Bishops, who are accordingly to take the style, title, and name of Bishops of those Sees, which are apparently Sees established by Law, and consequently protected from usurpation under a heavy penalty.

To resume the argument, it is not very easy to understand, upon the review of the practice which has obtained from time immemorial throughout Europe, how it can be contended that the Pope's power to erect Bishoprics motu proprio within the territory of an independent Sovereign Prince has ever been legally recognised and admitted. The record of such a fact no where exists. True it may be in a certain sense, "that the erection of Bishoprics is an essential part of the Pope's spiritual authority," in other words, that without the Pope's spiritual cooperation, the erection of a Roman Catholic Bishopric would not be complete; but it does not follow that the Pope's spiritual power is all that is required for the erection of a Bishopric. The spiritual authority of the Pope may be a necessary condition, where the will of the Prince is the efficient cause; but, on the other hand, the consent of the Prince is likewise a necessary condition, if ever the will of the Pope should be the originating cause.

"Alterius sic

Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice."

This is a matter of historical fact, as well as of legal deduction.

If Mr. Bowyer therefore had written, “no power without the Pope," instead of "no power except the Pope, can erect or create Roman Catholic Bishoprics here," the position might have been maintained by the side of a parallel statement on behalf of the ter

ritorial sovereign, that no power without the Crown, i. e. without the consent of the Crown, can erect Sees for Roman Catholic Bishops within its territory,

The question is accordingly asked by Mr. Bowyer, "ought we to have applied for Bishops to the Crown? If not, whence could the creation of our Archbishoprics and Bishoprics proceed, except from Rome ?” There is either an unintentional confusion of thought, or an intentional confusion of statement, in this passage. It is one thing to have applied to the Crown for Bishops, as the gift exclusively of the Crown, which the Roman Catholics, it may be observed, had already, and another thing to have applied to the Crown for its consent, as the Crown of the realm, that the Pope should erect Bishoprics, i. e. Sees for Bishops within the Realm. But it is suggested, that "the position of the British Government with reference to the Holy See precluded the Crown from giving to that measure a direct sanction." If this be so, it refutes at once Mr. Bowyer's assumption, that such creation of Bishops is not forbidden by the law of the land; for if the Crown through its ministers be precluded by the law of the land from giving its sanction to any such measure, the measure cannot be a lawful measure. If, on the other hand, it is meant that the Crown was precluded by the accidental position of its Government, in respect of the Crown having no direct diplomatic intercourse with the Court of Rome, there was no such insuperable difficulty which could justify the Holy See in having recourse to so summary a mode of procedure as involves the present coup de main," more particularly since the Imperial Legislature has, within the last two years, relieved the Crown from any doubt, if it existed, as to its power to modify the position of its executive

66

government. Besides, the absence of direct diplomatic intercourse between the Vatican and the Court of St. James is not a valid excuse for the act of Pope Pius IX. under any circumstances. His immediate predecessor, Pope Gregory XVI., had no diplomatic Envoy at the Court of St. Petersburgh in 1841; yet that circumstance, which the Pope declared was much against his will*, was not held by him to constitute such a barrier as to preclude him from directly communicating to the Emperor Nicholas, by a letter under his own hand and seal, his full compliance with the Emperor's demands. Yet if there ever was an occasion in which the Pope might have justly stood upon diplomatic punctilio, it was in a case which involved the Emperor's appointment of an actual Bishop in partibus to an Archiepiscopal See, and the resignation by a Bishop in ordinary of his See, enforced upon him by the will of the territorial sovereign. So entirely does modern Rome invert the practice observed by the ancient Queen of the Seven Hills,

"Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos."

It is said, however, "that the British Government ignores the Pope diplomatically, except as the Sovereign of the Roman States, and ought not to complain that his Holiness did not ask a consent which the Crown could not give, as though there were a Concordat subsisting between the See of Rome and her Majesty." It does not seem on this occasion to

* “Licet in ea conditione molestissime simus, ut nec aliquem istic habeamus qui nostram Sanctæque hujus sedis personam gerat, nec facultas detur cum Episcopis vastissimæ ditionis tuæ circa Ecclesiæ negotia libere communicandi." Cf. Risposta del S. Padre de 7 Aprile 1841, in Appendix, p. cxii.

H

have occurred to the writer, that diplomatic intercourse is peculiarly an intercourse between Sovereign Powers, and that her Majesty Queen Victoria is at full liberty, according to the Custom of Europe, to accredit a public minister at the Papal Court, on the express ground of the Pope being the Sovereign of the Roman States, and upon no other ground, for it is only to Sovereign Powers that the right of embassy belongs.

The Pope, it is true, as already observed, claims to possess a twofold character, that of Universal Bishop, or Primate of the Christian World, and that of a Sovereign Prince. As Universal Bishop he is a purely spiritual character, and can neither send nor receive ambassadors. If he were to cease to be a Sovereign Prince, the right of embassy would cease to attach to him in his mere spiritual character. Hence, for the purpose of diplomatic intercourse, it is as unnecessary that England should acknowledge in the person of the Pope the character which he claims of Successor of St. Peter, and Universal Bishop of Christendom, as it is unnecessary for England to acknowledge in the person of the Sultan of Turkey the character of Successor of the Prophet and Defender of Islam. The spiritual character belongs to religion, not to politics, and diplomacy neither ventures nor cares to meddle with theological claims.

It is sufficient for the purpose of diplomatic intercourse, that the Pope should be the Sovereign of the Roman States, and if England recognises the Pope in such a character, England does not in any way ignore him for any legitimate diplomatic purpose. It is perhaps much to be regretted, that England has clung so long to the traditional fiction of the Pope being only Bishop of Rome and not a Sovereign

Prince; and that the Crown has accordingly refrained from accrediting a resident minister at the Court of Rome. But that tradition has been abolished by an act of the Legislature (11 & 12 Vict. c. 108.), which has directly declared that her Majesty may accredit a diplomatic envoy to the Sovereign of the Roman States. Hence, indeed, there is the more ground for complaint, that his Holiness has on the present occasion neglected to ask the consent of the Crown of England. The observation as to the nonexistence of any Concordat is wide of the mark, for, as already shewn, there is no Concordat with Prussia, or Hanover, or Russia, yet in the settlement of the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church in all these countries, the consent of the Crown was the basis of the arrangement, and it was obtained by means of diplomatic negociations without any Concordat.

It is a subject not unworthy of remark, that all the Courts of Europe treat and negociate with the Holy Father as a Foreign Power. At some Courts Papal Nuncios reside, who are received and rank amongst the members of the diplomatic body, and who address all communications to the sovereign to whom they are accredited, through the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and not through the Minister of Public Worship. Again, in such States* as do not receive a Nuncio from the Holy See, communications between the Sovereign and the Pope are carried on by the Minister of Foreign Affairs through the Legation accredited to the Court of Rome. Belgium, for example, supplies us with a notable illustration of

*For instance, there is no longer a Nuncio at Brussels, or at Warsaw, as was once the case; whilst, on the other hand, many Courts have never received a Nuncio.