ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



677 



which (lay state, at full length, (he 



reaoi)j 1'or the eon\oc:ttioti dt' the Council, thu 



I' tin- Church in tin- I'nitcd 



- required to secure for it 



for dcvcldjiiiient. The address 



rises thirt. , \\illi a ^ n. nil con- 



!i. '1 he subjects of the thirteen articles are 



lows: 1. " Plenary Councils"; 2. K< !,- 



:'.. Relations of the Church 



to the State; 4. Aid for the Pope; 5. The 



:ici.t of .Matrimony; 6. Books and ncws- 



B; 7. Kdnciitioii of Youth; 8. Catholic 



sand Industrial Schools; 9. Voca- 



i the Priesthood; 10. The L;iity ; 11. 



The clergy; ii2. The Emancipated Slaves; 



:ous Communities. Article 3, in 



the bishops speak of the relation of the 



'ic Church to the (Juvernment of tho 



Unite.l States, is as follows: 



The enemies of the Church fail not to represent her 

 claims as incompatible with tlie independence of the 



wer, and her action as impeding the exertions 

 of the State to promote the wellbeing of society. So 



n these charges being founded in fact, the 

 authority and influence of the Church will be found 



tM most efficacious support of the temporal 

 authority by which society is governed. The Church, 

 indeed, does not proclaim the absolute and entire in- 

 dependence of the civil power, because it touches 

 witli th Apostles that " all power is of God ;" that 

 : p. mil magistrate is Bis minister, and that 



MI- uf the sword he wields is a delegated ex- 



of authority committed to him from on high. 

 For the children of the Church obedience to the civil 

 power is not a submission to force which may not be 

 resisted, nor merely the compliance with a condi- 

 tion for peace and security ; but a religions duty 

 founded on obedience to God, by whose~ authority 

 the civil magistrate exercises his power. This 

 power, however, as subordinate and delegated, must 

 always be exercised agreeably to God^j law. In 



ihing any thing contrary to that law, the civil 

 ; v. i-r transcends its authority, and has no claim on 

 the obedience of the citizen. Never can it be lawful 

 to disobey God, as the Apostles, Peter and John, so 

 explicitly declared before the tribunal which sat in 

 .imminent on them : " If it be iust in the sight of 

 hoar YOU rather than God, judge ye." This 

 undeniable principle does not, however, entail the 

 same consequences in the Catholic system as in 

 those of the sects. In thc.se the individual is the 

 ultimate jud^p of what the law of God commands or 

 la, and is consequently liable to claim the sanc- 

 tion of the higher law, for what after all may be, and 

 olt en is, but the suggestions of an undisciplined 

 mind, or an overheated imagination. Nor can the 

 civil government be expected to recognize on au- 



. which has no warrant for its character as 

 divine, and no limits in its application, without ox- 

 posing the State to disorder and anarchy. The 

 Catholic has a guide in the Church, as a divi'no in-ti- 

 tutiuii, which enables him to discriminate l>ct\\ccn 

 what the law of God forbids or allows ; and this 

 authority the State is bound to recognize as supreme 

 in it> sphere of moral, no less than dogmatic tcach- 

 intr. There may, indeed, be instances in which in- 

 dividual Catholics will make a misapplication of the 

 IM inciple ; or in which, while the principle of obe- 

 dience to civil authority is recognized as of divine 

 obligation, the seat of that authority may be a mat- 

 t> r < f doubt, by reason of the clashing opinions that 

 prevail in regard to this important fact. The Church 

 docs not assume to decide such matters in the tern- 



<'rder, as she is not the judge of civil contro- 



-, although she always, when invited to do so, 



bns endeavored to remove the misconceptions from 

 which dispute* MI often arixe, and to consult for 

 inti -n -st while maintaining the peace of society 

 and the riphts ol justice. 



While cheerfully recognizing the fact, that hitherto 

 .i ..I ami State Governments of our country, 

 except in sonic brief interval* of excitement and dc- 

 liiMi.n, have not interfered with our ecclesiastical 

 organization or civil rights, we still have to lament 

 that in many of the States we are not as yet per- 

 mitted legally to make those arrangements for the 

 security of church property which arc in accord- 

 ance with the canons and discipline of the Catholic 

 Church. In some of the States we gratefully ac- 

 knowledge that all is granted in this regard that we 

 could reasonably ask for. The right of the Church 

 to possess property, whether churches, residences 

 for the clergy, cemeteries or school-houses, asylums, 

 etc., cannot be denied without depriving her of a 

 necessary means of promoting the end for which the 

 has been established. \Ve are aware of the alleged 

 grounds for this refusal to recognize the Church in 

 her corporate capacity, unless on the condition that 

 in the matter of the tenure of ecclesiastical prop- 

 erty, she conform to the general laws providing for 

 this object. These laws, however, arc for the most 

 part based on principles which she cannot accept, 

 without departing from her practice from the begin- 

 ning, as soon as she was permitted to enjoy liberty 

 of worship. They are the expression of a distrust of 

 ecclesiastical power, as such ; and are the fruit of 

 the misrepresentations which nave been made of the 

 action of the Church in past ages. As well might 

 the civil power prescribe to her the doctrines she is 

 to teach, and the worship with which she is to honor 

 God, as to impose on her a system of holding her 

 temporalities, which is alien to her principles, and 

 which is borrowed from those who have rejected her 

 authority. Instead of seeking to disprove the vari- 

 ous reasons alleged for this Genial of the Church's 

 rights in some of the States, we content ourselves 

 with the formal protest we hereby enter against it ; 

 and briefly remark, that even in the supposition, 

 which we by no means admit, that such denial waa 

 the result of legitimate motives, the denial itself is 

 incompatible with the full measure of ecclesiasti- 

 cal or religious liberty which we are supposed to 

 enjoy. 



Nor is this an unimportant matter, or one which 

 has not practical results of a most embarrassing 

 character. Not only are we obliged to place church 

 property in conditions of extreme hazard, because 

 not permitted to manage our church temporalities 

 on Catholic principles ; but in at least one of these 

 United States Missouri laws have been passed by 

 which all church property, not held by corporations, 

 is subjected to taxation j and the avowed object of 

 this, discriminating legislation, is hostility to the 

 Catholic Church. In concluding these remarks, we 

 merely refer to the attempt made in that State to 

 make tho exercise of the ecclesiastical ministry de- 

 pend on a condition laid down by the civil power. 



The views of the bishops on the emancipa- 

 tion of slaves are set forth in the 12th article as 

 follows : 



We must all feel, beloved brethren, that in some 

 manner a new and most extensive field of charity 

 and devotedness has been opened to us, by the 

 emancipation of the immense slave population of the 

 South. We could have wished, thut, in accordance 

 with the action of the Catholic Church in past ages, 

 in regard to the serfs of Europe, a more gradual 

 system of emancipation could have been adopted, 

 so that they might have been in some measure pre- 

 pared to make a better use of their freedom than 

 they are likely to do now. Still, the evils which 

 iiiu-t necessarily attend upon the sudden liberation 

 of so large a multitude, with their peculiar disposi* 



