline of religious com
munities, that he would venture on so bold a protest unless
he felt, assured of the moral support of his Order; and such
an inference is strongly confirmed by the attitude of the
Dominican Cardinal Guidi. Father Suffield says :—
“Knowing with what earnest desire the enemies of our
religion, with taunting speech, at once urge us and defy us to
proclaim, after 1,800 years, the foundation of our Christianity;
knowing the deep repugnance with which, under the pressure
of ecclesiastical opinion and ecclesiastical prospects, canons,
priests, and bishops, have signed declarations pleasing to
ecclesiastical superiors, and repugnant to their private opinions ;
knowing with an intimate and sad knowledge that the moot
ing of this question has led to investigations, and then to
inquiries, which have paralysed the faith in the minds of
numbers of the clergy and of the intellectual laity, and with
not a few destroyed it, I must respectfully decline to sign a
document in which petitioners ask for a definition, the animus
and consequence of which few can be so thoughtless as not to
perceive.
“If we get a Pope vain, obstinate, and in his dotage, shall
we ask him to be confirmed in his powers of mischief ?
“Do we wish, by exalting the lessons of the encyclical, to
render political life impossible to every honest and consistent
Catholic, and to render the possession of political and religious
equality impracticable to any except those sort of Catholics
who would use the language of liberty when they beg, and
the precepts of the Pope when they refuse ? ”
x It is scarcely possible to misapprehend the pointed allusion
to the case of “ a Pope vain, obstinate, and in his dotage,”
and the majority of the Vatican Council has certainly done
what it can to “confirm him in his powers of mischief.”
Father Suffield must be presumed to speak from his own
knowledge when he refers to the numbers of clergy and
educated laity whose faith has been already paralysed or
destroyed by inquiries into Papal infallibility, and his testi
mony is borne out by others ; it is hardly wonderful that he
should look with serious alarm at the further consequences
�28
The Vatican Decrees
that may ensue. The wonder is that those who wish faith
to be maintained and strengthened should be so “ thoughtless ”
as to exult over the “mischief” they have helped to perpe
trate. It is rather late to remind them now of the homely
proverb that the last straw will break the camel’s back, and
this straw is a tolerably weighty one.—Saturday Review, of
July 30th, 1870.
FATHER SUFFIELD AND THE NEW DOGMA.
The newspapers inform us that Father Suffield, late of the
Dominican Order, has joined the Unitarian community; he
has not only renounced his obedience to the Church of Rome,
but has apparently renounced also his obedience to the
Catholic Faith. This is very sad, yet not unexpected after
reading his last published letters. The case is one that arrests
our attention, not only on account of the learning and abilities
of Father Suffield, but because it will form, we fear, only a
type of many such cases ; nor is this difficult to understand.
Brought up with the principle, instilled from earliest child
hood, that the Church of Rome is alone the Catholic Church,
excluding the Orthodox and the Anglican; that the supre
macy of the Pope over the whole Catholic world is the normal
idea of the Church, so completely that those who do not
acknowledge that supremacy are cut off from the promises and
privileges of the Church, even though, like Greeks and
Anglicans, they retain all else necessary to their continuing
portions of the Body of Christ; with these opinions so strongly
impressed on the mind, it is inevitable that there must be a
most violent reaction when the dogma of Infallibility is made
an article of Faith by what claims to be a General Council.
For this dogma is not only a new article of Faith, but it is one
which contradicts much that had been previously held as true ;
it virtually rejects the authority of General Councils as the
voice of the Church, and thus places the Church herself in a
new position. By removing the supreme authority from the
Body, and placing it in one man, who is supposed to be the
head, the original Charter as granted by her Divine Head is
abrogated, and a new one substituted for it. It is no longer,
“Tell it to the Church,” it is “Tell it to the Pope;” it is no
longer,” “If he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto
thee as an heathen man and a publican; ” but, “ If he neglect
to hear the Pope ”—very naturally the Faith of those who
have been educated, as Father Suffield has been, by Do
minicans, will be violently shaken, and their minds thrown
off their balance, when they are called upon by the authority
�and the “ Expostulation.”
nt)
of the Church to accept the decree of the personal Infallibility
of the Pope. And this reaction is very liable to go to further
lengths than we at first anticipate ; we are apt to expect that
those who, like Father Suffield, repudiate the dogma, and con
sequently find their position as Priests in the Roman Church
untenable, will turn to the Anglican. We should rejoice to
think that the Anglican would form a safe home for those who
reject the dogma, but we fear it will not be so; we are far
more afraid that Father Suffield’s example will be followed
by larger numbers than those who seek refuge with us. We
do not sufficiently consider the habits of thought and mind
which are formed by Roman teaching. In that community
the whole Catholic Faith is wrapped up in, and becomes a part
of, the belief in the Papal Supremacy ; the very rudiments of
the Faith, the Incarnation, the Holy Trinity, the Sacraments,
are all tied up in the idea of the sole supremacy of the Church
of Rome, and the Pope at the head of it; the idea of the
Catholic Church or any part existing, except under the Roman
obedience, is entirely excluded as impossible. When, there
fore, a rude shock comes like this, which destroys all faith in
the Pope and the Roman Church, it destroys all faith in other
dogmas too.—Church Herald.
The dogma of Infallibility is producing its necessary fruit.
Not even Rome can altogether stop inquiry or fetter thought,
and spiritual absolutism finds its own subjects ready to ques
tion its decrees. Already there is a movement in Germany
which bears striking resemblance to that of the fifteenth cen
tury. A meeting of Roman Catholic professors at Nuremberg
has already agreed upon a protest against the spiritual despot
ism of the Pope, and the Cologne Gazette states that the
Bishop of Rothenberg, Dr. Hefele, has resolved not to accept
the Infallibility Dogma, and that his Chapter and the theo
logical faculty of the city of Tubingen support him in it.
Even in this country, where Roman Catholicism is more
Roman than Rome, the dogma is producing confusion and
distress in the minds of the faithful.
As the immediate result of the Council’s work, the secession
of Father Suffield from the Church of Rome is worthy of more
notice than is due to merely individual change of opinion.
Father Suffield is a man to whom the Roman Catholics of
England are willing to confess large obligations. He is said
to have revived the establishment of Peter’s Pence in this
country, to have done much in recruiting the regiment of
Papal Zouaves, and to have held the first public meeting of
sympathy for the Pope ever held in modern England. A
�3°
The Vatican Decrees
correspondent of the Westminster Gazette says, “it has been
impossible to have been much under Father Sumeld’s influence
without becoming intensely devoted to everything Catholic,”
and that “the Prayer-book connected with his name has pro
bably been more instrumental than any other popular manual
in spreading faith wherever English-speaking Catholics are to
be found. ” The Prior of the Dominican House in London, of
which order Father Suffield is a prominent member, speaks of
him as “ a brother of the same order, Whose personal friend
ship I enjoyed before either of us became Dominicans, and
whose zeal and apostolic spirit I have ever held in the greatest
admiration.”
But Father Suffield seems to have felt somewhat as Father
Newman felt, that though the Infallibility was a dogma to be
received as an act of devotion, it was not to be defended as an
article of the faith. “It becomes essential,” he says, “that
unless failure of reason be impossible to an aged Pope, there
should be some means at least of recognising when his decrees
are to be regarded as the acts of man, when as those of God.”
The shock of disagreement and difference which has been
caused by the proclamation of the Infallibility dogma has,
however, shaken the whole fabric of the eloquent Dominican’s
creed. “An incident, not regretted by me,” he says, “has
revealed, almost by accident, the hidden struggle of years.”
Of this struggle he says, “it has been the agony of years.”
His doubts have not risen from within, but have been forced
upon him from without. He “ sought solitude first in the
cloister, then solitude greater in a country village amidst
simple people and the children of his flock, that he might
dispel difficulties and doubts. If those difficulties and doubts
have been wrong, none but the highest rulers of the Church
have been responsible for them; they have not been a pleasure,
but an agony; not a pride, but a humiliation.” Father
Suffield has, therefore, been driven out of the Church by the
declaration of the Papal Infallibility. His case is simply one
of thousands, and is only rendered remarkable by his own
previous services to the Church. The Pope and his Council
have raised more doubts than they will solve, and in grasping
at the shadow of Infallibility they will miss the substance of
authority.—Daily News.
Father Suffield, the eloquent Dominican, whose protest
against the most memorable act of the Vatican Council has
excited some attention in this country, has gone a step beyond
the rejection of the dogma of Papal Infallibility. He has
quitted the Roman Communion. It would seem that as soon
�and the “Expostulation”
31
as the fact became known overtures were made to him with
the view of his joining the Anglican Church. He has declined
to do so. The Articles and the Athanasian Creed block the
way; indeed he “ questions alike the Infallibility of the Pope
and of the Scriptures.” He throws in his lot with “those
who are commonly called Unitarians, Free Christians or
Christian Theists,” and states, in effect, that he intends to
accept the office of a minister in a Free Christian Congrega
tion.—Manchester Guardian.
A. due following out of opinions curiously led Dr. Newman
to the Roman Church, and his brother, Professor Newman,
to pure Theism. In like manner the two Herberts—the one
the free-thinking Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the other the
sainted poet of the English Church : these men felt the philo
sophical impossibility of a middle position. We shall watch
Mr. Suffield’s career with high interest. He will not go in
with the company of Exeter Hall, but sets forth alone in
his quest of truth. There is something very touching, and
very manly too, in his statement of the sufferings of mind and
heart, “which his secession has involved.” Father Suffield
has taken the great leap from authority to freedom.—Dispatch.
FATHER SUFFIELD AND THE CHURCH OF
ENGLAND.
August 22, 1870.
My Dear Sir,—Private communications are so very numer
ous at present, that I cannot conveniently add to my occupa
tions by contributing the literary help you do me the favour
of offering. Moreover that able periodical partakes somewhat
of a controversial character, and is regarded as anti-Catholic
in its position. I am peculiarly circumstanced, have resigned
all offices in the Catholic Church, and ceased the exercise of
priestly and Catholic rites : from the intimate manner in
which I have been interwoven in the Catholic body in England,
this act causes great pain to those whom the least I should
like to wound ; and I am anxious to do nothing but what is
demanded by the exigencies of circumstances or the require
ments of conscience, which could in the slightest degree
grieve those who have so many claims upon my affection,
gratitude, and reverence.
After long and deep thought, study, prayer, and counsel, I
decided that it would be impossible for me honestly to
continue to act as a priest. The infallibility of the Pope, and,
�32
The Vatican Decrees
of the Scriptures, alike, I question, and the dogmas resting
solely on either of those authorities, I am not able on that
account to admit.
It is my desire to unite with others, and to assist them in
the worship of God, and in the practice of the two-fold
precepts of charity, unfettered by adhesion on either side, to
anything, beyond those great fundamental principles as
presented to us by Jesus Christ.
Though relieved from all the obligations of my order, I do
not wish to consider myself as alienated from the Catholic
Church or from other Christian communities, by any personal
hostile act. I assume a position hostile to none—if one man
hurls an anathema, another man is not compelled either to
accept it, or to retaliate it.
Having understood that those who are commonly called Uni
tarians, Free Christians, or Christian Theists, thus agree in
the liberty inspired by self-diffidence, humility, and charity,
to carry on the worship of God, without sectarian requirements
or sectarian opposition; that they possess a simple but not
vulgar worship, a high standard of virtue, intelligence, and
integrity; and these after the Christian type, moulded by the
Christian traditions, and edified by the sacred Scriptures;
holding the spirit taught by Jesus Christ, and the great
thoughts by virtue of which he built up the ruins of the moral
world; and. yet not enforcing the reception of complicated
dogmas as a necessity, or accounting their rejection a crime :
a communion of Christian worshippers, bound loosely together,
and yet by the force of great principles enabled quietly to
maintain their position, to exercise an influence elevating and
not unimportant, and to present religion under an aspect which
thoughtful men can accept without latent scepticism, and
earnest men without the aberrations of superstition, or the
abjectness of mental servitude to another—such approved
itself to my judgment, and commended itself to my sympathy.
I intend adhering to the pursuits of the clergyman and of the
Christian teacher, and communications are in progress in
another part of England which may terminate in my accepting
thus a duty conformable to the habits of my life, and which
will not throw me into a position of hostility, or embarrassment
as to those honoured and loved Catholic friends with whom
so greatly I should prize, if it were possible to maintain kindly
intercourse, inasmuch as I am only externally severed from
them by my being unable to believe certain dogmas which a
Catholic is bound to regard as essential. Thus I hope I have
not only thanked you for your obliging offer, but adequately
explained my position, and showed that the future you were
commissioned to hold out to me in the Established Church
�and the “Expostulation.”
33
would not be deemed possible by the authorities who have
done me the honour and kindness to communicate in my
regard, as soon as they are made aware that the Articles and
the Athanasian creed would be amongst the insuperable
barriers to my entertaining such a proposal.
Many write to me evidently under a grievous misapprehen
sion. They anticipate from me reckless denunciations of that
vision of beauty which I have left, simply because, like a
vision, it had everything but reality. Allied as I am by
relationship with some of our ancient Catholic families, allied
by the ties of friendship with many more of them, I feel it is
a shame to myself that any stranger could suppose one word
of my lips, one thought of my mind, could cast moral reproach
on those beautiful and honoured homes where old traditions
received a lustre greater even than antiquity and suffering can
bestow—crowned with the aureola of charity, nobleness,
purity, and devotedness. Such memories print on my heart
their everlasting record. To cease to believe and to worship
with them was a martyrdom, which none but the Catholic can
understand.
I have ascended now to another stage of my life ; to rise to
it needed sufferings of the mind and of the heart, the sacrifice
of everything in the world I cared for;—but I perceive a work
to do, and, by the blessing of God, I shall strive to perform
it. Youth, strength, vigour, and hope return to me with the
expectation. Truth obtained by suffering is doubly dear to
the possessor.—Very sincerely yours,
Robert Rodolph Sutfield.
To the Rev.----- &c., &c.
N.B.—All the above paragraphs, from different periodicals,
are extracted from Church Opinion.
�ALSO,
By the Bev. B. B. SUFFIELD,
FIVE LETTERS ON CONVERSION TO ROMAN
CATHOLICISM......................................................... 3d.
IS JESUS GOD ?........................................................ 3d.
TRUBNER
and
CO., LUDGATE HILL, LONDON, E.C.
PRINTED BY C. W. BBYNBLL, LITTLE PULTENBY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The Vatican decrees and the "Expostulation"
Creator
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Suffield, Robert Rodolph
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Misc. Tracts 4. Other titles published by Trubner and Co. by the same author listed on back page. Includes a long quotation from an address delivered by the Rev. James Martineau at Liverpool, September 25th,1871.
Publisher
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Trubner and Co. ; Thomas Scott
Date
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1874
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G4868
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Catholic Church
Papacy
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Vatican decrees and the "Expostulation"), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Catholic Church-Doctrines
Popes-Infallibility