On this page
- Departments (2)
-
Text (5)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
THE GRAND ARMY AT MASS.
-
THE POPE AND HIS TEMPORALITIES.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
A N order has been issued , it is said , by the Minister for War , forbidding soldiers in garrison at Paris or * any other town in France from attending worship in parochial' or conventual churches ; arid intimating that , for the future , provision would everywhere be made within barracks for the regular celebration of mass . The compliment paid to religion hardly ^ disguises the distrust entertained of the priesthood . The courtly . confessor of Louis XV . having shrived the dying debauchee , told / the edified companions of his pleasures / that the King had made the « amende honorable" to Goi > . Louis NAPOLEON /* ' sires , perhaps , to mitigate the wrath of the Church which he has his Bourbon
certainly provoked by his policy , as jnuch as predecessor offended Heaven by his contempt of private morals . What the languid penitence of the Royal sinner may have availed , we know not ; but it is certain that the Imperial offender will be credited in account with no indulgence by the Church , for his delicate attention to the spiritual wants of his Guards and Zouaves . Such attention , as Dr . Johnson would have said , " had it been earlier had been kind ;" . but it has been delayed until a moment when its motive can hardly be ascribed , even by the most charitable , to the devotional instincts of the Government ; especially when it is accompanied with an inhibition which reads like a bitter sarcasm embodied in an
larly gifted man who out of nothing created for himself an empire , will prompt him to do wondrous battle in its-defence ^ and , so long as he can rely upon the absolute . fidelity of the army , it is not easy to see how ' his power can be seriously shaken . For this purpose , howevery it is evidently essential-that French soldiers should hear no more than their prayers when they go to mass . The Chasseurs de Vincennes and Voltigeurs of the Line will not be supposed to be very susceptible of theocratical impressions ; but if we are told that " a word spoken in due season , how good is it ' . "—the converse may be , and probably is , matter of uncomfortable conjecture just now in the Imperial mind . Better , at all events , to beon the safe side , and to make sure that no sacerdotal finger is allowed to play with arms of precis sion . Very awkward things these arins of precision when you are not quite sure about the triggers ; and very wonderful to think what a difference an almost imperceptible obliquity of aim may make in the future fate of empires !
order of the day . , ; The truth is the Emperor feels he can no longer afford to trifle with the subversive disloyalty of the clergy for whom he has done so much , but who are bent upon showing the world how fathomless is ecclesiastical ingratitude . There is not a cathedral or important parish church in France , which has not been restored or beautified at the cost of the State during the last ten years ; there , are few prominent wprks of ecclesiastical importance , that have not hod the benefit Of Imperial help ; and there are scores if not hundreds ofIhe parochial clergy whose personal position has been raised from indigence to comfort by the munificence of the Eldest Son of the Church . But all is now forgotten in the
rage and resentment he has kindled by his recent advice to the Pope to relinquish the worldly cares of sovereignty , and to be content with a guaranteed security for the possession in peace of the city of Eome . Spoliation and sacrilege are how the only vices with whose denunciation French pulpits resound . The doctr ines of passive obedience , lately preached in their most " Ultramontane sense , are inculcated no more . The powers that be are still said to be ordained of God ; but as the highest of these powers is the enthroned successor of St . Peter , all resist-¦? - - „ ' * ' , " - ' >" " w « w ™ vn # » p < i to he ai once anarchic and accursed—^ and all is tittered ' in italics .
And the lengths to which episcopal and pastoral denunciation has gone during the last fortnight , qah hardly be believed by those who have no other means of information but such as are afforded in the public press . Seditious libel , outlawed wherever the civil jurisdiction extends , claims the privilege of sanctuary , and at the foot of the altar believes itself secure from molestation . The stern hand that struck down democracy , and stifled the voice of political discussion in the press , the salon , and the tribune , hesitates , as yet , to smite its surpliced adversary . But all that takes place beneath the sacred roof is daily reported by
the emissaries of the police j and the Government cannot disregard its tendency . At a convent chapel , near Paris , a few days ago , a sermon was preached , by a well-known abbd , oh the life and death of St . Peter ; the character of his Imperial p ersecutor was depicted , in significant terms , and the moralof the discourse was pointed in the pregnant words , * ' Remember what was the fate qf Nj 3 ito ! " No wonder Napoleon III ., whose flatterers have been so fond , of comparing him to Augustus , should think it as well thufc his troops hear nothing about the Cesaus who came to an untimely end . He well knows that though the votes of seven millions are said to have given him the crown , it is the
arms of half-a-million soldiers that must preserve for him the sceptre . ' The elements of a vast conspiracy against the- restored dynasty arc , indeed , now mingling , for the first time , in France . Doctrirmmrcs and Jesuits , devotees of legitimacy and fanatical republicans , priests and protectionists—are seeking shelter an < j [ support from one another , and whispering vows of mutual help and common hostility . The clerical organisation , even without the aid of the monastic ordeirs , furnishes facilities for widespread combination that the enemies of the Empire have never had before ? and it is worth the while oftho . se who have the nreservt ^ tion of groat monopolies to defend , to invest largely in the plot . We do notinean to say that disaffection has been or will be able suddenly to improvise counter-revolutionary designs in any practical shape ; but we have had abundant proof of the rapidity with which disftft ' qetjon coinos to maturity on the other side of the channel . We doubt not that the ' intrepidity and self-rcHt \ nco of the singa-
Untitled Article
F EW subjects in Our own age open a field for more interesting and instructive retrospect than the Papacy ; none , perhaps , is more suggestive and confirmatory of the progress made by civilization and the true principles of liberty of thought and intellect during the last thousand years . It would scarcely be possible to conceive a stronger contrast than between the vigorous thunders launched forth by the powerful pontiffs of former days , and the weakling remonstrances , the maudlin plaints and peevish recriminations uttered by him who can scarce keep his seat on the chair of St . Peter . Nor can the change be
accounted for by the different dispositions and natural temperament of the Popes themselves . Times ; institutions , and men are changed , since a Pontiff could excommiinicate Robert * King of France , our own contemptible John * or the daring and independent Henry Vlil . Formerly , whether a Pope was enjoying high and mighty state in Eome , or was an exile from his own land and virtually a prisoner in another , his authority was equallyowned , his spiritual prerogatives held- to be equally unquestionable and valid . How is it that poor Pius IX ., distraught as he is with perplexities and difficulties , and irritated by unwelcomeinterference , does not protest by means of ban and interdict , as
his predecessors would have done ? It is said that an encyclical letter or bull is to be issued in a few days , hurling curses and anathemas against all and sundry of his political enemies and opponents , Why is such an announcement received with , incredulity and derision ? What is it which withholds the Papal See from excommunicating the Emperor of the French , whom the Pope accuses of plotting to rob him of his territory ? It is simply that the spirit of the age is changed . The Minister for Public Instruction , in addressing the pupils of the Polytechnic and Philotechnic Associations at Paris the other day , made use of a few words which well characterize the
difference between the blind devotion formerly shown to the Catholic Church , and the independent action which Catholics . are now disposed to exercise as their right : —> " We will nowhere be promoters of anarchy and impiety . We fear God and keep the faith of our fathers . We are Catholics , and never under any government has religion been surrounded with more respect and protection . " France , in common with the civilized world ,, though grown more moral , has given up its superstitious reverence for Kome . While turbulence and inclination to resist authority
r ighteously exercised are rapidly disappearing , men are becoming more independent every day , and more tenacious of their inherent right to think for themselves . Nations have learned that when a country is prosperous , and governed by rulers who employ means well adapted to the conservation of the principles and institutions morally and physically congruous with the nature and peculiarities of its inhabitants and their traditions , it cannot do better than retain thorn , and should be slow to accept any substitute palmed upon it by the Vatican . A laugh of derisioa would probably be the greatest effect produced either in Catholic or Protestant countries , should Pius IX . bethink himself of
making use of the almost forgotten weapon of excommunication-Rumours of its employment in the case of Piedmont were afloat a short time ago , and ' it was deolared that the papal threat was met by the counter throat that the king and his subjects would turn Protestants if the project were carried into execution . 3 Swn such a rumour is an important sign of the times , as marking the , liberation of individuals and nations ! from the spiritual and intellectual thraldom in which they were formerly hold . Probably there ne , vcr was an ago in the history of the Church when the Papacy was in so low . a condition as that in which w . o now soe it . It scarcely boasts u literary or political adherent who can bo considered to stand one grade above medioority , This way bo looked upon as a homage to the superior honesty and sinoonty oC
Untitled Article
g 2 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ Jan . 28 , 186 a .
The Grand Army At Mass.
TTTtt fiEAND ARMY AT MASS .
The Pope And His Temporalities.
THE POPE AND HIS TEMPORALITIES .
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 28, 1860, page 82, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2331/page/6/
-