'THE POPE AND THE KING'

New Zealand Tablet, 25 September 1913, Page 23

'THE POPE AND THE KING'

■ Bishop Brindle, in his speech at Ratcliffe College the other day, did well to emphasise the respective spheres of Catholic loyalty expressed by the toast of ‘ The Pope and the King,’ for almost at the same time that his Lordship was speaking, a Protestant scribe must have been delivering his soul of the common misunderstanding in regard to this very point (says the London Universe). A newspaper cutting with nothing beyond a postmark to locate it brings the information, sent to the editor by one of his correspondents, that ‘ the Roman Church being essentially both an autocracy and a monarchy, there is no room, by the teaching of the autocrat, for loyalty to any other monarch.’ From the drift of the letter it is implied that this is to have some serious bearing upon -the state of things in Ireland; but the correspondent is really only saying what Protestants have over and over again maintained as a general principle that no Catholic in the British Empire can sing ‘ God save the King ’ without violating his religious duty. The fact that at Catholic dinners and other gatherings the company often honors the toast of The Pope and the King,’ seems, if anything, to confirm the Protestant mind in error. There you are,’ it is said, the Pope first, the King afterwards; an insult to his Majesty George the Fifth.’ Now these same critics are in the position of being suspects on account of their own temporal loyalty —for do they not themselves toast the ‘Church and State,’ and so give the banner of the Establishment precedence over the Union Jack? If . they answer, in truth and self-defence, that-in their conception of the Church and its place in human life it rightly takes precedence in their minds, without any implied disloyalty to the Realm, that answer vindicates also the Catholic attitude of mind that is involved in the toast of ‘ The Pope and the King.’ Both the Pope and the King have their place in Catholic hearts, and their claim on Catholic allegiance; but the former holds his sway in right of being God’s vicegerent on earth, while the latter claims, at any rate nowadays, in right of his headship of a purely temporal state. To suppose. that, tinder these circumstances, there is any want of due and proper recognition of the King’s position by mentioning him next in order to the ruler of the Church, is to argue oneself so obsessed by the sense of temporal loyalty as to be beyond the understanding of what the Pope’s position really signifies. The True Patriotism. . Not only is the Catholic view supported by such expressions as ‘Fear God, honor the King,’ and ‘ Church and State,’ but also we may say that, judging from the decay in the spirit of loyalty which animates nations that have rejected . Christianity, the time can hardly be very far distant when patriotism, in the old-fashioned sense of . the word, will scarcely exist unless as the complement of religious faith. Modern history is affording plenty of examples of the effect of an irreligious outlook and upbringing upon the minds of those who are shortly to constitute their nations’ manhood. It is not. too much to say that temporal thrones in Europe totter to their fall, or constitutional principles in legitimate republics are endangered, as a direct result of depriving the young especially of ideas of Christian reverence and a respect for Catholic authority. The makers and throwers of bombs in Barcelona are not even yearly communicants; your young .Italian brigand who stabs and robs you is the political offspring of anti-religious principles; the Apache prowling near Paris by night is a fitting fruit of the Tree of Knowledge as planted by the present French Government. In all these cases there is no loyalty to the State, whether monarchical or republican, no ideas of any sort of national or civic duty, no regard whatever for the things that make for the country’s welfare. Catholic citizens, on the other hand, know well that just because kings reign as servants of the King of Kings, their loyalty is called for in due order by the Master and the servant, but not by the servant before the Master, The whole underlying idea was

very well expressed by the English poet who made his lover say so prettily: ‘ I could not love thee, dear, so much; Loved I not honor more.’ Just as the prepossession in honor’s cause equipped him to discern the* better his duty to his lady-love, so this same lover might have said to his sovereign ‘ I could not love thee, sire, so well, Came not my God before.’ It should not tax even a quite ordinary understanding to see and appreciate the principle that is here at work. The Catholic who toasts ‘ The Pope and the King Lis so far from belittling the dignity of his Majesty George the Fifth that actually he is making proclamation of the high place to which the Sovereign is to be assigned An virtue of his office as temporal ruler— place that makes him worthy to stand next and beside the Supreme Pontiff in a dual embodiment of the two spheres of authority. Every Protestant citizen who values patriotism in its highest sense, should no more wish to see the Royal Arms placed by Catholics above the Papal tiara than he would himself wish tb make the Bible of secondary importance to the Statute Book.