BOOKS.
ROME AND THE PAPACY.* PROTESTANTS, and more especially English Protestants, seem often at sonic loss to comprehend wherein the extreme difficulty of this Roman question lies. They comprehend the necessity to Roman Catholics of a Pope. They see clearly that the destruction of the Papacy would destroy, if not the Roman Catholic faith, at least the .polity designed to render that faith permanently executive upon earth. They perceive that the distinctive feature of Catho- licism, the belief in the existence of an inspired and visible expo- sitor of the faith, is bound up inseparably with the maintenance of an authority incapable at once of error, and divided counsel. The better informed among them allow that the Popedom, on the Catholic theory, must be independent ; that for a Pope, for example, to be liable to arrest for debt, or citation before a criminal tribunal, would, on that theory, be an impious absurdity. But they often fail to perceive why the cause of the Papacy should be bound up with the cause of Rome, why Catholic liberals should hesitate to settle the " Roman question" by force, why suggestions to re- move the Pontificate to Jerusalem or dajorca should excite such horrified scorn among Ultramontanes. It is of no use to be striking always at an adversary's cloak. The Missionary, who rails at Hindoo idols, and does not answer the argument that as God is everywhere he must be in the idol too, will never convince Brahmins, and it is the Brahmins who ultimately sway the mass. Let us examine, then, as fairly as is possible for men permanently at variance with Rome, the real ground occupied by the party whom Europe has agreed to call the Ultramontanes. The task is the easier, because a writer whose profession is a guarantee of his orthodoxy, if not of his brains, has recently endeavoured to make this ground clear to that stiff- necked congregation, the. English Catholics. The Reverend G. Montgomery, it is true, is afflicted with the diarrhoea of words, which affects most priests when they write upon polemics, quotes French theologians as if their verdict were necessarily final, and the fathers as if they were inspired ; but his meaning is still suffi- ciently visible through the haze of words, and his argument is briefly this. The foundation alike of the Catholic faith and the Papal authority, is the primacy granted by St. Peter to the Bishop of Rome. That primacy was not granted to an individual, not transmissible to any priest, but confined strictly to the Bishop of Rome. But if, as Roman Catholics hold, it is not lawful to de- stroy that primacy, it is equally unlawful to translate it to a new see. The grant of semi-divine power cannot have been made accidentally, cannot have been attended with temporary, or acci- dental, or unimportant circumstances. The same power which created a primacy, assigned to that primacy its see. The one was as divinely chosen as the other. To suppose that Rome was selected simply because she was then Queen of Earth, is to suppose that the Apostle or the Master who inspired him, did not foresee the day when the secular dominion should reach its term. To assert, therefore, that the Papacy can be transferred to Jerusalem, is to set aside the idea of a divine selection of the Bishop of Rome for supremacy over alt other Bishops, and with it the whole foundation of the Papal authority. The Pope is the viceregent of Christ, not because he is a bishop, or because he is first among bishops, but because he is Bishop of Rome, ordained to the epis- copate in which the Apostle vested for ever that mysterious authority. The primacy does not belong to a Bishop of Jerusalem, or a priestly King of Majorca, or to any other priest or sovereign, save only to the Bishop of Rome. The idea of translation is, therefore, heretical, inasmuch as it strikes away the very founda- tion of the papal power.
The answer of Protestants to all this is sieiple. St. Peter never gave any authority of the kind either'to the Bishop of Rome or anybody else ; it is very doubtful if the Apostle ever dreamed of an Episcopate stretching over more than one congregation, and quite certain that he regarded Jerusalem as, if any thing, more sanctified than Rome. But the premises once granted, it is im- possible to deny that the Ultramontanes are logically consistent, that the Romans are irreligions in wishing the Pope at Jerusalem, or Jericho, or anywhere out of their way, and that as the Pope must be independent, and must be in Rome, they ought to sacrifice themselves contentedly to theological necessities. Is there, then, no alternative for the Italian Catholics, no via media between irreligion and slavery? We, as Protestants, fear not ; but Mr. Montgomery is, unintentionally, far more hopeful. He offers a suggestion for which his ecclesiastical superiors will scarcely owe him gratitude. He repeats over and over again that, while the Pope must be Bishop of Rome, his residence in Rome is not essential to his Pontificate. He could, indeed, hardly avoid that admission, unless he taxed all the Pontiffs who dwelt at Avignon with illegal exercise of their prover. The Romans would, we are assured, accept that theory with the utmost glee. The Pope, once out of Italy, might be Bishop, or Grand Llama of Rome for aught they would care. Even his full Episcopal Powers would be willingly conceded. The people would be content to see all ecclesiastical patronage in his gift, or even to do without ecclesiastics for a few centuries, if that were the con- dition of their freedom. But we fear the Ultramontanes will scarcely concur with Mr. G. Montgomery. They will rather believe that the residence of the Popes at Avignon was an evil to
• Rome and the Papacy : a Pamphlet. By the Reverend G. Montgomery. Pub- i,hed by Simpkin, Marshall, and Ca,
be palliated only by the perfectly just argument, that they were retained there by the constraint of unjust men.
We are perfectly aware that this Ultramontane theory of the Roman supremacy is not the belief of millions of moderate Roman Catholics. They hold that the Vicegerency rests with the Church universal, whose will and inspiration are only interpreted by the Papacy. In this view, the existence of the Pope is essential, but his authority is as little affected by circumstances of place as the dogmas of the Church itself. But it is not, unfortunately, the moderate Catholics who resist the unity of Italy. It is that vio- lent, or rather we should say, extreme section which, numbering all Catholic ecclesiastics and half the Catholic princes of the world in its ranks, calls upon the faithful to contend to the death against the severance of the Primacy of Christendom from the See of Rome.
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