world. Hence marriages, even between Catholics, without witnesses or any sacred rite, are, though unlawful, valid, and, of course, sacramental, in England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, parts of Germany, Switzerland, America, etc.
With these principles before our eyes, a glance will tell us why the errors of this section were censured by Pius IX.
The sixty-fifth and sixty-sixth deny that matrimony is a sacrament.
The three that follow are based on the supposition that matrimony is a civil, not a sacred contract.
The seventieth and seventy-first are an attempt to elude the force of the decree of Trent forbidding and rendering null clandestine marriages.
The seventy-second proposition is condemned as historically false.
The seventy-third and seventy-fourth condemnations were a necessary consequence of the Catholic principles on the sacramental nature of marriage, stated at the head of this section.
§ IX.—Errors regarding the Civil Power of the Sovereign Pontiff.
If the States of Europe consulted their own political interests, they would uphold with every nerve and sinew the Temporal Power of the Pope. Nothing could be more odious to Catholics in any State— nothing more calculated to create jealousy and rivalry—than the knowledge that the Pontiff is under the control of a foreign prince. Witness the troubles of
