If, in an evil hour, he were to cease wearing a crown of gold; if you were to contest his right to make and break laws; if you were to give up the wholesome practice of laying at his feet that money which he disburses for our edification and our glory, all the sovereigns of the universe would look upon him as an inferior.

Silence, then, the noisy chattering of your individual interests." I flatter myself that I am as fervent a Catholic as M.Thiers himself; and were I bold enough to seek to refute him, I should do it in the name of our common faith.
I grant you--this would be the tenor of my argument--that the Pope ought to be independent.

But could he not be so at a somewhat less cost?
Is it absolutely necessary that 3,124,668 men should sacrifice their liberty, their security, and all that is most precious to them, in order to secure the independence which makes us so happy and so proud?
The Apostles were certainly independent at a cheaper rate, for they did nobody harm.

The most independent of men is he who has nothing to lose.

He pursues his own path, without troubling himself about powers and principalities, for the simple reason that the conqueror most bent on acquisition can take nothing from him.
The greatest conquests of Catholicism were made at a time when the Pope was not a ruler.