CARDINAL MANNING ON THE PAPAL ALLOCUTION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 216, 15 June 1877, Page 17

CARDINAL MANNING ON THE PAPAL ALLOCUTION.

At the Pro-Cathedral, Kensington, Cardinal Manning, iv the course of a sermon founded on the text, " I am the resurrection and the life," said— That which is true of individuals is true also of Christ's Church on earth. There is in it a life against which the gates of hell cannot prevail ; there is in it a divine liberty which can never be bound, and a power which, though it may be tern porarily embarrassed and held in check, must in the end prevail. What if the Eastern and the Romish questions rise together ? And what if men have to deal with both at the same time ? True, indeed, it is, men thought the Vicar of Jesus Christ was buried in the "Vatican, deposed from his sovereignty, bound as in the tomb. They little counted on the power of resurrection, and they have little read the history of the last 1,800 years, or they would have known what would happen. It is the law of the Church of Christ, the law, above all, of the Head of the Church, to be bound and to be buried from age to age ; but it is the law also of the Church and of its head always to rise again. The Romish question (continued the Cardinal) was this: — Christ gave to His Church and to the head of the Church, in all things pertaining to His Kingdom, an absolute independence of all civil earthly or temporal power. From the year 800 down to 1870 the Pontiffs had held a true and proper Royalty and Sovereignty in Rome ; as true, as proper, older and more sacred than that sovereignty to which we all bowed with £very fibre of our hearts and every motion of our will — the sovereignty of our most gracious Queen. The Cardinal then described how Rome had been taken possession of, though the use of the Vatican had been allowed to the Pope, and he was invited to go freely through the streets. "Now, suppose some conquering Power by violence established in the ancient Palace of St. James; that it permitted the use of Windsor Castle and Buckingham Close to oar grariousfiovereign ; that it told all the world that the Queen

of England was free, and that she might really come out as before and pass to and fro between the streets of London and the parks and suburbs — that is to say, consecrating, by the presence of Her Majesty, the sovereignty of those who had taken possession of her own. Would Englishmen like that ? No, and Pius IX. knew very well the duties of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. He said, " I will not look on the deed, my eyes shall never sanction it, I will live and die within the threshold of my Palace." Yet there are Englishmen who will write every day to say that these are only the complainings of an old man who chooses to say that he is a prisoner. There are two kinds of imprisonment— there is the imprisonment by iron fetters and the imprisonment of deep moral degradation. Pius IX. is, indeed, not bound by fetters of iron. He is bound round about by a sense of his own dignity and the supernatural office he bears ; and he knows it would be deep moral degradation to put his feet over the threshold of the Palace where he lives so long as another Sovereign claims to rule over the city which the providence of God made his own. After describing the oppressive laws under which the clergy now suffered in Rome, Cardinal Manning concluded as follows : — 1 have no desire to be a prophet of evil. For 13 months we have had all the threatenings of a war in the East. Grod only knows at this moment whether the danger is to burst into flame or to be extinguished. Each nation in Europe is arming to such a point that it must make war or be well-nigh bankrupt. Pius IX., as the Vicar of our Lord, will never strike the staff of war, but whatever war is kindled will involve the whole of Europe, and whatever war involves the whole of Europe will involve Italy and Rome, and then, will come the solution, but not brought about by us. Scorners may scorn, but God setteth up the water-clouds. The world is at this moment under the sway of revolution, which began in 1789, bursting out again in 1793, 1830, and 1848, then extending to Italy and continuing for a long period, ending, as men thought, in 1870, when they believed the Romish question was buried, though, as our Holy Father told them, it was only begun. The world is at this moment under the influence of revolution. On the one side are the powers of anarchy, all united in the wish that Rome should continue as it is. On the other side, are the Christian and the Catholic world and the powers of order who believe in God. Those two arrays are marshalling and approaching nearer to each other. Collision is some day inevitable. All I pray from my heart as a Christian and an Englishman is, that when that day comes England may not suffer.