L I E. R.AR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N 1 V LRSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS
 
 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 IX THEIR BEARING ON 
 
 CIVIL ALLEGIANCE 
 
 A POLITICAL EXPOSTULATION 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. ^Y. E. GLADSTONE, MP. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN MUEEAY, ALBEMAELE STEEET. 
 
 1874. 
 
 The right of Transition is reserved.
 
 LONDON ■ 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, 
 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Occasion and Scope of this Tract. Four 
 
 Propositions. Are they True ? 5 
 
 II. The Fiest and Fourth Propositions. (1) " That 
 Kome has substituted for the proud boast of 
 semjper eadem a policy of violence and change in 
 faith." (4) " That she has equally repudiated 
 modern thought and ancient history." . . . . 12 
 
 III. The Second Proposition — "That she has re- 
 
 furbished, and paraded anew, every rusty tool 
 she was thought to have disused." 15 
 
 IV . The Third Proposition — " That Kome requires 
 
 a convert, who now joins her, to forfeit his moral 
 and mental freedom, and to place his loyalty 
 and civil duty at the mercy of another." . . . , 21 
 
 Y. Being True, are the Propositions Material? 45 
 
 VI. Being True and Material, were the Pro- 
 positions PROPER TO BE SET FORTH BY THE 
 
 present Writer ? 65 
 
 VII. On the Home Policy of the Future . . . . 60 
 Appendices 67 
 
 B 2

 
 THE VATICAN DECEEES 
 
 IN THEIR BEARIKG ON 
 
 CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 
 
 I. The Occasion and Scope of this Tract. 
 
 In the prosecution of a purpose not polemical but 
 pacific, I have been led to employ words which belong, 
 more or less, to the region of religious controversy ; 
 and which, though they were themselves few, seem to 
 require, from the various feelings they have aroused, 
 that I should carefully define, elucidate, and defend 
 them. The task is not of a kind agreeable to me ; 
 but I proceed to perform it. 
 
 Among the causes, which have tended to disturb 
 and perplex the public mind in the consideration of 
 our own religious difficulties, one has been a certain 
 alarm at the aggressive activity and imagined growth 
 of the Eoman Church in this country. All are aware 
 of our susceptibility on this side ; and it was not, I 
 think, improper for one who desires to remove every- 
 thing that can interfere with a calm and judicial 
 temper, and who believes the alarm to be groundless,
 
 6 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 to state, pointedly though briefly, some reasons for 
 that belief. 
 
 Accordingly I did not scruple to use the following 
 language, in a paper inserted in the number of the 
 ' Contemporary Review ' for the month of October. 
 I was speaking of " the question whether a handful 
 of the clergy are or are not engaged in an utterly 
 hopeless and visionary effort to Romanise the Church 
 and people of England." 
 
 " At no time since the bloody reign of Mary has 
 such a scheme been possible. But if it had been 
 possible in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, it 
 would still have become impossible in the nineteenth : 
 when Rome has substituted for the proud boast of 
 semper eadem a policy of violence and change in faith ; 
 when she has refurbished, and paraded anew, every 
 rusty tool she was fondly thought to have disused ; 
 when no one can become her convert without re- 
 nouncing his moral and mental freedom, and placing 
 his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another ; 
 and when she has equally repudiated modern thought 
 and ancient history."* 
 
 Had I been, when I wrote this passage, as I now 
 am, addressing myself in considerable measure to my 
 Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, I should have 
 striven to avoid the seeming roughness of some of 
 these expressions ; but as the question is now about 
 
 * 'Contemporary Review,' Oct. 1874, p. 674.
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 7 
 
 their substance, from which I am not in any particular 
 disposed to recede, any attempt to recast their general 
 form would probably mislead. I proceed, then, to 
 deal with them on their merits. 
 
 More than one friend of mine, among those who 
 have been led to join the Eoman Catholic commu- 
 nion, has made this passage the subject, more or less, 
 of expostulation. Now, in my opinion, the assertions 
 which it makes are, as coming from a layman who 
 has spent most and the best years of his life in the 
 observation and practice of politics, not aggressive 
 but defensive. 
 
 It is neither the abettors of the Papal Chair, nor 
 any one who, however far from being an abettor of 
 the Papal Chair, actually writes from a Papal point 
 of view, that has a right to remonstrate with the world 
 at large ; but it is the world at large, on the contrary, 
 that has the fullest right to remonstrate, first with 
 His Holiness, secondly with those who share his 
 proceedings, thirdly even with such as passively 
 allow and accept them. 
 
 I therefore, as one of the world at large, propose to 
 expostulate in my turn. I shall strive to show to such 
 of my Roman Catholic fellow-subjects as may kindly 
 give me a hearing that, after the singular steps 
 which the authorities of their Church have in these 
 last years thought fit to take, the people of this 
 country, who fully believe in their loyalty, are 
 entitled, on purely civil grounds, to expect from them
 
 8 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 some declaration or manifestation of opinion, in reply 
 to that ecclesiastical party in their Church who have 
 laid down, in their name, principles adverse to the 
 purity and integrity of civil allegiance. 
 
 Undoubtedly my allegations are of great breadth. 
 Such broad allegations require a broad and a deep 
 foundation. The first question which they raise is. 
 Are they, as to the material part of them, true? But 
 even their truth might not suffice to show that their 
 publication was opportune. The second question, 
 then, which they raise is. Are they, for any practical 
 purpose, material ? And there is yet a third, though 
 a minor, question, which arises out of the propositions 
 in connection with their authorship, Were they suit- 
 able to be set forth by the present writer ? 
 
 To these three questions I will now set myself to 
 reply. And the matter of my reply will, as I con- 
 ceive, constitute and convey an appeal to the under- 
 standings of my Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, 
 which I trust that, at the least, some among them may 
 deem not altogether unworthy of their consideration. 
 
 From the language used by some of the organs of 
 Roman Catholic opinion, it is, I am afraid, plain that 
 in some quarters they have given deep offence. Dis- 
 pleasure, indignation, even fury, might be said to 
 mark the language which in the heat of the moment 
 has been expressed here and there. They have been 
 hastily treated as an attack made upon Roman Catho- 
 lics generally, nay, as an insult offered them. It is
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 9 
 
 obvious to reply, that of Roman Catholics generally 
 they state nothing. Together with a reference to 
 ^' converts," of which I shall say more, they constitute 
 generally a free and strong animadversion on the 
 conduct of the Papal Chair, and of its advisers and 
 abettors. If I am told that he who animadverts 
 upon these assails thereby, or insults, Roman Catholics 
 at large, who do not choose their ecclesiastical rulers, 
 and are not recognised as having any voice in the 
 government of their Church, I cannot be bound by or 
 accept a proposition which seems to me to be so little 
 in accordance with reason. 
 
 Before all things, however, I should desire it to be 
 understood that, in the remarks now offered, I desire 
 to eschew not only religious bigotry, but likewise 
 theological controversy. Indeed, with theology, ex- 
 cept in its civil bearing, with theology as such, I 
 have here nothing whatever to do. But it is the 
 peculiarity of Roman theology that, by thrusting itself 
 into the temporal domain, it naturally, and even neces- 
 sarily, comes to be a frequent theme of political 
 discussion. To quiet-minded Roman Catholics, it must 
 be a subject of infinite annoyance, that their religion 
 is, on this ground more than any other, the subject 
 of criticism ; more than any other, the occasion of 
 conflicts with the State and of civil disquietude. 
 I feel sincerely how much hardshijD their case entails. 
 But this hardship is brought upon them altogether 
 by the conduct of the authorities of their own Church.
 
 10 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 Why did theology enter so largely into the debates 
 of Parliament on Roman Catholic Emancipation ? 
 Certainly not because our statesmen and debaters of 
 fifty years ago had an abstract love of such contro- 
 versies, but because it was extensively believed that 
 the Pope of Rome had been and was a trespasser upon 
 ground which belonged to the civil authority, and that 
 he affected to determine by spiritual prerogative ques- 
 tions of the civil sphere. This fact, if fact it be, and 
 not the truth or falsehood, the reasonableness or 
 unreasonableness, of any article of purely religious 
 belief, is the whole and sole cause of the mischief. 
 To this fact, and to this fact alone, my language 
 is referable : but for this fact, it would have been 
 neither my duty nor my desire to use it. All other 
 Christian bodies are content with freedom in their 
 own religious domain. Orientals, Lutherans, Cal- 
 vinists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Nonconformists, 
 one and all, in the present day, contentedly and 
 thankfully accept the benefits of civil order ; never 
 pretend that the State is not its own master ; make 
 no religious claims to temporal possessions or advan- 
 tages ; and, consequently, never are in perilous col- 
 lision with the State. Nay more, even so I believe 
 it is with the mass of Roman Catholics individually. 
 But not so with the leaders of their Church, or with 
 those who take pride in following the leaders. 
 Indeed, this has been made mattei' of boast : — 
 
 *' There is not aiioihor Church so called" (tlutii ilic Koiiuui),
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 11 
 
 " nor any community professing to be a Church, which does not 
 submit, or obey, or hold its peace, when the civil governors of 
 the world command." — ' The Present Crisis of the Holy See,' 
 by H. E. Manning, D.D. London, 1861, p. 75. 
 
 The Rome of the Middle Ages claimed universal 
 monarchy. The modern Church of Rome has 
 abandoned nothing, retracted nothing. Is that all ? 
 Far from it. By condemning (as will be seen) those 
 who, like Bishop Doyle in 1826,* charge the medi- 
 eval Popes with aggression, she unconditionally, 
 even if covertly, maintains what the mediaeval 
 Popes maintained. But even this is not the worst. 
 The worst by far is that whereas, in the national 
 Churches and communities of the Middle Ages, 
 there was a brisk, vigorous, and constant opposition 
 to these outrageous claims, an opposition which 
 stoutly asserted its own orthodoxy, which always 
 caused itself to be respected, and which even some- 
 times gained the upper hand ; now, in this nine- 
 teenth century of ours, and while it is growing old, 
 this same opposition has been put out of court, and 
 judicially extinguished within the Papal Church, 
 by the recent decrees of the Vatican. And it is 
 impossible for persons accepting those decrees justly 
 to con:iplain, when such documents are subjected in 
 good faith to a strict examination as respects their 
 compatibility with civil right and the obedience of 
 subjects. 
 
 * Lords' Committee, March 18, 1826. Report, p. 190.
 
 12 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 In defending my language, I shall carefully mark its 
 limits. But all defence is reassertion, which properly 
 requires a deliberate reconsideration ; and no man 
 who thus reconsiders should scruple, if he find so 
 much as a word that may convey a false impression, 
 to amend it. Exactness in stating truth according 
 to the measure of our intelligence, is an indispensable 
 condition of justice, and of a title to be heard. 
 
 My propositions^ then, as they stood, are these : — 
 
 1. That '*' Eome has substituted for the proud 
 boast of semper eadem, a pohcy of violence and change 
 in faith." 
 
 2. That she has refurbished and paraded anew 
 every rusty tool she was fondly thought to have 
 disused. 
 
 3. That no one can now become her convert with- 
 out renouncing his moral and mental freedom, and 
 placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of 
 another. 
 
 4. That she (" Rome ") has equally repudiated 
 modern thought and ancient history. 
 
 II. The First and the Fourth Propositions. 
 
 Of the first and fourth of these propositions I shall 
 dispose rather summarily, as they appear to belong 
 to the theological domain. They refer to a fact, and 
 they record an opinion. One fact to which they
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 13 
 
 refer is tliis : that, in days within my memory, the 
 constant, favourite, and imposing argument of Roman 
 controversiaHsts was the unbroken and absolute 
 identity in belief of the Roman Church from the 
 days of our Saviour until now. No one, who has at 
 all followed the course of this literature during the 
 last forty years, can fail to be sensible of the change 
 in its present tenour. More and more have the 
 assertions of continuous uniformity of doctrine re- 
 ceded into scarcely penetrable shadow. More and 
 more have another series of assertions, of a living 
 authority, ever ready to open, adopt, and shape 
 Christian doctrine according to the times, taken their 
 place. Without discussing the abstract compatibility 
 of these lines of argument, I note two of the immense 
 practical differences between them. In the first, the 
 office claimed by the Church is principally that of a wit- 
 ness to facts ; in the second, principally that of a judge, 
 if not a revealer, of doctrine. In the first, the processes 
 which the Church undertakes are subject to a con- 
 stant challenge and appeal to history ; in the second, 
 no amount of historical testimony can avail against 
 the unmeasured power of the theory of develop- 
 ment. Most important, most pregnant considera- 
 tions, these, at least for two classes of persons : for 
 those who think that exaggerated doctrines of Church 
 power are among the real and serious dangers of the 
 age ; and for those who think that against all forms, 
 both of superstition and of unbelief, one main j^^'e-
 
 14 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 servative is to be found in maintaining the truth and 
 authority of history, and the inestimable value of the 
 historic spirit. 
 
 So much for the fact ; as for the opinion, that the 
 recent Papal decrees are at war with modern thought, 
 and that, purporting to enlarge the necessary creed 
 of Christendom, they involve a violent breach with 
 history, this is a matter unfit for me to discuss^ as it 
 is a question of Divinity ; but not unfit for me to 
 have mentioned in my article ; since the opinion 
 given there is the opinion of those with whom I was 
 endeavouring to reason, namely, the great majority 
 of the British public. 
 
 If it is thought that the word violence was open to 
 exception, I regret 1 cannotgive it up. The justifi- 
 cation of the ancient definitions of the Church, which 
 have endured the storms of 1500 years, was to be 
 found in this, that they were not arbitrary or wilful, 
 but that they wholly sprano- from, and related to 
 theories rampant at the time, and regarded as 
 menacing to Christian belief. Even the Canons of 
 the Council of Trent have in the main this amount, 
 apart from their matter, of presumptive warrant. 
 But the decrees of the present perilous Pontificate 
 have been passed to favour and precipitate prevailing 
 currents of opinion in the ecclesiastical world of 
 Rome. The growth of what is often termed among 
 Protestants Mariolatry, and of belief in Papal Infal- 
 libility, was notoriously advancing, but it seems not
 
 IX THEIR BEAPJXG OX CIVIL ALLEGIAXCE. 15 
 
 fast enough to satisfy the dominant party. To aim 
 the deadly blows of 1854* and 1870 at the old 
 historic, scientific, and moderate school^ was surely 
 an act of violence ; and with this censure the pro- 
 ceeding of 1870 has actually been visited by the first 
 living theologian now within the Roman Communion, 
 I mean, Dr. John Henry Newman ; who has used 
 these significant words, among others : '' Why should 
 an aggressive and insolent faction be allowed to make 
 the heart of the just sad, whom the Lord hath not 
 made sorrowful ?" f 
 
 III. The Secoxd Propositiox. 
 
 I take next my second Proposition : that Rome has 
 refurbished, and paraded anew, every rusty tool she 
 was fondly thought to have disused. 
 
 Is this then a fact, or is it not ? 
 
 I must assume that it is denied ; and therefore I 
 cannot wholly pass by the work of proof. But I will 
 state in the fewest possible words, and with refer- 
 ences, a few propositions, all the holders of which have 
 been condemned by the See of Rome during my own 
 generation, and especially within the last twelve or 
 fifteen years. And, in order that I may do nothing 
 towards importing passion into what is matter of 
 
 * Decree of the Immaculate Conception. 
 
 t See the remarkable Letter of Dr. Newman to Bishop Ulla- 
 thorne, in the ' Guardian ' of April 0. 1870.
 
 16 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 pure argument, I will avoid citing any of the fear- 
 fully energetic epithets in which the condemnations 
 are sometimes clothed. 
 
 1. Those who maintain the Liberty of the Press. 
 Encyclical Letter of Pope G-regory XYI., in 1831 : 
 and of Pope Pius IX., in 1864. 
 
 2. Or the liberty of conscience and of worship. 
 Encychcal of Pius IX., December 8, 1864. 
 
 3. Or the liberty of speech. ' Syllabus' of March 18, 
 1861. Prop. Ixxix. Encychcal of Pope Pius IX., 
 December 8, 1864. 
 
 4. Or who contend that Papal judgments and 
 decrees may, without sin, be disobeyed, or differed 
 from, unless they treat of the rules {dogmata) of 
 faith or morals. Ibid. 
 
 5. Or who assign to the State the power of defining 
 the civil rights {jura) and province of the Church. 
 ' Syllabus' of Pope Pius IX., March 8, 1861. Ibid. 
 Prop. xix. 
 
 6. Or who hold that Roman Pontiffs and Ecu- 
 menical Councils have transgressed the limits of 
 their power, and usurped the rights of princes. Ibid. 
 Prop, xxiii. 
 
 {It must he home in mind, that " Ecumenical Coun- 
 cils'' here mean Roman Councils, not recognised hy 
 the rest of the Church. The Councils of the early 
 Church did not interfere with the jurisdiction of the civil 
 poiver?) 
 
 7. Or that the Church may not employ force.
 
 IN THEIR BEARING OX CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 17 
 
 (Ecclesia vis infer endce potest at em non hahet.) ' Syl- 
 labus,' Prop. xxiv. 
 
 8. Or that power, not inherent in the office of the 
 Episcopate, but granted to it by the civil authority, 
 may be withdrawn from it at the discretion of that 
 authority. Ibid. Prop. xxv. 
 
 9. Or that the (immunitas) civil immunity of the 
 Church and its ministers, depends upon civil right. 
 Ibid. Prop. XXX. 
 
 10. Or that in the conflict of laws civil and 
 ecclesiastical, the civil law should prevail. Ibid. 
 Prop, xlii. 
 
 11. Or that any method of instruction of youth, 
 solely secular, may be approved. Ibid. Prop, xlviii. 
 
 12. Or that knowledge of things philosophical and 
 civil, may and should decline to be guided by Divine 
 ajid Ecclesiastical authority. Ibid. Prop. Ivii. 
 
 13. Or that marriage is not in its essence a Sacra- 
 ment. Ibid. Prop. Ixvi. 
 
 14. Or that marriage, not sacramentally contracted, 
 (si sacramentum excludatur) has a binding force. Ibid. 
 Prop. Ixxiii. 
 
 15. Or that the abolition of the Temporal Power 
 of the Popedom would be highly advantageous to the 
 Church. Ibid. Prop. Ixxvi. Also Ixx. 
 
 16. Or that any other religion than the Roman 
 religion may be established by a State. Ibid. Prop. 
 Ixxvii. 
 
 17. Or that in " Countries called Catholic," the 
 
 c
 
 18 THE VATICAN DF.CREES 
 
 free exercise of other religions may laudably be 
 allowed. ' Syllabus,' Prop. Ixxviii. 
 
 18. Or that the Roman Pontiff ought to come 
 to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civili- 
 zation. Ibid. Prop. Ixxx. * 
 
 This list is now perhaps sufficiently extended, al- 
 though I have as yet not touched the decrees of 1870. 
 But, before quitting it, I must offer three observations 
 on what it contains. 
 
 Firstly. I do not place all the Propositions in one 
 and the same category ; for there are a portion of 
 them which, as far as I can judge, might, by the 
 combined aid of favourable construction and vigorous 
 explanation, be brought within bounds. And I hold 
 that favourable construction of the terms used in 
 controversies is the right general rule. But this can 
 only be so, when construction is an open question. 
 When the author of certain propositions claims, as in 
 the case before us, a sole and unlimited power to 
 interpret them in such manner and by such rules as 
 he may from time to time think fit, the only defence 
 for all others concerned is at once to judge for them- 
 selves, how much of unreason or of mischief the words, 
 naturally understood, may contain. 
 
 Secondly. It may appear, upon a hasty perusal, 
 that neither the infliction of penalty in life, limb. 
 
 * For the original passages from the Encyclical and Syllabus 
 of Pins IX., see Appendix A.
 
 IN THEIR BEAKING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 19 
 
 liberty, or goods, on disobedient members of the 
 Christian Church, nor the title to depose sovereigns, 
 and release subjects from their allegiance, with all its 
 revolting consequences, has been here reaffirmed. In 
 terms, there is no mention of them ; but in the sub- 
 stance of the propositions, I grieve to say, they are 
 beyond doubt included. For it is notorious that they 
 have been declared and decreed by " Rome," that is 
 to say by Popes and Papal Councils ; and the stringent 
 condemnations of the Syllabus include all those who 
 hold that Popes and Papal Councils (declared ecumeni- 
 cal) have transgressed the just limits of their power, 
 or usurped the rights of princes. What have been 
 their opinions and decrees about persecution I need 
 hardly say ; and indeed the right to employ physical 
 force is even here undisguisedly claimed (No. 7). 
 
 Even while I am writing, I am reminded, from an 
 unquestionable source, of the words of Pope Pius IX. 
 himself on the deposing power. I add only a few 
 italics ; the words appear as given in a translation, 
 without the original : — 
 
 " The present Pontiff used these words in replying to the 
 address from the Academia of the Catholic Religion (July 21, 
 1873) :— 
 
 " ' There are many errors regarding the Infallibility : but the 
 most malicious of all is that which includes, in that dogma, the 
 right of deposing sovereigns, and declaring the people no longer 
 bound b}' the obligation of fidelity. This right has now and 
 again, in critical circumstances, been exercised by the Pontiffs : 
 but it has nothing to do with Papal Infallibility. Its origin was 
 not the infallibility, but the authority of the Pope. This 
 
 c 2
 
 *20 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 authority, in accordance with public right, whicli was then 
 vigorous, and with the acquiescence of all Christian nations, who 
 reverenced in the Pope the supreme Judge of the Christian 
 Commonwealth, extended so far as to pass judgment, even in civil 
 affairs, on the acts of Princes and of Nations' " * 
 
 Lastly. I must observe that these are not mere 
 opinions of the Pope himself, nor even are they 
 opinions which he might paternally recommend to 
 the pious consideration of the faithful. With the pro- 
 mulgation of his opinions is unhappily combined, in 
 the Encyclical Letter, which virtually, though not 
 expressly, includes the whole, a command to all his 
 spiritual children (from which command we the disobe- 
 dient children are in no way excluded) to hold them. 
 
 ^' Itaque omnes et singulas pravas opiniones et 
 doctrinas singillatim hisce literis commemoratas 
 auctoritate nostra Apostolica reprobamus, proscri- 
 bimus, atque damnamus ; easque ab omnibus Catholicas 
 Ecclesi^ filiis, veluti reprobatas, proscriptas, atque 
 damnatas omnino haberi volumus et mandamus." 
 Encycl. Dec. 8, 1864. 
 
 And the decrees of 1870 will presently show us, 
 what they establish as the binding force of the man- 
 date thus conveyed to the Christian world. 
 
 * ' Civilization and the See of Eome.' By Lord Eobert Mon- 
 tagu. Dublin, 1874. A Lecture delivered under the auspices of 
 the Catholic Union of Ireland. I have a little misgiving about 
 the version : but not of a nature to affect the substance.
 
 m THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 21 
 
 TV. The Third Proposition. 
 
 I now pass to the operation of these extraor- 
 dinary declarations on personal and private duty. 
 
 When the cup of endurance, which had so long- 
 been filling, began, with the council of the Vatican 
 in 1870, to overflow, the most famous and learned 
 living theologian of the Eoman Communion, Dr. von 
 Dollinger, long the foremost champion of his Church, 
 refused compliance, and submitted, with his temper 
 undisturbed and his freedom unimpaired, to the 
 extreme and most painful penalty of excommunication. 
 With him, many of the most learned and respected 
 theologians of the Roman Communion in Germany 
 underwent the same sentence. The very few, who 
 elsewhere (I do not speak of Switzerland) suffered in 
 like manner, deserve an admiration rising in propor- 
 tion to their fewness. It seems as though Germany, 
 from which Luther blew the mighty trumpet that 
 even now echoes through the land, still retained her 
 primacy in the domain of conscience, still supplied the 
 centuriaprcerogativa of the great comitia of the world. 
 
 But let no man wonder or complain. Without im- 
 puting to anyone the moral murder, for such it is, of 
 stifling conscience and conviction, I for one cannot 
 be surprised that the fermentation, which is working 
 through the mind of the Latin Church, has as yet 
 (elsewhere than in Germany) but in few instances 
 come to the surface. Bv the mass of mankind, it is
 
 22 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 morally impossible that questions such as these can 
 be adequately examined ; so it ever has been, and so 
 in the main it will continue, until the principles of 
 manufacturing machinery shall have been applied, 
 and with analogous results, to intellectual and moral 
 processes. Followers they are and must be, and in a 
 certain sense ought to be. But what as to the leaders 
 of society, the men of education and of leisure ? I will 
 try to suggest some answer in few words. A change of 
 religious profession is under all circumstances a great 
 and awful thing. Much more is the question, however, 
 between conflicting, or apparently conflicting, duties 
 arduous, when the religion of a man has been changed 
 for him, over his head, and without the very least of 
 his participation. Far be it then from me to make any 
 Roman Catholic, except the great hierarchic Power, 
 and those who have egged it on, responsible for the 
 portentous proceedings which we have witnessed. 
 My conviction is that, even of those who may not shake 
 off the yoke, multitudes will vindicate at any rate their 
 loyalty at the expense of the consistency, which per- 
 haps in difficult matters of religion few among us per- 
 fectly maintain. But this belongs to the future ; for 
 the present, nothing could in my opinion be more 
 unjust than to hold the members of the Roman Church 
 in general already responsible for the recent innova- 
 tions. The duty of observers, who think the claims 
 involved in these decrees arrogant and false, and such 
 as not even impotence real or supposed ought to
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 23 
 
 shield from criticism, is frankly to state tlie case, 
 and, by way of friendly challenge, to intreat their 
 Roman Catholic fellow-conntrymen to replace them- 
 selves in the position which five-and-forty years ago 
 this nation, by the voice and action of its Parliament, 
 declared its belief that they held. 
 
 Upon a strict re-examination of the language, as 
 apart from the substance of my fourth Proposition, 
 I find it faulty, inasmuch as it seems to imply that a 
 " convert " now joining the Papal Church, not only 
 gives up certain rights and duties of freedom, but 
 surrenders them by a conscious and deliberate act. 
 What I have less accurately said that he renounced, 
 I miglit have more accurately said that he forfeited. 
 To speak strictly, the claim now made upon him by 
 the authority, which he solemnly and with the 
 highest responsibility acknowledges, requires him to 
 surrender his mental and moral freedom, and to place 
 his loyalty and civil duty at the mercy of another. 
 There may have been, and may be, persons who in 
 their sanguine trust will not shrink from this result, 
 and will console themselves with the notion that 
 their loyalty and civil duty are to be committed to the 
 custody of one much wiser than themselves. But I 
 am sure that there are also '' converts " who, when 
 they perceive, will by word and act reject, the con- 
 sequence which relentless logic draws for them. If, 
 however, my proposition be true, there is no escape 
 from the dilemma. Is it then true, or is it not true,
 
 24 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 that Rome requires a convert, who now joins her, to 
 forfeit his moral and mental freedom, and to place 
 his loyalty and civil duty at the mercy of another ? 
 
 In order to place this matter in as clear a light as 
 I can, it will be necessary to go back a little upon 
 our recent history. 
 
 A century ago we began to relax that system of 
 penal laws against Roman Catholics, at once petti- 
 fogging, base, and cruel, which Mr. Burke has 
 scathed and blasted with his immortal eloquence. 
 
 When this process had reached the point, at which 
 the question was whether they should be admitted 
 into Parliament, there arose a great and prolonged 
 national controversy; and some men, who at no 
 time of their lives were narrow-minded, such as Sir 
 Robert Peel, the Minister, resisted the concession. 
 The arguments in its favour were obvious and strong, 
 and they ultimately prevailed. But the strength of 
 the opposing party had lain in the allegation that, 
 from the nature and claims of the Papal power, it was 
 not possible for the consistent Roman Catholic to pay 
 to the crown of this country an entire allegiance, and 
 that the admission of persons, thus self-disabled, to 
 Parliament was inconsistent with the safety of the 
 State and nation ; which had not very long before, 
 it may be observed, emerged from a struggle for 
 existence. 
 
 An answer to this argument was indispensable ; 
 and it was supplied mainly from two sources. The
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 25 
 
 Josephine laws,* then still subsisting in the Austrian 
 empire, and the arrangements which had been made 
 after the peace of 1815 by Prussia and the German 
 States with Pius YII. and Gonsalvi, proved that the 
 Papal Court could submit to circumstances, and could 
 allow material restraints even upon the exercise of its 
 ecclesiastical prerogatives. Here, then, was a reply 
 in the sense of the phrase solvitur amhulando. Much 
 information of this class was collected for the infor- 
 mation of Parliament and the country.j But there 
 were also measures taken to learn, from the highest 
 Eoman Catholic authorities of this country, what was 
 the exact situation of the members of that commu- 
 nion with respect to some of the better known exorbi- 
 tancies of Papal assumption. Did the Pope claim any 
 temporal jurisdiction ? Did he still pretend to the 
 exercise of a power to depose kings, release subjects 
 from their allegiance, and incite them to revolt ? Was 
 faith to be kept with heretics ? Did the Church 
 still teach the doctrines of persecution ? Now, to no 
 
 * See the work of Count dal Pozzo on the ' Austrian Eccle- 
 siastical Law.' London: Murray, 1827. The Leopoldine Laws 
 in Tuscany may also be mentioned. 
 
 t See ' Report from the Select Committee appointed to report 
 the nature and substance of the Laws and Ordinances existing 
 in Foreign States, respecting the regulation of their Roman 
 Catholic subjects in Ecclesiastical matters, and their intercourse 
 with the See of Rome, or any other Foreign Ecclesiastical Juris- 
 diction.' Printed for the House of Commons in 1816 and 1817. 
 Reprinted 1851.
 
 26 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 one of these questions could the answer really be of 
 the smallest immediate moment to this powerful 
 and solidly compacted kingdom. They were topics 
 selected by way of sample ; and the intention was to 
 elicit declarations showing generally that the fangs of 
 the mediseval Popedom had been drawn, and its claws 
 torn aw^ay ; that the Koman system, however strict 
 in its dogma, was perfectly compatible with civil 
 liberty, and with the institutions of a free State 
 moulded on a different religious basis from its own. 
 
 Answers in abundance were obtained, tending to 
 show that the doctrines of deposition and perse- 
 cution, of keeping no faith with heretics, and of 
 universal dominion, were obsolete beyond revival ; 
 that every assurance could be given respecting them, 
 except such as required the shame of a formal 
 retractation ; that they were in effect mere bugbears, 
 unworthy to be taken into account by a nation, 
 which prided itself on being made up of practical 
 men. 
 
 But it was unquestionably felt that something more 
 than the renunciation of these particular opinions 
 was necessary in order to secure the full concession 
 of civil rights to E-oman Catholics. As to their indi- 
 vidual loyalty, a State disposed to generous or candid 
 interpretation had no reason to be uneasy. It was 
 only with regard to requisitions, which might be 
 made on them from another quarter, that apprehen- 
 sion could exist. It was reasonable that England
 
 IN THEIR BEAEING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 27 
 
 should desire to know not only what the Pope* might 
 do for himself, but to what demands, by the consti- 
 tution of their Church, they were liable ; and how far 
 it was possible that such demands could touch their 
 civil duty. The theory which placed every human 
 being, in thibgs spiritual and things temporal, at the 
 feet of the Roman Pontiff, had not been an idolum 
 speeds, a mere theory of the chamber. Brain-power 
 never surpassed in the political history of the world 
 had been devoted for centuries to the single purpose 
 of working it into the practice of Christendom ; had 
 in the West achieved for an impossible problem a 
 partial success ; and had in the East punished the 
 obstinate independence of the Church by that Latin 
 conquest of Constantinople, which effectually pre- 
 pared the way for the downfall of the Eastern empire, 
 and the establishment of the Turks in Europe. What 
 was really material therefore was, not whether the 
 Papal chair laid claim to this or that particular 
 power, but whether it laid claim to some power that 
 included them all, and whether that claim had 
 received such sanction from the authorities of the 
 Latin Church, that there remained within her borders 
 
 * At that period the eminent and able Bishop Doyle did not 
 scruple to write as follows : "We are taunted with the proceedings 
 of Popes. What, my Lord, have we Catholics to do with the 
 proceedings of Popes, or why should we be made accountable 
 for them?" — ' Essay on the Catholic Claims.' To Lord Liver- 
 pool, 1826, p. 111.
 
 28 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 absolutely no tenable standing-ground from which war 
 against it could be maintained. Did the Pope then 
 claim infallibility ? Or did he, either without infalli- 
 bility or with it (and if with it so much the worse), 
 claim an universal obedience from his flock ? And 
 were these claims, either or both, affirmed in his 
 Church by authority which even the least Papal of 
 the members of tliat Church must admit to be bind- 
 ing upon conscience ? 
 
 The two first of these questions were covered by 
 the third. And well it was that they were so covered. 
 For to them no satisfactory answer could even then 
 be given. The Popes had kept up, with compara- 
 tively little intermission, for well-nigh a thousand 
 years their claim to dogmatic infallibility ; and had, 
 at periods within the same tract of time, often 
 enough made, and never retracted, that other claim 
 which is theoretically less but practically larger ; their 
 claim to an obedience virtually universal from the 
 baptised members of the Church. To the third 
 question it was fortunately more practicable to pre- 
 scribe a satisfactory reply. It was well known that, 
 in the days of its glory and intellectual power, the 
 great Gallican Church had not only not admitted, 
 but had denied Papal infallibility, and had declared 
 that the local laws and usages of the Church could 
 not be set aside by the will of the Pontiff. Nay, 
 further, it was believed that in the main these had 
 been, down to the close of the last century, the pre-
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 29 
 
 vailing opinions of the Cisalpine Churches in com- 
 munion with Rome. The Council of Constance had 
 in act as well as word shown that the Pope's judg- 
 ments, and the Pope himself, were triable by the 
 assembled representatives of the Christian world. 
 And the Council of Trent, notwithstanding the pre- 
 dominance in it of Italian and Roman influences, if 
 it had not denied, yet had not affirmed either pro- 
 position. 
 
 All that remained was, to know what were the 
 sentiments entertained on these vital points by the 
 leaders and guides of Roman Catholic opinion nearest 
 to our own doors. And here testimony was offered, 
 which must not, and cannot, be forgotten. In part, 
 this was the testimony of witnesses before the Com- 
 mittee of the House of Lords in 1825. I need quote 
 two answers only, given by the Prelate, who more 
 than any other represented his Church, and influenced 
 the mind of this country in favour of concession at 
 the time, namely. Bishop Doyle. He was asked,* 
 
 *' In what, and how far, does the Roman Catholic profess to 
 obey the Pope ? " 
 
 * Committees of both Lords and Commons sat ; the former 
 in 1825, the latter in 1824-5. The References were identical, 
 and ran as follows : " To inquire into the state of Ireland, more 
 particularly with reference to the circumstances which may have 
 led to disturbances in that part of the United Kingdom." Bishop 
 Doyle was examined March 21, 1825, and April 21, 1825, before 
 the Lords.
 
 30 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 He replied : 
 
 " The Catholic professes to ohey the Pope in matters which 
 regard his religious faith : and in those matters of ecclesiastical 
 discipline which have already been defined by the competent 
 authorities." 
 
 And again. 
 
 " Does that justify the objection that is made to Catholics, that 
 their allegiance is divided ? " 
 
 " I do not think it does in any way. We are bound to obey 
 the Pope in those things that I have already mentioned. But 
 our obedience to the law, and the allegiance which we owe the 
 sovereign, are complete, and full, and perfect, and undivided, 
 inasmuch as they extend to all political, legal, and civil rights 
 of the king or of his subjects. I think the allegiance due to the 
 king, and the allegiance due to the Pope, are as distinct and as 
 divided in their nature, as any two things can possibly be." 
 
 Such is the opinion of the dead Prelate. We shall 
 presently hear the opinion of a living one. But the 
 sentiments of the dead man powerfully operated on 
 the open and trustful temper of this people to induce 
 them to grant, at the cost of so much popular feeling 
 and national tradition, the great and just concession 
 of 1829. That concession, without such declarations, 
 it would, to say the least, have been far more difficult 
 to obtain. 
 
 Now, bodies are usually held to be bound by the 
 evidence of their own selected and typical witnesses. 
 But in this instance the colleagues of those witnesses 
 thought fit also to speak collectively. 
 
 First let us" quote from the collective " Declara- 
 tion," in the year 1826, of the Yicars Apostolic, who,
 
 IN TH?:iR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 31 
 
 with Episcopal authority, governed the Eoman Catho- 
 lics of G-reat Britain. 
 
 " The allegiance which Catholics hold to be due, and are 
 bound to pay, to their Sovereign, and to the civil authority of 
 the State, is perfect and undivided 
 
 " They declare that neither the Pope, nor any other prelate 
 or ecclesiastical person of the Roman Catholic Church .... 
 has any right to interfere directly or indirectly in the Civil 
 Government .... nor to oppose in any manner the per- 
 formance of the civil duties which are due to the king." 
 
 Not less explicit was the Hierarchy of the Roman 
 Communion in its " Pastoral Address to the Clergy 
 and Laity of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland," 
 dated January 25, 1826. This address contains a De- 
 claration, from which I extract the following words : — 
 
 "It is a duty which they owe to themselves, as loell as to 
 their Protestant fellow-suhjeds, whose good opinion they value, 
 to endeavour once more to remove the false imputations that 
 have been frequently cast upon the faith and discipline of 
 that Church which is intrusted to their care, tliat all may he 
 enabled to know with accuracy their genuine principles." 
 
 In Article 11 : — 
 
 " They declare on oath their belief that it is not an article 
 of the Catholic Faith, neither are they thereby, required to 
 believe, that the Pope is infallible." 
 
 and, after various recitals, they set forth 
 
 " After this full, explicit, and sworn declaration, we are utterly 
 at a loss to conceive on what possible ground we could be justly 
 charged with bearing towards our most gracious Sovereign only 
 a divided allegiance." 
 
 ^O' 
 
 Thus, besides much else that I will not stop to quote.
 
 32 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 Papal infallibility was most solemnly declared to be 
 a matter on which each man might think as he 
 pleased ; the Pope's power to claim obedience was 
 strictly and narrowly limited : it was expressly denied 
 that he had any title, direct or indirect, to interfere 
 in civil government. Of the right of the Pope to 
 define the limits which divide the civil from the 
 spiritual by his own authority, not one word is said 
 by the Prelates of either country. 
 
 Since that time, all these propositions have been 
 reversed. The Pope's infallibility, when he speaks 
 ex cathedra on faith and morals, has been declared, 
 with the assent of the Bishops of the Roman Church, 
 to be an article of faith, binding on the conscience of 
 every Christian ; his claim to the obedience of his 
 spiritual subjects has been declared in hke manner 
 without any practical limit or reserve ; and his 
 supremacy, without any reserve of civil rights, has 
 been similarly affirmed to include everything which 
 relates to the discipline and government of the 
 Church throughout the world. And these doctrines, 
 we now know on the highest authority, it is of 
 necessity for salvation to believe. 
 
 Independently, however, of the Vatican Decrees 
 themselves, it is necessary for all who wish to under- 
 stand what has been the amount of the wonderful 
 change now consummated in the constitution of the 
 Latin Church, and what is the present degradation of 
 its Episcopal order, to observe also the change, amount-
 
 IX THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 33 
 
 ing to revolution, of form in the present, as compared 
 with other conciHatory decrees. Indeed, that spirit 
 of centralisation, the excesses of which are as fatal to 
 vigorous life in the Church as in the State, seems 
 now nearly to have reached the last and furthest 
 point of possible advancement and exaltation. 
 
 When, in fact, we speak of the decrees of the 
 Council of the Vatican, we use a phrase which will 
 not bear strict examination. The Canons of the 
 Council of Trent were, at least, the real Canons of a 
 real Council : and the strain in which they are pro- 
 mulgated is this : — Hoec sacrosancta, ecumenica^ et 
 generalis Tridentina Synodus, in Spiritu Sancto legitime 
 congregata, in ect p7'cesidentihus eisdem tribus apostolicis 
 Legatis, hortatur^ or docet, or statuit^ or decernit^ and the 
 like: and its canons, as published in Eome, are " Canones 
 et decreta Sacrosancti ecumenici Concilii Iridentini^''^ 
 and so forth. But what we have now to do with is 
 the Constitutio Dogmatica Prima de Ecclesid Christi, 
 edita in Sessione tertid of the Vatican Council. It is 
 not a constitution made by the Council, but one pro- 
 mulgated in the Council.f And who is it that legis- 
 lates and decrees ? It is Pius Episcopus, sei^mts 
 
 * ' Eomse : in Collegio nrbano de Propaganda Fide.' 1833. 
 
 I I am aware that, as some hold, this was the case with the 
 Council of the Lateran in a.d. 1215. But, first, this has not been 
 established : secondly, the very gist of the evil we are dealing 
 with consists in following (and enforcing) precedents from the 
 age of Pope Innocent III. 
 
 D
 
 34 THE VATICAN DECKEES 
 
 servonim Dei : and the seductive plural of his docemus 
 et dedaramus is simply the dignified and ceremonious 
 "We" of Royal declarations. The document is 
 dated Pontijicatus nostri Anno XXV: and the humble 
 share of the assembled Episcopate in the transaction 
 is represented by sacro approhante coneilio. And now 
 for the propositions themselves. 
 
 First comes the Pope's infallibility : — 
 
 "Docemus, et divinitus revelatum dogma esse definimus, 
 Romanum Pontificem, cum ex Cathedra loquitur, id est cum, 
 omnium Christianorum Pastoris et Doctoris munere fungens, 
 pro suprema sua Apostolica auctoritate doctrinam de fide vel 
 moribus ab univ'ersa Ecclesia tenendam definit, per assistentiam 
 divinam, ipsi in Beato Petro promissam, ea infallibilitate pollere, 
 qua Divinus Redemptor Ecclesiam suam in definienda doctrina 
 de fide vel moribus instructam esse voluit : ideoque ejus Romani 
 Pontificis definitiones ex sese non autem ex consensu Ecclesia 
 irreformabiles esse."* 
 
 Will it, then, be said that the infallibility of the 
 Pope accrues only when he speaks ex cathedra ? No 
 doubt this is a very material consideration for those 
 who have been told that the private conscience is to 
 derive comfort and assurance from the emanations 
 of the Papal Chair : for there is no established or 
 accepted definition of the phrase ex cathedra, and he 
 has no power to obtain one, and no guide to direct 
 him in his choice among some twelve theories on 
 the subject, which, it is said, are bandied to and fro 
 
 Constitutio de Ecclesia,' c. iv.
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 35 
 
 among Eoman theologians, except the despised and 
 discarded agency of his private judgment. But while 
 thus sorely tantalised, he is not one whit protected. 
 For there is still one j)erson, and one only, who can 
 unquestionably declare ex cathedra what is ex cathedra 
 and what is not, and who can declare it when and as 
 he pleases. That person is the Pope himself. The 
 provision is, that no document he issues shall be valid 
 without a seal : but the seal remains under his own 
 sole lock and key. 
 
 Again, it may be sought to plead, that the Pope 
 is, after all, only operating by sanctions which un- 
 questionably belong to the religions domain. He 
 does not propose to invade the country, to seize 
 Woolwich, or burn Portsmouth. He will only, at 
 the worst, excommunicate opponents, as he has ex- 
 communicated Dr. von Bollinger and others. Is this 
 a good answer ? After all, even in the Middle Ages, 
 it was not by the direct action of fleets and armies of 
 their own that the Popes contended with kings who 
 were refractory ; it w^as mainly by interdicts, and by 
 the refusal, which they entailed when the Bishops 
 were not brave enough to refuse their publication, 
 of religious offices to the people. It was thus that 
 England suffered under John, France under Philip 
 Augustus, Leon under Alphonso the Noble, and 
 every country in its turn. But the inference may be 
 drawn that they who, while using spiritual weapons 
 for such an end, do not employ temporal means, only 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 fail to employ them because they have them not. 
 A reh'glous society, which delivers volleys of spiritual 
 censures in order to impede the performance of 
 civil duties, does all the mischief that is in its power 
 to do, and brings into question, in the face of the 
 State, its title to civil protection. 
 
 Will it be said, finally, that the Infallibility touches 
 only matter of faith and morals ? Only matter of 
 morals! Will any of the Roman casuists kindly 
 acquaint us what are the departments and functions 
 of human life which do not and cannot fall within the 
 domain of morals ? If they will not tell us, we must 
 look elsewhere. In his work entitled ' Literature 
 and Dogma,' * Mr. Matthew Arnold quaintly informs 
 us— as they tell us nowadays how many parts of our 
 poor bodies are solid, and how many aqueous — that 
 about seventy-five per cent, of all w^e do belongs to 
 the department of " conduct." Conduct and morals, 
 we may suppose, are nearly co-extensive. Three- 
 fourths, then, ( f life are thus handed over. But who 
 will guarantee to us the other fourth ? Certainly 
 not St. Paul ; who says, '' Whether therefore ye eat, 
 or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of 
 God." And '* Whatsoever ye do, in word or in 
 deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." f No ! 
 Such a distinction would be the unworthy device of a 
 
 * Pages 15, 44. 
 t 1 Cor. X. 31 ; Col. iii. 7.
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 37 
 
 shallow policy, vainly used to hide the daring of that 
 wild ambition which at Rome, not from the throne but 
 from behind the throne, prompts the movements of 
 the Yatican. I care not to ask if there be dregs or 
 tatters of human life, such as can escape from the 
 description and boundary of morals. I submit that 
 Duty is a power which rises with us in the morning, 
 and goes to rest with us at night. It is co-extensive 
 with the action of our intelligence. It is the shadow 
 which cleaves to us go where we will, and which 
 only leaves us when we leave the light of life. So 
 then it is the supreme direction of us in respect to all 
 Duty, which the Pontiff declares to beloug to him, 
 sacro approhante concilio : and this declaration he 
 makes, not as an otiose opinion of the schools, but 
 cunctis Jidelihus credeiidam et tenendam. 
 
 But we shall now see that, even if a loophole had 
 at this point been left unclosed, the void is supplied 
 by another provision of the Decrees. While the 
 reach of the Infallibility is as wide as it may please 
 the Pope, or those who may prompt the Pope, to 
 make it, there is something wider still, and that is 
 the claim to an absolute and entire Obedience. This 
 Obedience is to be rendered to his orders in tlie cases 
 I shall proceed to point out, without any qualifying 
 condition, such as the ex cathedra. The sounding 
 name of Infallibility has so fascinated the public 
 mind, and riveted it on the Fourth Chapter of the 
 Constitution de EccJesid, that its near neighbour, the
 
 38 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 Third Chapter, has, at least in my opinion, received 
 very much less than justice. Let us turn to it. 
 
 " Cujuscunqne ritus et dignitatis pastores atque fideles, tarn 
 seorsum singuli quam simul omnes, officio hierarcliicas subordi- 
 nationis veraeque obedientiae obstringuntur, non solum in rebus, 
 quae ad fidem et mores, sed etiam in iis, quas ad disciplinam et 
 
 regimen Ecclesise per totum orbem diffusae pertinent Hsec 
 
 est Catliolicse veritatis doctrina, a qua deviare, salva fide atque 
 salute, nemo potest. . . . 
 
 " Docemus etiam et declaramus eum esse judicem supremum 
 fidelium, et in omnibus causis ad examen eoclesiasticum spec- 
 tantibus ad ipsius posse judicium recurri : Sedis vero Apostolicae, 
 cujus auctoritate major non est, judicium a nemine fore retrac- 
 tandum. Neque cuiquam de ejus licere judicare judicio."* 
 
 Even, therefore, where the judgments of the Pope 
 do not present the credentials of infallibility, they 
 are unappealable and irreversible : no person may pass 
 judgment upon them ; and all men, clerical and lay, 
 dispersedly or in the aggregate, are bound truly to 
 obey them ; and from this rule of Catholic truth no 
 man can depart, save at the peril of his salvation. 
 Surely, it is allowable to say that this Third Chapter 
 on universal obedience is a formidable rival to the 
 Fourth Chapter on Infallibility. Indeed, to an ob- 
 server from without^ it seems to leave the dignity to 
 the other, but to reserve the stringency and efficienc}^ 
 to itself. The Third Chapter is the Merovingian 
 /i !^ Monarch ; the fourth is the Carlo vingian Mayor of the 
 ^2r Palace. The third has an overawing splendour ; the 
 
 * ' Dogmatic Constitutions,' &c., c. iii. Dublin, 1870, pp. 30-32,
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 39 
 
 fourth, an iron gripe. Little does it matter to me 
 whether my superior claims infallibility, so long as 
 he is entitled to demand and exact conformity. This, 
 it will be observed, he demands even in cases not 
 covered by his infallibility ; cases^ therefore, in which 
 he admits it to be possible that he may be wrong, but 
 finds it intolerable to be told so. As he must be 
 obeyed in all his judgments though not ex cathedra^ 
 it seems a pity he could not likewise give the com- 
 forting assurance that, they are all certain to be 
 right. 
 
 But why this ostensible reduplication, this appa- 
 rent surplusage ? Why did the astute contrivers of 
 this tangled scheme conclude that they could not 
 afford to rest content with pledging the Council to 
 Infallibility in terms which are not only wide to a 
 high degree, but elastic beyond all measure ? 
 
 Though they must have known perfectly well that 
 " faith and morals " carried everything, or everythirjg 
 worth having, in the purely individual sphere, they 
 also knew just as well that, even where the individual 
 was subjugated, they might and would still have to 
 deal with the State. 
 
 In mediaeval history, this distinction is not only 
 clear, but glaring. Outside the borders of some 
 narrow and proscribed sect, now and then emerging, 
 we never, or scarcely ever, hear of private and per- 
 sonal resistance to the Pope. The manful "Pro- 
 testantism " of mediaeval times had its activity almost
 
 40 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 entirely in the sphere of public, national, and state 
 rights. Too much attention, in my opinion, cannot 
 be fastened on this point. It is the very root and 
 kernel of the matter. Individual servitude, however 
 abject, will not satisfy the party now dominant in 
 the Latin Church: the State must also be a 
 slave. 
 
 Our Saviour had recognised as distinct the two 
 provinces of the civil rule and the Church : had no- 
 where intimated that the spiritual authority was to 
 claim the disposal of physical force, and to control in 
 its own domain the authority which is alone responsible 
 for external peace, order, and safety among civilised 
 communities of men. It has been alike the pecu- 
 liarity, the pride, and the misfortune of the Eoman 
 Church, among Christian communities, to allow to 
 itself an unbounded use, as far as its power would go, 
 of earthly instruments for spiritual ends. We have 
 seen with what ample assurances*' this nation and 
 Parliament were fed in 1826 ; how well and roundly 
 the full and undivided rights of the civil power, and 
 the separation of the two jurisdictions, were affirmed. 
 All this had at length been undone, as far as Popes 
 could undo it, in the Syllabus and the Encyclical. It 
 remained to complete the undoing, through the sub- 
 serviency or pliability of the Council. 
 
 And the work is now truly complete. Lest it 
 
 * See further, Appendix B.
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 41 
 
 should be said that supremacy in faith and morals, full 
 dominion over personal belief and conduct, did not 
 cover the collective action of men in States, a third 
 province was opened, not indeed to the abstract asser- 
 tion of Infallibility, but to the far more practical and 
 decisive demand of absolute Obedience. And this 
 is the proper work of the Third Chapter, to which 
 I am endeavouring to do a tardy justice. Let us 
 listen again to its few but pregnant words on the 
 point : 
 
 " Nod solum in rebus, quse ad fideiii et mores, sed etiam in 
 iis, quae ad disciplinam et regimen Ecclesise per totum orbem 
 diffuses pertinent." 
 
 Absolute obedience, it is boldly declared, is due to 
 the Pope, at the peril of salvation, not alone in faith, 
 in morals, but in all things which concern the disci- 
 pline and government of the Church. Thus are swept 
 into the Papal net whole multitudes of facts, whole 
 systems of government, prevailing, though in dif- 
 ferent degrees, in every country of the world. Even 
 in the United States, where the severance between 
 Church and State is supposed to be complete, a long 
 catalogue might be drawn of subjects belonging to 
 the domain and competency of the State, but also 
 undeniably affecting the government of the Church ; 
 such as, by way of example, marriage, burial, edu- 
 cation, prison discipline, blasphemy, poor-relief, in- 
 corporation, mortmain, religious endowments, vows 
 of celibacy and obedience. In Europe the circle is
 
 42 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 far wider, the points of contact and of interlacing 
 almost innumerable. But on all matters, respecting 
 which any Poj^e may think proper to declare that they 
 concern either faith, or morals, or the government 
 or discipline of the Church, he claims, with the 
 approval of a Council undoubtedly Ecumenical in 
 the Roman sense, the absolute obedience, at the peril 
 of salvation, of every member of his communion. 
 
 It seems not as yet to have been thought wise to 
 pledge the Council in terms to the Syllabus and the 
 Encyclical. That achievement is probably reserved 
 for some one of its sittings yet to come. In the 
 meantime it is well to remember, that this claim in 
 respect of all things affecting the discipline and 
 government of the Church, as well as faith and 
 conduct, is lodged in open day by and in the reign 
 of a Pontiff, who has condemned free speech, free 
 writing, a free press, toleration of nonconformity, 
 liberty of conscience^ the study of civil and philo- 
 sophical matters in independence of the ecclesiastical 
 authority, marriage unless sacramental ly contracted, 
 and the definition by the State of the civil rights 
 {jura) of the Church ; who has demanded for the 
 Church, therefore, the title to define its own civil 
 rights, together with a divine right to civil im- 
 munities, and a right to use physical force ; and who 
 has also proudly asserted that the Popes of the Middle 
 Ages with their councils did not invade the rights of 
 princes : as for example, Gregory ^^11., of the Emperor
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 43 
 
 Henry lY. ; Innocent III., of Raymond of Toulouse ; 
 Paul III., in deposing Henry YIII. ; or Pius Y., in 
 
 performing the like paternal ofSce for Elizabeth. 
 
 I submit, then, that my fourth proposition is true : 
 and that England is entitled to ask, and to know, in 
 what way the obedience required by the Pope and 
 the Council of the Yatican is to be reconciled with 
 the integrity of civil allegiance ? 
 
 It has been shown that the Head of their Church, 
 so supported as undoubtedly to speak with its highest 
 authority, claims from Poman Catholics a plenary 
 obedience to whatever he may desire in relation not 
 to faith but to morals, and not onlv to these, but to 
 all that concerns the government and discipline of 
 the Church : that, of this, much lies within the domain 
 of the State : that, to obviate all misapprehension, the 
 Pope demands for himself the right to determine the 
 province of his own rights, and has so defined it in 
 formal documents^ as to warrant any and every in- 
 vasion of the civil sphere ; and that this new version 
 of the principles of the Papal Church inexorably binds 
 its members to the admission of these exorbitant 
 claims, without any refuge or reservation on behalf 
 of their duty to the Crown. 
 
 Under circumstances such as these, it seems not 
 too much to ask of them to confirm the opinion which 
 we, as fellow-countrymen, entertain of them, by 
 sweeping away, in such manner and terms as they 
 may think best, the presumptive imputations which
 
 44 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 their ecclesiastical rulers at Rome, acting autocrati- 
 cally, appear to have brought upon their capacity to 
 pay a soHd and undivided allegiance ; and to fulfil 
 the engagement which their Bishops, as political 
 sponsors, promised and declared for them in 1 825. 
 
 It would be impertinent, as well as needless, to 
 suggest what should be said. All that is requisite is 
 to indicate in substance that which (if the foregoing 
 argument be soimd) is not wanted, and that which 
 is. What is not wanted is vague and general asser- 
 tion, of whatever kind, and however sincere. What 
 is wanted, and that in the most specific form and 
 the clearest terms, I take to be one of two things ; 
 that is to say, either — 
 
 I. A demonstration that neither in the name of 
 faith, nor in the name of morals, nor in the name of 
 the government or discipline of the Church, is the 
 Pope of Rome able, by virtue of the powers asserted 
 for him by the Vatican decree, to make any claim 
 upon those who adhere to his comnmnion, of such a 
 nature as can impair the integrity of their civil 
 allegiance ; or else, 
 
 II. That, if and when such claim is made, it will 
 even although resting on the definitions of the 
 Vatican, be repelled and rejected; just as Bishop 
 Doyle, when he was asked what the Roman Catholic 
 clergy would do if the Pope intermeddled with their 
 rehgion, replied frankly, " The consequence would 
 be, that we should oppose him by every means in
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 45 
 
 our power, even by the exercise of our spiritual 
 authority." * 
 
 In the absence of explicit assurances to this 
 effect, we should appear to be led, nay, driven, by 
 just reasoning upon that documentary evidence, to 
 the conclusions : — 
 
 1. That the Pope, authorised by his Council, 
 claims for himself the domain (a) of faith, (b) of 
 morals, (c) of all that concerns the government and 
 discipline of the Church. 
 
 2. That he in like manner claims the power of 
 determining the limits of those domains. 
 
 3. That he does not sever them, by any acknow- 
 ledged or intelligible line, from the domains of civil 
 duty and allegiance. 
 
 4. That he therefore claims, and claims from the 
 month of July 1870 onwards with plenary autho- 
 rity, from every convert and member of his Church, 
 that he shall " place his loyalty and civil duty at the 
 mercy of another : " that other being himself. 
 
 Y. Being True, are the Propositions Material ? 
 
 But next, if these propositions be true, are they 
 also material ? The claims cannot, as I much fear, be 
 denied to have been made. It cannot be denied 
 that the Bishops, who govern in things spiritual more 
 
 Report,' March 18, 1826, p. 191.
 
 46 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 than five millions (or nearly one-sixth) of the inha- 
 bitants of the United Kingdom, have in some cases 
 promoted, in all cases accepted, these claims. It has 
 been a favourite purpose of my Hfe not to conjure 
 up, but to conjure down, pubHc alarms. I am not 
 now going to pretend that either foreign foe or 
 domestic treason can, at the bidding of the Court of 
 Eome, disturb these peaceful shores. But though 
 such fears may be visionary, it is more visionary 
 still to suppose for one moment that the claims of 
 Gregory YII., of Innocent III., and of Boniface VIII., 
 have been disinterred, in the nineteenth century, 
 like hideous mummies picked out of Egyptian sar- 
 cophagi, in the interests of archaeology, or without 
 a definite and practical aim. As rational beings, we 
 must rest assured that only with a very clearly 
 conceived and foregone purpose have these astonish- 
 ing reassertions been paraded before the world. 
 What is that purpose ? 
 
 I can well believe that it is in part theological. 
 There have always been, and there still are, no 
 small proportion of our race, and those by no means 
 in all respects the worst, who are sorely open to the 
 temptation, especially in times of religious disturb- 
 ance, to discharge their spiritual responsibilities by 
 power of attorney. As advertising Houses find custom 
 in proportion, not so much to the solidity of their 
 resources as to the magniloquence of their premises 
 and assurances, so theological boldness in the extension
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 47 
 
 of such claims is sure to pay, by widening certain 
 circles of devoted adherents, however it may repel 
 the mass of mankind. There were two special 
 encouragements to this enterprise at the present 
 day : one of them the perhaps unconscious but mani- 
 fest leaning of some, outside the Roman precinct, to 
 undue exaltation of Church power ; the other the 
 reaction, which is and must be brought about in 
 favour of superstition, by the levity of the destructive 
 speculations so widely current, and the notable 
 hardihood of the anti-Christian writing of the day. 
 
 But it is impossible to account sufficiently m this 
 manner for the particular course which has been 
 actually pursued by the Roman Court. All morbid 
 s]3iritual appetites would have been amply satisfied 
 by claims to infallibility in creed, to the prerogative 
 of miracle, to dominion over the unseen world. In 
 truth there was occasion, in this view, for nothing, 
 except a liberal supply of Salmonean thunder : — 
 " Dum flammas Jovis, et sonitiis imitatur Olympi."* 
 
 All this could have been managed by a few Tetzels, 
 judiciously distributed over Europe. Therefore the 
 question still remains, Why did that Court, with 
 policy for ever in its eye, lodge such formidable 
 demands for power of the vulgar kind in that sphere 
 which is visible, and where hard knocks can undoubt- 
 edly be given as well as received ? 
 
 * Mb. vi. 586.
 
 48 ■ THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 It must be for some political object, of a very 
 tangible kind, that the risks of so daring a raid npon 
 the civil sphere have been deliberately run. 
 
 A daring raid it is. For it is most evident that the 
 very assertion of principles which establish an ex- 
 emption from allegiance, or which impair its com- 
 pleteness, goes, in many other countries of Europe, 
 far more directly than with us, to the creation of poli- 
 tical strife, and to dangers of the most material and 
 tangible kind. The struggle, now proceeding in 
 Germany, at once occurs to the mind as a palmary 
 instance. I am not competent to give any opinion 
 upon the particulars of that struggle. The institu- 
 tions of Germany, and the relative estimate of State 
 power and individual freedom, are materially different 
 from ours. But I must say as much as this. Firstly, 
 it is not Prussia alone that is touched ; elsewhere, 
 too, the bone lies ready, though the contention may 
 be delayed. In other States, in Austria particularly, 
 there are recent laws in force, raising much the same 
 issues as the Falck laws have raised. But the 
 Roman Court possesses in perfection one art, the art 
 of waiting ; and it is her wise maxim to fight but 
 one enemy at a time. Secondly, if I have truly 
 represented the claims promulgated from the Vati- 
 can, it is difficult to deny that those claims, and the 
 power which has made them, are primarily respon- 
 sible for the pains and perils, whatever they may be, 
 of the present conflict between German and Roman
 
 IN THEIR BEARINCt ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 49 
 
 enactments. And that which was once truly said of 
 France, may now also be said with not less truth 
 of Germany : when Germany is disquieted, Europe 
 cannot be at rest. 
 
 T should feel less anxiety on this subject had the 
 Supreme Pontiff frankly recognised his altered posi- 
 tion since the events of 1870 ; and, in language as 
 clear, if not as emphatic, as that in which he has 
 proscribed modern civilisation, given to Europe the 
 assurance that he would be no party to the re- 
 establishment by blood and violence of the Tem- 
 poral Power of the Church. It is easy to conceive 
 that his personal benevolence, no less than his 
 feelings as an Italian, must have inclined him indi- 
 vidually towards a course so humane ; and I should 
 add, if I might do it without presumption, so pru- 
 dent. With what appears to an English eye a 
 lavish prodigahty, successive Italian Governments 
 have made over the ecclesiastical powers and privi- 
 leges of the Monarchy, not to the Church of the 
 country for the revival of the ancient, popular, and 
 self-governing elements of its constitution, but to the 
 Papal Chair, for the establishment of ecclesiastical 
 despotism, and the suppression of the last vestiges of 
 independence. This course, so difficult for a foreigner 
 to appreciate, or even to justify, has been met, not by 
 reciprocal conciliation, but by a constant fire of 
 denunciations and complaints. When the tone 
 of these denunciations and complaints is compared
 
 50 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 with the language of the authorised and favoured 
 Papal organs in the press, and of the Ultramontane 
 party (now the sole legitimate party of the Latin 
 Church) throughout Europe, it leads many to the 
 painful and revolting conclusion that there is a fixed 
 purpose among the secret inspirers of Eoman policy 
 to pursue, by the road of force, upon the arrival of 
 any favourable opportunity, the favourite project 
 of re-erecting the terrestrial throne of the Popedom, 
 even if it can only be re-erected on the ashes of the 
 city, and amidst the whitening bones of the people.* 
 It is difficult to conceive or contemplate the effects of 
 such an endeavour. But the existence at this day 
 of the policy, even in bare idea, is itself a portentous 
 evil. I do not hesitate to say that it is an incentive 
 to general disturbance, a premium upon European 
 wars. It is in my opinion not sanguine only, but 
 almost ridiculous to imagine that such a project could 
 eventually succeed ; but it is difficult to over-estimate 
 the effect which it might produce in generating and 
 exasperating strife. It might even, to some extent, 
 disturb and paralyse the action of such Governments 
 as might interpose for no separate purpose of their 
 own, but only with a view to the maintenance or 
 restoration of the general peace. If the baleful 
 Power which is expressed by the phrase Curia 
 Romana, and not at all adequately rendered in its 
 
 Appendix C.
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON ClYIL ALLEGIANCE. 51 
 
 historic force by the usual English equivalent 
 " Court of Rome," really entertains the scheme, it 
 doubtless counts on the support in every country of 
 an organised and devoted party ; which, when it can 
 command the scales of political power, will promote 
 interference, and, when it is in a minority, will work 
 for securing neutrality. As the peace of Europe 
 may be in jeopardy, and as the duties even of Eng- 
 land, as one (so to speak) of its constabulary autho- 
 rities, might come to be in question, it would be most 
 interesting to know the mental attitude of our Eoman 
 Catholic fellow-countrymen in England and Ireland 
 with reference to the subject ; and it seems to be one, 
 on which we are entitled to solicit information. 
 
 For there cannot be the smallest doubt that the 
 temporal power of the Popedom comes within the 
 true meaning of the words used at the Vatican to 
 describe the subjects on which the Pope is authorised 
 to claim, under awful sanctions, the obedience of the 
 " faithful." It is even possible that we have here 
 the key to the enlargement of the province of 
 Obedience beyond the limits of Infallibility, and to 
 the introduction of the remarkable phrase ad disci- 
 plinam et regimen Ecclesice. No impartial person can 
 deny that the question of the temporal power very 
 evidently concerns the discipline and government of 
 the Church — concerns it, and most mischievously as 
 I should venture to think ; but in the opinion, up to 
 a late date, of many Roman Catholics, not only most 
 
 E 2
 
 52 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 beneficially, but even essentially. Let it be remem- 
 bered, that such a man as the late Count Montalem- 
 bert, who in his general politics was of the Liberal 
 party, did not scruple to hold that the millions of 
 Koman Catholics throughout the world were co- 
 partners with the inhabitants of the States of the 
 Church in regard to their civil government; and, 
 as constituting the vast majority, were of course 
 entitled to override them. It was also rather com- 
 monly held, a quarter of a century ago, that the 
 question of the States of the Church was one with 
 which none but Eoman Catholic Powers could have 
 anything to do. This doctrine, I must own, was to 
 me at all times unintelligible. It is now, to say the 
 least, hopelessly and irrecoverably obsolete. 
 
 Archbishop Manning, who is the head of the Papal 
 Church in England, and whose ecclesiastical tone is 
 supposed to be in the closest accordance with that 
 of his headquarters, has not thought it too much 
 to say that the civil order of all Christendom is 
 the offspring of the Temporal Power, and has the 
 Temporal Power for its keystone ; that on the de- 
 struction of the Temporal Power " the laws of 
 nations would at once fall in ruins ; " that (our 
 old friend) the deposing Power "taught subjects 
 obedience and princes clemency."* Nay, this high 
 
 * * Three Lectures on the Temporal Sovereignty of the Popes,' 
 1860, pp. 34, 46, 47, 58-9, 63.
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CITIL ALLEGIANCE. 53 
 
 authority has proceeded further ; and has elevated 
 
 the Temporal Power to the rank of necessary 
 
 doctrine. 
 
 " The Catholic Church cannot be silent, it cannot hold its 
 peace ; it cannot cease to preach the doctrines of Eevelation, 
 not only of the Trinity and t)f the Incarnation, but likewise 
 of t,he Seven Sacramenis, and of the Infallibility of the Church 
 of God, and of the necessity of Unity, and of the Sovereignty, 
 both spii-itual and temporal, of the Holy See." * 
 
 I never, for my own part, heard that the work 
 containing this remarkable passage was placed in the 
 * Index Prohibitorum Librorum.' On the contrary^ its 
 distinguished author was elevated, on the first oppor- 
 tunity, to the headship of the Roman Episcopacy in 
 England, and to the guidance of the million or there- 
 abouts of souls in its communion. And the more 
 recent utterances of the oracle have not descended 
 from the high level of those already cited. They 
 have, indeed, the recommendation of a comment, 
 not without fair claims to authority, on the recent 
 declarations of the Pope and the Council ; and of one 
 which goes to prove how far I am from having exag- 
 gerated or strained in the foregoing pages the mean- 
 ing of those declarations. Especially does this hold 
 good on the one point, the most vital of the whole — 
 the title to define the border line of the two provinces, 
 which the Archbishop not unfairly takes to be the true 
 
 * ' The present Crisis of the Holy See.' By H. E, Mannins:, 
 D.D. London, 1861, p. 7o.
 
 54 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 criterion of supremacy, as between rival powers like 
 the Church and the State. 
 
 " If, then, the civil power be not competent to decide the 
 limits of the spiritual power, and if the spiritual power can 
 define, with a divine certainty, its own limits, it is evidently 
 supreme. Or, in other words, the spiritual power knows, with 
 divine certainty, the limits of its own jurisdiction : and it 
 knows therefore the limits and the competence of the civil 
 power. It is thereby, in matters of religion and conscience, 
 supreme. I do not see how this can be denied without denying 
 Christianity. And if this be so, this is the doctrine of the 
 Bull JJnam Sandam* and of the Syllabus, and of the Vatican 
 Council. It is, in fact, Ultramontanism, for this term means 
 neither less nor more. The Church, therefore, is separate 
 and supreme. 
 
 "Let us then ascertain somewhat further, what is the mean- 
 ing of supreme. Any power which is independent, and can alone 
 fix the limits of its own jurisdiction, and can tJierehy fix the limits of 
 all other jurisdictions, is, ipso facto, supreme.^ But the Church of 
 Jesus Christ, within the sphere of revelation, of faith and morals, 
 is all this, or is nothing, or worse than nothing, an imposture 
 and an usurpation — that is, it is Clirist or Antichrist." | 
 
 But the whole pamphlet should be read by those who 
 desire to know the true sense of the Papal declara- 
 tions and Yatican decrees, as they are understood by 
 the most favoured ecclesiastics ; understood, I am 
 bound to own, so far as I can see, in their natural, 
 legitimate, and inevitable sense. Such readers will 
 
 * On the Bull JJuam Sanctam, " of a most odious kind ;" see 
 Bishop Doyle's Essay, already cited. He thus describes it. 
 
 •f The italics are not in the original. 
 
 I ' Csesarism and Ultramontanism.' By Archbishop Manning, 
 1874, pp. 35-6.
 
 IN THEIR BEARINO ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 55 
 
 be assisted by the treatise in seeing clearly, and in 
 admitting frankly that, whatever demands may here- 
 after, and in whatever circumstances, be made upon 
 us, we shall be unable to advance with any fairness 
 the plea that it has been done without due notice. 
 
 There are millions upon millions of the Protestants 
 of this country, who would agree with Archbishop 
 Manning, if he were simply telling us that Divine 
 truth is not to be sought from the lips of the State, 
 nor to be sacrificed at its command. But those 
 millions would tell him, in return, that the State, as 
 the power which is alone responsible for the external 
 order of the world, can alone conclusively and finally 
 be competent to determine what is to take place in 
 the sphere of that external order. 
 
 I have shown, then, that the Propositions, espe- 
 cially that which has been felt to be the chief one 
 among them, being true, are also material ; material 
 to be generally known, and clearly understood, and 
 well considered, on civil grounds ; inasmuch as they 
 invade, at a multitude of points, the civil sphere, and 
 seem even to have no very remote or shadowy con- 
 nection with the future peace and security of Chris- 
 tendom. 
 
 YI. Were the Propositions proper to be set 
 
 FORTH BY the PRESENT WrITER ? 
 
 There remains yet before us only the shortest and 
 least significant portion of the inquiry, namely.
 
 56 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 whether these things, being true, and being material 
 to be said, were also proper to be said by me. I must 
 ask pardon, if a tone of egotism be detected in this 
 necessarily subordinate portion of my remarks. 
 
 For thirty years, and in a great variety of circum- 
 stances, in office and as an independent Member of 
 Parliament, in majorities and in small minorities, and 
 during the larger portion of the time * as the repre- 
 sentative of a great constituency, mainly clerical, I 
 have, with others, laboured to maintain and extend 
 the civil rights of my Roman Catholic fellow-country- 
 men. The Liberal party of this country, with which 
 I have been commonly associated, has suffered, and 
 sometimes suffered heavily, in public favour and in 
 influence, from the belief that it was too ardent in the 
 pursuit of that policy ; while at the same time it has 
 always been in the worst odour with the Court of 
 Eome, in consequence of its (I hope) unalterable 
 attachment to Italian liberty and independence. I 
 have sometimes been the spokesman of that party in 
 recommendations which have tended to foster in fact 
 the imputation 1 have mentioned, though not to 
 warrant it as matter of reason. But it has existed in 
 fact. So that while (as I think) general justice to 
 society required that these things which I have now 
 set forth should be written, special justice, as towards 
 the party to which I am loyally attached, and which 
 
 * From 1847 to 1865 I sat for the University of Oxford.
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. O.^ 
 
 I may have had a share in thus placing at a disadvan- 
 tage before our countrymen, made it, to say the least, 
 becoming that I should not shrink from writing them. 
 
 In discharging that office, I have sought to perform 
 the part not of a theological partisan, but simply of a 
 good citizen ; of one hopeful that many of his Roman 
 Catholic friends and fellow-countrymen, who are, to 
 say the least of it, as good citizens as himself, may 
 perceive that the case is not a frivolous case, but one 
 that merits their attention. 
 
 I will next proceed to give the reason why, up to 
 a recent date, I have thought it right in the main to 
 leave to any others, who might feel it, the duty of 
 dealing in detail with this question. 
 
 The great change, which seems to me to have been 
 brought about in the position of Roman Catholic 
 Christians as citizens, reached its consummation, and 
 came into full operation in July 1870, by the pro- 
 ceedings or so-called decrees of the Vatican Council. 
 
 Up to that time, opinion in the Roman Church on 
 all matters involving civil liberty, though partially 
 and sometimes widely intimidated, was free wherever 
 it was resolute. During the Middle Ages, heresy was 
 often extinguished in blood, but in every Cisalpine 
 country a principle of liberty, to a great extent, held 
 its own, and national life refused to be put down. 
 Nay more, these precious and inestimable gifts had 
 not infrequently for their champions a local prelacy 
 and clergy. The Constitutions of Claren<lon, cursed
 
 58 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 from the Papal throne, were the work of the English 
 Bishops. Stephen Langton, appointed directly, 
 through an extraordinary stretch of power, by 
 Innocent III., to the See of Canterbury, headed the 
 Barons of England in extorting from the Papal 
 minion John, the worst and basest of all our 
 Sovereigns, that Magna Charta, which the Pope 
 at once visited with his anathemas. In the reign 
 of Henry YIII., it was Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, 
 who first wrote against the Papal domination. 
 Tunstal was followed by Gardiner; and even the 
 recognition of the Eoyal Headship was voted by 
 the clergy, not under Cranmer, but under his unsus- 
 pected predecessor Warhara. Strong and domineer- 
 ing as was the high Papal party in those centuries, 
 the resistance was manful. Thrice in history, it 
 seemed as if what we may call the Constitutional 
 party in the Church was about to triumph : first, at 
 the epoch of the Council of Constance ; secondly, 
 when the French Episcopate was in conflict with 
 Pope Innocent XI.; thirdly, when Clement XIY. 
 levelled with the dust the deadliest foes that mental 
 and moral liberty have ever known. But from July 
 1870, this state of things has passed away, and the 
 death-warrant of that Constitutional party has been 
 signed, and sealed, and promulgated in form. 
 
 Before that time arrived, although I had used ex- 
 pressions sufficiently indicative as to the tendency of 
 things in the great Latin Communion, yet I had for
 
 IN THEirv BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 59 
 
 very many years felt ^it to be the first and para- 
 mount duty of the British Legislature, whatever 
 Rome might say or do, to give to Ireland all that 
 justice could demand, in regard to matters of con- 
 science and of civil equality, and thus to set herself 
 right in the opinion of the civilised world. So far 
 from seeing, what some believed they saw, a spirit of 
 unworthy compliance in such a course, it appeared 
 to me the only one which suited either the dignity 
 or the duty of my country. While this debt remained 
 unpaid, both before and after 1870, I did not think 
 it my province to open formally a line of argument 
 on a question of prospective rather than immediate 
 moment, which might have prejudiced the matter of 
 duty lying nearest our hand, and morally injured 
 Great Britain not less than Ireland, Churchmen and 
 Nonconformists not less than adherents of the Papal 
 Communion, by slackening the disposition to pay the 
 debt of justice. When Parliament had passed the 
 Church Act of 1869 and the Land Act of 1870, there 
 remained only, under the great head of Imperial 
 equity, one serious question to be dealt with — that of 
 the higher Education. I consider that the Liberal majo- 
 rity in the House of Commons, and the Government 
 to which I had the honour and satisfaction to belong, 
 formally tendered payment in full of this portion of 
 the debt by the Irish University Bill of February 
 1873. Some indeed think, that it was overpaid : a 
 (piestion into which this is manifestly not place to
 
 60 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 enter. But the Roman Catholic prelacy of Ireland 
 thought fit to procure the rejection of that measure, 
 by the direct influence which they exercised over a 
 certain number of Irish Members of Parliament, and 
 by the temptation which they thus offered— the bid, 
 in effect, which (to use a homely phrase) they made, 
 to attract the support of the Tory Opposition.. Their 
 efforts were crowned witli a complete success. From 
 that time forward I have felt that the situation was 
 changed, and that important matters would have to 
 be cleared by suitable explanations. The debt to 
 Ireland had been paid : a debt to the country at 
 large had still to be disposed of, and this has come 
 to be the duty of the hour. So long, indeed, as I 
 continued to be Prime Minister, I should not have 
 considered a broad political discussion on a general 
 question suitable to proceed from me ; while neither 
 I nor (I am certain) my colleagues would have b)een 
 disposed to run the risk of stirring popular passions 
 by a vulgar and unexplained appeal. But every 
 difficulty, arising from the necessary limitations of an 
 official position, has now been removed. 
 
 yil. Ox THE Home Policy of the Future. 
 
 I could not, however, conclude these observations 
 without anticipating and answering an inquiry they 
 suggest. "Are they, then," it will be asked, ''a 
 recantation and a ] -egret ; and what are they meant
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 61 
 
 to recommend as the policy of the future ? " My 
 reply shall be succinct and plain. Of what the 
 Liberal party has accomplished, by word or deed, in 
 establishing the full civil equality of Roman Catho- 
 lics, I regret nothing, and I recant nothing. 
 
 It is certainly a political misfortune that, during 
 the last thirty years, a Church so tainted in its views 
 of civil obedience, and so unduly capable of changing 
 its front and language after Emancipation from what 
 it had been before, like an actor w4io has to perform 
 several characters in one piece, should have acquired an 
 extension of its hold upon the highest classes of this 
 country. The conquests have been chiefly, as might 
 have been expected, among women ; but the number 
 of male converts, or captives (as I might prefer to 
 call them), has not been inconsiderable. There is no 
 doubt^ that every one of these secessions is in the 
 nature of a considerable moral and social severance. 
 The breadth of this gap varies, according to varieties 
 of individual character. But it is too commonly a 
 wide one. Too commonly, the spirit of the neophyte is 
 expressed by the words which have become notorious : 
 " a Catholic first, an Englishman afterv^ards." Words 
 which properly convey no more than a truism ; for 
 every Christian must seek to place his religion even 
 before his country in his inner heart. But very far 
 from a truism in the sense in which we have been led 
 to construe them. We take them to mean that the 
 *' convert " intends, in case of any conflict between
 
 62 THE VATICAN DECREPJ8 
 
 the Queen and the Pope, to follow the Pope, and 
 let the Queen shift for herself; which, happily, she 
 can well do. 
 
 Usually, in this country, a movement in the highest 
 class would raise a presumption of a similar move- 
 ment in the mass. It is not so here. Rumours have 
 gone about that the proportion of members of the 
 Papal Church to the population has increased, espe- 
 cially in England. But these rumours would seem 
 to be confuted by authentic figures. The Roman 
 Catholic Marriages, which supply a competent test, 
 and which were 4 '89 per cent, of the whole in 1854, 
 and 4*62 per cent, in 1859, were 4*09 per cent, in 
 1869, and 4-02 per cent, in 1871. 
 
 There is something at the least abnormal in such 
 a partial growth, taking effect as it does among the 
 wealthy and noble, while the people cannot be 
 charmed, by any incantation, into the Roman camp. 
 The original Gospel was supposed to be meant espe- 
 cially for the poor ; but the gospel of the nineteenth 
 century from Rome courts another and less modest 
 destination. If the Pope does not control more 
 souls among us, he certainly controls more acres. 
 
 The severance, however, of a certain number of 
 lords of the soil from those who till it, can be borne. 
 And so I trust will in like manner be endured the 
 new and very real " aggression " of the principles pro- 
 mulgated by Papal authority, whether they are or 
 are not loyally disclaimed. In this matter, each man
 
 IN THEIR BEARING ON CIYIL ALLEGIANCE. 63 
 
 is bis own judge and his own guide : I can speak for 
 myself. I am no longer able to say, as I would bave 
 said before 1870, "There is nothing in the necessary 
 belief of the Roman Catholic which can appear to 
 impeach his full civil title ; for, whatsoever be the 
 follies of ecclesiastical power in his Church, his 
 Church itself has not required of him, with binding 
 authority, to assent to any principles inconsistent 
 with his civil duty." That ground is now, for the 
 present at least, cut from under my feet. What 
 then is to be our course of policy hereafter ? First 
 let me say that, as regards the great Imperial 
 settlement, achieved by slow degrees, which has 
 admitted men of all creeds subsisting among us to 
 Parliament, that I conceive to be so determined 
 beyond all doubt or question, as to have become one 
 of the deep foundation-stones of the existing Constitu- 
 tion. But inasmuch as, short of this great charter of 
 public liberty, and independently of all that has been 
 done, there are pending matters of comparatively 
 minor moment which have been, or may be, subjects 
 of discussion, not without interest attaching to them, 
 I can suppose a question to arise in the minds of 
 some. My own views and intentions in the future 
 are of the smallest significance. But, if the argu- 
 ments I have here offered make it my duty to declare 
 them, I say at once the future will be exactly as the 
 past : in the little that depends on me, I shall be 
 guided hereafter, as heretofore, by the rule of main-
 
 64 THE VATICAxV DECREES. 
 
 taining equal civil rights irrespectively of religious 
 differences ; and shall resist all attempts to exclude 
 the members of the Roman Church from the benefit 
 of that rule. Indeed I may say that I have already 
 given conclusive indications of this view, by sup- 
 porting in Parliament, as a Minister, since 1870, the 
 repeal of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, for what I 
 think ample reasons. Not only because the time 
 has not yet come when we can assume the conse- 
 quences of the revolutionary measures of 1870 to 
 have been thoroughly weighed and digested by all 
 capable men in the Roman Communion. Not only 
 because so great a numerical proportion are, as I have 
 before observed, necessarily incapable of mastering, 
 and forming their personal judgment upon, the case. 
 Quite irrespectively even of these considerations, I 
 hold that our onward even course should not be 
 changed by follies, the consequences of which, if the 
 worst come to the worst, this country will have alike 
 the power and, in case of need, the will to control. 
 The State will, I trust, be ever careful to leave the 
 domain of rehgious conscience free, and yet to keep it 
 to its own domain ; and to allow neither private caprice 
 nor, above all, foreign arrogance to dictate to it in the 
 discharge of its proper office. "England expects 
 every man to do his duty ;" and none can be so well 
 prepared under all circumstances to exact its per- 
 formance as that Liberal party, which has done the 
 work of justice alike for Nonconformists and for Papal
 
 IN THEIR BEAETNG ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 65 
 
 dissidents, and whose members have so often, for the 
 sake of that work, hazarded their credit with the 
 markedly Protestant constituencies of the country. 
 Strong the State of the United Kingdom has always 
 been in material strength ; and its moral panoply is 
 now, we may hope, pretty complete. 
 
 It is not then for the dignity of the Crown and 
 people of the United Kingdom to be diverted from 
 a path which they have deliberately chosen, and 
 which it does not rest with all the myrmidons of 
 the Apostolic Chamber either openly to obstruct, or 
 secretly to undermine. It is rightfully to be expected, 
 it is greatly to be desired, that the Eoman Catholics 
 of this country should do in the Nineteenth century 
 what their forefathers of England, except a handful 
 of emissaries, did in the Sixteenth, when they were 
 marshalled in resistance to the Armada, and in the 
 Seventeenth when, in despite of the Papal Chair, 
 they sat in the House of Lords under the Oath of 
 Allegiance. That which we are entitled to desire, 
 we are entitled also to expect ; indeed, to say we 
 did not expect it, would, in my judgment, be the 
 true way of conveying an "insult" to those con- 
 cerned. In this expectation we may be partially 
 disappointed. Should those to whom I appeal, 
 thus unhappily come to bear witness in their own 
 persons to the decay of sound, manly, true life in 
 their Church, it will be their loss more than ours. 
 The inhabitants of tliese Islands, as a whole, are 
 
 p
 
 Ob THE VATICAN DECREES. 
 
 stable, though sometimes credulous and excitable ; 
 resolute, though sometimes boastful : and a strong- 
 headed and soundhearted race will not be hindered, 
 either by latent or by avowed dissents, due to the 
 foreign influence of a caste, from the accomplish- 
 ment of its mission in the world.
 
 ( 67 ) 
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 The numbers here given correspond with those of the Eighteen Pro- 
 positions given in the text, lohere it would have been less convenient 
 to cite the originals. 
 
 1, 2, 3. " Ex qua omnino falsa socialis regiminis idea baud 
 timent erroneam illam fovere opinionem, Catholicae Ecclesise, 
 animarumque saluti maxime exitialein, a rec. mem. Gre- 
 gorio XIV. praedecessore Nostro deliramentum appellatam 
 (eadem Encycl. * Mirari '), nimirum, libertatem conscientiae et 
 cultuum esse proprium cujuscunque bominis jus, quod lege 
 proclamari, et asseri debet in omni recte constituta societate, 
 et jus civibas inesse ad omnimodam libertatem nulla vel 
 ecclesiastica, vel civili auctoritate coarctandam, quo sues 
 conceptus quoscumque sive voce sive typis, sive alia ratione 
 ])alam publiceque manifestare ac declarare valeant." — Ency- 
 clical Letter. 
 
 4. " Atque silentio prseterire non possumus eorum auda- 
 ciam, qui sanam non sustinentes doctrinam ' illis Apostolicae 
 Sedis judiciis, et decretis, quorum objeetum ad bonum gene- 
 rale Ecclesiae, ejusdemque jura, ac disciplinam spectare decla- 
 ratur, dummodo fidei morumque dogmata non attingat, posse 
 assensum et obedientiam detrectari absque peccato, et absque 
 uUa Catholicae professionis jactura.' " — Ihid. 
 
 5. " Ecclesia non est vera perfectaque societas plane libera, 
 nee pollet suis propriis et constantibus juribus sibi a divino
 
 iJS . APPENDICES. 
 
 suo Fundatore collatis, sed civilis potestatis est defiiiire quae 
 sint Ecclesia3 jura, ac limites, intra quos eadem jura exercere 
 queat." — Syllabus v. 
 
 6. '• Eomani PoDtifices et Concilia oecumenica a limiti- 
 bus suae potestatis recesserunt, jura Principum usurparunt, 
 atque etiam in rebus fidei et morum definiendis errarunt." — 
 Ihid. xxiii. 
 
 7. '* Ecclesia vis inferendse potestatem non habet, neque 
 potestatem ullam temporalem directam vel indirectam." — 
 Ibid. xxiv. 
 
 8. "Prseter potestatem episcopatui inhserentem, alia est 
 attiilnita temporalis potestas a civili imperio vel expresse vel 
 tacit e concessa, revocanda propterea, cum libuerit, a civili 
 imperio." — Ibid, xxv. 
 
 9. " Ecclesiae et personarum ecclesiasticarum immunitas a 
 jure civili ortum habuit." — Ibid. xxx. 
 
 10. " In conflictu legum utriusque potestatis, jus civile 
 prsevalet." — Ibid, xlii. 
 
 11. •' Catliolicis viris probari potest ea juventutis insti- 
 tuendcG ratio, quae sit a Catholica fide et ab Ecclesiae potestate 
 sejuncta, quaeque rerum dumtaxat, naturalium scientiam ac 
 terrenae socialis vitae fines tantummodo vel saltern primarium 
 spectet." — Ibid, xlviii. 
 
 12. "Philosophicarum rerum morumque scientia, itemque 
 civiles leges possunt et debent a divina et ecclesiastica auc- 
 toritate declinare." — Ibid. Ivii. 
 
 13» " Matrimonii sacramentum non est nisi contractui acces- 
 sorium ab eoque separabile, ipsumque sacramentum in uua 
 tantum nuptiali benedictione situm est." — Ibid. Ixvi. 
 
 " Vi contractus mere civilis potest inter Christianos con- 
 stare veri nominis matrimonium ; falsumque est, aut contrac- 
 tum matrimonii inter Christianos semper esse sacramentum, 
 aut nullum esse contractum, si sacramentum excludatur." 
 — Ibid, Ixxiii. 
 
 14. " De temporalis regiii cum spirituali compatibilitate
 
 APPENDICES. . 69 
 
 disputant inter se ChristiansB et Catholicae EcclesiaB filii." — 
 Syllabus Ixxv. 
 
 15. *' Abrogatio civilis imperii, quo Apostolica Sedes poti- 
 tur, ad Ec'clesise libertatem felicitatemque vel maxima con- 
 duceret." — Ihid. Ixxvi. 
 
 16. "^tate hac nostra non amplius expedit religionem 
 Catholicam haberi tanquam unicam status religionem, cseteris 
 quibuscumque cultibus exclusis." — Ihid. Ixxvii. 
 
 17. "Ilinc laudabiliter in quibusdam Catholici nominis 
 regionibus lege cautum est, ut hominibus illuc immigrantibus 
 liceat publicum proprii cujusque cultus exercitium habere." 
 — Ihid. Ixxviii. 
 
 18. " Eomanus Pontifex potest ac debet cum progressu, 
 cum liberalismo et cum recenti civilitate sese reconciliare et 
 componere." — Ihid. Ixxx. 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 I have contented myself with a minimum of citation from 
 the documents of the period before Emancipation. Their full 
 effect can only be gathered by such as are acquainted with, 
 or will take the trouble to refer largely to the originals. It 
 is worth while, however, to cite the following passage from 
 Bishop Doyle, as it may convey, through the indignation it 
 expresses, an idea of the amplitude of the assurances which 
 had been (as I believe, most honestly and sincerely) given. 
 
 " There is no justice, my Lord, in thus condemning us. 
 Such conduct on the part of our opponents creates in our 
 bosoms a sense of wrong being done to us ; it exhausts our 
 patience, it provokes our indignation, and prevents us from 
 reiterating our efforts to obtain a more impartial hearing. 
 We are tempted, in such cases as these, to attribute unfair 
 motives to those who differ from us, as we cannot conceive
 
 70 APPENDICES. 
 
 how men gifted with intelligence can fail to discover truths 
 so plainly demonstrated as, 
 
 " That our faith or our allegiance is not regulated by any 
 such doctrines as those imputed to us ; 
 
 " That our duties to the Government of our country are 
 not influenced nor affected by any Bulls or practices of 
 Popes ; 
 
 " That these duties are to be learned by us, as by every 
 other class of His Majesty's subjects, from the Gospel, from 
 the reason given to us by God, from that love of country 
 which nature has implanted in our hearts, and from those 
 constitutional maxims, which are as well understood, and as 
 highly appreciated, by Catholics of the present day, as by 
 their ancestors, who founded them with Alfred, or secured 
 them at Eunnymede." — Boyle s ' Essay on the Catholic Claims,'' 
 London, 1826, p. 38. 
 
 The same general tone, as in 1826, was maintained in the 
 answers of the witnesses from Maynooth College before the 
 Commission of 1855. See, for example, pp. 132, 161-4, 
 272-3, 275, 361, 370-5, 381-2, 394-6, 405. The Commission 
 reported (p. 64), " We see no reason to believe that there 
 has been any disloyalty in the teaching of the College, or 
 any disposition to impair the obligations of an unreserved 
 allegiance to your Majesty.' 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 Compare the recent and ominous forecasting of the future 
 European policy of the British Crown, in an Article from a 
 Komish Periodical for the current month, which has direct 
 relation to these matters, and which has every appearance of 
 proceeding from authority. 
 
 " Surely in any European complication, such as may any 
 day arise, nay, such as must ere long arise, from the natural
 
 APPENDICES. 71 
 
 gravitation of the forces, which are for the moment kept in 
 check and truce by the necessity of preparation for their 
 inevitable collision, it may very well be that the future 
 prosperity of England may be staked in the struggle, and 
 that the side which she may take may be determined, not 
 either by justice or interest, but hy a passionate resolve to 
 keep up the Italian hingdom at any hazard!' — The ' Month ' 
 for November, 1874 : ' 3Ir. Gladstone's Durham Letter,' 
 p. 265. 
 
 This is a remarkable disclosure. With ivhom could 
 England be brought into conflict by any disposition she 
 might feel to keep up the Italian kingdom ? Considered as 
 iStates, both Austria and France are in complete harmony 
 witli Italy. But it is plain that Italy has some enemy ; and 
 the writers of the ' Month ' appear to know who it is. 
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 Notice lias been taken, both in this country and abroad, of 
 the apparent inertness of public men, and of at least one 
 Britisli Administration, with respect to the subject of these 
 pages. See Friedberg, * Granzen zwischen Staat und Kirche,' 
 Abtheilung iii. pp. 755-6 ; and the Preface to the Fifth 
 Volume of Mr. Greenwood's elaborate, able, and judicial w^ork, 
 entitled ' Cathedra Petri,' p. iv. 
 
 " If there be any chance of such a revival, it would become 
 our political leaders to look more closely into the peculiarities 
 of a system, which denies the right of the subject to freedom 
 of thought and action upon matters most material to his 
 civil and relisfious welfare. There is no mode of ascertaininof 
 the spirit and tendency of great institutions but in a careful 
 study of their history. The writer is profoundly impressed 
 with the conviction that our political instructors have wholly
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 neglected tin's important duty : or, wliich is perhaps worse, 
 left it in the hands of a class of persons whose zeal has outrun 
 their discretion, and who have sought rather to engage the 
 prejudices tlian the judgment of their hearers in tlie cause 
 they have, no doubt sincerely, at heart." 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED liT WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAJIFOUD ST HKE T 
 AND CHARING CROSS,