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Show 4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4 4 4 4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4- t 444444444 444444444 Park City, Oct. 27, 1S99. Editor Intermountain Catholic: Will you please answer the following in your query column: First, when did the Pope acquire temporal power? By whom was it conferred? Third, did its use lead to abuses? FELIX. ! The questi vns asked by Felix are! somewhat misleading, yet not far from the opinion generally held by many on the question of the Pope's temporal power. Before answering a pezzi it may be well to state that Rome, being the seat of the Papacy, was, during the first four centuries, partial to the Roman Ro-man order of civilization. After the conversion of the Germanic nations, it i very soon yielded to German influence, I and became, to a great extent, German. When the Papacy was attacked by the I Arian Lombards, the Pope appealed to the Franks, who, under Pepin, and afterwards his son, Charles the Great, juiig oi ine r ranK3 ana Lomoaras, espoused es-poused his cause, defeating the Lombards Lom-bards and giving to the Holy See the city and duchy of Rome, which was a portion, of their conquest, and in which the Holy Father exercised . temporal i power. First question: In 762 the Pope's "temporal "tem-poral power, confined to Rome and the i adjacent country, was recognized by Pepin. That temporal power of which we read and hear so much had naught to do with temporal affairs in other parts of Europe. Cardinal Manning, one of the greatest writers of modern times, wrote that "in fall things purely temporal, and which lie outside of the church, it neither claims nor has jurisdiction." juris-diction." In the year 1,200 Pope Innocent Inno-cent HI, when appealed to by the kings of England and France, wrote to Philip Augustus: "I judge not the fief, but the sin." His claim to temporal power in Rome wa3 supported in the past by some of the ablest statesmen who differed dif-fered from him in faith. Castlereagh, Peel, Russell and Thiers actively interposed inter-posed to secure his political independence independ-ence when threatened with the changes on the chess board of European politics. poli-tics. - tttt"-ttttttT'T'ttt'T'T'Tt The second query Is answered i the first. . Third: In the middle ages, when the public law of Europe invented them with the power to arbitrate, they accomplished ac-complished more than all the peace conferences con-ferences of modern times. The nature of the case would naturally presuppose that, for the Pope, as the representative representa-tive of the spiritual order, impartial and not swayed by national or political prejudices, would and always did arbitrate ar-bitrate according to the laws of justice and conscience, and -his decisions, not founded on mere policy, would carry more Aveight than that of sovereigns, who could not bind the conscience, and from whose decision- an appeal might be taken to be settled only by the bayonet. bay-onet. The power of moderatorship as formerly used was exercised so benignly benign-ly and leniently that it gave rise to the proverb: "Better live under the shadow of a. monastery, than in a fortified castle." |