in contemptuous terms to their presence at the Vatican Council of 1870.13

It thus becomes clear that in the course of centuries the early pastorate of the Bishop of Rome has been converted by the genius of the Latin race into an absolute monarchy, centering in the Pope and reaching out over all the world in a vast chain of local episcopal representatives owing appointment to the Pope, dependent on the Pope for continued existence, and responsible to no one but the Pope. True to the institutional life of the ancient Roman Empire to which the early development of Latin Christianity belonged, the latter has duplicated the Roman Emperor in the Pope, and repeated the vast dependent and subservient provincial system of the Empire in the diocesan system of the Roman Church. Passages from the pen of the historian Gibbon relating to the development of the provincial system of Imperial Rome can be applied almost word for word to the development of the diocesan system of Papal Rome.14 And Lord Bryce,

13 "It is obvious that, if the office of the bishops in Council is to bear testimony to the faith of their respective flocks and to the tradition of their several churches, the numerous bishops made out of Roman Monsignori, who have no jurisdiction and no flock, are a foreign as well as an arbitrary element in the Council." Correspondence, vol. i, p. 107.

14 "The provinces of the empire . . . were destitute of any public force or constitutional freedom. In Etruria, in Greece, and in Gaul, it was the first care of the senate to dissolve those dangerous confederacies which taught mankind that, as the Roman arms prevailed by division, they might be resisted by union. Those princes, whom the ostentation of gratitude or generosity permitted for awhile to hold a precarious sceptre, were dismissed from their thrones as soon as they had performed their appointed task of fashioning to the yoke the vanquished nations. The free states and cities which had embraced the cause of Rome were rewarded with a nominal alliance,

describing the institutional development of Latin Christianity at the time of the fall of the ancient Empire, notes the similitude between the Roman Church and the ancient State whose throne upon the Seven Hills it occupied.15 The Imperial development went on and, referring to the situation at the beginning of the fourteenth century, Dr. Luchaire writes:

"By its exaggerated methods of centralization the papal monarchy had absorbed within itself all the living forces of the religious world and suppressed all the liberties in which the Church of old had lived. The subjection of the secular clergy was complete, while the episcopate retained no shadow of its independence." 16

We would ask: Whence comes the right of the occupant of the Papal chair to sit in Peter's place and and insensibly sunk into real servitude. The public authority was everywhere exercised by the ministers of the senate and of the emperors, and that authority was absolute and without control." E. Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1, pp. 259, 300–303; cf. also vol. ii, p. 272.

15 "In A. D. 476 Rome ceased to be the political capital of the Western countries, and the Papacy, inheriting no small part of the local authority which had belonged to the Emperor's officers, drew to herself the reverence which the name of the city still commanded, until, in the days which followed her emancipation from the control of the Emperors at Constantinople, she had perfected in theory 'a scheme which made her the exact counterpart of the departed despotism, the centre of the hierarchy, absolute mistress of the Christian world." (Bryce, p. 100). "Broadly speaking, the Roman Catholic Church performed for Europe the inestimable service of preserving the organic framework of decaying Roman institutions during the shock of the barbarian conquests until it might again serve as the framework of society after its reorganization. As a part of the service the Church built up within itself a form of government and a body of law modelled on those of Rome." (Davis, Corporations, vol. ii, p. 236).

16 E. B., vol. xx, p. 700 a.

to command this universal monarchy that has thus been built up?

The claim is clearly made in the Constitution Pastor Eternus,17 that a Primacy of Jurisdiction over the universal Church of God was given by Jesus Christ to the Apostle Peter. The Apostle became the first Bishop of the Diocese of Rome, holding, it will be noted, the Bishopric in virtue of his choice by the Christians at Rome, as well as the Primacy by the gift of Jesus Christ. A question has existed as to whether St. Peter by his own act attached the personal Primacy to the Bishopric, to be held in perpetuity by the succeeding bishops; or whether the Apostles knew by Revelation and taught to the early Church a Divine law decreeing the succession of the Bishop of Rome to the Primacy. The latter view is the one most generally held. The significant point is that there are two offices, the Primacy and the Bishopric, united in one person-the Pope.18 These are the supernatural claims of the origin of the Papal power which are denied by a large part of Christendom. We quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

an

"The supreme headship of the Church is . . . nexed to the office of Roman bishop. The pope becomes chief pastor because he is Bishop of Rome: he does not become Bishop of Rome because he has been chosen to be head of the universal Church. Thus, an election to the papacy is, properly speaking, primarily an election to the local bishopric. The right

17 Appendix I, p. 281; cf. chapter IV, supra pp. 58-59; Woywod, vol. i, pp. 85-86 (Canons 218-221).

18 C. E., vol. xii, p. 265 a, b.

to elect their bishop has ever belonged to the members of the Roman Church.19 They possess the prerogative of giving to the universal Church her chief pastor; they do not receive their bishop in virtue of his election by the universal Church.” 20

Thus the right to create the supreme sovereign over the entire Christian world originally resided, in Roman theory, with the members of the Diocese of Rome, and for over a thousand years the office of electing the Popes was exercised by the clergy and the people of that Diocese.21

In 1059 Pope Nicholas II promulgated his famous decree removing the election of the Popes entirely from the people and from the clergy and vesting it in a small group of the clergy selected by the Pope, rectors of important churches in Rome and the vicinage. These were called Cardinals.22 With the exception of the few clergy who, by the creation of the Pope, became Cardinals, neither the clergy nor the laity retained any right in the election of the Pope except, as it is explicitly stated, the somewhat dubious "right of acclaiming" the Cardinals' choice.23

Two questions arise: on what theory and by what

19 The reference is to the original right before it was superseded by Papal decrees. By the term "Roman Church" as here used is obviously meant the Diocese of Rome or the Church in Rome, not the universal Roman Church.

20 C. E., vol. xii, p. 270 c.

21 C. E., vol. xi, p. 55 c.

22 Carlyle, vol. iv, p. 24; C. E., vol. xi, p. 55 c. The word "Cardinal" is derived from the Latin root cardo-a hinge. Cardinal Churches were, in the beginning, simply important churches. C. E., vol. iii, p. 333 c.

23 Ibid., vol. xi, p. 55 d.

authority was the right or privilege of election taken from the clergy and people of the diocese? and by what right were Cardinals created?

The right or privilege of election, we are told, was taken from the clergy at large and from the people upon the theory that " .. it is always for the hierarchy to guide the decisions of the flock"; 24 but the hierarchy is wholly subject to the Pope. The right of election, therefore, was taken from the clergy at large and from the people by the will and fiat of the Pope, and vested in the Cardinals.25 The Popes were to create Cardinals and the Cardinals were to elect the Popes.26 The right of appointment of the Cardinals by the Pope obviously puts the control of the College in his hands. Pope Leo X on one occasion appointed thirty-one Cardinals to the College, thereby effecting its compliance with his policy.27 The Cardinals were, and are, entirely a Papal creation without authorization or analogy in Scripture. The consultative and electoral College which from this time on the Cardinals constituted is equally a Papal creation.28 The decree of

24 C. E., vol. xii, p. 270 d; Woywod, vol. i, pp. 87-88 (Canons 230231).

25 "Should the college of cardinals ever become extinct, the duty of choosing a supreme pastor would fall, not on the bishops assembled in council, but upon the remaining Roman clergy," (C. E., vol. xii, p. 270 c, d) i. e. the clergy belonging to the Diocese of Rome. The people seem to have dropped out of their ancient rights entirely.

26 The election of the Pope is now affected in some details by later decrees, notably by the Constitution of Pope Pius X, Vacante Sede Apostolica, December 25, 1904. See Woywod, vol. i, p. 63 and note 8. The essentials in the premises are unchanged.

27 Vaughan, The Medici Popes, p. 255.

28 The Cardinals may elect as Pope any cleric or layman, his ordination and consecration, one or both, following the election. Since 1378 a Cardinal has always been elected. (C. E., vol. iv, p. 194 a).