Romanism in Light of History - McKim, R.H

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By the Same Author

Christ and Modern UnbeliefPresent-Day Problems of

Christian ThoughtGospel in the Christian YearProblem of the Pentateuch

A Soldier's Recollections


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Romanism in the Lightof History

By

Randolph H. McKim, D.C.L.Rector of the Church of the Epiphany, Washington, D. C.

" We have a Dictator before whom we must prostrate ourselves, .and he silentt and bow our heads, This Dictator is History/'

'H xa %al [Ji


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GoTHE MEMORY OF

MY REVERED FRIEND AND TEACHERWILLIAM SPARROW


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PREFACE

THE history and purpose of the following essaysmay be briefly stated :When the famous encyclical of Pope Leo XIII.on The Reunion of Christendom was republishedin the American press, it seemed fitting, as wellas respectful, that Protestants should make someacknowledgment of such an appeal.Summoned by the kindly voice of the illustrioushead of the Roman Church to restore unity toChristendom by submission to the sovereignspiritual authority of the Roman Pontiff, andinvited to make this submission in the name ofHoly Scripture, and of the ancient Fathers of theChurch, I ventured to answer in an Open Letter,citing the Holy Father himself to appear at thebar of history, and justify the tremendous claimwhich he makes upon our consciences.The second essay in this volume is an attemptto exhibit, in a brief space, the verdict of history(which is neither Roman Catholic nor Anglican)upon all the essential points of doctrine andjurisdiction contained in the said encyclical ofPope Leo XIII. on Christian unity. My letterbore date, Feast of the Annunciation, 1897,The third essay, on the " Fundamental Prin-


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vi Preface

ciples of Protestantism/ 1 contains the substanceof three lectures, delivered in the city of NewYork in my parish church, in the year 1879, *nreply to a lecture delivered in St. Ann's RomanCatholic Church, New York, on the Results ofthe Protestant Reformation, by the very Rev.Thomas S. Preston, V.G., and subsequentlypublished by Robert Coddington, New York.The pamphlet to which these lectures is a replymay be taken as a fair specimen of the Roman Cath-olic argument. The then Pope, though esteemed aliberal man, urged against Protestantism, in one ofhis encyclicals, some of the same accusations, andMr. Mallock's articles in theNineteenth Century, atthe same period, took up some of the same points.The fourth essay is a reprint of certain OpenLetters, published in the autumn of 1908, whichwere occasioned by a sermon in the RomanCatholic Cathedral of Westminster, London, byCardinal Gibbons, claiming for the Roman Catho-lic Church in America the honor of being the firstto establish religious liberty in the New World.

I have given in an introductory essay someaccount of the enormous losses sustained by theRoman Catholic Church in the different countriesof Europe since the promulgation of the dogma ofpapal infallibility in 1870, and also an estimate ofthe present condition and prospects of that Churchin the United States,

R. H. McK.April I5 1914*


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CONTENTSPAGE

I. THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR ROMANISM . 3II. POPE LEO XIIFs ENCYCLICAL ON THE RE-

UNION OF CHRISTENDOMI. The Reunion of Christendom . . .25

II. Pope Leo XIII's Encyclical on ChristianUnity 33

III. An Open Letter to His Holiness Leo XIII. . 43IV. Was St. Peter the Rock? .... 59V. Preliminary Propositions Necessary to thePapal Claims 68

VI. St. Peter and the Power of the Keys . . 74VII. The Primacy of St. Peter.... 79VIII. The" Primacy Anciently Conceded to the

Bishop of Rome . . . . .81IX. The Development of the Papacy . . 97X. The Forged Isidorian Decretals . . 99XI. Irenams on the Primacy of the Bishop ofRome 102XII. St. Cyprian on the Equality of Bishops , .105XIII, Witness of the Greek Church to the Inde-

pendence of National Churches . .112XIV, The Church of Rome and Holy Scripture . 115XV. Gregory the Great on the Title "UniversalBishop" 119XVI, The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, 124XVII. The Dogma of Papal Infallibility . . 129XVIII. Papal Infallibility an Ignis Fatuus . . 137XIX. Conclusion 148

Appendix . . , . . .150


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vill ContentsIII. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF PROTES-

TANTISMI. The Rule of Paiths and Its Interpreter . 163

II. The Way of Life 184III. Society The Church The Creed . . 206Notes ....,. 230

IV. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND THE MARYLANDTOLERATION ACT 245

INDEX 273


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The Present Outlook forRomanism


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The Present Outlook for RomanismrTvWO considerations have influenced my decisionI to republish the material contained in this

volume. The first is the fact that in the pro-secution of its avowed purpose 'Ho make AmericaCatholic/' the Church of Rome is displaying atthe present time a boldness and aggressivenessgreater than ever before in her history in ourcountry. She is forcing the fighting. Neverhave her claims been so arrogant. Never has sheso openly set at defiance the public opinion ofthis Protestant land, and never so openly avowedthose Papal principles which are subversive ofpersonal liberty and free government.The other fact is that there is an unmistakableand widespread awakening among Americancitizens to the peril involved in the growingpower, especially the political power, of theRoman hierarchy.As an evidence of this, I may cite the fact thatmy address on "Why We Are Protestants,"published in the February number of the Pro-testant Magazine, has reached a circulation of overeighty thousand copies in less than two months.

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4 Romanism in the Light of HistoryThese conditions demand a calm and careful

consideration of the claims of the Church ofRome in the light of history without passion,and without exaggeration. And it is becauseI am desirous to make some small contributionto this necessary study of this important subject,that I am sending out this volume.But why, it may be asked, put before thepublic essays on the Roman controversy alreadypublished, and some of them many years ago.The answer is that the problem has not changedin any important respect. The principles in-volved are the same to-day as fifty years ago.The doctrines Rome requires men to accept arethe same as when I published my lectures invindication of Protestantism in 1879. The attacksher controversialists make on the Protestantposition to-day are on substantially the samelines as that delivered against it by Vicar-GeneralPreston in December, 1878. And therefore myargument in repelling that assault is as validto-day as then.The same is true of my answer to the encyclicalof Pope Leo XIII. on Christian unity in 1896.If the argument was effective then, it is no lessso to-day, and there is a distinct advantagein shaping it to meet the plea so skilfully putforward by his Holiness in that striking docu-ment*As to the most recent of these publications,

Religious Liberty and the Maryland Toleration Act 9


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The Present Outlook 5it was meant to meet the claim put forth byCardinal Gibbons, that the Catholic colony ofMaryland was the first home and sanctuary ofreligious liberty in America. I sought to bringthat claim to the bar of history and to show howuntenable it is. The strange pretense that theRoman Church was the mother of religiousliberty in our country, whereas she has been itsrelentless foe in all others, has been widely ex-ploited of late by the Roman Catholic press andby the priesthood and hierarchy. And I havetherefore thought that the historical demonstra-tion of the futility of this claim, which I gave in1908, would be no less valuable to-day. I haveadded a brief chapter in further confirmationof the argument.

Of my reply to the encyclical of Pope LeoXIII., I may say further that the favorableopinion expressed of it at the time by many whosejudgment I value, and the not infrequent demandsfor it since it has been out of print, seem to justifythe hope that its republication may be helpfulin the controversy with Rome. That it satis-factorily meets the arguments of his Holiness,is an opinion I may hold without presumption,when it is remembered that the bishops whoopposed the decree of infallibility, declared inthe observations which they jointly submittedat the Council that its promulgation "would makeCatholicism indefensible in controversy" NorthBritish Review, Oct., 1870, p. 225,


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6 Romanism In the Light of HistoryIn my first edition I quoted at length from analleged speech of Bishop Strossmayer, not knowing

that it had been reported that he had repudiatedit.Those extracts I have now placed in an Ap-

pendix, not as certainly having been uttered bythe bold and eloquent prelate, but for their in-trinsic value. I give below a letter from a reveredBishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, nowdeceased, on the subject. *

It is often said that the Church of Rome hasbecome more enlightened in these modem days-that she shows a broader and more tolerantspirit that she has risen above the absolutismand the superstition of the Middle Ages.There could not be a greater mistake. Her

* ALBANY, N. Y,, Nov. 27, 1900.MY DEAR DR McKiM:I have just read your little book with great interest. It seems

to me a wonderfully clear and thorough resume" of what I confessalways seemed to me the most irresistible argument against thewhole modern Roman position. 1 am very sorry about theStrossmayer matter, because both the letter itself and the sourcefrom which it came, and the little headings in which you havemade extracts from it, are very telling, but of course if he re-pudiated it, although I am quite sure he only did it under thepressure of that iron heel, I do not think it would be wise in anyfuture editions to use it except as a footnote. But I should cer-tainly say in the footnote that when the first edition was printedyou had every reason to believe the speech to be authentic, andthat you are inclined to believe now that the repudiation, if itwas made, was compulsory rather that voluntary, With manythanks for your courtesy in sending me the book, I am,

Faithfully your brother, W. CX DOANE.


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The Present Outlook 7claims are just as arrogant just as tremendousIn the year 1914 as in 1870 or in 1215, Her an-tagonism to modern progress and modern sci-ence is just as positive to-day as it was whenPius IX. put forth his famous Syllabus in 1864.Leo XIII. was deemed the most enlightened ofmodern Popes, and yet in his encyclical on"Human Liberty/' June 20, 1888, he proscribedliberty of thought or of the press, of teaching orof religion, and in his encyclical to France, Feb.16, 1892, he calls the separation of Church andState a false principle.The author of the Letters to His Holiness PopePius X., writing three or four years ago, deploredthe fact that the" Papacy's attitude to the foundations of civilizationhas been of a hostility so undisguised, a violence sobitter, and a contempt so scornful, as to cause havocand consternation within the Church itself, and anx-iety and outcry among the governments of free statesin Europe."So far as the Papacy is concerned, it is followingto-day the same course of despotism as led to itsrejection by the most progressive nations of the world,and in consequence human liberty should lift its voiceand free states be on their guard against it.*' p. xix.

In confirmation of this tremendous indictment,the writer quotes from an encyclical of Pius X.,August 25, 1910, in which it is declared that therecan be no worthy civilization not wholly con-


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8 Romanism in the Light of Historytrolled by the Church; and refers to the papalrescript Sacrorum Antistitum^ which orders "theexpulsion of all Catholic teachers who are in anydegree infected with liberal ideas "; insists uponthe expulsion from the seminaries of all liberalwritings, "even if of Catholic authorship"; andconcludes with imposing on the Roman prieststhroughout the world the famous oath againstModernism, in which they are required to swearto adhere with all their heart to every declarationand condemnation of the Pope's Syllabus, and ofhis encyclical against Modernism.The reigning Pope has shown in many waysthat he is vehemently opposed to liberty of con-science, and he has warmly and officially com-mended a book which declares that " public hereticsdeserve, not merely to be excommunicated, butto be killed'*; that the power to kill hereticsbelongs to both the State and the Church; thatthe Church tolerates heretics now because it isnot prudent to kill them; and finally that thePope has the power to depose secular rulers whoabandon Catholicism, and to absolve the subjectsof such rulers from their allegiance. *

It is an unquestionable fact, in spite of therhetoric of Cardinal Gibbons and ArchbishopIreland, that Rome to this day officially and un-compromisingly rejects liberty of conscience asa principle. Pope Leo XIIL in his encyclical

1 De stabxlitatc et Progress^ Dogmatic See Letters to HisHoliness P&p& Pius X., pp zxiii-iv.


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The Present Outlook 9on " Human Liberty," June 20, 1888, says: "It isin no wise permitted to demand, defend, or grant,liberty of thought or of the press, of teaching orof religion." Even the Inquisition, which thePapal organ, in Rome, in 1855 described as "asublime spectacle of social perfection," is stillapproved.The Western Watchman, perhaps the mostinfluential Roman Catholic paper in the UnitedStates, declares that, "it makes no apology forthe massacre of St. Bartholomew or for theSpanish Inquisition"; in fact the Papacy standsbefore the modern world with the millstone of theInquisition still about its neck, n that diabolicalinstitution which for five hundred years was theterror of Europe, teaching the innocence of con-fiscation, the virtue of delation and the godlinessof murder." Nor has the doctrine of indul-gences been abandoned. By order of Pius IX.,every step of the Scala Santa has an indulgenceof nine thousand years attached to it! Byvisiting the Servite Church at Florence, you gain,by favor of Leo X., an indulgence of a thousandyears !Meanwhile every effort to reform either thedoctrine or the morals of the Church is repressedwith an iron hand. Montalembert, thorough-going Catholic though he was, died of a brokenheart under Pius DCs condemnation.

Father Tyrrell, that devout and accomplishedscholar, was suspended and excommunicated, and


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io Romanism In the Light of Historythe priest, who bravely dared to give him Chris-tian burial in defiance of the orders of the Pope,was promptly suspended from his office.

''Every earnest spirit that in our time has at-tacked consecrated iniquity or ecclesiastical folly hasbeen bludgeoned. Look at the men who havespoken for peace, religion, and truth against oppres-sion . . . high-minded men of God, yet every one ofthem saw his dream dissolve, and died, or will die,forlorn, defeated, hopeless." Letters to His HolinessPius X., pp. 8, 9.

Nearly forty-four years have elapsed since thepromulgation of the decree of Papal Infallibility,and we are now able to form some estimateof the result of the dogma on the fortunes of theChurch. In general we may say that the predic-tions of its opponents in the Council, Bp. Hefele,Cardinal Schwarzenburg, Bp, Strossmayer; Dar-boy, Abp. of Paris; Conolly, Abp. of Halifax,and many others, have been fulfilled.Thus, Archbishop Darboy predicted "it wouldwork swift ruin on the temporal power" -a

prophecy very swiftly fulfilled. The documentjointly agreed to by the minority, already referredto, declared it would give governments apparentreason to doubt the fidelity of Catholics, This,too, has come to pass, and we sec the Churchdisestablished in Italy, in Spain, in Portugal,and in France. Indeed, she has been weakenedand defeated all over Europe, and so she turns to


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The Present Outlook nAmerica as her last hope, and is laboring withfeverish energy "to make America Catholic."

Let me further recount the views expressedat the time of the Vatican Council. Thus PrinceHohenlohe said the proposed decree involved allthose claims which cause collisions betweenChurch and State and threaten the liberty andsecurity of governments.

Cardinal Schwarzenberg: " Papal infallibilitywould make the foundations of faith to trembleeven in devoutest souls."The Archbishop of Halifax (Dr. Conolly) de-

clared the proposal was only fit to be put decor-ously underground.One bishop declared he would rather die thansign the decree. Another, that the Churchwould commit suicide if it adopted it.The learned and candid men who opposed itpredicted that it would put an end to the con-version of Protestants; it would drive devout menout of the Church; would give new authority tothe theory of persecution and of the deposingpower. They said, moreover, that the doctrinewas unknown in many parts of the Church, andwas denied by the Fathers, so that neither per-petuity nor universality could be pleaded in itsfavor. In short, it was an absurd contradictionfounded on ignoble deceit. 1 This utterance fully

1 In confirmation of the above statements I refer to an articleon "The Vatican Council" from the pen of Lord Acton in theNorth British Review of October, 1870,


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12 Romanism In the Light of Historyjustifies the opinion expressed by Mr. Gladstone inhis well-known pamphlet on the Vatican Decreesthat the acceptance of this decree is incompatiblewith the loyalty which a citizen owes to the State.On the other hand, take note of the characterof the arguments by which its advocates supportedthe proposal :A doctrine must be true if the Church believesit, without any warrant from Scripture. Scripturemay be silent and tradition contradictory, butthe Church is independent of both. (Petavius.)We have not the authority of Scripture forIndulgences, but we have the higher authorityof the Roman Pontiffs.The Dogmatic Commission of the Council took

the ground that :"Objections taken from history are not valid whencontradicted by ecclesiastical decrees."Again:

"Religion cannot submit to the criticism of his-torians."

Consider also for a moment the methods em-ployed.Books bearing venerable names Clement, Dio-

nysius, Isidore were forged for the purpose of sup-plying authority for opinions that lacked the sanctionof antiquity. 1

1 Compare the article of Lord Acton already cited.


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The Present Outlook 13Bearing in mind the utterances of the able menwho opposed the dogma, we may truly say thatthe bishops went forth from the Vatican Council

of 1870, after the promulgation of Papal Infalli-bility, with the task of Jason before them toplow their fields with fire-breathing oxen, andthen to sow them with dragons' teeth! Thisnew dogma breathes flame indeed, but it hasbeen an ill instrument for plowing the fields ofthe modern world! And the anathemas of theSyllabus of Pius IX., which are associated with it,have yielded such a harvest of disaster as mighthave been expected from the sowing of dragons'teeth in Christendom.What this harvest has been we may judge froma brief summary which I now propose to give.

It appears in the first place, that from the timewhen the Syllabus of Pius IX. was set forth, 1864,the Roman Church has been passing through aremarkable phase of disintegration, and wouldseem to have lost nearly a third of its dominion. xThe intelligent classes in all civilized countrieshave to an enormous extent been estranged fromthe Church. Rationalism and infidelity havemade fearful havoc, as Pope Pius X. himself

*" Contrary to a widespread conviction, there has been noprogress made by the Roman Church during the nineteenthcentury in any normally educated portion of the English-speakingworld. . . . The conversions that have been made in the English-speaking world redeem only a small fraction of the heavy losses. "He estimates those losses in the United States at 14,000,000.The Decay of the Church of Rome, p. 194, by Joseph McCabe.


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14 Romanism in the Light of Historylaments, in some of the principal Roman Catholiccountries in the natural reaction from theattempt of the Church to fetter reason, to stifleinquiry, to discourage scientific and historicalinvestigation, and to bind the limbs of thoughtby a despotic absolutism. Setting itself in antago-nism to freedom of conscience, freedom of speech fand freedom of the press, it has made modernDemocracy its relentless foe, and has stimulatedthe growth of that very Socialism which it sobitterly denounces. " Modernism/' which mighthave stood for the sane and sober and devoutapplication to the doctrines of the Church of areverent and enlightened scholarship, has becomein large degree the synonym for the repudiationof much of the historic deposit of the Faith, byminds which, in breaking loose from the swaddlingbands by which the Church has bound them, haveswung to the opposite extreme of unrestrainedliberalism.

In confirmation of these statements, look fora moment at the state of the Church in France.

In the year 1894, M. Taine made a painstakingattempt to estimate the decay of Catholicism inPrance, collecting his statistics as far as possiblefrom Roman Catholic sources, and he came, withregret, to the conclusion that out of a population of36,000,000 there were only between 7,000,000 and8,000,000 Catholics left. Or consider the state-ment of the Abb6 Dessaine (1897), that there hasbeen an " incredible loss of faith" in provinces


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The Present Outlook 15once noted for their religion, Brittany for ex-ample. Thus, in a Catholic district with 2300 in-habitants, only 200 went to church on Sundays.He was himself cure of an urban parish of 21,000souls. Of these less than 1200 went to Mass onSundays. In a parish of 5000 souls not 100 menentered the chapel on Sunday.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, theChurch appears to have lost 25,000,000 of the30,000,000 of her children.

If we turn to Italy, we find a state of things notdissimilar. Careful and authoritative writers tellus that "from the confession of Catholics them-selves Catholicism has small hold on the educatedclasses." The professional classes and the stu-dents are either indifferent or hostile; and themiddle class is lost to the Church in Italy.

Infidelity grows apace witness the ItalianFreethinkers' Convention held in Rome in 1904,in spite of a vehement protest against it issuedby the Pope, the Mayor of Rome hailing "thenoble struggle of the human intellect in whichthey were engaged." It was an emphatic andtriumphant demonstration against the Vatican;and yet ninety-five Italian municipalities sent offi-cial representatives, or official letters of adhesion, toit. These are some of the tares that have sprungup in the fields of the Church from the dragons'teeth sown by the Vatican Council of 1870.

In the other principal countries of Europe asimilar state of things exists.


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16 Romanism In the Light of HistoryBut what of the United States? Here at least,

it is generally believed the Roman Church hasmade amazing progress has achieved notabletriumphs. In the year 1800, her strength wasestimated at barely 100,000, but in 1890 it hadgrown to 10,000,000, and in 1913 it was variouslyestimated at from 12,000,000 to 14,000,000, oreven more.But it is forgotten that this growth has come

almost exclusively from immigration from thevarious countries of Europe; so that every millionadded to the Roman Church in the United Statesrepresents a million transferred from some otherbranch of the Roman Church, and does notrepresent any growth at all.On the contrary, this transference results reallyin enormous loss. This is established beyond con-tradiction by reliable Roman Catholic authorities.Thus Bishop England, of the diocese embracingSouth Carolina and Georgia, reported officially in1836 that out of 50,000 people of Catholic origin,only 10,000 were faithful; and he estimates theloss to the Church in fifty years as 3,750,000, Amemorial addressed to the Pope by some of thefaithful in 1891 affirms that there were 20,000,000descendants of Catholic emigrants to the UnitedStates, and that of these 16,000,000 had aposta-tized. A Roman prelate, writing to the Freeman 9$Journal, 3d December, 1898, said that a the num-ber of Catholics in the United States ought to bedouble what it is to-day."


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The Present Outlook 17The same journal claimed that there were 40,-

000,000 people of Catholic extraction in the UnitedStates, and that 20,000,000 of these had gone overto Protestantism.An Irish priest, describing his American experi-ence in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record (Feb., Mayand July, 1902) says there should be a total Catho-lic population in the United States of 20,000,000;

he found it less than 10,000,000. American pre-lates had begged him to arrest the tide of emigra-tion from Ireland. "For your people, " said oneof them, "America is the road to hell."

Careful statistics justify the conclusion that theRoman Catholic Church ought to-day to numberin our country more than 23,000,000, withoutcounting a single convert. *

In further confirmation of the above state-ments, consider the following admission by FatherPhelan, of the Western Watchman, in a sermonfound in that journal, Sept. 25, 1913:

" Now we boast our wondrous progress in this coun-try. We are building new churches and establishingnew dioceses, and we think we are doing wonders.We are doing less than in any other country in theworld. I tell you because I know whereof I speak.We are making no real lasting progress here. We arereceiving the best that the Catholic nations of theworld can send us, and immigration is making usstrong ; but we are losing hold of the men . . . Themen don't go to Mass."

* See UAw&ricmisme, by Canon Delassus, pp. 354-356.


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1 8 Romanism In the Light of HistoryThe Roman Catholic Church, then, when we

take a broad survey of its condition, is seen to belosing ground over wide areas, and especially inthe centres of greatest enlightenment. It is notgaming, it is losing strength. It is not reallyconsolidating its resources, it is disintegrating.Father McCabe's conclusion appears to rest on asolid basis.

When we note the extraordinary impotence ofCatholicism in the great cities of Europe; when welearn in country after country, that the middle classforsook it a generation ago, and the artisans areabandoning it to-day, when we find its authorityrejected almost in proportion as a nation is touchedwith culture ; and when we see that its larger tracts ofunchallenged authority so constantly correspond withthe darker areas in the cultural map of the worldwesee that its power rests largely on a basis that isdirectly and triumphantly challenged by the modernspirit a basis of ignorance. 1

Another conclusion we confidently draw for our-selves is this: that as long as that Church is domi-nated by the mediaeval spirit, as long as it clingsto its effete superstitions, as long as it hugs con-tentedly the fetters of absolutism welded by theVatican, it can never become the Church of theAmerican people. The enterprise of "makingAmerica Catholic " is foredoomed to failure.

* Th& Decay of the Church ofRome* by Joseph McCabe, p. 305-6.Methtten & Co,


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The Present Outlook 19Nevertheless we are confronted by a real danger

by reason of the presence of the Roman Churchin our midst, under its now prevailing auspices.That danger arises from the ambition of the hier-archy to grasp political power in the United States.It is not necessary to prove that this ambitionexists among those who are shaping its destiniesin the Republic. Whoever has observed theirpolicy at all critically cannot fail to see it. Soconfident are they of their political power that theWestern Watchman boastfully says that any publicman who opposes the Roman Church commitspolitical suicide. This boast is also a confessiona confession that the Church controls the ballotscast by her partisans controls them sufficientlyto defeat those who incur her displeasure. Thatwhich makes her dangerous that which givesher so often a controlling political influence isnot her numbers, but her solidarity the sub-serviency of a large proportion of her adherentsto the direction of the priesthood. It is thismediaeval sacerdotalism that constitutes our peril.The Roman priest controls the political actionof a large part of his flock. The Protestantminister neither wields, nor seeks to wield, suchcontrol. And so it comes to pass that the Romanminority often triumphs over the Protestantmajority.

In conclusion I venture to quote a passagefrom a recent address of my own. After enu-merating some of the manifold ways in which


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20 Romanism in the Light of Historysome of the representatives of the Church ofRome are abridging the liberties of our people bythe ballot, by the boycott, by interference withour public libraries, by warring against our publicschools, by putting the Bible on the Index, bymobbing Protestant lecturers, I go on to say;

" In view of this catalogue of things that are going onamong us, I ask, Is it not a fact that our liberties areabridged, that an ecclesiastical tyranny does alreadyin fact exist in our midst?What then? Why, this: the great Protestant

communions must realize the seriousness of the crisisthat is upon us. They must make common causeagainst this insidious menace to our Constitution andto our liberties. They must come out into the openand stand together in solid phalanx against all theseinvasions of personal liberty; not in anger, not inbitterness, not with violence of speech or violence ofaction, but calmly, resolutely, with invincible deter-mination that the principles of our Constitution, shallbe preserved inviolate, and that our citizens shallenjoy absolute liberty of speech and action, shall befree to act, to vote, and to carry on their worldly affairswithout any interference, directly or indirectly, fromthe priesthood.

41My friends and brethren, this unity, this Protestantunity of action that I have alluded to, is coming. Ihear the sound of its advancing footsteps. I hear afaroff the tramp, as of a mighty army marching to theBattle Hymn of the Republic. It is an army of peace.Its weapons are not carnal, but spiritual. By theforce of reason, by the power of an enlightened public


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The Present Outlook 21opinion, it will win its victories. Its voice will be thevoice of the many millions of Protestant citizens, thegreat majority of our people, and it will commandrespect, it will constrain to obedience. And this willbe the tenor of its speech to our Roman Catholicfellow citizens:

"'In the name of the great Republic we charge you,Remember that you, as well as we, owe obedience tothe laws and the Constitution of this land, not inletter only, but in spirit. Remember that only bymoral and spiritual force ought you (or any otherreligionists) to seek to propagate your religion. Becontent with the liberty to profess and practice andpropagate your religion, without meddling in politics,without attempting to coerce or intimidate free Ameri-can citizens, without using the boycott or the blud-geon, to accomplish your ends; in short, to propagateyour religion wholly by rational and spiritual means."In other words, be content to be a spiritual andnot a politico-religious organization ; and beware thatyou make no attempt, direct or indirect, to tamperwith the sacred principles of our Constitution. Thenthere will be peace between us, and we can live andlabor together for the honor and the glory of ourcommon country/ "


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Pope Leo XIIPs Encyclicalon the Reunion of

Christendom


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Pope Leo XIIFs Encyclical on theReunion of Christendom

THE REUNION OF CHRISTENDOM

THE reunion of Christendom is a' consummationdevoutly to be wished and prayed for, and forwhich Christian men and Christian churches oughtto be prepared to make great concessions tosacrifice everything but truth itself. But, as theBishop of Edinburgh says in a recent charge to theSynod of Edinburgh (1895), it ought to be con-sidered that " unity in external communion with-out unity in fundamental truth would be, even ifit could be obtained, a curse and not a blessing."Any proposition, therefore, looking to the reunionof the Anglican Church with the Church of Rome,as preparatory to the further and larger step of acomplete reunion of Christendom, must deal firstwith the problem of unity in fundamental truthbetween these two great communions. Andwhen their respective doctrinal positions areexamined it becomes at once apparent that theyare so fundamentally at variance that without

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26 Romanism in the Light of Historyradical and far-reaching change on one side or theother reunion is impossible.

I invite attention to the language of the learnedprelate just referred to upon this subject :

"Day by day [he says] we offer up the supplication. . . 'that all who profess and call themselvesChristians may be led into the way of truth' thatfirst, and then, possessing the truth, "may hold thefaith in Unity of Spirit, in the bond of peace, and inrighteousness of life.' What has been forgotten, orat least in practice minimized, on the side of thoseAnglicans to whom I have referred, is the paramountclaim of truth. What the Church of Rome holds tobe truth, she never for one moment will compromiseor explain away. As each new dogma has been addedto her creed, it secures a place co-ordinate in certaintyand authority for her own children with the doctrinesthat seem to us most clearly revealed in Holy Scrip-ture. vShe teaches no doctrine that might be recalled,revised, modified, or explained away. For the pur-poses of diplomatic negotiations with other religiouscommunities, she suffers from the very considerableinconvenience of infallibility. If two parties differ,and one is, ex hypothesi, always right on the funda-mental points in dispute, it is plain that there can bebut one issue to any successful effort at making up thedifference. Union with Rome means simply accept-ance of her creed and submission to her authority.What some of us venture to call her "errors," arewith her immutable and irreformable expressions ofDivine truth, having all the authority of God Him-self. It comes then simply to this: Can we surrender


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 27the principles for which the Anglican Church hassteadily contended for the last three hundred andfifty years? Or can we hold the doctrines of ourChurch, and, with a due regard for the ordinary andnatural rules by which historical documents are in-terpreted, can we reconcile the sense of our historicaland authoritative standards of doctrine with theauthoritative doctrine of the Church of Rome? Theonly answer to each question is, It is impossible"

There could not be a better illustration of thetruth of these remarks of Dr. Dowden than isfound in the Encyclical of Leo XIII. on ChristianUnity, issued in the early summer of 1896, towhich the following " Letter*' was a reply. ThisPontiff has been widely extolled (and no doubtjustly) for his enlightened liberality, and for thebreadth of his sympathies, as well as for hissanctity. Yet when he undertakes to discussChristian unity, he holds a tone as uncompro-mising, as unbending, as absolute as Hildebrandhimself. Underneath all Ms gracious and paternalphrases, there lurks unabated the imperial temperof the Popes of the Middle Ages. He offers not asingle concession. He makes not a single advance.He abates not a jot or tittle of the clapus of hispredecessors. He has one short and simplesolution of the problem presented by Christianunity, Let the whole Christian world allchurches, communions, sects, make their sub-mission to the Roman Pontiff. Only an absolutesurrender to Rome can heal the divisions of


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28 Romanism In the Light of HistoryChristendom. Two things, the Encyclical declaresare indispensably necessary. First, we mustaccept every article of faith, and point of doctrine,which has been authoritatively proclaimed andestablished by the Roman Church; and, second,we must accept the jurisdiction, the supremacy,the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff.

Let us ask, then, What does the Roman Churchrequire us to believe? It would lead us too farto reply to this question exhaustively. It will beenough to note that besides the three Creeds ac-cepted by the Church of England, she requiresus to accept (i) the Creed of Pius IV. set forthA.D. 1564; (2) the definitions of the (EcumenicalCouncils; (3) all ex cathedra doctrinal definitionsof the Popes in all the ages, e.g., the doctrine of theImmaculate Conception of the Blessed Virginpromulgated in the year 1854 by Pius IX. Nowlet us suppose that we could accept all the doctrinesand articles of faith pertaining to the Christianreligion, just enumerated, it would avail us noth-ing unless we also submitted to the jurisdictionand supremacy of the Bishop of Rome. * ' * Schism* 'from the Pope, Leo tells us, places us "outsidethe One Fold/' "Bishops are deprived of theright and power of ruling if they deliberatelysecede from Peter and his successors." "The

* " The very nature of divine faith makes it impossible that wecan reject even one point of direct teaching (by the authoritativemagisterium of the Church), as this is practically rejecting theauthority of God Himself/'Encyclical on Christian Unity.


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 29Episcopate order is rightly judged to be in com-munion with Peter, as Christ commanded, if itis subject to and obeys Peter; otherwise it neces-sarily becomes a lawless and disorderly crowd/'It is not enough that the head of the Church"should have been charged merely with theoffice of superintendent, or should have beeninvested solely with the power of direction, butit is absolutely necessary that he should have re-ceived real and sovereign authority which the wholecommunity is bound to obey."'1 I italicize theselast words in order to call attention to the distinctassertion which they make that absolute poweris vested in the Pope. Innocent III. himselfcould not have more distinctly formulated thetheory of an absolute ecclesiastical despotismlodged in the hands of the Roman Pontiffs. PopeBoniface VIII. asserted no more when he declaredofficially (in his Bull Unam Sanctam), "Wedeclare, assert, and define, that for every humancreature it is altogether necessary to salvationthat he be subject to the Roman Pontiff/' 2 DidPope Gregory VII. do more than draw out acorollary from the same fundamental proposi-tion when he affirmed that "when men proudly re-

1 The Encyclical.a The French novelist who has lately given the world a truly

remarkable picture of modern Rome was justified, it wouldappear, in putting the following words into the mouth of Pope LeoXIII : " Ah! le Schisme, ah! le Schisme, mon fils, c'est le crime sanspardon, c'est Fassassinat du vrai Dieu, la b&te de tentation im-monde, suscite*e par 1'Enfer, pour la perte des fid&les. "


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30 Romanism In the Light of Historyfuse to obey the Apostolic Chair (of Peter) theyincur the guilt of idolatry/' (ucum enim obe-dire apostolicas sedi superbe contemnunt, scelusidolatrise . . . incurrant ") ? And did not Bell-armine build on the same foundation when hemade the amazing and blasphemous assertionthat "if the Pope should err by enjoining vicesand prohibiting virtues, the Church would bebound to believe vices to be good, and virtues tobe bad, unless she would sin against conscience"? 1In making these strictures upon the real purport

of the Encyclical, we do not wish or intend toimpeach the sincerity of the venerable Pontiff,or to question or doubt his genuine zeal for thereunion of Christendom. Rather would we drawattention to the inexorable logic of the iron systemwhich the Papacy incarnates. The gentlenessand charity and sympathy and zeal of Leo XIILonly serve as a foil to the sharp two-edged swordwhich as Pope he is compelled to wicltl Theman, good and kind and liberal-minded as he is,is helplessly in the grip of the absolutism of whichhe is the official representative.

Here, however, is the feature of the Encyclicalwhich deserves especial note, and which calledforth the Letter of reply which follows. HisHoliness undertakes to reason with "the peoplesof the Christian world/ 1 and to set before them

* " Si autem Papa erraret praecipiendo vitia, vcl prohibendovirttttes, teneretur Ecdesia credere vitia. bona, et vitiatestnalas, nisi vellet contra cotiscieatiam peccare. **


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 31somewhat at length the grounds in Scripture andthe ancient Fathers upon which the proud edificeof Roman ecclesiastical imperialism professes torear itself. Thus the document refers the greatmatters at issue to the arbitrament of HolyScripture and primitive antiquity, and, in effect,invites all who dissent from Rome to exercisetheir private judgment in seeking a true conclu-sion. The present writer felt that the Encyclicalthus constituted a challenge, which could notproperly be declined, to meet the illustriousapologist of the Papal system upon ground whichwe as Anglicans have ever claimed as our own.The following publication has for its object thejustification of the assertions made in my openLetter of Reply to Pope Leo XIII., published inthe Washington Post of July 27, 1896, especiallyby giving the passages from the Fathers alludedto therein.

I have quoted freely from the Encyclical ofthe "Holy Catholic and Apostolical OrthodoxChurch of the East " in reply to a previous encycli-cal of Pope Leo XIII. on reunion, of November30, 1894, in order to draw attention to the import-ant and impressive fact that on all the greatquestions at issue between the Anglican Com-munion and the Church of Rome, the GreekChurch, with its one hundred millions of adherents,stands with us. As to Purgatory, the ImmaculateConception, Mariolatry, Denial of the Cup tothe Laity, the Primacy of Peter, the ancient


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32 Romanism In the Light of HistoryPrimacy of the Bishop of Rome, the claims ofPapal Authority, of Temporal Power, of Infalli-bility, she agrees with us. She interprets theFathers, and the decrees and canons of the ancientCouncils just as we do, upon all these points.She finds the Roman system made up of innova-tions, modern, not ancient; provincial, not catho-lic, built not upon the Holy Scriptures, notupon the ancient Fathers, not upon the ancientCouncils, but upon perversions and usurpations,upon spurious Patristic passages, upon the falseClementines, upon the forged Decretals of Isidore,upon the unauthentic Apostolical Constitutions,This is her language;"The orthodox Church of Christ is ever ready to

receive every proposal of reunion, if only the Bishopof Rome shakes off, once and for all time, the manyand divers innovations which, contrary to the Gospel,have boon stealthily introduced into the Church, andhave eaused the grievous division of the churches ofthe East and the West; and if only he returns to theground of the seven (Ecumenical Councils, which wereheld under the guidance of the Holy Spirit by therepresentatives of all the Churches of God, in order todefine the right teaching of faith, as against those thattended to heresy/*


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II

POPE LEO'S ENCYCLICAL ON CHRISTIAN UNITY

ON the 2gth of June, 1896, the following reportof the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. wasgiven to the press:

Cardinal Gibbons has received from Rome advancesheets of Pope Leo XIIFs Encyclical on the union ofthe Christian churches. It is addressed to all Bishopsin communion with the Holy See, and is in part asfollows :"The Holy Father, intent upon the work of bring-

ing all to the one fold of Christ, considers that itwould conduce to the end were he to set before thepeoples of the Christian world the ideal and exemplarof the church as divinely constituted, to which churchall are bound by God's command to belong."In accordance with His usual providence, Godmakes use of human instruments to effect the sancti-fication and salvation of men. To this end not onlydid He take upon Himselfhuman nature, but in order toperpetuate His mission, the Son of God chose apostlesand disciples, whom He had trained, that they mightfaithfully hand down His teaching and commands tothose who desired the blessing He had purchased formankind by His death.

33


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34 Romanism In the Light of History"In commanding the apostles and their successors

to the end of time to teach and rule the nations Heordered the nations to accept and obey their authority."In Scripture, the church is called a body, and thebody of Christ. It is visible as being a living andorganized society, and is animated by the invisiblevital principle of supernatural life. Those, therefore,who either deny that Christ's church is a visible bodyor refuse to allow that it has ' the perennial communica-tion of the gifts of divine grace, are equally in agrievous and pernicious error, 1 The 'connection andunion of both elements is absolutely necessary to thetrue church as the intimate union of the soul and bodyis to human nature/ and as this is the essentialconstitution of the church according to God's will,who also determined that it was to last to the end oftime, this it must possess at the present day."

THE MISSION OF CHRIST."It is obviously of the first importance to deter-

mine what Christ wished His church to be, and whatin fact He made it. According to this criterion, it isthe unity of the Christian church which must neces-sarily be considered, for It is certain that when 'Hefounded it He wished it to be one/ The mission ofChrist was to save not some nations or peoples only,but the whole human race, without distinction oftime or place. Hence, as the mission of His churchwas to hand down through every age the blessing ofthis salvation by the will of its founder. It is necessarythat this church should be one in all lands and at niltimes."A church which should embrace all men every-


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 35where and at all times was clearly foretold by theprophet Isaiah, and was typified as our Lord's mysticalbody a body united to Himself as head ; a mysticalbody, the members of which, if separated one from theother, 'cannot be united with one and the samehead.' And so another head like to Christ that is,another Christ must be invented if besides the onechurch, which is His body, men wish to set up another."Furthermore, 'He who made this one church alsogave it unity that is, He made it such that all whoso belong to it must be united by the closest bonds, soas to form one society, one kingdom, one body/And He willed that this unity among His followersshould be so perfect 'that it might in some measureshadow forth the union between Himself and Hisfather/ "

UNITY OF FAITH ESSENTIAL."As a necessary consequence 'in His divine wisdomHe ordained in His church unity of faith a virtue

which is the first of those bonds which unite man toGod and whence we receive the name of the faithful/The nature of this unity of faith must and can beascertained from the commands and teaching ofChrist Himself. The mere possession of the Scripturesis not sufficient to insure unity of belief, 'not merelybecause of the nature of the doctrine itself and themysteries it involves, but also because of the divergenttendencies of the human mind and the disturbingelement of conflicting passions/

"It was necessary 'that there should be anotherprinciple* to insure union of minds in the ChristianChurch, and it is consequently proper to inquire


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36 Romanism in the Light of Historywhich of the many means by which Christ, our Lord,could have secured this unity, He, in fact, adopted.It is the duty of all followers of Christ, not merely toaccept His doctrine generally, 'but to assent with theirentire mind to all and every point of it, since it isunlawful to withhold faith from God even in regardto one single point. *

"Christ endowed His apostles with authority liketo His own, and promised that the spirit of truthshould direct them and remain with them forever, andbecause of this commission it is no more allowableto repudiate one iota of the apostles' teaching than toreject any point of the doctrine of Christ Himself.This apostolic mission was intended for the salvationof the whole human race, and consequently mustlast to the end of time."

AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH."The magisterium instituted by Christ in His

church wa*s by God's wilt perpetuated in the successorsappointed by the apostles, and in like manner theduty of accepting and professing all that is thus taughtis also perpetual and immutable. There is nothingwhich the church founded on these principles has beenmore careful to guard than the integrity of the faith,The fathers of the church are unanimous in consider-ing as outside the Catholic eommunion any one whoin the least degree deviates from even one point of thedoctrine proposed by the authoritative magiKteriumof the church." Wherefore Christ instituted in the church a living,authoritative, and lasting magisteriunx. lie, willedand commanded under the gravest penalties that its


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 37teachings should be received as if they were His own.As often, therefore, as it is declared on the authority ofthis teaching that this or that is contained in thedeposit of divine revelation, it must be believed byevery one as true. The very nature of divine faithmakes it impossible that we can reject even one pointof direct teaching, as this is practically rejecting theauthority of God Himself.11 Christ commanded 'all men present and futureto follow Him as their leader and Saviour, and thisnot merely as individuals, but as forming a society,organized and united in mind. He established in thechurch all those principles which necessarily tend tomake organized human societies and through whichthey attain the perfection proper to each/ That is,in the church founded by Christ, ' all who wished to bethe sons of God by adoption might attain to the per-fection demanded by their high calling and mightobtain salvation. 1"The church is l man's guide to whatever pertains

to heaven. This is the office appointed to it by Godthat it may watch over and may order all that con-cerns religion, and may without let or hindranceexercise, according to its judgment, its charge overChristianity. Wherefore they who pretend that thechurch has any wish to interfere in civil matters, or toinfringe upon the rights of the State, either know itnot or wickedly calumniate it.'

"

CHRIST'S VICEGERENT ON EARTH."Besides being the guardian of the faith, the churchmust afford the means of obtaining the salvation

purchased by Christ. The dispensation of the divine


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38 Romanism In the Light of Historyministries was not granted by God indiscriminately toall Christians, but to the apostles and their successors,and in this way, according to God's providence, a dulyconstituted society 'was formed out of the dividedmultitudes of people, one in faith, one in end, one inthe participation of the means adapted to the attain-ment of the end, and one as subject to one and thesame authority/"As 'no true and perfect human society can beconceived which is not governed by some supremeauthority,' so Christ, of necessity, gave to His church asupreme authority to which all Christians must beobedient. For the preservation of unity, there mustbe unity of government jure diwno, and men may beplaced outside the one fold by schism as well as byheresy."The nature of this supreme authority can beascertained from the positive and evident willof Christ in the matter. As He willed that Hiskingdom should be visible, Christ was obliged todesignate a vicegerent on earth in the personof St. Peter. He also determined that the auth-ority given him for the salvation of mankindin perpetuity should be inherited by St. Peter'ssuccessors.

"It cannot be doubted from the words of HolyWrit that the church, by the will of God, rests on St.Peter, as a building on its foundation* St, Petercould not fulfill this duty without the power ofcommanding, forbidding, judging, which is properlycalled * jurisdiction/ It is by the power of jurisdictionthat nations and commonwealths are held together aprimacy of honor, and the shadowy right of givingadvice and admonition, which is called direction,


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 39could never give unity or strength to any society ofmen."

ST. PETER'S POWER SUPREME."The metaphorical expressions of the 'keys' and of

'binding and loosing' indicate 'the power of makinglaws, of judging and of punishing a power which ourLord declares to be of such amplitude and force thatGod would ratify whatever is decreed by it.' Thusthe power of St. Peter is supreme, and absolutelyindependent, so that having no other power uponearth as its superior it embraces the whole church andall things committed to the church."As this governing authority belongs to the con-stitution and formation of the church as the very

principle of unity and stability, it was clearly intendedto pass to St. Peter's successors from one to another.Consequently, the pontiffs who succeed him in theRoman episcopate receive the supreme power in thechurchjure dimno, and this is declared fully by generalcouncils, and is acknowledged by the consent ofantiquity."But though the authority of St. Peter and hissuccessors is plenary and supreme, it is not to beregarded as the only authority."The Bishops, who are the successors of the apostles,inherit their ordinary power, and the

'

Episcopal ordernecessarily belongs to the essential constitution of thechurch.' They are consequently not to be regardedas mere vicars of the Roman pontiffs, since 'theyexercise a power which is really their own, and aremost truly called the ordinary pastors of the peopleover whom they rule-V


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 41AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS LIMITED.

"It Is opposed to the truth, and is in evident con-tradiction with the divine constitution of the churchto hold that while a Bishop is individually bound toobey the authority of the Roman pontiffs, the Bishops,taken collectively, are not so bound. For it is thenature and essence of a foundation to support theunity of the whole edifice and to give stability to itrather than that of each component part. It wasthrough the strength and solidity of the foundationthat Christ promised that the gates of hell should notprevail against His church a promise to be under-stood of the church as a whole, and not of any certainportions of it." Moreover, he who is set over the whole flock musthave authority not only over the sheep dispersedthroughout the church, but also when they are as-sembled together. Do all the sheep gathered togetherrule and guide the shepherd? Do the successors of theapostles assembled together constitute the foundationon which the successor of St. Peter rests in order toderive therefrom strength and stability?"The Popes have ever unquestionably exercisedthe office of ratifying or rejecting the decrees of coun-cils. Leo the Great rescinded the acts of Concilia-bulum of Ephesus. Damasus rejected those ofRimini, and Adrian I. those of Constantinople. Thetwenty-eighth canon of the council of Chalcedon, bythe very fact that it lacks the assent and approval ofthe apostolic see, is admitted by all to be worthless."Holy writ attests that the keys of the kingdom of

heaven were given to Peter alone, and that the promiseof binding and loosing was granted to the apostles and


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42 Romanism in the Light of Historyto Peter, but there is nothing to show that the apostlesreceived supreme power without Peter or against Peter.Such power they certainly did not receive from JesusChrist. Wherefore, in the decree of the Vatican coun-cil as to the nature and authority of the primacy ofthe Roman pontiff, no newly conceived opinion is setforth, but the venerable and constant belief of allages."


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Ill

AN OPEN LETTER TO HIS HOLINESS LEO XIII.To His HOLINESS POPE LEO XIII :Revered Pontiff :Inasmuch as your recent encyclical on Christian

unity, although formally addressed only "to theBishops in communion with the Holy See,

"does,in fact, make argument and appeal "to the peoples

of the Christian world, " it will not, I trust, appearimproper or presu,mptuous if I, being only anhumble and obscure priest in the Church of God,venture to lay before your Holiness some of thedifficulties which are widely felt in acceding tothe proposal and plan you have been pleased toset forth in order to effectuate Christian unity.The fact that I am of the Anglican communion,and therefore a Protestant, makes it not less, butmore, becoming that I should make respectfulreply, since it is especially on behalf of the Pro-testant peoples that your Holiness has been at thepains to prepare this encyclical with a view to1 ' bringing all to the one fold of Christ/ ' It would,indeed, appear churlish and discourteous if, whenone occupying so exalted a station as the Pontiffof the most numerous church on earth had con-

43


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44 Romanism In the Light of Historydescended to reason with the great communionsof Christians who are not of his flock upon somomentous a theme as Christian ujiity, thereshould be no reason publicly given for not embra-cing his overtures. Such explanation is due to thegracious act of the illustrious Pontiff still moredue to ourselves and to the public in the face of aproposition of such grave importance.

Before attempting to state the difficulties whichunhappily appear to inexorably forbid the cordialacceptance of the plan which your holiness pro-poses in order to heal the wounds in the body ofChrist if I may be allowed to speak as if we, too,did actually belong to His body let me express myprofound and unfeigned thanks that the momen-tous issues involved in this great contention areby your holiness referred to the arbitrament ofreason. In reasoning with us you invite us to ex-ercise our reason. In outlining for our considera-tion the grounds upon which the enormous claimsof the Romain See are based, you invite us to weighthe evidence, to scrutinize the authorities cited; inshort, to exercise our private judgment upon thetremendous issue whether or not the RomanChurch is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolicChurch, and whether in that Church the supremepower is lodged in the Pontiff. For this recogni-tion of the function of reason and the right andduty of private judgment we, as Protestants, areprofoundly grateful. We understand, of course,that you confine the exercise of this right to the


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 45scrutiny of the credentials of the Roman Churchand of the authority and infallibility of her Pontiff;and that once convinced that she is the one, holy,catholic,and apostolic Church, and that her Pontiffsare supreme and infallible, then- the exercise ofreason and private judgment is, in your view, atan end, and we must accept, without question ordoubt, whatever is defined or decided by the HolySee. Or, to state it in the clear and unambiguouslanguage of the encyclical, "as often as it is de-clared, on the authority of this teaching, that thisor that is contained in the deposit of the divinerevelation, it must be believed by every one astrue/ 1 This, I repeat, we clearly understand, butwe gratefully recognize the liberty which youconcede us to submit the credentials of the Churchand of the Pontiff to the bar of reason, untram-meled by authority, and summoning Scripture andhistory as witnesses in determining the issue.But let me proceed, without further preface, to

state some of the difficulties we find in the way ofaccepting the proposals of the encyclical.

I. The first concerns "the integrity of thefaith," which your holiness urges upon our con-sideration as a matter of vital importance. Ourdifficulty is that "the faith 1 ' as presented for ouracceptance by the Roman Church, is in variouspoints different from, and contradictory to, "thefaith " as contained in the Holy Scriptures andprofessed by the ancient fathers of the CatholicChurch. Yet the encyclical assures us that "the


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46 Romanism In the Light of Historyapostles and disciples'

1 were commissioned byChrist to "faithfully hand down His teaching, "and invites us to test the claims of the Churchand its doctrines by the Scriptures and the ancientfathers. We are thus placed in a dilemma. Wemust either repudiate these doctrines of the faithof the Roman Church, as contrary to the Scriptureand the ancient fathers of the Church, or in accept-ing the former we must repudiate the latter, andin so doing set ourselves against the decree of theHoly Council of Trent, which declared the Scrip-tures to be the inspired and infallible Word of God.

In illustration Of my meaning I will mention butone out of many doctrines that are open to thedifficulty just alleged. The doctrine of theImmaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin,which was proclaimed by your revered predecessor,Pius DC, in the year 1854, an(i has since been anarticle of the Roman faith, binding on all herchildren, is one which we cannot discover anyhint of in the Bible, which is not alluded to inany of the ancient creeds, and which is explicitlyor implicitly denied by several of the greatest ofthe fathers, as St. Augustine and St. Bernard,and by the greatest of Roman Catholic divines,St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as by several of thePopes themselves. In the light of this fact, howcould we accept the doctrine of the ImmaculateConception and at the same time profess thecreed of Pope Pius IV. (which as good Catholicswe would be required to do), since it binds us


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 47never "to take or interpret the Scriptures other-wise than according to the unanimous consent ofthe Fathers ?"Your Holiness will surely sympathize with the

difficulty which is raised by these two contradic-tory requirements.

2. Another very serious difficulty which risesup in the way of our accepting the terms of Chris-tian unity proposed by the encyclical, relates tothe privilege of Peter and the alleged transmissionof the same to his alleged successors the Romanpontiffs. It is declared that "it cannot bedoubted from the words of Holy Writ that theChurch, by the will of God, rests on St. Peter asa building on the foundation." But where inHoly Writ is there any such statement? Whenour Lord said, "On this rock I will build myChurch, " can we possibly believe that He referredto St. Peter in the face of the fact that in the OldTestament the title of Rock is reserved to God theFather, and in the New Testament to ChristHimself? To do so would be to contradict thesolemn declaration of the holy apostle, St. Paul."Other foundation can no man lay than that islaid, which is Jesus Christ/' Should we not, then,rather interpret as St. Chrysostom does, and asmany other ancient fathers do, "On this rock Iwill build my Church, that is, on the faith of hisconfession/* viz., "Thou art the Christ, the Sonof the living God." To build on that faith is tobuild on Christ. Again, the encyclical alleges that


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48 Romanism in the Light of History"many prerogatives were bestowed upon St.Peter, apart from the apostles, " and among theseis mentioned "the power of forgiving and retain-ing." But with the greatest deference, may weventure to point out to your Holiness, that thispower of "forgiving and retaining" was bestowedupon all the apostles indiscriminately? (See St.John xx.) And further, may we respectfullyinvite attention to the extraordinary fact thatthere is not a jot or tittle of evidence in the entireNew Testament that St. Peter ever pretended to,or ever exercised, the supreme powers and preroga-tives which it is claimed were conferred upon him.

If St. Peter was the vicegerent of Christ, whydid St. Paul presume to rebuke him, as he tellsus he did? (Gal. ii. II.) If he was supreme overthe rest of the apostles why did not he, ratherthan St. James, preside in the first general council?(Acts xv.) And why did not he pronounce andpromulgate the sentence of the council? Again,if St. Peter was the head ruler of the Church, whywas he restricted to the apostleship of the cir-cumcision that is, of the Jews? (Gal. ii. 7, 8.)And why did St. Paul assume to teach and directthe Church in Rome itself? Why, too, docs St.Paul claim equality with "the veiy chiefeat ofthe apostles "? And then why does not St. Peter,in his epistles, make any allusion whatever to hispossessing or exercising supreme authority in theChurch? But is not the question closed by ourblessed Lord's words, in which He forbade any


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 49distinction of rank among His apostles? (Lukexxii. 24-26.)

Exercising our private judgment, then, as yourHoliness invites us to do on the question of theprimacy and supremacy of St. Peter over theChurch, we are compelled to conclude that, so faras Holy Scripture is concerned, the doctrine youlay down seems to be destitute of any foundation,and to be, moreover, completely contradictory tothe actual facts of the ecclesiastical governmentof the Church, as reflected in the New Testament.

It is true that our Lord used words to St. Peterthat he used to none other of His apostles. I Theywere, "I will give thee the keys of the kingdomof heaven." But this promise was abundantlyfulfilled in the fact that to St. Peter, brave anddevoted leader that he was, was given the greatand enviable privilege of first opening the doorsof the Christian Church to the Jews on the dayof Pentecost, and to the Gentiles in the case ofCornelius and his friends at a later period.We observe that such a privilege was not in thenature of things transmissible to his successors;nor is there a syllable in the New Testamentthat indicates that whatever peculiar powers andprivileges may have been his, he was to transmitthem to those who succeeded him. Thus a greatand insurmountable objection lies in the way ofour submitting to the Roman pontiff as thealleged successor of St. Peter. If we open our

1 See, however, this fact explained below, pp. 74 seg.


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50 Romanism in the Light of HistoryBible, as your Holiness invites us to do, we findthat there is no foundation in its pages for theclaims set up either for St. Peter or his successors.Doubtless we will be told that we do not rightlyinterpret the Holy Scriptures upon this point ofthe privilege of Peter and his successors. But,though we are ready to acknowledge our fallibilityas interpreters of Holy Writ, observe, we pray,the embarrassment of our position. The creedof Pope Pius IV., as above remarked, binds allgood Roman Catholics "never to interpret theScriptures otherwise than according to the unani-mous consent of the Fathers/' But when weturn to the writings of the Fathers we do not findthat they gave their " unanimous consent' 1 to theinterpretation of Holy Writ propounded by yourHoliness in the encyclical upon this question. Par,indeed, from it. We find that the early Fathersgenerally assert the equality of all bishops. Inparticular, St. Cyprian declares that u thc otherapostles were, indeed, that which Peter was,endowed with equal consortship of honor andpower;" St. Chrysostom, that St. Paul was "equalin honor" with St. Peter; St. Cyril, that St. Peterand St. John were " equal in honor to one another/ 1St. Jerome, Dionysius, and Isidore affirm the same.As regards our Lord's words to blessed Peter,there appears great difference among the ancientFathers as to their interpretation, and the weightof opinion is by no means with that given by yourHoliness. Indeed, the great divines of the Roman


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 51Church, the schoolmen, and the canonists do notagree in their exposition. That great and goodPope, Gregory the Great, differs from your Holi-ness and agrees with St. Chrysostom. Here arehis words: "In verafide persistite, et vitam vestramin petra ecclesice, hoc est in conjessione B. PetriApostolorum principis, solidate"* If, then, weare so unfortunate as not to be able to see in thatfamous passage (St. Matt, xvi.) the proof that ourLord has built His Church u on Peter, as a buildingon its foundation/ 1 we derive consolation fromfinding ourselves in agreement with one of thebest and most illustrious of the Popes, the greatGregory.As regards the power of the keys, alleged byyour Holiness as given to St. Peter alone, we cannotfind here either " unanimous consent" on the partof the ancient fathers- . St. Augustine holds thispower to be identical with the power of " bindingand loosing sins/' which was undoubtedly givento all the apostles (John xx.). Whatever itsorigin, St. Jerome, Theophylact, and St. Chrysos-tom (not to name others) affirm that all theapostles received the same power.As regards the commission to "feed" Christ'ssheep, which the encyclical declares was given toPeter alone, there is no " unanimous consent" ofthe fathers upon this interpretation. Thus St.Cyril interprets them as a renewal of the formergrant of apostleship, forfeited by his denial of

* Ep., Lib., Iv. 38, p. 718.


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52 Romanism in the Light of Historythe Lord. And St. Augustine, "When it is saidto Peter, it is said to all, Feed my sheep." In thesame sense teach St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, andSt. Chrysostom. How great and insuperablethen is the difficulty of accepting the proposalfor unity which your Holiness puts forth in thisencyclical! You call upon us to acknowledgethe absolute supremacy of the Roman pontiffover our faith, over our consciences, over ourconduct. Whatever doctrine he may from timeto time declare "is contained in the deposit ofrevelation, it must be believed by every one astrue." Whatever he may disallow must berefused, though all the bishops in the whole worldagree in ordaining it. Whatever may be theaccuracy and orthodoxy of our faiththough weshould hold every doctrine, great and small, fullyand heartily we shall be nevertheless "placedoutside the one fold," unless we submit to theauthority of the Bishop of Rome.

In support of so tremendous a claim, so bound-less an authority, you refer us to Holy Scriptureand to the ancient Fathers. Accordingly, wereverently open the sacred volume, rememberingblessed Peter's solemn caution against "wrestingthe Scriptures " to our "perdition." But we canfind no support, but the contrary, in the volumeof inspiration, for the awful powers and preroga-tives which the Roman pontiffs claim. We arc,therefore, shut up to the dilemma, from which wefind no escape, either to reject these claims, on


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 53pain of the anathema of the Holy See, or to acceptthem, against reason, against Scripture, againsthistory, and on pain of blessed Peter's anathemaupon those who " wrest the Scriptures" to " theirown perdition." Should any of us, however,drawn by desire to be at unity with your Holinessand the great communion, of which you are thehead, incline to take the awful risk of surrenderingour reason and our faith to the dominion of theHoly See, contrary to the plain sense of HolyScripture, we should find ourselves forsworn beforeGod, because, when we should have declared,"Neither will I ever take or interpret the Scrip-tures otherwise than according to the unanimousconsent of the fathers" (creed of Pius IV.), weshould have actually submitted to an interpreta-tion of the Scriptures which has no claim whateverto be supported by the "unanimous consent of thefathers/ 'But if we refuse to place ourselves in such a

position, and choose, rather, to listen to the voiceof Holy Scripture, as we understand it, and as somany of the best and holiest of the fathers haveunderstood it, and so reject the proposals of theencyclical, believing that unity would be toodearly purchased at the cost of the approval ofour own conscience's and the stultification of ourreason, arid the extinguishment of the light ofhistory, we may at least reflect that in so doingwe are at one with that good man, Pope Gregorythe Great. Here are his words, addressed to the


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54 Romanism In the Light of HistoryBishop of Constantinople: "What wilt thou sayto Christ the Head of the Universal Church, inthe trial of the last judgment, who, by the appella-of * Universal 7 (Bishop), dost endeavor to subjectall His members to thee? Whom, I pray, dostthou mean to imitate in so perverse a word, buthim who, despising the legions of angels constitutedin fellowship with him, did endeavor to breakforth unto the top of singularity, that he mightboth be subject to none, and alone be over all?"And again St. Gregory says: "I confidentlysay that whoever doth call himself universalbishop, or desireth to be so called, doth, in hiselation, forerun Antichrist, because he proudlydoth set himself before the rest."We cannot but ask, What would Pope Gregorythe Great have said to the titles now assumed byhis successors, such as "the vicegerent of God,""the vicar of Christ on earth, 11 whose "teachingsshould be received as if they were His own, " andwhom the whole episcopate must be "subjectto" on pain of being considered "a lawless anddisorderly crowd"?

3. Several other difficulties there are whichI have space only to mention without enlargingupon. Why is it that, if this tremendous powerwas by Christ lodged with St, Peter and hissuccessors, it was not so plainly and clearly statedthat there could be no question about His meaningamong honest Christians? Why did not theapostles declare it and expound it, being a doctrine


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 55second to none in importance? Why did not St.Peter himself allude to it in Ms epistles? Why is itnot embodied in the Catholic creeds of the Church?Why is it not explained or alluded to in any of thedecrees of the general Councils of the Church?Why do none of the great doctors and divinesof the Church, in all their extensive and elaboratetreatises on divinity and on the faith of the Church,explain and defend it? Why did not the Popes,if they possessed these sovereign powers, notsummon one of the six general Councils of theChurch? Why did some of those Councils ignorethe wishes of the Pope or decree contrary to them?Why was the papal authority never synodicallydefined until the Lateran Synod in the year 1215?Why was Papal infallibility (a doctrine of suchovershadowing importance) never defined andpromulgated until the Vatican Council of 1870?And why was there so much uncertainty on thesubject prior to that council that a popular con-troversial catechism, approved and sanctioned byBishops and an Archbishop, even taught that itwas " a Protestant invention " to say that Catholicsmust believe the infallibility of the Pope?

4. But even these difficulties are not all.Could they be each one removed out of the way weshould still remain in the greatest perplexity uponseveral points.For example: We should have accepted theRoman pontiff as supreme, sovereign, and infallible,and yet we could not deny that various Popes


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56 Romanism in the Light of Historyhave shown themselves anything but infalliblein matters of faith. History would still testifythat Pope Liberius denied the divinity of Christand anathematized St. Athanasius, the championof orthodoxy; that Pope Honorius was condemnedby a general council as a heretic, and was pro-claimed by Pope Leo II. to be under the sentenceof " eternal condemnation " ; that Popes John XII. ,Benedict IX., Gregory VI., and John XXIII.were deposed by the Church. Our difficulty hereis twofold. First, we cannot reconcile thesehistorical facts with the doctrine of the infallibilityof the Roman pontiff, to whom we are bidden torender obedience as the vicegerent of God and thevicar of Christ. And, second, we ask ourselves,suppose the next Pope should, like Pope Liberius,deny the divinity of our Lord and assure the flockof Christ that the doctrine of Arianism had been"contained in the deposit of divine revelation/'as good Roman Catholics we should be obligedto believe this teaching, but at the same time weshould know it to be contrary to the Holy Scrip-tures and the ancient creeds, and the teachingsof the holy fathers of the primitive church. Wefind an insuperable difficulty in believing twocontradictory propositions, or in comprehendinghow the dogma of infallibility is to be applied inthe numerous cases in which different Popes havecontradicted each other in matters of doctrine.We may be told, indeed, that our difficultyarises from a misapprehension of the dogma of


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 57papal infallibility, and this we will not deny. Butwe find that the great princes and doctors of theChurch, the very Cardinals themselves, do notagree as to its scope and meaning. We observethat those two great Cardinals, Newman andManning, held quite contrary opinions as to theextent and nature of the papal infallibility. ThusCardinal Manning declared that the " syllabus of1864 was part of the supreme and infallible teach-ing of the Church"; but Cardinal Newman wasof opinion that it had "no dogmatic force" andmade "no claim to be acknowledged as the wordof the Pope," If these great leaders and theo-logians held such diametrically opposite opinionson this vital and tremendous doctrine, what hopecan plain and unlearned folk have of ascertainingits true meaning? It seemed no doubt to manya great result and achievement to have at lastsecured absolute certainty of belief by acceptingthe infallibility of the pontiff. But if, after all,they cannot tell when he speaks with infallibility,or how far his teaching is infallible, how are theyprofited? Is not certainty as far off as ever?They may have cried " Eureka" as they graspedat last the dogma of infallibility, but after all itseems they have grasped a shadow. They havebeen like men pursuing the rainbow. The potof gold may indeed lie at the rainbow's foot, butthe rainbow forever retreats and eludes theirgrasp.Deeply regretting that the great cause of


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58 Romanism In the Light of HistoryChristian unity does not seem to be advanced bythe proposals of the encyclical,which are in sub-stance only a summons to surrender at discretion,and praying that the time may come when Romemay use her great power and prestige to drawtogether the divided members of Christendom onsome comprehensive basis of Scripture and an-tiquity, I am, reverend Pontiff, with great respect*yours very truly.


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IVWAS PETER THE ROCK?

IUNDERTAKE in the following pages to es-tablish the correctness of my statements in

the foregoing "Open Letter," and to illustratethem as occasion may require.Let us begin with the great words of Christ,

which are the alleged foundation of the Papacy.It has been asked above, "Should we not ratherinterpret as St. Chrysostom does, and as manyancient Fathers do, On this rock I will build myChurch that is, on the faith of his confession?*'

In justification of this statement, let the follow-ing passages be considered :

St. Chrysostom;1. Si> e? II


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60 Romanism In the Light of History3. Contrasting the more perfect faith of Peterwith that of Nathaniel, he says :'AXV ws tiTrypruTfJifrys &vr$ 3, "But as if his faith had

TTJS 7r


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 61all, what was the view of the golden-mouthedorator of Constantinople upon the Primacy ofPeter?

It is true he calls him "the mouth of theapostles" (fk OTv dbcojToXoav ocopu-


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62 Romanism in the Light of History88 on John, p. 527 B.)> in another place he stylesSt. Paul "the Father of the whole world " (woi^pTYJ


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Encyclical of Leo XIII 63"Thou art Peter, and on this rock which thou hast

confessed on this rock which thou hast known, sayingThou art Christ, the Son of the living God I willbuild my Church upon myself, the Son of the livingGod ; I will build it on Me and not Me on thee. "

It is true that the great Bishop of Hippo wasnot always consistent with himself in his interpre-tation of the passage. He says of himself, writingin his old age: "When I was still a Presbyter,I wrote a book ... in which I said in a certainplace, concerning the apostle Peter, that theChurch is founded on him as a rock. . . . But Iknow that I have afterwards, in very many places,so expounded the Lord's saying, 'Thou art Peterand on this rock I will build my Church/ as tobe understood of Him whom Peter confessed. . . .And so Peter, named from this Rock, wouldtypify the person of the Church which is builtupon this Rock, . . . but of these two meaningslet the reader choose the more probable." Com-menting on this the Bishop of Manchester says:"The last word, then, of St. Augustine is thisthat the Rock meant either Christ or Peter; andhe thinks the matter so unimportant that he leavesit to each reader to select which of the two sensesseems to him the more probable. The Rock isChrist or Peter; Peter's Chair it cannot be. Theinterpretation, if he ever held it, is abandoned." 1

* See Charge of the Ven. Win. M. Sinclair, D.D., Archdeacon ofLondon (1896), p. 39.


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64 Romanism in the Light of HistoryA remarkable testimony was given as to thismuch disputed passage at the Vatican Council

of 1870 by no less a prelate than the RomanCatholic Archbishop of St. Louis, Rt. Rev. Dr.Kenrick, in a speech prepared for, though notdelivered in, the Council, but nevertheless pub-lished to the world. In it he quotes with approvala treatise which he says had been circulated inthe Council, wherein it was shown that there werefive distinct interpretations of St. Matt. xvi. 18given by the Fathers, and draws two conclusions:first, that if we ought to follow the greater numberof the Fathers in the interpretation of this passage,then we are bound to hold it certain that by theRock we ought to understand not Peter but theFaith professed by Peter; and, second, that either noargument at all, or at least no probable argument,can be derived in support of the Primacy of Peterfrom the words, "Upon this Rock will I build myChurch."

I give a part of the Archbishop's speech. It isenough fully to justify my statement that "manyother ancient Fathers inteipret the Rock to meannot Peter but Peter's confession." It will beobserved that this learned writer finds severalof the Fathers advocating now one, now anotherof the five interpretations; also that forty-fourout of eighty-five Fathers examined interpret the 'passage as I have done, among them one of thePopes, Leo the Great, while only seventeen holdthat Peter was

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Romanism in Light of History - McKim, R.H