engage in war with the Pope as prince, without breach of their fidelity
to him as pontiff or supreme visible head of the church.

The church not only distinguishes between the two powers, but
recognizes as legitimate, governments that manifestly do not derive
from God through her. St. Paul enjoins obedience to the Roman emperors
for conscience' sake, and the church teaches that infidels and heretics
may have legitimate government; and if she has ever denied the right of
any infidel or heretical prince, it has been on the ground that the
constitution and laws of his principality require him to profess and
protect the Catholic faith. She tolerates resistance in a non-Catholic
state no more than in a Catholic state to the prince; and if she has
not condemned and cut off from her communion the Catholics who in our
struggle have joined the Secessionists and fought in their ranks
against the United States, it is because the prevalence of the doctrine
of State sovereignty has seemed to leave a reasonable doubt whether
they were really rebels fighting against their legitimate sovereign or
not.

No doubt, as the authority of the church is derived immediately from
God in a supernatural manner, and as she holds that the state derives
its authority only mediately from him, in a natural mode, she asserts
the superiority of her authority, and that, in case of conflict between
the two powers, the civil must yield. But this is only saying that
supernatural is above natural. But--and this is the important
point--she does not teach, nor permit the faithful to hold, that the
supernatural abrogates the natural, or in any way supersedes it.
Grace, say the theologians, supposes nature, gratia supponit naturam.
The church in the matter of government accepts the natural, aids it,
elevates it, and is its firmest support.

VII. St. Augustine, St. Gregory Magnus, St. Thomas, Bellarmin, Suarez,
and the theologians generally, hold that princes derive their power
from God through the people, or that the people, though not the source,
are the medium of all political authority, and therefore rulers are
accountable for the use they make of their power to both God and the
people.

This doctrine agrees with the democratic theory in vesting sovereignty
in the people, instead of the king or the nobility, a particular
individual, family, class, or caste; and differs from it, as democracy
is commonly explained, in understanding by the people, the peo