The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance.

Introduction.

When I read these words, I at once recognised the right of the English people, speaking by its legitimate authorities, to know from me what I believe and what I teach; but in recognising this right I am compelled to decline to answer before any other tribunal, or to any other interrogator. If, therefore, I take the occasion of any such interrogation, I do not address page 2 myself to those who make it, but to the justice and to the good sense of the Christian people of this country.

Mr. Gladstone followed up this demand upon his Catholic fellow-countrymen by an elaborate argument to prove that it is impossible for Catholics, since the Vatican Council, to be loyal except at the cost of their fidelity to the Council, or faithful to the Council except at the cost of their loyalty to their country. I therefore considered it to be my duty to lose no time in making the subjoined declaration in all our principal journals.

'Sir,—The gravity of the subject on which I address you, affecting, as it must, every Catholic in the British Empire, will, I hope, obtain from your courtesy the publication of this letter.

'This morning I received a copy of a pamphlet, entitled "The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance." I find in it a direct appeal to myself, both for the office I hold and for the writings I have published. I gladly acknowledge the duty that lies upon me for both those reasons. I am bound by the office I bear not to suffer a day to pass without repelling from the Catholics of this country the lightest imputation upon their loyalty; and, for my teaching, I am ready to show that the principles I have ever taught are beyond impeachment upon that score.

'It is true, indeed, that in page 57 of the pamphlet Mr. Gladstone expresses his belief "that many of his Roman Catholic friends and fellow-countrymen are, to say the least of it, as good citizens as himself." But as the whole pamphlet is an elaborate argument to prove that the teaching of the Vatican Council renders it impossible page 3 for them to be so, I cannot accept this grateful acknowledgment, which implies that they are good citizens because they are at variance with the Catholic Church.

'I should be wanting in duty to the Catholics of this country and to myself if I did not give a prompt contradiction to this statement, and if I did not with equal promptness affirm that the loyalty of our civil allegiance is, not in spite of the teaching of the Catholic Church, but because of it.

'The sum of the argument in the pamphlet just published to the world is this:—That by the Vatican Decrees such a change has been made in the relations of Catholics to the civil power of States, that it is no longer possible for them to render the same undivided civil allegiance as it was possible for Catholics to render before the promulgation of those Decrees.

'In answer to this it is for the present sufficient to affirm—

'1.	That the Vatican Decrees have in no jot or tittle changed either the obligations or the conditions of civil allegiance.
'2.	That the civil allegiance of Catholics is as undivided as that of all Christians, and of all men who recognise a Divine or natural moral law.
'3.	That the civil allegiance of no man is unlimited; and therefore the civil allegiance of all men who believe in God, or are governed by conscience, is in that sense divided.
'4.	In this sense, and in no other, can it be said with truth that the civil allegiance of Catholics is divided. The civil allegiance of every Christian man in England is limited by conscience and the law of God; and the civil allegiance of Catholics is limited neither less nor more.

'The public peace of the British Empire has been page 4 consolidated in the last half century by the elimination of religious conflicts and inequalities from our laws. The Empire of Germany might have been equally peaceful and stable if its statesmen had not been tempted in an evil hour to rake up the old fires of religious disunion. The hand of one man, more than any other, threw this torch of discord into the German Empire. The history of Germany will record the name of Dr. Ignatius von Döllinger as the author of this national evil. I lament, not only to read the name, but to trace the arguments of Dr. von Döllinger in the pamphlet before me. May God preserve these kingdoms from the public and private calamities which are visibly impending over Germany. The author of the pamphlet, in his first line, assures us that his "purpose is not polemical but pacific." I am sorry that so good an intention should have so widely erred in the selection of the means.

'But my purpose is neither to criticise nor to controvert. My desire and my duty, as an Englishman, as a Catholic, and as a pastor, is to claim for my flock and for myself a civil allegiance as pure, as true, and as loyal as is rendered by the distinguished author of the pamphlet, or by any subject of the British Empire.

&c. &c.

'November 7, 1874.'

Subsequently, in reply to questions proposed to me, I further wrote as follows:—

Having thus directly contradicted the main error of Mr. Gladstone's argument, I thought it my duty to wait. I was certain that two things would follow: the one, that far better answers than any that I could make would be promptly made; the other, that certain nominal Catholics, who upon other occasions have done the same, would write letters to the newspapers.

Both events have come to pass.

The Bishops of Birmingham, Clifton, and Salford have abundantly pointed out the mistakes into which Mr. Gladstone has fallen on the subject of the Vatican Council; and have fully vindicated the loyalty of Catholics.

The handful of nominal Catholics have done their work; and those who hoped to find or to make a division among Catholics have been disappointed. It is now seen that those who reject the Vatican Council page 7 may be told on our fingers, and the Catholic Church has openly passed sentence on them.

Having made these declarations, I might have remained silent; but as in my first letter I implied that I was prepared to justify what I had asserted, I gave notice that I would do so. Having passed my word, I will keep it; and in keeping it I will endeavour to deserve again the acknowledgment Mr. Gladstone has already made. He says that, whatever comes, so far as I am concerned, it will not be 'without due notice.' I will be equally outspoken now; not because he has challenged it, but because, so far as I know, I have always tried to speak out. In all these years of strife I have never consciously kept back, or explained away, any doctrine of the Catholic Church. I will not begin to do so now, when my time is nearly run. I am afraid that in these pages I shall seem to obtrude myself too often, and too much. If any think so, I would ask them to remember that Mr. Gladstone has laid me under this necessity in these three ways:—

1.	He has made me the representative of the Catholic doctrine since 1870, as Bishop Doyle, he says, was in better days.
2.	He has quoted my writings four times in censure.
3.	He has appealed to me as 'Head of the Papal Church in England;' I may also add page 8 as 'The Oracle.' My words, however, shall not be ambiguous.

The two letters given above contain four assertions.

First, that the Decrees of the Vatican Council have changed nothing in respect to the civil obedience of Catholics.

Secondly, that their civil obedience is neither more nor less divided than that of other men.

Thirdly, that the relations of the Spiritual and Civil Powers have been fixed from time immemorial, and are therefore after the Vatican Council what they were before.

Fourthly, that the contest now waging abroad began in a malevolent and mischievous intrigue to instigate the Civil Powers to oppress and persecute the Catholic Church.

The two first propositions shall be treated in the first chapter, the third in the second chapter, and the last in the third.

I will therefore endeavour to prove the following propositions, which cover all the assertions I have made:—

1.	That the Vatican Decrees have in no jot or tittle changed either the obligations or the conditions of Civil Allegiance.
2.	That the relations of the Catholic Church to the Civil Powers of the world have been immutably fixed from the beginning, inas- page 9 much as they arise out of the Divine Constitution of the Church, and out of the Civil Society of the natural order.
3.	That any collisions now existing have been brought on by changes, not on the part of the Catholic Church, much less of the Vatican Council, but on the part of the Civil Powers, and that by reason of a systematic conspiracy againt the Holy See.
4.	That by these changes and collisions the Civil Powers of Europe are destroying their own stability.
5.	That the motive of the Vatican Council in defining the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff was not any temporal policy, nor was it for any temporal end; but that it defined that truth in the face of all temporal dangers, in order to guard the Divine deposit of Christianity, and to vindicate the divine certainty of faith.