# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1916_S45
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1916. 45

fought against the Pope with the weapons of human wisdom and philosophy. Also in the Roman Church this has been tried, and the so-called Modernism, which wants to introduce the alleged results of modern science into the papal doctrinal system, was the result. It was promptly condemned by the Pope, especially by Pius X, in his Bull "Pascendi dominici gregis" of 8 September 1907. What outcome this dispute will have is not hard to foresee. Through human wisdom, reason and science consciences are not set free from the Pope.

Especially have the secular princes, the peoples and states too, time and again resisted the Pope and his presumptions and encroachments. The whole Middle Ages echo with the struggle of the German emperor and other princes and their peoples against the Pope at Rome. The secular realms indeed could not do otherwise; they had to defend themselves against the presumptions of Rome, against its encroachments, if they wanted to preserve to some extent their freedom and independence from the Roman see. On both sides the war was waged not with spiritual but with fleshly weapons. The state has no other weapons and is to use no others than the weapons of legal ordinances and, if these are not obeyed, of external force, the sword, which it does not bear in vain. With these weapons the princes and realms fought against Rome. And Rome fought with ban and interdict and, when that did not help, also with external force, with the deposition of kings and emperors, with the release of their subjects from the oath of fidelity they had taken and, where it found the power and the opportunity, also with war and bloodshed, by setting one people against another. To be sure, in this struggle individual powerful princes and realms have succeeded in suppressing the worldly power of the Pope for a time, in warding off his presumptions, but the Pope's power over consciences remained unbroken; even the Pope who has and can exercise no worldly power rules unrestrictedly over the consciences of all people who have not become inwardly free from him. — The clearest example of modern times of how little the state with all its power can accomplish against the spiritual power of the papacy is probably the struggle of the Prussian state against Rome in the seventies of the last century. Even the great, the mighty statesman of his time, Bismarck, had to withdraw before this power.

This struggle against Rome in the civil and political sphere rages still today, also in our country. And this struggle has its justification. The Pope strives still today for political, worldly power; he claims still today the right to have his say in the affairs of the state. This struggle must be waged with worldly, external means, in our country chiefly also through the ballot box. This struggle is, as said,