PAPAL NEUTRALITY

Evening Star, Issue 16991, 13 March 1919, Page 2

PAPAL NEUTRALITY

ATTACKED AND DEFENDED

Tho visit that President Wilson paid to the Pope produced diversified opinions in the United States. Thus the ‘Living Church,’ the leading Episcopal organ at Milwaukee, declared that it was the outcome of the “ pressure ” brought to bear on the President, “to use his influence with the Allies to secure Papal representation at the Peace Conference.” and it called to mind tho secret correspondence published by the Russian revolutionists a year or more ago, wherein it was shown that the Allies had agreed that no such representation would be allowed. It contended that the cause of Italian liberty would be seriously jeopardised if such representation were permitted. In support of its view it wrote : It is quite possible that the facts may never be precisely known; but the impression that the Kaiser promised the restoration of the temporal power of the Pope in the event of Ins victory seems to rest on a very strong probability. . . . It is no doubt true that pertain evidence of this ,ia in the possession of' the Allies. It may easily have been so insidious an understanding that tho actual evidence does not exist; but the Allies are at least justified in taking tlm ground that, once apd for ever, the temporal power of the Pope is ended, and will never again be established. American opinion may well insist upon this, and the American Press lay st.css upon it. It is not a matter of 'religions prejudice ; it is not a matter of i.ntrien liness to a great, world-wide religious communion; it is rather a firm, unalterable determination that admits of* no compromise. Rome never again shall—never again can-—rescue a temporal power over particular States nor a temporal power over sovereign nations. And the sooner it is realised by the Pope and his associates —we believe it is already recognised approvingly by the vast majority of Roman Catholics in the United State's —the sooner will the Pope be freed from the imaginary imprisonment of his body and the real and vital imprisonment o*{ his soul.

The Pope’s attitude towards the various belligerents was one subjected to more or less better criticism in many countries along the same lino; so much'so, in fact, that one of his spokesmen has thought it necessary to review the question, and pleads for a proper understanding, in order that the ends of religion may be served, ilonsignor Fay, who is a domestic prelate to the Pope and'chaplain to Cardinal Gibbons, protests against “ the baseless attacks and unwarranted assumptions concerning the purposes of the Catholic Church.” To l an interviewer he declared that he is “ unable to understand why the impression prevails that the Pope has said nothing on moral questions, or that the Papacy has been dumlyn the face of German atrocities. It isGa matter of history that on several occasions His Holiness has spoken with no uncertain sound : He protested against the rape of Belgium, against the breaking of treaties, against the use of the submarine, against bombing of unarmed towns, and against the deportation of the Belgian population. It is true that these things were done by diplomatic Notes, except with regard to Belgium, when the Holy .Father made his statements in open Consistory ; but these Notes are the only way the Holy Father can express himself. ... It must always be remembered that when the Pope speaks he does not express a personal opinion, or an exalted official opinion, but he speaks as the head of the only international religious body in the world, and he speaks to be_obeyed. He must, therefore, bo more careful than the heads of other religions, who do not have the same authority over their followers that he docs. If he had threatened Germany he would have been absolving German Catholics from allegiance to their sovereign. The Holy See has not used this authority since the sixteenth century, and it is the general opinion of Catholic theologians that it is not inherent in his place as pastor, and the Catholics of the English-speaking world obtain exemption from papal laws by professing that the Pope has no such power. It would have been horribly dishonest if the Pope had used the circumstances of this war to claim this power again. It could have been said, and not without justice, that the Pope had used the position of the Allies to claim an advantage which he could not have gained in normal times. It would have put German Catholics in the position of declaring that he was using the same circumstances to embroil them with their Governments and make their lives impossible. The Church is supremo in her own domain, and the State is supreme in its own domain, and therefore the Pope must be most cautious in expressing views when those views have political complexion. He used his most efficacious means of protesting against Germany’s actions, without imperilling the relations of any Catholic to any Govern- ‘ ment, whatever it might be. And. indeed, as tho Gorman newspapers have not failed to point out, his condemnations have fallen on them, and not on the Allies. Even in the first da vs of the war, when the triumph of Russia, as then constituted, would have meant the destruction of the Catholics of Eastern rites united to the Holy See, only once did he speak, and then directly to the Russian Government, about the ev ; !e and imprisonment of the Archbishop of Lemberg, and tho attempt to destroy the Catholics of Ruthenia by placing over ! them a bishop out of communion with Rome. This was pot a condemnation of the Allies, but simply a condemnation of the Government of Russia. Catholics do not distinguish between the Papacy and the Catholic religion, although in past times they have often distinguished between a reigning Pope and the Papacy. The Papacy is a necessary and constituent part "of our religion.