LIBERALISM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 258, 12 April 1878, Page 5

LIBERALISM.

CabdikAl Dechamps, the Archbishop of Mechlin, in his new work against Liberalism (using tne term as it is understood in continental Europe) regards the Church in the same light as did Dr. Newman, showing forth the rights which the Church has and which ho shows to be prior to those of the State. His Eminence writes :—: — Liberalism, as we have seen, admits in the social order but one supreme power, namely, the power of the State. Well, it is manifestly false to say that the State is the one and supreme power. The social order comprises two other societies "besides the State ; and the State is not supreme over either of these. Man, by his nature and positive destiny, belongs to three societies : the domestic society, the religious society, and the civil society ; in other words, the Family, the Church, and the State. Of these three societies the two last are governed by authorities that are both public and sovereign each in his own sphere. The family is older than the State ; because it is tbc element out of which the State is formed ; and it has received from its aiithor laws with which the State cannot meddle . . Its rights are natural rights and are consecrated by religion, and it has constantly and successfully upheld them against the caprices of the powerful as history abundantly proves. The Church, the religious society in which both. God and man have a share, was also pre-existentto civil society, because it dates its origin from the cresition of man and from the existence of the first human family. The Church's constitution, in all its successive stages, has never depended on man, because that constitution, based not alone on the relations of man with God, but also, and mainly on the relations ofJGod with man, could never depend on aught but God, and by Divine right. Lastly, civil society, and all that is essential to it, exists by natural right; , and in this sense it exists by Divine right also, because God created man to be a social being, and therefore He wills the union of families, and also the authority by which that union is established and guai"anteed.