American Sentinel, vol. 11

May 7, 1896

“The Papacy’s Growing Power” American Sentinel 11, 19.

E. J. Waggoner

[Present Truth, London.]

The Chronicle’s special correspondent from Rome continues to mingle with his eloquent description of the Papal pomp and circumstance of the events, at the Vatican and St. Peter’s, much that is of great political significance. He refers to the old contest between the Vatican and the Quirinal and dubs it “a controversy which goes down to the roots of the European situation, which troubles the peace of king and cardinals, and affects the alliances and estrangements of the great States of the world.” AMS May 7, 1896, page 148.1

After enumerating various local incidents which have caused friction between the representatives of the Papal court and the State, and have given some new prominence, within the very precincts of Rome itself, to the persistent seclusion of the “Prisoner of the Vatican,” he says:- AMS May 7, 1896, page 148.2

And above all the crushing blow which the House of Savoy has received in Africa, the relations of Italy to the Triple Alliance, the Pope’s leaning toward France-all the pressing problems which during the last few weeks have centred in Rome and made her the “hub” of diplomatic Europe, the centre of the modern as she was of the ancient world-have swept this “Roman question” to the front. AMS May 7, 1896, page 148.3

And yet, he asks himself, why should there be any desire to see this question raised at this time?-for, “not for years-I had almost said for centuries-has the moral and political influence of the Vatican stood at so high a level.” In his view too the very disabilities under which the Pope has chafed so impatiently have been to the advantage of the Papacy, “and the Holy See has gained enormously by its dissociation from the responsibilities of secular power.” So that now it is a fact “that the Papal chair is raised in the eyes of the Roman Catholic world above the throne of Kaiser and Czar and King, that it is in a sense protected and guaranteed by Europe, that it has founded a new empire in the new world, that it is sustained by an acute and active diplomacy, and yet is free from actual responsibility, and, like Hamlet’s Ghost, possesses a certain majestical invulnerability of its own. AMS May 7, 1896, page 148.4

Yes, all this is true,-the papal power is a creature of destiny and of prophecy. Until that destiny and that prophecy are fulfilled it does possess a certain invulnerability. But when that time has come when she shall feel no longer these disabilities and shall say, “I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow,”-then, “shall her plagues come in one day, death and mourning, and famine: and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.” AMS May 7, 1896, page 148.5