New Zealand Tablet FIAT JUSTITIA. THE 'OTAGO GUARDIAN' AND PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 96, 27 February 1875, Page 3

New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1875. THE 'OTAGO GUARDIAN' AND PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

It is a pity that the writers of Leaders, in the Otag-o newspapers, on Catholic subjects, do not take a little trouble to understand the questions on which they undertake to enlighten the public, and endeavor to ascertain facts. Their ridiculous pretension of information in reference to subjects on which they betray the most profound ignorance, is calculated to lower journalism, and render themselves subjects of pity and pleasantry ; whilst the romances they publish for facts convince such as possess ordinary information on history and current events, that they are either very simple or very dishonest. J In its issue of Monday last, the ' Guardian ' commences'a pretentious article with the following :~ .« Few questions

occupy at present so important a position in European politics as that of Papal Infallibility. We speak of it advisedly as » question of politics rather than of faith; because whaterer importance it may have in its influence on the religion of men, it has doubtless an equal, if not a greater, significance in its relation to the civil government of the world, and it is in that respect alone that it properly becomes a question for newspaper comment. Sincere "Roman Catholics have for centuries believed in the Infallibility of their Church in the abstract, though they have differed as to the body in which that Infalbility was presented in the concrete." Well done ' Guardian I* The times are dull, it is not easy to find subjects for leaders in a daily newspaper, and the ingenious writer on Papal Infallibility is driven to the expedient of declaring Papal Infallibility a question of politics, that he may have an excuse for writing nonsense about it in a leading article. Then, by way of a starting point, he tells the world that for centuries Catholics have differed as to the body in which Infallibility was presented in the concrete. His idea is that Catholics entertained an abstract idea that Infallibility somehow or other resided in their Church, but that they were not certain as to where it was to be found. This will be news indeed to all Roman Catholics, and to all who really have any knowledge of the question. Why, the fact is, Catholics have always believed that General Councils, that is, the Bishops assembled in Council, under the presidency of the Pope, are Infallible ; Catholics have also always believed that Decrees of the Popes, addressed to the Universal Church, on subjects of faith and morals, and tacitly acquiesced in by the Bishops, are Infallible ; and, thirdly, Catholics have always believed practically that such genera! Decrees of the Popes, even before the tacit acquiescence of the Bishops could be known as a fact, are Infallible. Consequently the Decree of the Vatican Council on Papal Infallibility has, practically, made no change in the Faith of Catholics, or their relations to their several Governments, or to the Holy See. All that the Decree of the Vatican Council has effected is to make known that a dogma believed by the Church as a truth of Divine Faith, has been formally defined as a dogma of Catholic Faith. A man, who, before the definition of the Vatican Council would be regarded as guilty of a deadly sin against Divine Faith for denying the Pope's Infallibility, is now, if he deny this dogma thus defined, a formal heretic and subject to the penalties inflicted by the Church on formal heretics. It is a purely domestic question, and makes no change whatever as to the position of Catholics in reference to those who are outside the Church, or to the Civil Governments of the world. It is purely a question of Faith, is altogether a spiritual matter, and is no more political in its relations than was the Supremacy of the Pope as it was universally recognised before J;he assembling of the Vatican Council. The ' Guardian ' says that " culture and philosophy are against " Papal Infallibility, " that all that Has been fought for and prized under the name of liberty, and all that is iucluded in loyalty and the love of country, are against it . • and that not a few of the most learned and pious of the sons of the Church of Borne itself are against it." There is no truth in all this. Neither culture nor philosophy ate against it, but, on the contrary, both are on its side. Pretentiousness and vulgarity are against it, and so are misrepresentation and ignorance. There are men who, like the writer in the ' Guardian,' know not the meaning of the dogma of Pupal Infallibillity nor its history ; who have never read the Decree of the Vatican Council on the subject, and who, even if they did read it, are incapable of understanding it, and who, nevertheless, undertake to blaspheme they know not what. But men who are capable of understanding the question and have studied it, acknowledge, even though they may not have the grace to embrace the dogma, that it is logical, consonant with the genius of a revealed religion, and, above all, of Christianity, and that it is the inexorable outcome of a belief in a revelation. But is it true that some of the most learned and pious of the sons of the Church of Home are against Papal Infallibility % No man who knows anything about even the rudiments of the Catholic religion can really think so. The fact is that all who disbelieve this dogma, are ipso facto outside the pale of the Church. Their disbelief has made them cease to be members of the Church. All that can be said of them is, that once upon a time, perhaps, they were Catholics ; but they have ceased to be members of the Church in consequence of their disbelief. Thes9 men, to whom the ' Guardian ' alludes, are no more sons of the Roman Ch v urch than is Mr Gladstone himself, or the writer in the ' Guardian '

or any other ranting writer against the Infallibility of the Pope. The ' Guardian,' in common with the herd of calumniators, assails the loj alty of Catholics. It would be no more than what common decency demanded, were the ' Guardian ' first to defend the loyalty of the opponents of Papal Infallibility. "Who have been, and are, the most loyal men in Europe — Catholics or their assailants ? • This is the question. For the last three centuries, for example, who have been the rebels, the fomenters of disturbance, the revolutionists — Catholics or their calumniators and opponents ? Let the revolution and rebellion of 1688 answer, let the rebellion of 1798 in Treland answer. Who were the leaders and chief agents in these movements — Catholics or non-Catholics ! Was that unnatural nephew and son-in-law — William the Third, who led a horde of foreign mercenaries into England to dethrone its legitimate sovereign, a Catholic 1 were the traitors who aided and abetted him, who betrayed their .king and sold the honor of their country, Catholics ? Were Cromwell and the other regicides, his companions, Catholics ? Were Lord Edward Fitzgerald, "Wolfe Tone, Emmett, &c, Catholics? Were the French Revolutionists for the last ninety years Catholics? Is Garibaldi atid his following, Catholic? Were the men who made revolutions in Spain and Portugal, Catholic ? But, on the contrary, who have been for ever found on the side of loyalty and order, who have ever been the most strenuous upholders of the sacred rights of life and property, the most able and disinterested advocates of established and legitimate governments? Let history answer. Catholics everywhere and always. In fact, there are not a few who think that Catholics have carried their devotion to loyalty to excess. And yet in the face of these and such like notorious facts, here we find a very common-place writer, in a very common-place newspaper, audaciously impugning the loyalty of Catholics. With us, loyalty is a religious duty and dearly have we paid for our faithful discharge of it. The ' Guardian' repeats a passage from a speech of Prince Bismarck, in which he says that the Vatican Council " was cut short on account of the war, and that very different votes ■would have been taken by the Council, if the French had been victorious. Some months ago, the 'Guardian' made use of this passage, quoting these very words, in an onslaught on Catholics. We took notice of the matter at the time, and pointed out that the Decree on Papal Infallibility had been agreed to in the Council before this war had been even proclaimed, and that consequently, the success or non-success of the French could not possibly have had the slightest influence in determining the votes of the Fathers in the Vatican Council. We also said, from our own personal knowledge, that there is not one word of truth in another calumny, stated by the ' Guardian,' viz., that the " war was the combined work of Rome and France." But what does the * Guardian ' care? Its writers wish to insult and injure Catholics, and consequently calumnies are repeated again and again, notwithstanding the most direct and clearest refutation. And we entertain no doubt whatever but that the ' Guardian,' in two or three months hence, will again repeat this falsehood. The ' Guardian ' states as a fact the following : " From the Pope himself, Mr Gladstone's pamphlet has elicited fierce denunciations, and the appellation of ' viper ' has been applied by His Holiness, in the spirit of Christian meekness, to its author." The London ' Tablet,' always well informed as to what takes place in the Vatican, says that His Holiness did not make use of this word, or of the language put into his mouth by the Press. It is therefore, like the other statements of the ' Guardian,' a pure invention. But as we said above, we have no'doubt^the ' Guardian ' will repeat this falsehood by and by. The ' Guardian ' says : " Who* can doubt that he — the Pope — has interfered in the affairs of Spain during the bloody Carlist war, which we are now told by telegraph that be advises Don Carlos to put an end to." Again, the * Guardian ' says : " Who can doubt that he has used his utmost power to prevent the progress of the German Empire towards consolidation 1 ' Well, we doubt both one and the other. There is not a particle of evidence to show that the Pope interfered either in Spain or Germany j and until the evidence of his interference is placed before us, we shall continue to doubt. But observe the injustice of our contemporary : He asks'who can doubt, and then proceeds to lecture and censure, ac if he had proved that the Pope had interfered! The ' Guardian ' grows quite unctuous and pathetic towards the end of this precious leader. Addressing Catholics

our contemporary says : " Gentlemen, however sincere you may be, however much you may deprecate any intended mr terference with our personal liberty, the necessary tendency of your doctrine of Infallibility is to centre all political as well as spiritual power in the hands of one man and his emissaries. It is slavery in disguise ; and if once we submit, we shall only be riveting on ourselves fetters of which our forefathers freed us at the cost of their blood." What are the fetters of which our contemporary speaks ? If he had said that the tendency of centralising all power in the State, and of permitting private judgment to guide supremel^is to rivet the chains of slavery on Catholics, and that the inters imposed upon them by the enemies of the Pope have been stained by the best blood of tens of thousands of peaceful and loyal Catholics, who only asked for freedom of consciti^ce, our contemporary would have told the truth and written common sense ; but his words are strangely out of place, and grimly ludicrous in the connection in which he places them.