CHAPTER XVII.

Papal Prerogatives.

THE chief prerogatives of the Pontiff may be gathered from the facts and documents which have been submitted to the reader: belonging to the first six ages of the Church, and consequently not open to the objection of those who complain, that by means of the false decretals of Isidore, which first appeared in the ninth century, the papal power was immeasurably enlarged. I have purposely avoided all reference to this compilation, in order to furnish no pretext for questioning the authorities on which I rely, or the extent of prerogative which I vindicate. Although the materials out of which the decretals were constructed are of far greater antiquity, being for the most part taken from ancient decrees of the Popes, or of Councils, or from the Cæsarean laws, or the writings of the fathers, I willingly forego all advantage to be derived from them, and confine myself to documents unquestionably authentic. Some have rashly charged the Popes with originating this imposture, with a view to the enlargement of their prerogatives: but the learned trace its origin to Mentz in Germany, and allow that the extension of papal power was not the primary object of the compiler. "It was not in fact," says Guizot, "compiled for the exclusive interest of the Popedom. It appears rather, on the whole, according to the primitive intention, more especially destined to serve the bishops against the metropolitans and temporal sovereigns." The imposture consisted in giving the decrees an undue antiquity, and false inscriptions, by ascribing them to the Popes of the first three ages. The success of the fraud is accounted for by the fact, that the actual discipline was the basis of the arrangement, so that scarcely any innovation was introduced abhorrent to general usage. Had they been brought forward to sanction novel and exorbitant pretensions, their authenticity would scarcely have escaped question, even in a less enlightened age. It is absurd to trace the prerogatives of the Holy See to these false decretals, whilst unquestionable documents of far higher antiquity plainly establish them.†

*Cours d'Histoire Moderne, t. iii. p. 84.

† Hallam, after Schmidt, remarks that St. Boniface in his synod held at Frankfort, in 742, anticipated the system of Isidore.-Middle Ages, ch. vii.

The primacy extends to the entire world, since the commission given to the apostles is to teach all nations, and preach the Gospel to every creature but none are subject to it who have not by baptism entered within the pale of the Church. It is called by St. Chrysostom "the presidency of the universal Church,"* which, he observes, Christ committed to Peter, after his fall. In virtue of his office, the Pontiff teaches with authority, and directs his teaching to all the children of the Church, wherever they may be found, pastors and people: he pronounces judgment on all, whose faith is suspected, to whatever rank they belong; he condemns heresy, wherever it may have originated, or by whomsoever it may be supported: he calls on his colleagues, the bishops, to concur in the condemnation: he assembles them in Council, to investigate and judge with him the controversies that are raised, or to concur by their harmonious judgment and action in rooting out condemned errors: he confirms and promulgates their definitions of faith, and incessantly guards the sacred deposit of divine doctrine. All these acts have been

performed in all ages of the Church by the Bishop of Rome, as successor of St. Peter: and have been universally acknowledged to be the prerogatives and duties of his office. St. Leo, after expatiating on the divine strength imparted to Peter and his successors for the discharge of these functions, observes that it "is assailed with impious presumption by whosoever attempts to infringe on his power, following passion, and abandoning the tradition of the ancients."+

It is the undoubted right of the Pope to pronounce judgment on controversies of faith. All doctrinal definitions already made by General Councils, or by former Pontiffs, are landmarks which no man can remove; but as the human mind may assail revelation in endless varieties of form, there must be always in the Church an authority by which error, under every new aspect, may be effectually condemned. Nothing can be added to the faith originally delivered to the saints; but points contained in the deposit of revelation, may be expressly declared and defined, when the obscurity which may have existed as to the fact of their revelation has been dissipated. The assembling of a General Council is always attended with immense difficulty, and is oftentimes utterly impracticable. The chief Bishop is "the natural organ of the Church," as Peter is styled by St. Chrysostom "the mouth of the apostles." In pronouncing judg ment, he does not give expression to a private opinion, or follow his own conjectures; but he takes for his rule the public and general faith, and tradition of the Church, as gathered from Scripture, the fathers, the liturgies, and other documents; imploring the guidance of the Divine

* Tny inioracíav rns dikovμevikñs ikkλnoías ivexɛípioɛ. Ad. pop. Antioch. hom. v., de pœnit. Ep. x., ad episc. per prov. Vien.

Thoughts and Sights in Foreign Churches, by Frederick W. Faber. This estimable writer has since passed to the Catholic communion.

Spirit, and using all human means for ascertaining the fact of revelation. It has been warmly disputed whether a solemn judgment thus pronounced, wherein a doctrine is proposed to the Church generally as necessary to be believed, under pain of anathema, or an error is proscribed as opposed to faith, with the same sanction, may possibly be erroneous. The personal fallibility of the Pope in his private capacity, writing or speaking, is freely conceded by the most ardent advocates of papal prerogatives. His official infallibility, ex cathedra, in the circumstances just specified, is strongly affirmed by St. Alphonsus de Liguori, and a host of divines, in accordance, as I believe, with ancient tradition, although the assembly of the French clergy in 1682 contended that his judgment may admit of amendment,* as long as it is not sustained by the assent and adhesion of the great body of bishops. Practically, there is no room for difficulty, since all solemn judgments hitherto pronounced by the Pontiff have received the assent of his colleagues. The Pontiff never has been isolated from his brethren: the harmony of faith being always exhibited in the teaching of the episcopal body, united with their head. The authority of the Pope in matters of faith appeared most conspicuously in the fourth and fifth centuries. The decrees of Damasus, and Innocent, and the doctrinal letters of Celestine and Leo, were hailed by the bishops, severally, and in solemn Councils, as the correct expositions of the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation. For the maintenance of this faith the Pontiffs sent legates to the Eastern emperors and Councils, urging it above all other things. Their indefatigable industry, their untiring solicitude, their disregard of every selfish consideration, when the integrity of faith was in question, are marked on every page of history. Faith evidently is the vital principle of papal authority.

The plenitude of pontifical power in all that appertains to the government of the universal Church, is affirmed in the Florentine decree. It is certain that this power must be used for edification, not for destruction: for the interests of faith and piety; for the maintenance of order and unity; in a word, for the good of the Church. It is a government of justice, order, and law, to be conducted, not arbitrarily and capriciously, but according to established canons, or rules. It admits, however, of exceptions and dispensations, since the rigorous enforcement of uniformity, in a government embracing so many different nations, would render it intolerable. Whilst, then, the papal authority should be exercised in conformity with the canons or laws of general Councils and preceding Pontiffs, unless the altered condition of things require a change of legis

Bouvier denies that the declaration was meant to affirm that the judgment of the Pope was fallible, since to avoid this assertion, Bossuet insisted on the use of the term “irreformabile.”—Tract, de Vera Eccl., p. 111, ? ii. sect. iv. punct. ii. n. 4. It is probable that he took the assent of the bishops as the test to distinguish a solemn judgment ex cathedra from a less formal decision.

lation, a dispensing power must exist, and be exercised by the Supreme Executive. Individuals, for a just reason, may be freed from the observance of a general law, at the discretion of the Pontiff. The ancient usages of local churches are to be respected, and their established order is to be maintained; but if the higher interests of the universal Church require the suppression of a local usage, or if the existence of the local Church be in jeopardy, unless the order be changed, there is room for the exercise of pontifical supremacy. The French hierarchy had flourished from the days of St. Remigius down to the execution of the sixteenth Louis, when the fury of the revolutionists immolated several of the venerable prelates, and drove the remainder into banishment. The temples of religion were profaned, and the Christian worship proscribed. Amidst the anarchy there arose a daring soldier, who, in the name of liberty, grasped an iron sceptre, and offered to become the protector of religion, on condition that the exiled prelates should renounce their rights, and the Church of France should be re-organized conformably to the new civil divisions of territory. Pius VII. called on the bishops to make the sacrifice of their undoubted rights and just attachments, and using the plenitude of his authority, stripped those who hesitated of all claims to their sees, and gave to France a new ecclesiastical organization.* The extreme necessity of the case justified, in the eyes of the Church at large, this unprecedented act of pontifical supremacy.

It is difficult to assign precise limits to a power which must be adapted to the exigencies of the Church in an endless variety of circumstances. It cannot, however, command any thing immoral. The hackneyed misrepresentation of the hypothetical argument of Bellarmine deserves to be noticed only to guard the unsuspecting against gross deception. This eminent controvertist, maintaining the official infallibility of the Pope, extends it to decrees regarding morals, since an error in moral principle would imply an error in faith itself, and expose the Church at large, in obeying her head, to a practical absurdity and defilement. It is agreed by moralists, that in matters which are doubtful, the presumption is in favor of the superior, and obedience is consequently due, when what is ordered is not manifestly wrong. Taking this moral principle as the basis of his reasoning, Bellarmine constructs on it an hypothetical argument in favor of pontifical infallibility in moral matters; imitating mathematicians, who, from the absurdity of a consequence, infer the falsehood of an hypothesis, and thereby establish the truth of the opposite principle. "I prove," says he, "that the Pope cannot err in morals intrinsically good or evil, for the Church could not, in that case, be truly called holy; -and besides, she would then necessarily err in faith: for Catholic faith teaches that all virtue is good, all vice is evil: but if the Pope should err

* See Bulls Ecclesia Christi, 15 Aug., 1801, and Qui Christi Domini, 29 Nov., 1801.

in commanding vice, or forbidding virtue, the Church would be bound to believe vice to be good, virtue to be evil, unless she chose to sin against conscience for in doubtful matters the Church is bound to acquiesce in the judgment of the sovereign Pontiff, and to do what he orders, and to avoid what he forbids; and in order not to act against conscience, she is bound to believe that to be good which he orders, that to be evil which he forbids."* All may not acquiesce in the correctness of this reasoning; but no one can seriously pretend that Bellarmine makes the belief of the Church as to what is virtue or vice dependent on the caprice of the Pontiff. It is remarkable that no decree ever issued from the papal chair sanctioning any immoral principle: whilst on the contrary, the rash propositions in moral matters which were hazarded by some divines, were sifted by the Popes with nice discrimination, and condemned, whether they favored relaxation of morals, or affected a severity not compatible with the mild maxims of the Gospel. It was not the learning or the wisdom of the individual Pontiffs that enabled them to steer the vessel of the Church through rocks and shoals, on which the wisest and most learned men had made shipwreck it was the overruling providence of God which directed their judgment. Even Voltaire acknowledges, in reference to their anathemas against duellists, that their decrees were always wise, and always advantageous to the Christian world, wherever their personal interests were not in question; which are certainly not connected with decisions on abstract principles of morality. The Pope may enjoin, in matters ecclesiastical, what he judges to be expedient for the maintenance of order, the extirpation of vice, and the promotion of piety. His power is chiefly employed in maintaining the general laws already established, regulating the mutual relations of the clergy, and mitigating the strictness of disciplinary observance, whensoever local or individual causes demand it. He only addresses conscience: his laws and censures are only powerful inasmuch as they are acknowledged to be passed under a divine sanction. No armies, or civil officers, are em

....

* "Quod autem non possit pontifex errare in moribus per se bonis vel malis, probatur. Nam tunc ecclesia non posset vere dici sancta. . . . . Secundo, quia tunc necessario erraret etiam circa fidem. Nam fides Catholica docet omnem virtutem esse bonam, omne vitium esse malum: si autem papa erraret præcipiendo vitia, vel prohibendo virtutes; teneretur ecclesia credere vitia esse bona et virtutes malas, nisi vellet contra conscientam peccare. Tenetur enim in rebus dubiis ecclesia acquiescere judicio summi pontificis, et facere quod ille præcipit, non facere quod ille prohibet: ac ne forte contra conscientiam agat, tenetur credere bonum esse quod ille præcipit: malum quod ille prohibet."-De Romano Pontifice, 1. iv. c. v.

"Les decrets des papes, toujours sages, et de plus toujours utiles à la chretienté, dans ce qui ne concernait pas leurs interets personnels, anathématisaient ces combats."-Essai sur l'Histoire Générale, t. iii. ch. cxvii.

15