Papal brief

“ At thought of that papal court congealed in ritual, pride, and authority, Pierre suddenly understood what horror and repugnance such a pastor would inspire. How great must be the astonishment and contempt of the papal prelates for that singular notion of the northern mind, a pope without dominions or subjects, military household or royal honours, a pope who would be, as it were, a spirit, exercising purely moral authority, dwelling in the depths of God’s temple, and governing the world solely with gestures of benediction and deeds of kindliness and love! ”

“ It is also a sort of maxim, to choose a pope who is pretty far advanced in years, that there may be the quicker succession, and that it may not be in the power of a pope, during a long reign, to alter their customs, or, by making his family too powerful, to entail, as it were, the papal chair upon his house. ”

“ But if any man, — which Heaven forefend!” proceeds the document, “shall venture to deny this definition, let him be accursed!” (Sessio iv. cap. 4; Mirbt, Quellen, p. 381) . These clauses contain the doctrine of papal infallibility, and make the recognition of that doctrine incumbent on all Catholic Christians. But how are we to recognize whether the decision of the pope is given “in the exercise of his doctrinal office,” or not? No criterion is assigned, and no authentic interpretation has been accorded from the chair of St Peter. ”

“ The creative power of the Deity alone can change them. It is the special boast of the [Pg 138] papists and the Jesuits that the system of laws which governs the papacy has the stamp of Divine approval upon it, and that, therefore, it has always been, and still remains, the same—"Semper eadem," is their motto. Hence it is important to us to know the nature and extent of the spiritual powers asserted by Pius V over the English Government and people, in order to ascertain whether, if a parallel case existed to-day, or may exist hereafter, the same papal powers may not be again invoked. ”

“ Others, while recognizing the supreme authority of the papal magisterium in matters of doctrine, confine the infallibility to those cases alone in which the pope chooses to make use of it, and declares positively that he is imposing on all the faithful the obligation of belief in a certain definite proposition, under pain of heresy and exclusion from the Church; they do not insist on any special form, but only require that the pope should clearly manifest his will to the Church. ”

“ In this book, the argument for the Papal Supremacy from Scripture and Tradition is presented in a clear and cogent manner, with solid learning, admirable reasoning, and in a lucid and charming style, rendering it perfectly intelligible to any reader of ordinary education. It is impossible for any sophistry or cavilling to escape from the irresistible force of Mr. Allies's reasoning. It is a moral demonstration of the perpetual existence and divine institution of the papacy in the Christian church. ”

“ Courage, and reply to these preachers who teach that the Pope is God on earth; that he can sell the sacraments, as the canonists declare; that he is the head of the Church in administering it purely; that he is the heart of the Church in vivifying it spiritually; that he is the source whence springs all virtue and all good; that he is the sun of the holy Church, the certain asylum, where it is important that all Christians should find refuge. ”

“ But that you may know the straightforwardness of the letters, that they have nothing but entreaties to your piety, to give your mind to the unity of the Church, assign to us some one in whose presence these letters may be read to Vitalian.' But if the emperor require to read them himself, you will answer that you have already intimated not such to be the command of the holy Pope. If he say, 'They may have also other charges,' reply, 'Our conscience forbids. That is not our custom. We come in God's cause. Should we sin against Him? The holy Pope's mission is straightforward ”

“ Indeed, its sphere of influence was still more extensive, for its labours in the field of dogma and ecclesiastical law conditioned the future evolution of the Roman Catholic Church. As regards the position of the papacy, it is of epoch-making significance—not merely in its actual pronouncements on the papal see, but also in its tacit subordination to that see, and the opportunities of increased influence accorded to it. ”

“ It is the pope who makes the treasures of virtue and learning which he discovers in any particular locality the common property of the world—in a word, it is the pope who causes the church always to survive, not only the enemies who desire her death, not only the false prophets who, for centuries past, have gone on announcing this death as imminent, but all kingdoms and all empires, their institutions, and even their remembrance. This is what the pope is for the Catholic Church. ”

“ I confess and believe, that the Pope is Christ’s vicar, and has full power to forgive the sins of all mankind, according to his own will and pleasure, either to save, to let them perish, or to excommunicate them, if he thinks fit. ”

“ We distinguish a two-fold character in the pope, namely, considering him as a private individual or doctor privatus, and by virtue of his office as chief pastor and as the universal doctor and teacher of all the faithful, appointed by Christ. The pope is considered as universal teacher when, using his public authority as the supreme guide of the church, (supremus ecclesiæ magister,) he proposes something to the whole church, obliging all the faithful under anathema, or pain of heresy, to believe the article thus proposed with internal assent and divine faith. ”

“ The ideal of the Papacy was perhaps the noblest which has ever entered into the heart of man to conceive. According to it, the Pope was to be the High Priest of God and Vicar of Christ, higher than the kings of the earth. ”

“ In the development of the papacy, the religious element worked first, and afterward the civil power. The former worked upon the ignorance and superstition of the people till it had them awed into submission, and then all was ready for a union of church and state, and temporal power as well as spiritual became the possession of the pope.
In the decline of the papacy, also, the religious element did the first work, and receiving an impetus from the Reformation it gained power till the claims of the pope to temporal dominion were denied him, and the power wrested from his blood-stained hands. ”

“ The most sacred deposit of Divine Revelation has been committed by Jesus Christ to the custody of the Church, and century after century she has guarded it with the utmost jealousy and fidelity. Like a loyal watchman, stationed on a lofty tower, the Pope, with anxious eyes, scans the length and breadth of the world, and, as the occasion demands, boldly, and fearlessly, and categorically condemns and anathematises all who, through pride or cunning, or personal interest and ambition, or love of novelty, attempt to falsify or to minimise or to distort the teaching of Our Divine Master. ”

“ They may cease to be Catholics, and no temporal harm will happen to them; but the awful power remains over those who continue to abide within the pale of the Church. Of his spiritual subjects the Pope exacts, as he has exacted for centuries, absolute and unconditional obedience through his ministers,--one great hierarchy of priests; the most complete and powerful mechanism our world has seen for good or evil, built up on the experience of ten centuries, and generally directed by consummate sagacity and inflexibility of purpose. ”

“ The true Catholicity brings out the divine supremacy of the successor of St. Peter into bold relief. This is just now the great question, the criterion of orthodox belief, the touchstone of faith, the one great fact and doctrine to be insisted on against every form of anti-Catholic error, from that of the Greeks to that of the atheists. The pope is the visible representative of Christ on the earth, of God's law, of revealed religion, of the supernatural, and of moral and political order. ”

“ It is a crying injustice to deny that he showed any zeal, any energy, or that he had any success in the conversion of the heathen in Friesland, Hesse and Thuringia. All his thoughts, labours and endeavours are dominated by a steadfast conviction that the pope is the head and representative of the church in which alone salvation can be found. ”

“ I assume that the pope stands for that spiritual bishop who, in the highest way and in the most similar way, occupies the place of Christ, just as Peter did after the ascension. But if any person whatsoever is to be called pope—whom the Western church accepts as Roman bishop—appointed to decide as the final court ecclesiastical cases and to teach the faithful whatever he wishes, then there is an abuse of the term, because according to this view, it would be necessary in cases to concede that the most unlettered layman or a female, or a heretic and antichrist, may be pope. ”

“ Always referred to as Theiner.
Acta Sanctæ Sedis in Compendium Opportune Redacta. Romæ S.C. De Propaganda Fide. A volume has appeared annually since 1865.
Actes et Histoire du Concile Œcuménique de Rome, 1869, Publiés sous la direction de Victor Frond. Paris: Abel Pilou. 8 vols, large folio, with numerous illustrations. A brief of the Pope warrants to the Editor the "counsel and approbation of the Holy Apostolical See;" and also gives him the Apostolic Benediction "as a guarantee of the divine patronage." The references are always to Frond. ”

“ Still, it must be clearly understood that whether speaking ex cathedrâ or not, the Pope is always the Vicar of Christ and the divinely appointed Head of His Church, and that we, as dutiful children, are bound both to listen to him with the utmost attention and respect, and to show him ready and heartfelt obedience. Anyone who should limit his submission to the Pope's infallible utterances is truly a rebel at heart, and no true Catholic. ”

“ He forbade the priests to marry, and demanded that all bishops, who at that time were also temporal princes, should receive their office and their possessions, even their temporal power, not from their worldly overlords, but from his hands. He asserted: "As the moon receives its light from the sun, so emperors and princes receive their power from the Pope. The Pope is the viceregent of Christ upon earth, where the mighty of this world owe him obedience; he alone has the right and the power to appoint them to office, or to depose them." ”

“ As men regard things, a weak and powerless old man, ruling, from the palace that is his prison, the hearts of two hundred millions of people in the name and by the power of Jesus Christ, whose saintly vicar he is. The Pope, lifted above all entanglements by recent events with the political policy of so-called Catholic countries—his voice, as the head of the church, is heard and respected by all nations as perhaps it never was at any other period of time. ”

“ The Pope and the bishops of the church, acting together in that miserable time, rescued from destruction all that makes up our present happiness, spiritual and temporal. Without them the world would have relapsed into barbarism—but God willed otherwise; and especially the Roman pontiffs, the successors of St. Peter, the centre of Catholic unity, the vicars of Christ, which primarily related to the Almighty Redeemer himself: "I have a lead help upon one that is mighty, and I have exalted one chosen quote of the people. ”

“ Nay, the pope's excellence and power are not only about heavenly, terrestrial and infernal things, but he is also above angels, and is their superior; so that if it were possible that angels could err from the faith, or entertain sentiments contrary thereto, they could be judged and excommunicated by the pope.... ”

“ Maybe I appear presumptuous, but zeal and the duty I owe to Your Holiness so touch my conscience that I must speak thus openly and remind Your Holiness that all men are mortal, and that a Pope is what he wills to be; he cannot leave the Papacy as [Pg 308] a heritage and can only call his own the honours, the glory and the benefits, he gives to his family. ”

“ ROMAN CATHOLICS, or members of the Church of Rome, otherwise called Papists, from the pope being admitted as the supreme head of the universal church, the successor of St. Peter, and the fountain of theological truth and ecclesiastical honours. He gives bulls for the installing bishops and archbishops. [1] He has power to convoke general councils; to grant dispensations and indulgences; to excommunicate offenders; and to canonize [2] those, whom the church deem worthy of that honour. ”

“ The Pope, which word signifies Father, or Patriarch, of Rome, had from the Apostolic times been always elected, like all other bishops, by the general consent of the flock, both clergy and people; and, after the conversion of Constantine, the Emperor, as first lay member of the Church, of course had a powerful voice in the election, could reject any person of whom he disapproved, or nominate one whom he desired to see chosen, though still subject to the approval of clergy and people. ”

“ No less clearly is the full doctrine of responsibility taught in the lament of the Pope, who is represented as having lost his soul by an evil life, and as being condemned to eternal punishment. The mere fact of a pope being so represented was in itself, when the Office was held in the highest regard, a lesson of the highest importance in the teaching of the true principles of holiness. In a word, these mystery plays provided a most useful means of impressing upon the minds of all the facts of Bible history, the great truths of religion, and the chief Christian virtues. ”