712 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



first three charged that the prisoner, being a 

 subject of the Queen, made war against her 

 Majesty at Duck Lake, Fish Creek, andBatoche 

 respectively. The other three charged that 

 the prisoner, living at the time within the Do- 

 minion of Canada and under the Queen's pro- 

 tection, made war against her Majesty at the 

 same three places. Riel having been convict- 

 ed and sentenced to death, an appeal was made 

 to the Privy Council in England, attacking the 

 constitutionality of the court. The authority 

 of the court was sustained, and the capital sen- 

 tence was duly executed on Nov. 16. The re- 

 fusal of the Dominion Government to recom- 

 mend the Governor-General to commute Riel's 

 sentence led to a serious political movement in 

 the Province of Quebec. A plea of insanity 

 was set up, and as evidence thereof Riel's in- 

 carceration in Beaufort Asylum and his pre- 

 tended inspiration were principally relied upon. 

 There was in Riel, unquestionably, eccentricity 

 approaching to insanity ; but there was no evi- 

 dence that his mind was so unhinged as to re- 

 lieve him from responsibility. (See page 707.) 

 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. Tin- most im- 

 portant event of the year 1885 was the pro- 

 mulgation of the encyclical, Immortale Dei, 

 addressed by Leo XIII to all the patriarchs, 

 primates, archbishops, and bishops of the Cath- 

 olic world, and dated Nov. 1, 1885. The por- 

 tion of the encyclical that relates to the duties 

 of citizes to the church and the state had ex- 

 cited, in advance, rumors of some new and 

 startling propositions, which were commented 

 on adversely by some of the secular journals, 

 and served to give the non-Catholic world 

 unusual interest in this pontifical document. 

 The following quotation from the Immortale 

 Dei is taken from a translation by James Mc- 

 Master, editor of the New York " Freeman's 

 Journal." It affirms old principles, in elegant 

 Latin, that no state can exist without a basis 

 of religion, and that there is but one religion 

 from God. The Pope cites the examples of the 

 early Christians, who, in high offices, in the 

 very palaces of the emperors, were willing to 

 yield their places, and even to die, rather than 

 hold honors at the expense of virtue, so that, 

 according to Tertullian, when it became lawful 

 to profess the Christian religion in positions of 

 state, it appeared in a great part of the cities, 

 not as a babe crying in its cradle, but already 

 grown up and of goodly strength. 



And now in these times it is becoming to revive 

 these examples of those of old. Catholics worthy of 

 the name must be most loving children of the Church, 

 and wish to be understood as such ; without hesita- 

 tion to reject whatever can not be reconciled with this 

 honorable note ; to use the ways and customs of the 

 people, so far as it can rightly be done, for the foster- 

 ma: of truth and justice ; to work it out that liberty of 

 action shall not overleap the line drawn by the law of 

 God and of nature ; to be intent that every state may 

 be brought back to that Christian form and likeness 

 of which we have spoken. The way of attaining these 

 ends can not aptly be laid down in any one certain 

 mode, since they must be made to suit the various 

 oimes and places that greatly differ tha on 3 from the 



other. Lest the union of minds be destroyed by the 

 rashness of blaming, let all understand this : That 

 the integrity of Catholic profession can not possibly 

 coexist with opinions approaching naturalism or ra- 

 tionalism, the sum of which is to destroy Christian 

 customs from their foundation, and to establish a rule 

 of man in society, from which God is excluded. In 

 like manner it is not lawful to follow one rule in pri- 

 vate conduct and another in the government of the 

 state, so, to wit, that the authority of the Church 

 should be observed in private life, but rejected in state 

 matters. But, if it be question of opinions purely 

 political, of the best kind of government, of ruling 

 states on one or other plan, there may indeed be hon- 

 est disagreement regarding all such things. 



Another important episode was the affair of 

 the Caroline Islands, in which the Pope acted 

 as mediator between Germany and Spain. (See 

 CAKOLINE ISLANDS.) 



The Order of Pius IX was founded express- 

 ly by Pius IX, to enable him to confer, in bis 

 temporal position, an honor on non-Catholics, 

 and even non-Christians. It is usually given 

 to ambassadors, and has been oftener con- 

 ferred than the Order of Christ, which, it was 

 supposed, was reserved for Catholics alone. 

 The conferring of the Order of Christ on 

 Prince Bismarck, and the seeming intention of 

 the present Pope to give it more prestige than 

 the Order of Pius IX, was as significant as it 

 was surprising, although the prince had so far 

 departed from his attitude of the Kulturkampf 

 as to make a conciliation between Germany 

 and the Holy See not improbable. 



Jn France, the war of the republic in the in- 

 terest of secularizing all institutions controlled 

 by the Church still continued. The suppres- 

 sion of the allowances made by the state to 

 various priests excited much discontent and 

 protest, as the pretext for so doing was scarce- 

 ly tenable ; and the money paid to the Church 

 in France is not a state grant, but an indem- 

 nity. A spirited correspondence took place 

 between M. Goblet and the Bishops of Pamiers 

 and Viviers on the subject of state interference. 

 The substitution of lay nurses for Sisters of 

 Charity in the hospitals of Paris excited much 

 controversy and many protests. In spite of 

 the letters of the physicians attached to the 

 hospitals, testifying warmly in favor of the 

 Sisters as nurses, the municipal council perse- 

 vered in its policy of " laicization." 



On Nov. 28, a debate took place in the 

 Reichstag on the question of authorizing the 

 establishment of Catholic missions in Africa. 

 The Fathers of the Congregation of the Holy 

 Ghost had asked for permission to found 

 mission at Cameroon. This was refused, on 

 the ground that the Fathers, who are Germans 

 living in Paris, were similar to the Jesuits, and, 

 as the law had expelled the Jesuits from Ger- 

 many, the same law applied to all the colonies. 

 Prince Bismarck insisted that the Fathers ot 

 the Holy Spirit were either of Alsatian or Lor- 

 raine origin ; but in the same speech said that 

 the Jesuits had been expelled from Germany 

 not because they were Catholics, but becaus* 

 they belonged to no country 3 



