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Show . . j I THE FML SYLlS : ! t ' . : l With a Refutation of the Errors Which It Condemns ' " -f Translated from the Italian of L'Falconi. Twenty-fourth Error "The church has not the right to employ force, nor does she possess any temporal authority, author-ity, either direct or indirect." REFUTATION. The church founded by Christ in virtue vir-tue of the power given Him by His Father in Heaven, was constituted a perfect society and provided with all the means necessary for its defence, preservation and continued well-being. Hence the power to make 'and sanction sanc-tion laws; to judge and punish the guilty. In the earliest days of the church we see the Apostles taking into consideration the 'question as to the necessity of observing the Mosaic law, discussing it. and then making decrees and promulgating them to the new Christians, "visum est Spiritui Sancto et nobis." We see St. Paul instructing Timotny, Bishop of Ephesus, and Titus Bishop of Crete, prescribing to them the manner in which they should behave be-have towards the clergy and the laity v.nder their charge, and commanding them not to admit to the dignity of the Episcopacy from the church at Alex- I andria. Philetus and Hymeneus. who had made shipwreck concerning the faith, delivering the incestuous man of Corinth to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved; and in his second epistle to the Corinthians Cor-inthians threatening to refuse pardon to them that sinned before and to all the rest and to punish them acocrding to the power which the Lord had given him, and thus, throughout the ages of her existence the Chuich has never ceased to assert and exercise her right to punish delinquents oricriminals. The srtictness with which sfce exacted obedience-even in the tint centuries of Christianity is amply ittested by the Apostolic constitutions, and the penitential peni-tential canons. It would be ridiculous to assume that she wts authorized to make her laws and t(j inflict corporal punishment either by the synagogue or by the Caesars, who persistently op- nncaA V.nw o,,tV,rt!f.. - .-.1 ondi.ovnrt.fi tn thwart her mission. Ami indeed of what practical utility in the 'maintenance of order and the enforcement of obedience would be the power to make laws and to pass sentences if the church had not the authority to sanction them and to impose upon delinquents and criminals crim-inals a degree of punishnent proportionate propor-tionate to their guilt? The highest penalties pen-alties known to Church are the ecclesiastical eccle-siastical censures; chief among these is the penalty of excommunL-ation, which corresponds with capital punishment under the civil code, and by which she cuts off rotten members from her communion. com-munion. Besides these higher penalties, the Church has lesser ones designed for the punishment of minor offences: "In promptu habentes uicisci omnem inobedientiam." If these minor penalties penal-ties fail of effect, she has recourse to all the terrors of her anathema; for the reason that, being a perfect society she has, and must employ efficacious means for the preservation of order and for the due chastisement of any attempt at its violation. And that the church has received these means from the civil power 13 a truth which Bas-nagius, Bas-nagius, Protestant though he was, has recognized and confessed. In language which cannot be mistaken, he says: "We readily admit that the tribunal of the church was instituted by the express ex-press authority of God. "Tribunal Ec-clesia, Ec-clesia, quod jubente Deo, erectum fiiisstd far-ilp lnre-imiir." Th Council of Trent, too, recognizes and confirms in- ecclesiastical judges the authority to inflict corporal pun.shme.it. The Church has, therefore, the right to employ force against the guilty, and, as a consequence, is in possession of temporal power received directly from Christ and transmitted by the Apcstles; for, although the Church is a spiritual society as regards the end for which she was instituted, that is, to conduct men to eternal life, she i3 also a visible o-ciety o-ciety veated with jurisdiction over man, who is not a pure spirit, but a being composed of a body and a soul, and who must, therefore, be governed and conducted to hits last end by sensible sen-sible means. In the same way civic society commands obedience not from the body alone, but from the whole man; and in order to avoid a collision between the two societies, it only remains re-mains for the less noble to subordinate itself to the more noble, or, in other words, to that society which is clothed with the duty of directing men to the attainment of their final nbje( ti-. n r;. Twenty-fifth Error. "Beside' rV-', power inherent In the Epieopii.-y, ,-;h.. temporal powfr has been artribut.-d tj it by the civil liithority, titlur x.iv.-v-ly or tacitly conceded, and. th-r v revocable at the plea.-we of th. authority au-thority by which it has been srarU: i. REFUTATION. The power inherent ia the Epi.j.a, --consists --consists in tie right to teach all tiling which regarl the eternal valvar , f men; to preserve intact the tl-'i - doctrinal trith and tho precvpta .-; morality; t. promote the proper cri,-. bration of d vine sf;-vk-es and the du-. administration of the sacraments. Th-i Bishops havt been appointed rulers t the Church -bj the Holy Ghost, according accord-ing to the w.rd.t of St. 'Paul: "Tak heed to your-'lvca and to the who!-; Mock wherein the Holy tlhost hatti placed you bi.sh,,. to rule the Church of God. 'Which tit hath purchased with His own biood.' Now, a? man i,i n..t a pure t-ph-j;, they wiio govern tfce Church, beside th I Power inherent in th m, taey n-.it ( iMve otner temporal power; and a.s thij pxwer it? a means to ih at :ainrr.. nt .f I the end proposed by the H..!y (Jh-vr, it follows that they receive it from Hi:a and not from the civil authority. Indeed, In-deed, Christ declared in founding Church that to Him was given a:i power in heaven and on earth, and in virtue of this p..wer He s-.-i-.t His Aprs-ties Aprs-ties to prea-h the (Jos pel t .. all th nations na-tions of the ea;th; in complete independence inde-pendence of all hrnnan authority, n., dictated to them th.? fundam inal lawn of Hiri Church, and '" entrusted th-m with her government ani direction Th- first requisite to the goov government of the Church and to the efL-ient maintenance main-tenance of social order is t.:. r-;ht to make add apply laws, to try ar,d d" tormina tor-mina causes-a right which ' Mas exercised to its fullest ext-nt by the Council of Jerusalem, by St. PatrT, in his instructions to Timothy Tim-othy and Titus, in the punishnv-nc which he inflicted op the incestuous man, apd in the chastisement with which, in virtue of the power given hi-n by the Lord, he threatened to vhu th-disobedience th-disobedience of certain members of ti-.-Corinthian church, and to Timothy St.' Paul gave this special direction regarding re-garding the clergy: "Adversus preshy-terium preshy-terium aceusationem noli i-cipere. r.i'ii sub duobua vel tribus testibus." it V therefore, evident that the Church has a public tribunal, in which charges brought by the required number of witnesses wit-nesses could be tried and determined. In this way Bishops governed their flocks, both under the Caesars, who persecuted them, and under Christian princes; and their right to do so remained re-mained unquestion.-d for many centuries. cen-turies. "Ecclesiastical matter?," wrot Pope Vigilius, in th.- sixth century "are reserved for the exclusive jud:-ment jud:-ment of the Eishops according to ecclesiastical ec-clesiastical usage, the traditions of the Fathers, and the authority of t.V- evangelical evan-gelical and apostolical doctrine." It was so understood by the Emperor Basil, Mho wrote to the eighth Oecumenical Oecu-menical Council as follows: "it does , not become laymen, be they ever s" learned and ever so holy, to meddl- ia the affairs of the Church. Such action on their part would' be wholly at variance vari-ance with the rules of discipline; tho layman is but a subordinate member of the flock, ovis est." And St. Augustine Augus-tine urges ecclesiastical judges to punish pun-ish the convicted criminal aivordino his deserts. "Coerce, corripe, excom-munica, excom-munica, degrada," and warns them not to allow their clemency to interfere v.-ith the due enforcement of disciplinary disciplin-ary enactments. "Sic vigilet to'deran-tia, to'deran-tia, ut non dormiat disciplina." From all that has been said above, it follows that the Bishops have not either tacitly or expressly received any power from the civil authority; on the contrary, they recognize their power pow-er as proceeding from that fuilness of power by which Christ constituted them shepherds of His flock under th supreme pastorship of Peter; they recognize rec-ognize it as coming from the Holy Ghost, who placed them to rule the Church of God which He hath purchased pur-chased with His b'ood. The Bishops have always 30 oelieved, and have acted in accordance with that belief since the days o the Apostles, whosa successors they are; and the civil authority, au-thority, having given them no power, has none to take away. j (To be Continued.) . j |