CARDINAL MERCIER’S REPLY.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 136, 12 June 1916, Page 6

CARDINAL MERCIER’S REPLY.

Cardinal Mercier, Primate of Belgium, has svent a reply to the letter of General von Bissiag, GovernorGeneral in the ocupaed portions of Belgium, protesting aaginst statements in. the Lenten Pastoral of the Cardinal and warning the Prelate that he must cease his alleged political activity. The Cardinal’s letter says; It behoves us, Excellency, in answering the letter it pleases you to address us, to render homage to the courtesy shown to the venerated head of our Church. The faithful servant of our Lord Jesus Christ, we obeyed the summons of His representative on earth. But yen know, Excellency, that it was not we who solicited the great honour of laying our homage at the feet of his Holiness. Allow us, then, even smitten as we are by admiration before the warlike pomp surrounding us and the brilliant staff which, like King Saul, you have attached to your person, nevertheless to retain our full liberty of judgment. . That liberty in the troubled hours through which our country is passing we cannot and will not relinquish. In so doing we remain faithful shepherd of the flock for which Our Lord has given his life.

We shall follow the teaching of the noble successor of St. Peter, his Holiness Leo XIII. In his encyclical he instructed us for obeying the civil authorities when they give orders manifestly contrary to the natural divine law, if anyone distinctly finds himself faced with the alternative of breaking the commands of God or those of a prince he must follow the precepts of Jesus Christ, and answer a s did the Apostle: It is better to obey God than man. To act thus is not to merit reproach for disobedience, for princes, when their will i s in opposition to the divine will and law, exceed their power and corrupt justice. Hence their authority is not binding, because when it is not just it ceases. Excellency, your authority canno|. then be exercised except in accordance with justice. Ecce in justitia regnabit rex (Behold, in justice the king will reign). When a prince casts aside justice we no longer owe him either obedience, respect, or loyalty. Planed by the will of God on the archiepiscopal throne of Maline. we are only answerable to our conscience, and if in the discharge of our holy office we are obliged to raise our voice, we believe ourselves to be following the teachings of our divine master. "We render unto Caesar those things which are Caesar’s,” for we pay you the silent homage due to strength, but we keep closed to your encroachments the sacred domain of our conscience, the last refuge of the oppressed. .

It was not, your Excellency may be sure, without deep reflection that we denounced to the world the evils with which our brothers and sisters are overwhelmed —frightful evils, indeed atrocious crimes the tragic horror of which cold reason refuses to •admit. But had we not done so we should not have felt ourselves worthy to be the successor of the apostles who converted the Belgian Gaul, nor the ■spiritual son of those who by their labours made illustrious the See of Maline, of which the library of Louvain formed the purest jewel—the inestimable priceless treasure.