PRUSSIA AND THE VATICAN.

Waikato Times, Volume VIII, Issue 436, 6 April 1875, Page 2

PRUSSIA AND THE VATICAN.

" The Writer of the Articles in Prussia and the Vatican," retorts in the February number of MacmitlatCs Magazine on Archbishop Manning's reply to him in the Jinuary number of the same magazine : — I shall not attempt to compete with Dr Manning in the art of vituperation ; anathemas are the strong side of the Vatican position. I shall attack it on its weak side, that of accuracy in regard to facts. 1. Dr Manning expresses what he Is plea&el 1 to call his 'compassion' for my ignorance, or lor something wors«- which he does not specify, because I said that an Italian priest cl;ume.d to l>e the incarnate and visible woid of God. 1 Had lin any way affirmed that this claim had been put forward in the Vatican D crpes,,or in.an "ex cathedra 1 ' utterance from the Papal c'mir, Dr Manning would have at last succe -dt-d in delecting .a. (jaw in v my armour. But he knows that I did notiikk^of'tbe sort, and he knows further, fliat-as a general and non-Kcientih'c description, J was perfectly justified in using the expression. I was justified in using ,it because I onlY reproduced the ordinary - language of Infallibilists, the language, so to speak, of, Vatican good -ociety, a-nd-thiit w,hich 'PiovNono most delightß to listen to. It would be enough for me to appeal to the quotations given in the' article of the Pope's speeches in the current number of the " Quarterly Review," but I will add the passage that I had in mv mind wheji 1,1190,1 the. expr->s*uon. It is taken fromaKerrmonpi c I'ched during the .Council by M >nsignor Merimllod,on»of the m^t shiurn& <> r *'»" Vatican lig'.i > < indwaailu.Jy.Bopo^tec|-yt. e. lim i July, 1870. fne Bishop s.ud • ciuit our Savour had through rhree inc.iraations — that tirst'he cam ' down in the flesh, theu in His iu9lf ible condcjsc^nsion He chose the medium of bread and wine, and that now He is once more oa earth in the Vatican in the person of an aged man. 2. Dr Manning charged m« with not believing in the honour of those who are opposed to me. In the strongest language I could use 1 guarded against the possibility of thw imputation beiugf made. I described my adversary 'as a man of unquestionable intellect, of perfect integrity, and undoubted veracity,' and Dr Manning, who piques himself on being logical, ought to see that the admission of these qurlitjes j n gay adversaries forms thk central point of my whole 'position. P^ve to me that Dr Munning N and the .Vatican leaders do not posiess thes-- qu.i'ft^s and my whole c<ae colln-

,> .iwa liuuuurdole men in a homeless dileuiint b»twwn tbedutv tbejr owe fco- trutfli and the duty they owe to ' their LQi-d the Pope/ that I attack it. I iMve |>rov«d to £>r Mauning, and he will never be able to shake ruy proofs, ttekt in his case, as in that of a thousand others, the only way out of thedilemma has been found to be through the flamesof that • holocaust' of the entire man, morally and intellectually, which St Ignatids requires at the hands of his disciples. 3, I now come to the question which, from the fact of Dr /Manning's letter having simultaneously appeared in cxtcit%o in ail the^ newspapers, must be supposed to A interest the English public at large. I mean the question of the individual allegiance ot Vatic in clerics to* the 1 Po,»e, and the consequent d-ing-sr of a collision, le on eeheant, between th© Qne«n's laws aad th» Pope's laws. The individual allegiance of clerics to the Pop?, and therefore the imjjossibility of clerics to admit of their standing in the relation of Hegr subjects to a lay crown, is such H-^afnnlil doctrine of Vaticanism $feat the only diniouftysJieli * n selecting proofs out of the masses fii materials \it our disposal. Let one bull suffici \l* the l Sup*etnce tiLpositionists arbitt to,' issued "in jbe Fifth LaterantJouucil, Lt>o X. lays down as anvjfalliable dogma, that it is contrary both to the laws rf God and man for a layman to exercise any authority of whatever kind — " vila potestas " (therefore neither temporal nor ecclesiastical authority) — over clerics 1 correlative of " potestas "is allegiance. It is impossible to conceive of allegiance without a corresponding " potestas," or of a •* potestas" without a corresponding allegiance. If the Queen, therefore,, has no " potestas," no authority of any kind, temporal or spiritual, over Vatican priests, these priestscannot owe alligiance to her. From the general doctrine flow the following necessary corollaries,, all of them equally binding as articles of faith on the Vatican conscience : — (I), ftterics are not subject to the laws of the StateoiiVirnicl*^hey live. (Inthe official books on these snbjeVte' dw breaking of the civil laws, where these do not>fl^e into collision with the ecclesiast^aklaws, is matte a venial , sin, on account of the sctoAll that may be produced; but as in the eye of theiCnunvt such transgressions do not imply the breaking of oifiXaw,. they "are distinctly excluded from thF category of mortal sins. I take the following from a manual for the use of confessors :: — 4*4 * Olerioi rebellio in Regan* non est ciiraen Jce-soi Majeatutis, <juia non est sulditus K*gi w — \ The rebellion of o)enc against the King is not treason, because he is not the subject of the King."* — Enaunuel Sa, Aphorismi Confessarioram). (2). Clerics cannot he tried by the lay courts of th* country in which they live. (3). Clerics cannot betaxed by the civil jower. When in his letter of the 10th of December Dr Manning says,. ' If by " cede of laws " be meant civil laws, we have no such code, he spoke the exact truth. Vaticanclerics have no civil laws, and caqmoty therefore,. be bound h\ latis which they do notUiaYe. That is my whole contention, and therefore I do not suppose that this can have been wv Manning's, meaning. 4. Lastly, the practical question arises, whether a conflict of jurinrttioAp between tl ese> two sets of laws — the Queaivcijil lavs and the« Pope's ecclesiastical laws— tan arise. Now it it clear that there are two setaj of qurotions on whichit is almost impossible that conflicts should notarise — questions connected with education and questions connected with marriage. In an admirable leading article in " The Times "on Dr Newman's recent Letter, the dangers looming in regard to educational questions are clearly pointed out.' The writer, after referring to possible collisions in. the case of marriages, and commenting at some length on a c»se which he says has actually occurred,, concludes :—": — " For the present I will on }y add that this <Jase is one necessarily well kno^n to Dr Manning, and that I ami therefore gilite unable to> understand his negative jkgswtf*. UKmy question^ .\05." v .