III

SOURCES ESSENTIALLY AUTOCRATIC.

AUTOCRACY is the very essence of the canon law. No other legal system has ever approached it in subjection of the people to arbitrary and irresponsible power. No layman has anything whatever to do, either directly or indirectly, with its enactment or administration.

The supreme and ultimate legislative authority in the Church of Rome is the Sovereign Pontiff. To his will every provision of the canon or ecclesiastical law owes its validity. Most Roman Catholic writers mention at least four sources of the canon law, but all agree that no contribution can reach that law from any source without the sanction and approval of the Pope. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX, at page 59, defines the source of canon law in part as follows:

"The sources or authors of this ecclesiastical law are essentially the episcopate and its head, the Pope, the successors of the Apostolic College and its divinely appointed head, Saint Peter. They are, properly speaking, the active sources of canon law. Their activity, is exercised in its most solemn form by the ecumenical councils, where the episcopate united with its head, and convoked and presided over by him, with him defines its teaching and makes the laws that bind the whole Church. The canons of the ecumenical councils, especially those of Trent, hold an exceptional place in ecclesiastical law. But without infringing on the ordinary power of the bishops, the Pope, as head of the episcopate, possesses in himself the same powers as the episcopate united with him."

The last sentence in the foregoing definition deserves special attention. It totally eliminates the episcopate or hierarchy as a factor in legislation by declaring that the Pope holds supreme law-making power equally with or without the hierarchy. That view is abundantly justified by decrees of the Vatican Council which were clearly designed to remove the necessity of any general council in the future to molest the Pope or hamper the play of his unique despotic powers.

In the fall of 1921 there was published at St. Louis, with Imprimatur of Archbishop Glennon, a Commentary on Canon Law, by Augustine. The work is in eight volumes. Beginning on page 10 of Volume I, that work enumerates the following sources of canon law:

"(1) Christ and the Apostles, (2) the Roman Pontiff, either alone or in unison with a general council, (3) the Bishops in their respective dioceses, and (4) Custom."

In 1877 there was published at New York, with Imprimatur of the late Cardinal McCloskey, a work in three volumes, by Sebastian B. Smith, on Elements of Ecclesiastical Law. Though in some measure superseded by the subsequent appearance of the Codex Juris Canonici, Smith's work has long been recognized by Roman Catholic scholars and canonists as highly meritorious. In section 21 it defines the Sovereign Pontiff as the sole fountain of legislative power in these words:

"The decrees of the Roman Pontiffs constitute the chief source of the canon law; nay, more, the entire canon law, in the strict sense of the term, is based upon their legislative authority."

Speaking ex cathedra and therefore within the Vatican decree of papal infallibility, the ablest Pope of modern times, in his encyclical letter Proeclara Gratulationis Publiae of June 20, 1894, boldly declared:

"We HOLD UPON THIS EARTH THE PLACE OF GOD ALMIGHTY."—Great Encyclical Letters of Leo XVIII, page 304."

No other autocracy has ever laid claim to divine right to rule in words so arrogant and blasphemous. The pretensions of the ancient Caesars, the autocrats of the Holy Roman Empire created by the Papacy in the Middle Ages, the Bourbons of France and the Stuarts of England, as well as those of the. Kaisers of Germany and Austria and the Sultans of Turkey pale into harmless and beneficent democracy in comparison with the foregoing papal assumption. But in the Codex Juris Canonici the papacy has set forth its arrogant claims with more deliberation in the following canons or statutes:

"The Roman Pontiff as the successor of the primacy of St. Peter, has not only the prerogative of honor but also the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, in matters of faith and morals as well as in those that pertain to the discipline and government of the Church that extends itself throughout the whole world.
"This power is truly episcopal, ordinary and immediate, and extends over each and every pastor as well as over the faithful, and IS INDEPENDENT OF ANY HUMAN AUTHORITY." Canon 218.
"The Roman Pontiff after his legitimate election obtains at once, from the moment he accepts his election, BY DIVINE RIGHT, the full power of his supreme jurisdiction."—Canon 219."

In confirmation of the Vatican Council and the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Codex proceeds to annihilate the general or ecumenical council as a factor in canonical legislation. So does the entire hierarchy retire and leave the legislative field absolutely to the crowned Sovereign Pontiff alone. The language of the Codex on that subject reads thus:

"There can be no General Council unless it is convoked by the Roman Pontiff. It is the right of the Roman Pontiff to preside, either in person or through others, at the General Council, to determine the matters to be discussed and in what order, to transfer, suspend, dissolve the Council, and to confirm its decrees."—Canon 222."

The English translation of the foregoing canons here used is that of Woywod, a Roman priest, published at New York in 1918 with Imprimatur of the late Cardinal Farley. His work is entitled The New Code of Canon Law.

The Codex Juris Canonici, which by Canons 5 and 6 of its own text repeals and supersedes all previous conflicting legislation, derives its authority in the field of canon law solely from the will of the Sovereign Pontiff' as expressed in the bull Providentissima of Benedict XV promulgating the Codex. The pertinent words of the bull on that point follow:

"Therefore, having invoked the aid of Divine grace, and relying upon the authority of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, of Our own accord and with certain knowledge, and in the fullness of the Apostolic power with which we are invested, by this Our Constitution, which We wish to be valid for all time, We promulgate, decree and order that the present Code, just as it is compiled, shall have from this time forth the power of law for the Universal Church, and We confide it to your custody and vigilance. Commentary on Canon Law, by Augustine, Volume I, page 67."

No other monarchy, hereditary or elective, was ever so completely removed from influence and control by the will of the people as the Papacy clothed with powers so uniquely autocratic. In more than seven centuries no layman has been permitted to have any voice in the selection of the Supreme Pontiffs, about a hundred in number, who have occupied the papal throne during that time. Emperors, Kings and plutocrats have indeed meddled in the conclaves freely by secret intrigue, but the hundreds of millions of people subject to the papal sway have been barred.

The canon law commits the choice off the Pope to the cardinals alone, whose number is limited to seventy. Under that law, the Pope creates all the cardinals and the cardinals choose the Pope. By shaping at will the personnel of the college of cardinals, each Pope can determine in large measure the choice and policy of his successor.

Though composing less than fifteen per cent of the Roman Catholics of the world, Italians have for centuries been studiously kept in numerical majority in the college of cardinals to prevent the possibility of placing any other nationality on the Pontifical throne,and the cardinals have not in modern times chosen any but one of themselves to occupy that throne.
No more selfish and designing closed corporation ever encumbered the earth. As the oligarchy of cardinals and the autocracy of the Pope, perpetuate themselves from age to age by the most effective political steamroller that ever crushed human rights, the will of the Roman Catholic people is suppressed and their voice is silenced by the canon law of the papal autocrat.

That law traverses and contradicts the American doctrine that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed and the French doctrine that sovereignty has its source in the nation. It asserts the basic papal doctrine that governments derive their power from God and that the Pope is the vicar and mouthpiece of God. America is the battlefield where the issue so presented must soon be determined for all mankind and for all time to come.