aster and repulse whenever an
attempt was made to exercise it Ever since the Tridentine age, the Popes
have confined themselves more and more exclusively to the religious
domain; and here the Holy See is as powerful and as free at the present
day as at any previous period of its history. The perils and the
difficulties which surround it arise from temporal concerns,--from the
state of Italy, and from the possessions of the pontifical dominions.

As the Church advances towards fulness and maturity in her forms,
bringing forward her exhaustless resources, and calling into existence a
wealth of new elements,--societies, corporations, and institutions,--so
is the need more deeply felt for a powerful supreme guide to keep them
all in health and harmony, to direct them in their various spheres, and
in their several ways towards the common ends and purposes of all, and
thus to provide against decay, variance, and confusion. Such an office
the Primacy alone can discharge, and the importance of the Papacy
increases as the organisation of the Church is more complete. One of its
most important but most delicate duties is to act as an independent,
impartial, and dispassionate mediator between the churches and the
governments of the different States, and between the conflicting claims
and contradictory idiosyncrasies of the various nations. Yet, though the
Papacy is so obviously an essential part of a Church whose mission is to
all mankind, it is the chosen object of attack both to enemies of
Catholicism and to discontented Catholics. Serious and learned men
complain of its tyranny, and say that it claims universal dominion, and
watches for an opportunity of obtaining it; and yet, in reality, there
is no power on earth whose action is restricted by more sacred and
irresistible bonds than that of the Holy See. It is only by the closest
fidelity to the laws and tradition of the Church that the Popes are able
to secure the obedience and the confidence of Catholics. Pius VII., who,
by sweeping away the ancient church of France, and depriving
thirty-seven protesting bishops of their sees, committed the most
arbitrary act ever done by a Pope, has himself described the rules which
guided the exercise of his authority:--

The nature and constitution of the Catholic Church impose on the
Pope, who is the head of the Church, certain limits which he cannot
transgress.... The Bishops of Rome have never believed that they
could toler