Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/58

ereign independence and an absolute power, there is a perpetual senate, composed of princes who hold their office from God. This perpetual and sacred senate is invested with a governing power; and yet this power is exercised in such a manner as neither to restrict, to diminish, or eclipse the supreme power of the monarch. The Church presents the only example of a monarchy remaining in continual contact with a powerful oligarchy and preserving intact the plenitude of its rights; and hers is the only oligarchy which has remained in contact with an absolute monarch, without turbulence and rebellion.

In the same manner as the princes of the Church come after their chief, so after the princes come the priests, who are charged with a most sacred ministry. This wonderful society entirely differs in its arrangements from all human associations. In the latter, the distinctions existing in the social hierarchy are so great that those of humble condition are tempted to rebel, and the elevated in rank are disposed to tyrannize.

In the Church the disposition of things is such that neither tyranny nor rebellion is possible. Here the dignity of the subject is so great, that the greatness of the prelate is rather on account of that which he holds in common with the subject, than in consequence of any special prerogative which he enjoys as prelate. The peculiar dignity of the bishops does not consist in their being princes, nor that of the pontiff in his being king; but it is in this, that both pontiff and bishops are priests like their subjects. Their highest and incommunicable privilege is not in their authority, but in the power to make the Son of God obedient to their voice, to offer the Son to the Father as an unbloody sacrifice for the sins of the