The rights that grew out of these relations were real
rights, sacred and inviolable, but only where and while the
relations subsisted. They, for the most part, grew out of the
feudal system introduced into the Roman empire by its barbarian
conquerors, and necessarily ceased with the political order in
which they originated. Undoubtedly the church consecrated civil
rulers, but this did not imply that they received their power or
right to govern from God through her; but implied that their
persons were sacred, and that violence to them would be
sacrilege; that they held the Christian faith, and acknowledged
themselves bound to protect it, and to govern their subjects
justly, according to the law of God.
The church, moreover, has always recognized the distinction of
the two powers, and although the Pope owes to the fact that he is
chief of the spiritual society, his temporal principality, no
theologian or canonist of the slightest respectability would
argue that he derives his rights as temporal sovereign from his
rights as pontiff. His rights as pontiff depend on the express
appointment of God; his rights as temporal prince are derived
from the same source from which other princes derive their
rights, and are held by the same tenure. Hence canonists have
maintained that the subjects of other states may even engage in
war with the Pope as prince, without breach of their fidelity to
him as pontiff or supreme visible head of the church.
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