CAESARISM AND ULTRAMONTANISM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 55, 16 May 1874, Page 13

CAESARISM AND ULTRAMONTANISM.

(Concluded.) Finally, t':ere is another agency which has been far more potenthan all others in bringing about this present persecution. There it r,o manner of doubt that the sect of Freemasons has been long labors ing to break up the religious settlement in Germany. The Peace of Westphalia secured the political status of Christianity, though divided into Catholic and Protestant. The Freemasons desired the overthrow of both. They thought tliHt the time was come to complete what the Ihirty Years' War left unfinished. They believed that the Catholics in Germany, weakened by the overthrow first of Austria and next of France, would easily fall under the power of the Evangelical Empire, as Prince von Bismarck calls it. lam but repeating his own words. In the Prussian Bouse of Peers, in 1870, he spoke as follows : " Peace began to be disturbed after the war in Austria, after the fall in 1866 of the Power which was the bulwark of the Roman influence in Germany, and when the future of an Evangelical Empire showed itself clearly on the horizon of Germany. All tranquillity was j^ost when the second-rate Catholic Power in Europe had followed in way of its predecessor, and Germany became the first great military Ppwer for the moment, and, according to the will of God, for a loho time." ° Does Prince von Bismarck foar for the stability of the first great military Power of the world ? "Whab could the Catholics of Germany do against him ? What would they ever have de&ired but its perpetual Btability, if it had only dealt justly with them, according to the existing laws ? Prince von Bismarck creates resistance by persecution, and then pleads that resistence to justify the persecution which has called up that resistance. There was no resistance to the existing laws as they stood before the Falck legislation. It cannot be doubted that the object of the Falck laws is to render impossible the existence of the Cathoiic Church in Germany — that i 9, to exterminate it. I say this because no Catholic, without sin against God, can obey these laws. Every man who obeys them ceases iv that moment to be a Catholii. Can we, then, for a moment imag'ne that Prince von Bismarck was not aware of this ? That he acted in ignorance, or unconsciously, or on misjudgment ? Tnat he so little knows the Catholic dooti iue and discipline as to expect obedience ? lie does not desire it. He wisheJ or a pretext and has made it. Nohody can doubt that he knew to the full extent the eolation of conscience and of faith which lie was inflicting. These laws can be no otherwise understood than as a deliberate scheme to render it impossible for Catholics to obey, that they might then be accused and dealt with as resisting the authority of the Emperor. But in this the astuteness of the German Chancellor has overreached itself. If the Falck legislation had been such as a Catholic could by any subterfuge obey, even though its injury to the Church were never so great, theu the nations of Europe might have been misled into condemning the Catholics of Germany as contumacious and refractory. But at this time not a nation in Europe commends the Falck laws. A handful of str.ingely-assorted persons about a year ago went on a pilgrimage to offer their incense to Prince von Bismarck on his penal laws. They were peers and gentlemen, Free Kirk men and Liberals, and the preachers of " our glericus Revolution " and of civil and religious liberty ; and now we are informed that the delegates of cities and towns in England are to meet next month under the presiJency of Earl Russell to express sympathy with Prince von BUmarck iv his persecution of Catholics and in his violation of religious liberties, which for half a century has been th especial political ciy of the noble Earl. We are a paradoxical people, ana somewhat too reckless of what the outsido world may think of our political incoherences 1 But it is well to see how we are regarded from without. JVT. de Pressense, in denouncing the Prussian persecution, has given to Englishmeo. a warning which I lioDe will not be lost upon us. In last May, afteY detailing the injustice of the ecclesiastical legislation of Prussia he added :—: — " That which is more grave is that (public) opinion is misled even In countries which, like England, are the classic lands of religious liberty. The religious policy of the German Emperor receives in England congratulations which we must be permitted to look upon as scandalous. We know that the English Parliament would not allow any one of the laws passed at Berlin to be even dicussed, but it is not right to appluuQ that which we would not do. We ought more than ever to rise above sectarian passions, and to remind ourselves that the persecution which stukes our religious adversaries, strikes that which is our common good, and our sole guarantee in the conflict of ideas and beliefs — I mean the liberty of conscience." Revue des Deux Mondes ier liv. Mai, 1873. We l.aye wow traced in outline the three Csesarisms — the Pagan CasSfris.ni, the Christian, and the modern, which I must describe as the Caesarian of the lust age of civil power lapsing or lapsed from Christ l.nnh. But it is more than time to make an cud. I hope that I have made clear that Christianity has redeemed man and society from Cacsaiism — that is, from the unlimited despotism of man over man and t hut s=o long as the two powers, spiritual and civil, are vested in distinct persons the liberty of conscience and the liberty of religion, as well as the liberty of man in his public and private life, are secured ; that wheresoever the civil power or Sovereign usurps upon the spiritual liberty of the Church and affects to exercise a supremacy over it, all liberties are at stake — the liberty of conscience, the liboity of religion, (ho domestic liberty of families, the political liberty of citizens. Under Ctesarisiu all kinds of freedom alike are violated. The natural antagonist of Cresarism is the Christian Church, with all its libfitics of doctrine and discipline-, of faith and jurisdiction • and the vindication* of the liberties of the Church in the highest and most sacred form is Ulti amontanism. Therefore the world hates it. Therefore it now rails against it in all its tones and with all it tongues. ■' Divus Cicsur " and " Vicarius Chiisti," are two persons, and°two powers, aid two systems, between which there can be not only no peace but no imco. They have contended for 1800 years. Iv Ger-

many they are locked onoo more in conflict. The issue is certain. The same who have always conquered before will conquer again. Where now are the Emperors of Borne, Germany, and France ? But Peter is still in his See, and Peter now is Pius IX.