VIEWS OF THE POPE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 460, 5 April 1890, Page 5

VIEWS OF THE POPE.

AN IMPORTANT ENCYCLICAL. The most important encyclical, from a worldly point of view at least, issued by the present Pope, reached New York last month, and was made the subject of a discourse in and about the several Roman Catholic churches. It is a long document, dealing with the relations of the Church to the State, and will be interesting to Protestants no less than to Catholics, from the fact that it defines a Catholic citizen, his obligations to the Church and the extent of his obedience to the State. The letter, which would fall seven columns, argues that all power comes from God. States that neglect God in the administration of their affairs, the Pope contends, cannot long remain safe, because when Christian institutions and morals fall 3,svay the principal foundations of human society must crumble. - , _ .. “ If the natural law ordains that Catholics should protect with particular affection the land m which they are born and reared, with greater reason ought they to do animated with similar sentiments toward the Church, the city of the living God, from whom she has received her constitu-

10 «? The land in which we have received this mortal life has then to be loved, but it -is necessary to love with more ardent love the church, to which we owe the immortal life of the soul, because it is right to prefer the welfare of the soul to the welfare of the body, and to regard our duties toward God afi more sacred than our duties to men. j