Richard W. Thompson - The Footprints of the Jesuits

The differences between popular and monarchical governments are well known, and appear at every point of comparison which has arisen during the course of events since the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The former have achieved their completest triumphs where Protestantism prevails, and in its presence the latter have been compelled either entirely to surrender their pretensions, or to abate their demands for absolutism. Until the Reformation became an accomplished fact, monarchism was maintained by uniting Church and State, and employing their joint authority to coerce obedience from the multitude. The dominion thus acquired condemned self-government by the people as both heresy and treason, punishable at the pleasure of those who held the reins of authority in their hands. It took many years of conflict to change this condition of affairs; and when the people of the United States were, in the course of events, placed in a condition to choose between this coercive system and that which was the natural outgrowth of Protestantism, and to construct a Government for themselves, their wisdom was sufficient to assure them that any plan of government they adopted would result in failure, unless they distinguished between their politics and their religion by separating the Church from the State, and by so framing their civil institutions as to reserve to themselves alone the entire sovereignty over them. If either of these essential prerequisites had been omitted, all exertions to better and improve their condition would have resulted in failure, as all readers of history know. Instead of failure, however, they created a Government which has survived the vicissitudes of more than a hundred years, is now supplying protection to more than sixty millions of people, and has reached a most commanding position among the leading nations; if, indeed, its influence over the happiness and prosperity of mankind does not surpass that of any of them. Of this we may be assured, that the measure of its success has been such as to incite among other peoples the desire to imitate its example; and that the conflicts of opinion which now agitate the world give reasonable promise that the popular right of self-government may, in less than another century of time, be universally recognized. To this end the American people are obliged to contribute by warding off every blow aimed at their institutions by either domestic or alien adversaries, especially when these blows are aimed, as some of them are, at the fundamental principles of their government.

The influence of our example finds a striking illustration in the revolution in Italy in 1870, which abolished the temporal power, or kingship, of the pope, separated the State from the Church, and established a constitutional form of government in place of the absolute monarchism which had prevailed, almost uninterruptedly, for many centuries. The fires of this revolution had been burning for a long time, kindled originally by oppressions, which had been so magnified that the people could endure them no longer. Their culminating point was the passage of the Conciliar Decree, called a "Dogmatic Constitution," whereby it was declared that the pope was infallible, and could not err in matters pertaining to faith or morals; that is, within such spheres of governmental, social, and individual duties and obligations as the pope alone, for the time being, should decide to be included in his spiritual and pontifical jurisdiction. This act was considered the consummation of the "Jesuit plan," at which the Italian people had been so incensed but a short time before, that Pope Pius IX had been compelled to expel the members of that odious society from Rome. The consequence was that the fires which popular indignation had kindled grew hotter, and it became impossible to extinguish them except by assuring complete success to the revolution. Therefore, the ink with which this decree of papal infallibility was written was scarcely dry before the Italian people, with extraordinary unanimity, determined to reject it, not merely because it was the introduction of a new principle of faith hitherto unrecognized, but because they could easily see that it would place them, and their children after them, under Jesuit dominion and dictation. They realized that its acceptance would involve them in the obligation to submit to the absolute temporal rule of the pope, in whose selection they had no voice, and to those whom he should think proper to put over them, whether fit or unfit, and thus put an end to all popular demands for the right of political self-government. It involved no question of religious faith, as the faith had been handed down to them by their fathers; nothing whatsoever which involved their duty to God, otherwise than as presumptuous men, to answer their own selfish ends, were striving to convert the pope into a God upon earth, and themselves into his plenipotentiaries. Influenced solely by this conviction, and stimulated by the success the people of the United States had won, they merely abolished the temporal power of the pope, and created a constitutional form of civil government, which places satisfactory limitations upon the authority of their king, and establishes representative political institutions, which provide that their voice shall be heard in the enactment of public laws. In this they have taken a long stride in the direction of government "of the people, for the people, and by the people." They have cast off political absolutism—which the Jesuits commend to us as "Catholicity"—and have assumed the station and dignity of an independent people. They have converted a priest-ridden oligarchy into a nation. On this account, and this alone, they have made themselves the special objects of Jesuit malevolence, for the simple reason that the monarchical society of Jesuits has never, since its beginning, relented in its vindictive opposition to every form of civil government which recognizes the people as the source of political power. By the most fundamental principles of its organization it is forbidden to sympathize with the sentiment of personal independence, or to allow its members to acquire the dignity of manhood necessary for participation in the affairs of government.

In the face of the fact that the Italian people have not changed the religious convictions they have maintained for hundreds of years with steadfast fidelity, and in the face also of the successes of Protestantism as universally recognized, the Jesuits employ the extorted decree of papal infallibility as the basis of an argument to prove that the pope is divinely endowed with such spiritual sovereignty over nations and peoples as entitles him to prescribe, at his own personal will and pleasure, such laws and regulations, concerning both faith and morals, as are necessary for the government of society and the conduct of individuals throughout the world. Within the circle of this extraordinary and unlimited jurisdiction, they make no distinction between spirituals and temporals,—never failing to make the power over the former sufficiently comprehensive to embrace the latter, accordingly as the pope himself shall decide. Hence they infer that this papal jurisdiction is not subject to any other limitation than such as he shall establish, and that it may, consequently, be rightfully enlarged so as to exact submission from all, and set aside all requirements in conflict with it. And the result they reach—as logically following this premise—is, that the refusal of obedience to the pope, within this comprehensive jurisdiction, violates the law of God, and is heresy. Therefore, as the Jesuits believe that the separation of Church and State by the Italian people is heresy, so they are required also to believe that all civil institutions which have grown out of that separation—like those of the United States—not only have the curse of God resting upon them, but that they are the divinely chosen messengers of heaven to bring them within this enormous circle of papal dominion.