Supreme Pontiff

“ At the portal of the palace the pope was received by his master of ceremonies, who accompanied him to his cabinet. One glance at his pale countenance had revealed to him the inutility of the condescension of the supreme pontiff, who with a weary sigh sank back into the depths of an arm-chair.
"You were quite right," said he, after a pause, "and I was wrong. I ought never to have gone to this man. God has punished me for my vanity, and has used him as an instrument to remind me that I am but a poor miserable creature, full of projects, but empty of results! ”

“ The inviolability of the Holy Father, therefore, practically resolves itself into the fact that every miscreant may insult him with impunity, while it is dangerous for an honest Catholic to defend him through the press.
It is a notorious fact, and of very frequent occurrence, that groups of ribald men, escaped from every Italian galley, stroll along the avenues, singing shameful verses, nay, even menacing ones, in regard to the Supreme Pontiff, and it is no rare thing for a rabble to provoke and utter cries of a character most outraging to his name and honor. ”

“ The reigning Pontiff, whosoever he may be, is always the Supreme Ruler, the Head of the Church, and the Vicar of Christ; but he is not, on all occasions, nor under all circumstances, the infallible ruler.
To guard against any mistake as to the meaning of our words, let us explain that infallibility is a gift, but not a gift that the Pope exercises every day, nor on every occasion, nor in addressing individuals, nor public audiences, nor is it a prerogative that can be invoked, except under special and indeed we may certainly add, very exceptional circumstances. ”

“ From the Pontiff all must receive authority, and he can receive from none, as the Father in the internal organism of the infinite communicates and receives from none. Consequently, the Supreme Pontiff being the first, primary, supreme, visible principle of authority in the church of Christ, is the first, primary, supreme, visible teacher—the office of teaching being essentially included in the fulness of authority communicated to him by Christ. ”

“ When they witness the extraordinary respect and honour which encompass a supreme pontiff, their admiration and wonder are so excited, that they look upon the chief of the Church as a second sovereign, whose dignity is equal, or even superior, to that of the monarch himself; and they are disposed to attach to the ecclesiastical rank a character of power superior to the other. Now, as it is incontestable that the common people indulge in such reflections, what, we ask, would be the case if the unjust disputes of an arbitrary clergy were added to light up a conflagration? ”

“ Gregory was captured at last and forcibly consecrated Supreme Pontiff. He was the best qualified man in all Christendom for the place. He represented the best in Rome and the best in Christianity. His comprehensive policy, his grasp of fundamental issues, his political training, his capacity for details, made him the man for the hour. He merged the office of Roman Emperor and Christian bishop into essentially one and thus became the real founder of the mediæval Papacy. His pontificate, therefore, was an era in the history of the Church. ”

“ They could not be impelled by ambition or avarice, as the temporal and ecclesiastical powers were united in the same hands. The pontiffs were chosen among the most illustrious of the senators; and the office of Supreme Pontiff was constantly exercised by the emperors themselves. They knew and valued the advantages of religion, as it is connected with civil government. They encouraged the public festivals which humanize the manners of the people. They managed the arts of divination as a convenient instrument of policy ”

“ At the news of these repeated outrages, as he considered them, the old Pope, driven to extremities, and instigated by the Jesuits, resolved on an act of vigour, to test what the Supreme Pontiff could do for the sons of his predilection. It seems that he could not summon courage enough to strike the blow against France, Spain, or Naples, but he thought he could dare anything against the Duke of Parma. ”

“ Or precisely when the Roman Pontiff was speaking ex cathedrâ? Was the famous Syllabus Errorum, for example, issued ex cathedrâ or not? Grave theologians have never been able to make up their minds. Yet to admit doubts in such matters as these is surely dangerous. "In duty to our supreme pastoral office," proclaimed the Sovereign Pontiff, "by the bowels of Christ we earnestly entreat all Christ's faithful people, and we also command them by the authority of God and our Saviour, that they study and labour to expel and eliminate errors and display the light of the purest faith." ”

“ The insertion here of the allocution which he delivered on the occasion cannot but prove acceptable to all English readers:
“Great is the authority with which the Supreme Pontiff is invested. This authority, however, does not destroy. It builds up. It does not oppress. But, on the contrary, sustains. Very frequently it behooves it to defend the rights of our [pg 337] brethren, the bishops. If some have not been of the same mind with us, let them consider that they have formed their judgment under the influence of agitation. ”

“ Though last, not least in the political lessons of this marvellous year, the papal government has been subverted—a second Rienzi has appeared in Rome; and the Supreme Pontiff, who began the movement, now a fugitive from his dominions, has exhibited a memorable warning to future ages, of the peril of commencing reforms in high places, and the impossibility of [5] reconciling the Roman Catholic religion with political innovation. ”

“ But the authority of the Roman Pontiff is supreme, universal, independent; that of the bishops limited, and^dependent. "It is not congruous that two superiors with equal au- thority should be placed over the same flock; but that two one of whom is higher than the other, should be placed over the same people is not incongruous. Thus the parish priest, the bishop, and the Pope, are placed immediately over the same people."^ So the Roman Pontiffs, mindful of their duty, wish above all things, that the divine constitution of the Church -should be preserved. ”

“ II. IT will hardly be necessary to remind the reader that the existing mode of Papal election, by which the prerogative of naming the Supreme Pontiff is vested exclusively in those ecclesiastical dignitaries who have attained the rank of Cardinals, is a matter of comparatively late creation. ”

“ For the Pontiff binds and looses not men only, but sins, vows, oaths, &c. There is a transition from the metaphor of the keys to the kindred metaphor of binding and loosing; for to open and shut, to bind and loose, are akin. Whence, by it, he signifies the same thing—that by the keys and by the rock are meant the supreme authority of Peter and the Pontiffs in ruling the Church. The power therefore of binding is a very ample one, and is exercised by Peter and the Pontiff in various ways. ”

“ It is separate in no sense, nor can be, nor can so be called, without manifold heresy, unless the word be taken to mean distinct. In this sense, the Roman Pontiff is distinct from the Episcopate, and is a distinct subject of infallibility; and in the exercise of his supreme doctrinal authority, or magisterium, he does not depend for the infallibility of his definitions upon the consent or consultation of the Episcopate, but only on the Divine assistance of the Holy Ghost. ”

“ And I suppose that you are not incapable [71] of perceiving that this is impossible without the maintenance of religion? And perhaps you may have heard that His Highness is supreme head of our religion? And then, do you tell me, sir, that you did not see that this last stanza—this Pontiff’s ambition, or whatever it is—is pernicious in the highest degree? Now this is what I shall do. I shall make you, Horatius, write an ode of fourteen stanzas in praise of His Highness as Chief Pontiff. Take your tablets and write down the heads of the poem, as I dictate them. ”

“ He first reminds the bishops how he had stirred them up to war against these errors, and how he had also commanded the children of the Church to abhor and shun them. Secondly, he enumerates certain additional errors, condemns them in turn, and commands his sons to shun them likewise. Condemnations pronounced in this formal manner are judicial and sovereign. The Pontiff does not speak as a mere teacher, but as the supreme tribunal of the Church. The judgments pronounced are not for the guidance of individuals merely, but are a rule for every officer of the Church. ”

“ In very truth it is the glory of the supreme Pontiffs that they steadfastly set themselves up as a wall and a bulwark to save human society from falling back into its former superstition and barbarism. ”

“ Cardinal Mattei, dean of the Sacred College, replied in the name of all the bishops. Three points chiefly, among others, were affirmed in his declaration. First of all, the supreme doctrinal authority and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. “You are in our regard the master of sound doctrine. You are the centre of unity. You are the foundation of the church itself, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. When you speak, we hear Peter. When you decree, we obey Jesus Christ. ”

“ He was here the Sovereign Pontiff, the all-powerful Master whom Christendom adored. His slim waxen form seemed to have stiffened within his white vestments, heavy with golden broidery, as in a reliquary of precious metal; and he retained a rigid, haughty, hieratic attitude, like that of some idol, gilded, withered for centuries past by the smoke of sacrifices. ”

“ His words to his apostles were: “As the Father hath sent me, I send you”—the fulness of power I have I bestow upon you, that you may act in my name, in such a way that “he who hears you hears me; and he who will not hear you, let him be to you as the heathen and the publican.” He makes the distinction between those who are to hear and those who are outside his church; he constitutes in his kingdom, his church, those who are to command with his authority and those who are to obey: the apostles and their successors—the Sovereign Pontiff with the bishops—and the people or the laity. ”

“ All the faith, all the love of those believers, overexcited by the regal spectacle they had just beheld, returned once more to the dream, to the rageful desire that the Pope should be both King and Pontiff, master of men’s bodies as he was of their souls—in one word, the absolute sovereign of the earth. Therein lay the only truth, the only happiness, the only salvation! Let all be given to him, both mankind and the world! ”

“ And when the Pontiff stretches forth his arms to bless it, together with the world which is inseparable from it, he can bear a witness to himself which no sovereign shall ever bear, that he has neither built nor conquered, nor received his city, but that he is its inmost and enduring life, that he is in it like the blood in the heart of man, and that right can go no further than this, a continuous generation which would make the parricide a suicide. ”

“ But while he was thus employing every artifice to depress Christianity, he was also straining every nerve to reanimate and restore Paganism. "He was," says his heathen panegyrist, Libanius, "the best of priests as he was the first of Emperors." He valued the title of Chief Pontiff, we are told, more highly than the dignity of Emperor. As Chief Pontiff he made his influence felt throughout the empire, reopening temples, restoring privileges, reinstituting sacrifices. No deity and no rite in any corner of his dominions escaped his vigilance. ”

“ In fact, although the enormous increase of the population of the world has not rendered the position of the Sovereign Pontiff any easier, yet he is better fitted and equipped since the definition to cope promptly and effectually with errors and heresies as they arise than he was before. We do not mean that his prerogative of infallibility is invoked upon every trivial occasion—one does not call for a Nasmyth hammer to break a nut—but it is always there, in reserve, and may be used, on occasion, even without summoning an Ecumenical Council, and this is a matter of some consequence. ”

“ Francesco advanced at a signal from the Cardinal of Cosenza, who acted as master of ceremonies, knelt and kissed the Pontiff's feet. He felt somewhat dazed by the unwonted presence and awaited in silence the Pontiff's question. In a fleeting glance he had taken in his surroundings, but as, when [Pg 178] he rose from his kneeling position, his gaze encountered that of the Pontiff's minion, there swept over him such a wave of rage, horror and shame, that all the color left his face, and his hands were clenched, as if he would spring at the cowled form by the Pontiff's side and strangle him. ”

“ As the cross itself was folly in the estimation of the early unbelieving world, so were such theological occupations, at a time when the Sovereign Pontiff had not an inch of ground whereon he could freely tread, a subject for jesting and sarcasm to the worldly-wise of the nineteenth century. It was some time before they came to understand that a Pope is a theologian more than a king, that, as such, he is sure of the future, and that the solemn proceeding in regard to the Immaculate Conception was a triumphant reply to all the errors of modern thought. ”

“ Europe of the XIXth century presents a spectacle, if not alarming, at least discouraging to many who have the cause of Christianity sincerely at heart. In one country we perceive a direct attack on the Sovereign Pontiff, wholesale spoliation of his temporal possessions, restriction of his personal liberty, and a general onslaught on the religious orders—those most efficient agents for the propagation of morality, charity, and intelligence—which surround him—and that, too, by a prince of Catholic origin and education, who claims the right to govern twenty millions of subjects. ”