The Pope became a temporal prince and suzerain,
at one time, of a large part of Europe, and exercised the
arbitratorship in all grave questions between Christian
sovereigns themselves, and between them and their subjects.
Since the downfall of feudalism and the establishment of modern
centralized monarchy, the church has been robbed of the greater
part of her temporal possessions, and deprived, in most
countries, of all civil functions, and treated by the state
either as an enemy or as a slave.
In all the sectarian and schismatic states of the Old World, the
national church is held in strict subjection to the civil
authority, as in Great Britain and Russia, and is the slave of
the state; in the other states of Europe, as France, Austria,
Spain, and Italy, she is treated with distrust by the civil
government, and allowed hardly a shadow of freedom and
independence. In France, which has the proud title of eldest
daughter of the church, Catholics, as such, are not freer than
they are in Turkey. All religious are said to be free, and all
are free, except the religion of the majority of Frenchmen. The
emperor, because nominally a Catholic, takes it upon himself to
concede the church just as much and just as little freedom in the
empire as he judges expedient for his own secular interests. In
Italy, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, and the Central and South
American states, the policy of the civil authorities is the same,
or worse.
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