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CONNEXION MAGAZINE.

DECEMBER, 1867.

Theology and General Literature.

A GROUP OF INFALLIBLES;

OR, A PICTURE-GALLERY OF POPES.

A WELL-KNOWN writer having touched, in an essay, on a particular subject, said he had fifteen reasons to advance in support of his opinion thereon; but as doing so might weary the patience of his readers, he would conclude by relating an anecdote. On much the same grounds, at least as too much time and space would be required to complete the plan of these articles on Popery, we shall close the subject with some personal illustrations, bringing a few rays of historical and biographical light to converge upon a vital part of the system-its infallibility-as exemplified in the persons and doings of a few of the Popes. The claim which Popery makes to infallibility is one of the secrets of its tremendous power. To one class of minds this assumed infallibility is a fascination; to another, and a very large one, it is a welcome relief from the effort and responsibility of thinking for themselves. To a small class of speculative minds it is a refuge from perplexed reasonings on the great questions of religion-a harbour for the ship driven by contending winds.* Whilst it thus suits the weakness of human nature in connection with the religious sentiment, it represses and overawes the inconveniently inquiring, puts an end to the exercise of the popular judgment, and thus gives an ascendancy to the system and its priesthood, the extent of which Protestants can with difficulty understand.

Papal writers are not agreed as to the seat of infallibility. Some contend that it resides in a general council. To this there are so many objections that we can give only a sample of them. Papists themselves are not agreed how many general councils have been held, some contending for eighteen, others for eight, and others only six, so that there is extreme uncertainty as to the amount of infallible decision which has been given to the world, and where it is to be looked for; an uncertainty which would surely not have existed if general councils were infallible by Divine appointment. It may further be objected, that that cannot exist in the whole which is not in any of the parts. Every member of a general council being fallible, how can the council itself be infallible? Further, general councils have contradicted each other. Then are these contradictory decisions alike infallible? Do

* Dr. Newman is an instance.

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truth and error change their nature according to the decision of general councils? If not, who is to decide which council is right and which is wrong? Where is the infallibility? General councils, lastly, have given decisions not only contradictory to each other, but contradictory to reason, to morality, and to the Word of God. For example, the doctrine of transubstantiation, the worship of images, the withholding of the cup from the laity, the claim of the Pope to depose kings and to exempt the people from their allegiance to them, and that faith need not be kept with heretics: these absurd, immoral, and unscriptural decisions have been enunciated or confirmed by general councils, proving beyond a doubt that they have been as far from infallibility in the judgments they have pronounced as midnight is from noonday. The most general view, however, in the Catholic world, is, that the infallibility is in the person of the Pope; and the claims made for him clearly involve this. When we look at the titles assumed by the Pope we stand amazed. They are titles answering to the description of the apostle, "Who exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God" (2 Thess. ii. 4). "Thou art another God upon earth" (Tu es alter Deus in terris) is a part of the canon law. John XXII. says, "To believe that our Lord God the Pope cannot decree as he hath decreed, were a matter of heresy." "The Pope doeth whatsoever he listeth; yea, although it be unlawful: he is more than God" (plus quam Deus). "The Pope may also change the very nature of things, in applying the substantial parts of one thing to another, and of nothing can make something, and of no sentence he can make a sentence, for he may dispense above law, and of wrong make right, by converting and changing the law" (quoted in Jewell). No higher claims to infallibility than these could by possibility be made; and let it not be said that these titles and claims have become relics of the past. Quite as absolutely, though in milder phrase, is this claim made by the present Pope, Pius IX. 66 God," he says, "has constituted a living authority to teach the true sense of his heavenly revelations, and to judge infallibly in all controversies on matters of faith and morals."* This is decisive. The Pope is the "living authority," to whose decision all must submit, under penalty of perdition, since he judges infallibly in all controversies on matters of faith and morals. More recently still, Archbishop Manning has declared the Pope to be a Divine person, and therefore, of course, infallible. Let us, then, pass in review a few of these infallible persons, and see how far their characters and decisions have comported with these lofty pretensions. The means by which many of these "vicars of Christ" were raised to their eminence have been such as Christianity utterly condemns. Some have gained the Pontificate by fraud, some by bribery, some through plots and intrigues, some by force, and some through the influence of their mistresses, in some instances the wives of other men. During the Papacy of Sergius, there rose into power the infamous Theodora, who, with her daughters, Marozia and Theodora, for many years disposed of the Papal tiara, and actually placed their profligate paramours or base-born

*"Encyclical Letter." 1816.

sons in the chair of St. Peter! cised by this lady and her daughters over Pope Sergius proves, at least, the utter degradation of the Papal power in Rome." Against John X. the same fearful charges are made. Gaining the see of Rome by the vices and influence of the mother, Theodora, he lost it, together with his life, by the no less flagrant vices and power of the daughter, Marozia; and after two brief Popedoms, lasting together less than three years, John XI., said to be a son of this Marozia and Pope Sergius, was made successor of St. Peter. We read in the Acts of the Apostles, "As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them" (xiii. 2). From such men, thus appointed to their holy office, we may look for holy, and, as inspired, infallible teaching. But can we associate the same truth and purity of teaching with a Pontificate gained as above described? To connect infallibility with an office won by every means which the Gospel condemns, is a profanation. As to character, some of the Popes have been so vile that many of the criminals in Newgate would be respectable in comparison. Boniface VII. had twice been deposed from his priestly office for his profligate and scandalous life, yet he succeeded in gaining the Popedom; dying, of gout, however, only fifteen days after his elevation. By an opposing faction his corpse was disinterred, tried before a council, stripped of the sacred vestments, and ignominiously thrown into the Tiber. Which was the infallible in this case, the Pope, or the council which condemned him? It was not a general council, however, and might, therefore, be liable to mistake. At least, some years afterwards, the innocence of the Pope was attested by a miracle. His body was found by fishermen, and carried for burial into the church of St. Peter. As the coffin passed, all the images in the church reverentially bowed their heads! Our next portrait is that of John XII. To the charge of this Pope a long and dark catalogue of crimes is laid. He was called a new Judas, an apostate, and even in those dark times was deposed for his vices in A.D. 963. The year following he regained his pontificate, and employed his power in mutilating his leading opponents in the most shocking and remorseless manner. His sudden death, whilst pursuing his guilty pleasures, was attributed by the more religious to the righteous hand of God. His successor, John XIII., in conjunction with the emperor, was guilty of atrocities at which all Europe shuddered. Another is seen seating himself in the Papal chair after imprisoning the reigning Pope, whom he put to death by starvation or poison. Such, indeed, was the character of the Popes of that period, that all reverence for them in the minds of the people of Rome seemed to be destroyed.

"The influence," says Milman, "exer

Some of the acts of Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII., who asserted for the Papacy its proudest claims to supremacy, have been already narrated; but, as one of the loftiest exemplars of Papal infallibility, he is entitled to a place here. His historians charge this vicar of Christ, this representative of the Prince of Peace, with the guilt of fraternal hatreds, and of a civil war which, with all its attendant horrors, extended over seventeen years. In all this stormy time his voice was not heard attempting to allay the tempest, but his subtle

policy protracted wilfully and knowingly, for his own ends, the doubtful conflict. In the portrait of Gregory there is no trace of that meekness or lowliness of heart which he should have learnt of

the true Head of the Church. He was impatient of opposition, merciless to a foe within his power, wringing out, with a cruel persistency, the last words of submission where he felt his superiority. At one point of his troubled course he is renounced as Pope, and branded with the charges of licentiousness, bribery, disturbing the peace of the empire-being a defender of perjury and murder! His firmness in danger was something approaching the sublime; but the admiration it extorts is mingled with abhorrence of the assumptions of the man. When threatened with the overwhelming power of Henry, he speaks in contemptuous terms of the temporal power which previously he had strained every nerve to grasp. It is no longer admitted to be an ordinance of God. It has its origin, he declares, in human wickedness, in diabolical suggestion, in blind ambition, and intolerable presumption. Kingship is an audacious usurpation of the natural equality of man! Such are the doctrines which Papal infallibility holds as to the temporal power, when opposed to its interests, and rejecting its control-doctrines which Pius IX., and Archbishop Manning, and the Maynooth teachers hold as firmly as did Hildebrand himself.*

The Pope at length excommunicates the emperor; Henry replies by entering Rome in triumph, and driving the Pope as a prisoner to the Castle of St. Angelo. Suddenly a Norman army, including many Saracens, comes to his rescue. The Pope gives the Norman and Saracen his blessing, and then is witnessed a scene of almost unparalleled horror, the burning of houses, palaces, convents, churches; whilst murder, pillage, and worse misery still, were inflicted on all sides. Yet the Pope, who has anathemas still in store for Henry and the enemies of the Church, has not a word of remonstrance for the ferocious proceedings of his new allies. They were probably regarded as a meet chastisement of his rebellious subjects. And this is one of the "Divine persons!" He did, indeed, array himself as a second divinity. Against his decrees every insurrection of the human mind was treason; every attempt to limit his power, impiety. With transcendant energy he asserted the supremacy of the spiritual order; but for any features of the Divine image, we look to him in vain. Between the churchman and the Christian there was a gulf wide indeed.

To curse or to bless is one of the highest of the Papal functions,

* When Cardinal Wiseman returned from Rome, one of his first acts was to remove from the canon of the mass the prayer for the Queen, and to cause all the missals of his diocese to be changed, in order that the obnoxious passage might be expunged. The reason he assigned for this proceeding was the impropriety of having the name of an heretical prince mixed up with that of the Pope in the mass The Catholic Vindicator, quoted by Dr. Wylie, says, "Rather than that our loyalty to the holy apostolic see should be in the least degree tarnished, let ten thousand kings and queens (and Queen Victoria included) perish (as such), i.e., let them be deposed from their thrones, and become mere individuals.' The Tablet, the organ of the more respectable Catholics, speaking of the "Ecclesiastical Titles Bill," said that the command of the Pope was the law of God, whilst the Act of Parliament was no law, but a lie, and that "the Parliamentary lie will be spit upon and trampled under foot-rigorously disobeyed."- Wylie's "Rome and Civil Liberty."

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