PERILS. — EOMAXISM. Qo 



main, religious endowments, vows of celibacy, and 

 obedience." The Pope might declare that any or all of 

 these are "things which belong to faith and morals " or 

 " that pertain to the discipline and government of the 

 church," over which matters the Vatican Council de- 

 creed him to be possessed of ' ' all the fulness of supreme 

 power. "^ 



The word "morals " is quite broad enough to overlap 

 politics. Cardinal Manning says : "^ " Why should the 

 Holy Father touch any matter in politics at all? For 

 this plain reason, because politics are a part of morals. 

 .... Politics are jnorals on the widest scale." Leo 

 XIII. in his encyclical of January 10, 1890, declares that 

 ''politics .... are inseparably hound up ivith the laws 

 of morality and religious duties.'"^ This declaration is 

 ex cathedra and, therefore, "infallible," the end of con- 

 troversy to all good Roman Catholics. It renders every 

 utterance which the Pope may hereafter make concern- 

 ing politics absolutely binding on the conscience of 

 every Romanist, at the peril of salvation. This is per- 

 haps the most important word that has come from Rome 

 since 1870 when the Vatican Council " put the top-stone 

 t>o the pyramid of the Roman hierarchy." Not that 

 papal interference in politics is anything new in doc- 

 trine * or practice, but it has often been denied, and 

 Roman Catholics commonly profess entire loyalty both 

 to the civil power and to the Pope, thus implying that 

 the two spheres, secular and religious, are quite distinct ; 

 while moderate Romanists have sometimes expressly 

 said: "We will take our religion but not our politics 

 from Rome," It is, therefore, of the highest importance 

 that we have here a perfectly clear and irreversible 

 declaration, which no good Roman Catholic Avill dispute. 



1 See The First Dogmatic Constitution of the Church of Christ, Chap. 



m. 



' Ecclesiastical Sermons, Vol. III. p. 83. 



3 The Pilot, Boston, February 15, 1890. 



4 See Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX., December 8, 1864, Proposition No. 

 27. Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1863. 



