Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/264



258 ALLEGIANCE TO THE REPUBLIC.

nature, it is constituted to provide for the common good; the supreme end which gives human society its origin. To put it otherwise, in all hypotheses, civil power, con- sidered as such, is from God, always from God: "For there is no power but from God."

Consequently, when new governments representing this immutable power are constituted, their acceptance is not only permissible but even obligatory, being imposed by the need of the social good which has made and which upholds them. This is all the more imperative because an insurrection stirs up hatred among citizens, provokes civil war, and may throw a nation into chaos and anarchy, and this great duty of respect and dependence will endure as long as the exigencies of the common good shall demand it, since this good is, after God, the first and last law in society.

Thus the wisdom of the Church explains itself in the maintenance of her relations with the numerous govern- ments which have succeeded one another in France in less than a century, each change causing violent shocks. Such a line of conduct would be the surest and most salutary for all Frenchmen in their civil relations with the republic, which is the actual government of their nation. Far be it from them to encourage the political dissensions which divide them; ail their efforts should be combined to preserve and elevate the moral greatness of their native land.

But a difficulty presents itself. "This Republic," it is said, "is animated by such anti-Christian sentiments that honest men, Catholics particularly, could not con- scientiously accept it." This, more than anything else, has given rise to dissensions, and in fact aggravated them. . . . These regrettable differences would have been avoided if the very considerable distinction between con- stituted power and legislation had been carefully kept in view. In so much does legislation differ from political power and its form, that under a system of govermiient