The following is NOT my work, it is taken in its entirety from this website: http://www.geoffhorton.com/PapalClaims.html
Have Popes Really Claimed to be God?
Quotations (more properly, alleged quotations for the most part, as
we'll see later) showing that popes have claimed to be God or equal to
God are a staple of anti-Catholic polemics. I recently ran across such a
list, and the results of my investigations are below. I suspect the
list as I got it is rather old, as its most recent entry dates only to
the late 19th Century. The continuing growth of materials available on
the Internet has made it possible to shed some light on the facts behind
these “quotations”.
The List
- Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) wrote: “We may according to the
fullness of our power, dispose of the law and dispense above the law.
Those whom the Pope of Rome doth separate, it is not a man that
separates them but God. For the Pope holdeth place on earth, not simply
of a man but of the true God.” (1 Book of Gregory 9 Decret. c. 3)
- The Lateran Council addressing Pope Julius II in an oration
delivered by Marcellus said: “Take care that we lose not that salvation,
that life and breath which thou hast given us, for thou art our
shepherd, thou art our physician, thou art our governor, thou art our
husbandman, thou art finally another God on earth.” (Council Edition.
Colm. Agrip. 1618)
- Pope Nicholas said of himself: “I am in all and above all, so that
God Himself and I, the vicar of God, hath both one consistory, and I am
able to do almost all that God can do... wherefore, if those things that
I do be said not to be done of man, but of God, what do you make of me
but God? Again, if prelates of the Church be called of Constantine for
gods, I then being above all prelates, seem by this reason to be above
all gods. Wherefore, no marvel, if it be in my power to dispense with
all things, yea with the precepts of Christ.” (Decret. par. Distinct 96
ch. 7 edit. Lugo 1661)
- The RC New York catechism states: “The Pope takes the place of Jesus
Christ on earth... by divine right the Pope has supreme and full power
in faith, in morals over each and every pastor and his flock. He is the
true vicar, the head of the entire church, the father and teacher of all
Christians. He is the infallible ruler, the founder of dogmas, the
author of and the judge of councils; the universal ruler of truth, the
arbiter of the world, the supreme judge of heaven and earth, the judge
of all, being judged by no one, God himself on earth.”
- The title “Lord God the Pope” - these words appeared in the Canon
Law of Rome. “To believe that our Lord God the Pope has not the power to
decree as he is decreed, is to be deemed heretical.” (The Gloss
extravagances of Pope John XXII Cum. Inter, tit XIV Ad Callem Sexti
Decretalium, Paris, 1685)
Father A. Pereira acknowledged: “It is quite certain that Popes have
never disapproved or rejected this title “Lord God the Pope” for the
passage in the gloss referred to appears in the edition of the Canon Law
published in Rome by Gregory XIII.”
- Pope Nicholas I declared that “the appellation of God had been
confirmed by Constantine on the Pope, who being God, cannot be judged by
man.” (Labb IX Dist.: 96 Can 7 Satis Evidentur Decret Gratian Primer
Para)
- Speaking [in] the name of the Pope (a rhetorical device) Cardinal
Manning said: “I acknowledge no civil superior, I am the subject of no
prince, and I claim more than this, I claim to be the supreme judge on
earth and director of the consciences of men, I am the last supreme
judge of what is right and wrong.” (Sermon in the Pro Cathedral,
Kensington, Tablet Oct 9, 1864)
Responses
Cardinal Manning
I can find no better place to start the responses than with the
last-given “quotation” from Cardinal Manning. As we shall see, it is no
quotation at all.
Rather than provide my own refutation, I would like to quote an anonymous (as far as I can tell) writer in the
New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 41, 10 October 1901, pp. 1-2. A scanned copy of the original article
can be found online here.
The article deals well not only with the (fake) quotation in
question, but with the tactics used to prepare the entire list given
above. (In fact, I am not sure but that the “misquotations, garbled
statements, mistranslations, at least one concocted ‘extract’--all
secondhand--and ... marvellously complete and comprehensive ignorance of
Catholic teaching” to which the author refers are not a response to the
exact list we now have.) I commend the second paragraph to your
particular attention in this regard.
Dr. Starbuck, an eminent American non-Catholic divine,
seriously blames some Protestant controversialists, not for lack of
honesty, but for being ‘slovenly and inexcusably ignorant’ in their
‘expositions of Roman Catholic history and doctrine.’ ‘The Pope, like
the poor,’ he adds, ‘we have always with us, and whenever we will we can
do him evil. Well meditated attacks on him easily take the place of
knowledge, of cultivation, of good manners, of deliberation in
statement, of justice, of charity, and of all other requirements usually
supposed to beseem a minister of the Gospel.’ Recent attacks upon the
Pope in Christchurch and Dunedin were based upon misquotations, garbled
statements, mistranslations, at least one concocted ‘extract’--all
secondhand--and on a marvellously complete and comprehensive ignorance
of Catholic teaching, of which our assailants knew as little as
Bettesworth did of law--and he knew thereof neither ‘text nor margent.’
Our readers will recollect that the late Cardinal Manning was alleged to
have said (among other things)--speaking in the name of the Pope; ‘I
acknowledge no civil power... I claim to be the supreme judge and
director of the consciences of men’; and again: ‘I am sole last supreme
judge of what is right and wrong.’[Footnote 1.] We were referred to the
London Tablet of October 9, 1864, for these words. But no Tablet
was published on that date. We learned by cable message a few days ago
that in a discussion on the subject in Melbourne, the alleged doctrinal
utterance of Manning was credited to the Tablet of August 6,
1859, but after a most minute examination of the Tablet of that date we
can find no trace whatever of anything at all resembling the words
attributed to that distinguished convert. Some weeks ago a writer in the
Christchurch Press quoted this alleged Manning extract on the authority
of ‘the Rev. Mr. Lilley,’ whom he described as ‘an able, eminent
Catholic writer’--confounding a Presbyterian clergyman of that name in
Arbroath with the distinguished Catholic layman, Mr. W. S. Lilly. When
his statement was corrected, he simply sprang a somersault and gave Mr.
Grattan Guinness as the authority for the Cardinal's speech!
Herein lies one of the difficulties of which Catholics experience in
defending the fair fame of their Mother Church against the more noisy
and ill-informed class of controversialists. A suspicious-looking
‘extract’ is quoted, with suspicious-looking vagueness, from (say) ‘a
Catholic writer,’ or ‘a distinguished Catholic theologian.’ You
forthwith make a request for name and chapter and verse. This is
sometimes met with angry resentment, sometimes by an airy gibe,
sometimes by a general statement to the effect that it is in Suarez (or
Saurez, as a Wellington enthusiast called him recently), or Aquinas or
Bellarmine or De Lugo or Liguori or some other noted Catholic
writer--only that and nothing more, and you are left to toil through the
23 massive volumes of one author, or the 17 of another, or the 10 to 20
of the rest. More rarely there is a show of precise reference, but it
is commonly found to be inadequate or deceptive--a mockery, a delusion,
and a snare--as if one should refer you to ‘the seventeenth verse of the
Bible’; or the ‘authority’ is non-existent, like ‘the Tablet of
October 9, 1864.’ In the comparatively rare instances in which detailed
references are given, you find that the alleged quotation is
conspicuously absent, or that the author's words have been shamefully
garbled or mistranslated, or--as in the case of an ‘extract’ recently
attributed (in a Dunedin paper) to St. Thomas Aquinas--that not a line
of it was ever written by him. If you persecute your opponents on one
reference (as, for instance, the Tablet of October 9, 1864), they
fly to another (August 6, 1859). You follow the direction indicated by
the new sign-post only to find that you have been again chasing a
rainbow. And the upshot of the whole thing is this: you find, in
practically every instance, that the ‘quotations’ are secondhand or
tenth-hand, that they have been carefully and deliberately lopped and
chopped and pruned and twisted and contorted till they more or less
seriously misrepresent the views of the authors to whom they are
attributed, and you not unnaturally conclude that all these inadequate
and misleading references are merely so many ruses--the side-jumps of
the hunted roebuck--to delay or prevent the discovery and exposure of
those discreditable bits of controversial trickery.
It is reasonable to judge a quotation as you would judge a man--by
the company it keeps. And the alleged Manning quotation is in decidedly
bad company, among a pack of ‘faked’ and concocted and ‘doctored’
extracts of an altogether disreputable kind. It has, moreover, about it a
suspicious and guilty look. It is, for instance, set down as Catholic
teaching which it would be heresy to deny. Yet there are portions of
that precious extract which it would be heresy to maintain; and they
differ vastly from the clear-cut expositions and the sharply defined
lines between doctrine and inference--between dogma and opinion--which
are to be found in acknowledged works of Manning, such as his Petri Privilegium and his Vatican Council.
At first blush, therefore, the alleged extract naturally seemed to us,
in all its circumstances, to be a fabrication. We, however, declined in
express terms to maintain this theory, and admitted the possibility of
its publication as the result of ‘a reporter's blunder and an editorial
oversight.’ Despite the misleading references--which were calculated, if
not intended, to baffle inquiry--we have at length succeeded in coming
across the original report from which the alleged Manning quotation was
taken. The report in question is that of a sermon by the late Cardinal
on the Syllabus, and it appears in the London Tablet, volume 34,
No. 1539, pages 601-602. Towards the end of his discourse Manning tells
his hearers the sort of reply which, he fancies the Pope (Pius IX.)
would make to the overtures of the advocates of divorce, godless
education, endless devisions [sic] in religion, and ‘the absolute
renunciation of the supreme authority of the Christian Church.’ The now
notorious ‘Manning quotation’ purports to be a faithful transcript of
one sentence taken from this part of the late Cardinal's discourse. But,
as we expected, the extract has been grievously lopped and tortured by
the enterprising individual through whose instrumentality it first got
floated into polemics. (a) He follows the usual plan of tearing it
violently away from its context, (b) He turns the one sentence of the
report into three--a small matter in itself, but significant as an
indication of the man's ideas of accuracy of quotation, (c) He takes the
three vital clauses in the sentence, and, with the fullest apparent
deliberation, completely alters their meaning--one by the substitution
of one term for another, the other two by the cool omission of two
all-important qualifying words. And (d) he tacks on to the end of the
extract, as an integral part thereof, a misquotation from the Bull Unam Sanctam,
of which not a trace is to be seen anywhere in the report. And then (e)
forth steps the Rev. Mr. Gibb and informs all and sundry that this
mutilated quotation is a statement of Catholic doctrine--with the rider
that it would be heresy to deny it . Whereas, as a matter of fact, in
the unmutilated report (for the accuracy of which, of course, we cannot
vouch) the words attributed to Manning are not, nor do they pretend to
be, a statement of Catholic doctrine.
The Rev. Mr. Gibb, for instance, makes Cardinal Manning, speaking on
behalf of the Pope, say the following words: ‘I acknowledge no civil
power.’ Now this statement is (a) absurdly contrary to fact; (b) it is
untrue in point of doctrine; and (c) it is nowhere to be found in the
report. On the contrary (d), Manning, according to the report (p. 601),
said:
The civil Society or civil power was a thing sacred in itself.
It came from God. It had God as its author, and it most be treated with
great veneration. It ia sustained by authority, obedience, and
equality--the three laws of the human family, which b«gan with the
first family--namely, the parental authority, the filial obedience, the
fraternal equality. These three laws existed in human society. God was
the author of them, and when families multiplied and combined into
races, nations, and States, these three laws, which were domestic and
private in the beginning, assumed the public and recognised character of
what they called constitutions and kingdoms, from which came
monarchies, empires, and civil order throughout the world. The sovereign
authority which governed mankind was derived not from the consent of
men, bargaining and bartering, and transacting and compromising together
as it were in a market-place, but as derived from God Himself, and
immediately given to human society. But the particular form in which
society may be cast, and the particular person or prince, be it one or
many, who bears the sovereign power, come not immediately from God, but
mediately from human society. It was of this that St. Paul spoke [p.
602] when he said: ‘Let every soul be subject to the higher powers,’
though he was then speaking of a heathen Emperor. ‘For every power is of
God. He that resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God, and he
that resisteth shall receive to himielf damnation. St. Paul says this
of the civil society or political order of the world--of the Roman
Empire, persecuting and pagan, as it then was.
And yet Manning is made, a little lower down in the very same
discourse, to attribute to the Pope the false and un-Catholic statement:
‘I acknowledge no civil power!’
‘I acknowledge no civil Power,’ Manning is
made to say, voicing what he conceives to be the opinion of the Pope.
But Manning says no such thing. He says ‘I acknowledge no civil Superior
[which is quite a different thing], I am the subject of no prince.’ In
other words, the Pope, who is the head, in spiritual matters, of
250,000,000 Christians, is, by virtue of his office, free from civil
subjection, and will not be the tool or puppet or hired man of any
political ruler. And this, in brief, is the substance of his answer to
those who call upon him to become the obedient subject and servant of
the House of Savoy. ‘You ask me,’ Manning makes him say, ‘to abdicate,
to renounce my supreme authority. You tell me I ought to submit to the
civil power, that I am the subject of the King of Italy, and from him I
am to receive instructions as to the way I should exercise my supreme
power.’ The concocted statement as to the repudiation of the civil power
by the Pope was set forth by the Rev. Mr. Gibb as Catholic doctrine,
and our denial of the truth of his assertion was, at least by
implication, denounced as an act of heresy. But, as a matter of fact,
there is no question or statement of Catholic doctrine in the words
reported as used by Manning, which are, in effect, merely a variant on
what so strong a Protestant as Lord Brougham said in the British House
of Lords when Pius IX. was an exile at Gaeta: ‘Stripped of that secular
dominion [the independent temporal power], he [the Pope] would become
the slave, now of one Power, now of another: one day the slave of Spain,
another of Austria, another of France.... His temporal power is an
European question, not a local or religious one; and the Pope's
authority should be maintained for the sake of the peace and the
interests of Europe.’
Cardinal Manning was also represented by the Rev. Mr. Gibb as to
putting into the mouth of the Pope the statement that he (the Pope) is
‘the supreme judge and director of the consciences of men,’ and the
‘last supreme judge of what is right and wrong.’ And this, too, is set
forth as a Catholic doctrine, which it would be heresy to deny. But (a)
the quotation, as given, makes the Pope claim to be absolutely
the highest judge in matters of conscience and right and wrong--even the
Almighty Himself not being excepted; for there is no limiting or
qualifying word or phrase. And this, so far from being ‘Catholic
doctrine,’ is rank blasphemy. But (b) the report attributes no such
sweeping statement to Manning : it simply makes the Pope claim to be in
these matters the supreme or highest judge ‘On Earth.’
It is unnecessary to point out, even to persons of the most meagre
understandstanding, what worlds apart is the statement attributed to
Manning in the Tablet report, and that which is credited to him
by the Rev. Mr. Gibb and his Orange and other ‘authorities.’ The
suppression of the two vital words referred to above (‘on earth’) is
rendered all the more inexcusable by the fact that, on page 602, 22nd
and following lines of the report, the position of the Pope is expressly
stated to be, not that of one who is absolutely supreme, but that of
the vicar, delegate, and representative of Another, and that his
teaching and executive authority is not direct but derived, and is for
‘the Christian society’ which Christ founded ‘on earth.’ (c) We are
unable to say whether Manning really used the words ‘supreme judge on
earth,’ etc., in the connection given in the report. The terms there
given are not happily selected, but we are not concerned, in any case,
to defend them. They are by no means couched in the precise and careful
language of Manning's works, and represent, at worst, one of those
inexact oratorical statements such as slip with painful frequency from
the lips of some of our critics, even when they speak--as the Rev. Mr.
Gibb did--with copious notes and plenteous ‘extracts’ at hand. We
suppose that even a learned Catholic prelate, speaking--as Manning did,
in the fiery midst of a period of anti-papal religious and political
storm and fury--may not unreasonably plead, as did the Rev. Mr. Gibb,
that ‘in the heat of public utterance,’ he might ‘overstate his case’
and feel called upon to suggest that his audience ‘make a liberal
reduction’ for ‘the fervor of the platform.’ But it is not true, as
alleged by the Rev. Mr. Gibb, that Manning's reported words are, or
profess to be, statements of ‘Catholic doctrine.’
(d) In addition to the grievous manipulations of the text mentioned
above, the extract-rigger on whom the Rev. Mr. Gibb relies with a faith
that is so simple and childlike, adds one other word to the ‘Manning
extract’ that is not contained in the Tablet report, he subtracts three,
and he alters no fewer than six! All this violence, be it noted, is
done in one sentence of the report, which (as already stated) is at the
same time broken up into three. The addition, subtraction, etc., last
mentioned do not materially affect the sense of the extract, but they
serve, in their way, to further emphasise the reckless manner in which
the Rev. Mr. Gibb's vaunted ‘authorities’ are prepared to twist
quotations to suit their turn. (e) Another curious instance of
controversial ‘accuracy and scholarship’ is furnished by the concluding
sentence of the Rev. Mr. Gibb's ‘Manning extract,’ already quoted in a
footnote to the present paragraphs.
It runs as follows: ‘Moreover, we declare, affirm, define, and
pronounce it to be necessary to salvation to every human being to be
subject to the Roman Pontiff.’ This, as already stated, is a
mistranslation of the concluding sentence of the Bull Unam Sanctam. It is given, within the same quotation marks, as a portion of the Tablet report of Manning's utterance. But no such words are found either in that or any other part of the Tablet report. They are simply flung in as a make-weight.
We are sorry for those of the extreme section of our fellow-colonists
who have of late thought fit to make apparently concerted attacks upon
us in Dunedin, Christchurch, and Wellington. The weapons which they
employed were boomerangs which have returned and wounded the throwers.
The wholesale scale on which sham and ‘faked’ and garbled and concocted
‘quotations’ have of late been used against Catholics in these countries
tends to burn into our minds the conviction that the less educated and
more violent class of anti-Catholic controversialists hold themselves to
be dispensed from the ordinary obligations of truth and charity. We
shall be glad to hear what explanation or defence the Rev. Mr. Gibb's
Orange ‘authorities’ have to make for their mutilation of the report of
Manning's discourse. As a matter of elementary fair-play, the columns of
this paper are, of course, open to him or them, or to any responsible
persons for such reply as they may desire to make. The vogue which the
‘Manning extract’ has of late acquired in these countries, in the mouths
of our more violent assailants, is our apology for dealing with it at
what may seem inordinate length. Our Catholic readers and our Catholic
exchanges everywhere would do well to pigeonhole these paragraphs. The
‘Manning extract’ has proved itself a highly appreciated addition to the
long list of Artful Dodger ‘quotations’ that constitute the chief
stock-in-trade of the less instructed assailants of the Old Church. It
is sure to go far afield, and, even after it has been fully exposed, it
will be heard of again--for a period. It is a way that these
‘quotations’ have. When a branch was lopped off Virgil's inexhaustible
tree, another sprung up in its place :
Uno avulso, non deficit alter
Aureus, et simili frondescit virga metallo.
But pollard-willow or spreading broom or Californian thistle or
Virgil's tree--they all give way at last to the patient chip-chipchop of
the polished steel. Prompt and repeated exposure, plus the spread of
education and training in exact methods of research will, in time, strew
the path of the anti-Catholic quotation rigger with so many thorns and
spikes and sharpened nails (with inverted divisors) that there will be
very few to travel by it. And the cause of truth and peace and religion
will be greatly served thereby.
Footnote 1: The full ‘Manning extract,’ as given by the Rev. Mr. Gibb
at an Orange demonstration in Dunedin, is as follows:--‘In the Tablet
of the 9th October, 1864, the late Cardinal Manning, speaking in the
name of the Pope, is reportod thus: “I acknowledge no civil power. I am
the subject of no prince, and I claim more than this: I claim to be the
supreme judge, and director of the consciences of men--of the peasants
that till the field and of the prince that sits upon the throne, of the
household that lives in privacy and the legislator that makes laws for
the kingdoms. I am sole last supreme judge of what is right and wrong.
Moreover we declare, affirm, define, and pronounce it to be necessary to
salvation to every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”’
Footnote 2: [Transcriber's note: I was unable to locate the footnote
marker in the main text.] The Rev. J. P. Lilley, a Presbyterian
clergyman of Arbroath, was cited by the Rev Mr. Gibb as evidence in
support of the notorious ‘Manning extract’ quoted in another footnote to
these paragraphs. But (1) in so far as the Rev. Mr. Lilley is evidence
at all in this matter, he is evidence against the Rev. Mr. Gibb, for, on
p. 235, of his Principles of Protestantism (T. and J. Clarke,
1898--the same edition to which the Rev. Mr. Gibb refers us) the
Arbroath clergyman quotes Manning as follows: ‘Speaking in the name of
the Pope, Cardinal Manning said: “I acknowledge no civil superior, I am the subject of no prince; and I claim more than this: I claim to be the supreme judge on earth
and director of the consciences of man; I am the last supreme judge of
what is right and wrong.”’ (The italics are ours.) Such is Lilley's
quotation in full. The most superficial comparison between this
and the extract given by the Rev. Mr Gibb will show how widely different
they are, not merely in form, but in meaning. (2) Lilley, at least, did
not (as reference to the italicised words will show) garble and alter
the meaning of the reported utterances of Manning in the wholesale and
shameless fashion that the Rev. Mr. Gibb's other ‘authorities’ did. But
(a) he tore the words from their proper context: (b) he omitted, from
the very middle of the extract--and without the smallest indication of
such admission--no fewer than thirty three words: (c) he referred this mutilated extract to ‘Sermon, Tablet, October 9, 1864,’ which fell on a Sunday, and no Tablet,
as we have shown, was published on that date. The Rev. Mr. Gibb vouched
for ‘the accuracy and scholarship’ of the Rev. Mr. Lilley. But it seems
clear that the Rev. Mr. Lilley's ideas of accuracy and scholarship
either did not rise to the level of consulting the Tablet or of quoting it correctly. We have found his book fairly swarming
in places with inaccuracies. Here is one which occurs a few lines above
his version of the ‘Manning extract’: ‘By the constitution of the
Church of Rome, the Pope is made the absolute lord of the individual mind and conscience.’
(The italics are ours.) As a matter of fact ‘the constitution of the
Church of Rome’ does no such thing. The right of absolute lordship over
subjects is correlated by the duty of absolute obedience on their part,
and the most elementary acquaintance with Catholic teaching on this
subject and on the papal prerogatives would have prevented the
‘accurate’ and ‘scholarly’ Mr. Lilley from making a statement so absurd
in itself and so directly opposed to fact.
I note that the erroneous Oct. 9, 1864 date is
still attached
to the fake quotation, which is one of the points that leads me to think
the author of the article above has in mind the very list of
allegations that are the topic of this web page. Sadly, the
anti-Catholic quotation rigger is still alive and well.
Addendum: Out of curiosity, I went looking for places
that use this false quotation. It appears in Charles Chiniquy's alleged
memoirs. More surprisingly, perhaps, Upton Sinclair uses it in his The Profits of Religion an Essay in Economic Interpretation.
It shows up in several books written in support of Freemasonry. And, of
course, it appears here and there on anti-Catholic websites. It does
appear that this quotation is not used as frequently as some of the
others on the list.
Pope (St.) Nicholas I, first entry
This alleged quotation is again no quotation at all. It is taken from John Foxe's
Acts and Monuments,
Vol. 4, and as far as I can tell contains no authentic papal statements
whatsoever. Foxe was attempting to show what the list compilers are
attempting to show--that the popes have taken upon themselves the place
of God. He did this by creating a fictitious speech from a fictitious
pope setting out all his claims. The “speech” is a series of quotations
from various documents either about the papacy or by popes themselves,
interspersed with what Foxe thinks the popes were thinking. It is
somewhat easier to follow in his original than it is here; the person
who compiled the extract for the list either didn't notice what Foxe had
done, or didn't care. All the distinctions are gone, along with most of
the footnotes.
And if we take apart the pieces of the alleged quotation, what do we find?
“I am in all and above all” are Foxe's own words, put in the mouth of his speaker.
The next part (“so that God Himself and I, the vicar of God, hath
both one consistory,”) is not from a pope at all--here, Foxe is
selecting quotations from other writers speaking about the pope, through
the artifice of having his fictional mouthpiece pope speak of them with
approval. I can't find the original reference (Hostensius?), so I can't
provide the missing context, nor even check for accuracy of
translation.
Likewise, “and I am able to do almost all that God can do” is not
from a pope but from some other document speaking of the papacy. Again, I
can't locate the “Summa casuum fratris Baptista”, so I can't provide
context or check the translation.
We now switch to the part that is quoting actual papal documents (to
his [slight] credit, it's not Foxe's fault that the distinction was
lost--he makes it clear that he's switching).
“... Wherefore, if those things that I do be said not to be done of
man, but of God, what do you make of me but God?” It's amazing what an
ellipsis will hide. The context of this quote can actually be guessed
from Foxe's reference, a decretal from Pope Gregory on transferring
bishops. (Note that this is not the reference given in the list. More on
that reference at the end of this section!) There was (and is) a train
of thought in the Church that sees a bishop's relationship to his
diocese as analogous to marriage--not the same as, but related to.
Gregory is arguing here that he does have the power to move bishops, but
only because he acts with divine authority. To top it all off, Gregory
never said any of the material quoted at the beginning of this
paragraph. That's Foxe putting words into the mouth of his fictitious
pope.
As is this: “Again, if prelates of the Church be called of
Constantine for gods, I then being above all prelates, seem by this
reason to be above all gods. Wherefore, no marvel, if it be in my power
to dispense with all things, yea with the precepts of Christ.” No pope
said that. It's Foxe's own commentary on Pope St. Nicholas I's releasing
men from oaths made under pressure while in captivity.
In summary:
Actual papal words quoted: 0.
Words quoted from actual Catholic documents: Few.
Stuff Foxe made up: Most of it.
And, ironically enough, that one reference we're given in the
quotation as it stands in the list? It refers to a passage in Foxe's
book that has dropped entirely out of the quotation as it now stands.
Lord God the Pope?
There's an
excellent web page dealing with this claim. To summarize that page: the original edition of the
Extravagantes
doesn't contain that passage at all; it appears (allegedly; I have not
seen a copy) in an edition printed 300 years later. The passage in
question is in a gloss (commentary), not in the main text itself, so
even if it were authentic, it would not have the force of law. And,
finally, even if the phrase were in Canon Law, it would have no
doctrinal force. Canon Law is not intended to present the teachings of
the Church and does not do so definitively, though it sometimes repeats
those teachings to give context to the canons. So all we have here is a
quotation of unknown provenance, added to the text at a later date, that
would prove nothing at all even if it had been authentic.
Fr. Periera was an 18th Century Spanish priest. I have not seen a
copy of his work either, and the quotation given from it is originally
taken from a highly polemical source. I hope the reader will understand
by this point if I do not trust quotations taken from such a source. I
do not know why Fr. Periera wrote what he is said to have written, nor
in what context. But the opinion of one person, even if accurately
related (which I doubt), proves nothing.
This, by the way, is easily the most popular of these quotes on the web. Google returns over 7,000 hits for "lord god the pope".
Pope St. Nicholas I, second entry
The actual Latin text of this entry read:
Satis evidenter ostenditur a saeculari potestate nec
solvi prosus nec ligari pontificem, quem constat a pio principe
Constantio Deum appellatum, cum nec posse Deum ab hominibus judicari
manifestum est.
I translate that as:
It is shown clearly enough that the pontiff, who was
called “God” by the pious prince Constantine, is neither loosened nor
bound in any way by secular power, since it is manifest that God cannot
be judged by men either.
The phrase “who being God,” as the original quotation in the list
gives it, is a bad translation; one must twist the second clause (“quem
constat ...”) pretty heavily to get that reading. Pope St. Nicholas is
simply saying that secular powers cannot control the pope, who has his
authority from God. The quotation from Constantine (which I have not
been able to locate for further context) is perhaps meant to show that
one of the greatest emperors deferred to the power of the Church.
Innocent III
The issue about which Pope Innocent III was writing was again the
transferring of bishops from diocese to diocese, discussed under the
John Foxe pastiche above. The pope is claiming he has the authority to
do this not merely as a man and by human authority, but as God's
representative. In other words, it's a limited claim, not a universal
one. No Catholic should be ashamed of a pope's claim to govern in
ecclesial matters with authority entrusted to him by God. That does not
make the Pope God; it does not entitle him to worship; it does not take
away his humanity; it says nothing more than does Luke 10:16
Lateran V
The list simply says “the Lateran Council”. There were five of them;
the one in question must have been the fifth, which was indeed convoked
by Pope Julius II, though he died not long after it began meeting.
The quotation is accurate but incomplete. I no longer have ready
access to the book in which I found it (an account of the Council that
includes not just a summary of the debates and speeches, but the
speeches themselves); fortunately, I still have a copy of the relevant
portion of this speech:
Ad te igitur supplex tamquam ad verum principem,
protectorem, Petrum et sponsum accedo, quem oro, obsecro et obrestor, si
quae corporis sunt, temporanea iura respiciunt, armis curasti, nunc
quae ad cuiusque animum pertinent, non armis, sed sanctissimis legibus
cura. Id namque lingue facilius agere poteris, quam quae hactenus
egisti. Cura, inquam, pater beatissime, ut sponsae tuae forma decorque
redeat et pulcritudo. Cura, ut grex tibi commissos optimis ac
spiritualibus alimentis alatur et vivat. Cura, ut valetudo haec quae
totum terrarum orbem invisat, abicedat. Cura, ut fluctanti naviculae, in
alto a diris agitatae ventis salutis portus illuceat. Cura ne fruges
cuius es cultor, prae nimia ariditate sicceiact. Cura, ut ovile unum
fiat, quod modo est in partes divisum. Cura denique, ut salutem quam
dedisti nobis, et vitam et spiritum non amittamus. Tu enim pastor, tu
medicus, tu gubernator, tu cultor, tu denique alter Deus in terris.
The quotation given in the list covers only the last two sentences of the above. Here's how the whole paragraph reads:
Therefore I a beggar come to you as to a true prince,
protector, Peter [or Rock], and spouse, whom I pray, I beseech and I [?
This word is not in my dictionary; I assume it's a synonymn for the
others], if those things which are of the body they provide for with
temporal laws, and guard them with arms,
now of those things that pertain in any way to the soul, you tend not
with arms, but with the most holy laws. So much you are able to do more
easily by the tongue than you have already done with arms. Therefore,
most blessed father, take care so that beauty and attractiveness may
return to the forms of your spouse. Take care so that the flock
entrusted to you may be fed with the best spiritual food, and live. Take
care so that good health may watch over the whole world, not depart.
Take care so a port of safety may shine upon the wave-tossed boats,
tossed about in the deeps by the agitation of fierce winds. Take care
lest the crops whose farmer you are wither on account of excessive
dryness. Take care, so that the sheepfold may be one, for it is now as
if divided in parts. In short, take care that we lose not that
salvation, that life and breath which you have given us. For you are our
shepherd, you are our physician, you are our governor, you are our
farmer, you are in short another God on earth.
In other words ... it's not a compliment. The speaker is chiding
Julius for caring too much about other things. He's not flattering him.
He's reminding him of the responsibilities he has to take care of souls
by ruling and guiding the Church justly, a responsibility that belongs
to Julius because he has the place of God on earth insofar as God has
entrusted the care of souls to him. It's not flattery. It's not a call
to worship. I don't imagine that Julius was all that happy to hear it.
The New York Catechism
The only answer I have to make to the alleged quotation from this
source is if there is a Catholic “New York Catechism”, I have not been
able to find it, nor any information about it. The only references I
have been able to find to a document under the name “New York Catechism”
talk about something prepared by an
Episcopal bishop of New
York, in an era when Catholicism was not at all popular. If the
quotation is from that book and is authentic, it is most likely simply
anti-Catholic propaganda. Absent any indication that there is or ever
was something called the “New York Catechism” published under the
auspices of any Catholic group, there is no way to assess this claim
further, except to note that a claim based on a work that no one knows
anything about is most unfirmly based.
Summary
Of the seven items in the list:
- One (#3) is almost entirely the words of John Foxe, and therefore not attributable to a pope or to Catholics at all;
- One (#7) is a complete distortion of what was originally said;
- One (#5) is a late addition of unknown origin to a text of no doctrinal weight anyhow;
- One (#4) is quoted from I-know-not-where, having no useful reference;
- One (#6) is an egregious mistranslation;
- One (#1) does not claim that the Pope is God, but simply that he is
the representative of God on earth, and thus make no claim to divine
prerogatives.
- And one (#2) is actually a rebuke to the pope (delivered with the utmost respect).
I hope that these responses will at least be of use to Catholics who
find themselves challenged by this list, and I hope moreover that
open-minded inquirers who came here for whatever reason will discover
that, whatever arguments might be brought against Catholicism, honesty
will not permit the contents of the list to be among them.
