Woman, Church & State. Gage Matilda Joslyn

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188

No woman can witness a will in the State of Louisiana today.

189

Blackstone says whosoever wishes to form a correct idea of Canon Law can do so by examining it in regard to married women. —Commentaries.

190

. Blondell, a learned Protestant who died in 1659, fully proved Isidore’s collection of the Decretal Epistles of the popes of the first three centuries, to be all forged and a shameless imposture, says Collier.

191

The famous law of Constantine, attached to the Theodosian Code, by virtue of which a prodigious and monstrous jurisdiction was formerly attributed to bishops, or to the hieratic order, though in reality that law was never a part of the aforesaid code, at the end of which it is found. Seldon. —Dissertation on Fleta, p. 101.

At time of Valentinian neither bishops nor the Consistories could, without the consent of the contracting lay parties, take cognizance of their causes… Because, says that emperor, it is evident that bishops and priests have no court to determine the laws in, neither can they according to the imperial constitutions of Arcadius and Honorius, as is manifest from the Theodosian body, judge of any other matters than those relating to religion. Thus the aforesaid Emperor Valentinian. Neither do I think that the above sanction as extravagant, obtained a place at the end of the Theodosian Code, or was under the title of Episcopis, by any other manner posted into my manuscript, than by the frauds and deceits, constantly, under various pretenses, made use of by the hieratical orders, who endeavored to shape right or wrong, according to the custom of those ages, not to mention others, sovereign princes and republics of their authority and legal power, by this means under the cloak of religion, its constant pretext, most strenuously serving their own ends and ambition. —Ibid, 107.

192

See Reeves. —History of English Law.

193

Draper. —Conflict of Science and Religion.

194

Reeves.

195

Declaration of judges in the famous case of Evans and Ascuith. Vaughn said in a later case of the same kind, “If Canon Law be made part of the law of this land, then it is as much a law of the land and as well, and by the same authority as any other part of the law of the land.”

196

Gibson was archdeacon of Surrey, Rector of Lambeth, and Chaplain of his Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury (Primate of all England and Metropolitan) to whom the Jurus was dedicated. The work said: “The foreign is what we commonly call the body of Canon Law, consisting of the Canons of Councils, Decrees of Popes and the like, which obtained in England by virtue of their own authority (in like manner as they did in other parts of the Western Church), till the time of the Reformation, and from that time have continued upon the foot of consent, usage and custom. For which distinction we have no less warrant than an act of Parliament, made at the very time when those foreign laws were declared to be no longer binding by their own authority… We have a plain declaration that foreign laws became part of the law of England by long use and consent.” Gibson. —Codex Jurus Ecclesiasticum Anglican.

197

English Common Law Reports, Hill vs. Gould, Vaughn, p. 327, says: “What ever is declared by an Act of Parliament to be against God’s law must be so admitted by us, because it is so declared by an Act of Parliament.”

198

Under Catholic form the bride promises to consecrate her body to the marital rite.

199

Chiniquy. —The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional.

200

“The clergy formerly, and to this very day, declare those women evil who desire to limit self-indulgence and procreation.”

201

See Lecky. —Hist. European Morals.

202

In a sermon laudatory of the preacher’s office, delivered in the May Memorial Unitarian Church, in Syracuse, N.Y., Sunday, Nov. 27, 1887, Rev. Mr. Calthrop, the pastor, said: “Noble words are your chief weapons of offense and defense. But remember it is not you that speak when you utter them, but the Holy Ghost.” From Report of Sermon, published in the “Daily Standard,” November 28th.

203

Whoever wishes to gain insight into that great institution, Common Law, can do so most efficiently by studying Canon Law in regard to married women. Commentaries.

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Distinction of class appears most prominently in all the criminal laws for which the clergy are responsible. It was for the man of low estate, the slave, and for women, that the greatest atrocities were reserved. If the thief was a free woman she was to be thrown down a precipice or drowned (a precedent without doubt for dragging a witch through a pond). If the thief was a female slave, and had stolen from any but her own lord, eighty female slaves were to attend, each bearing a log of wood to pile the fire and burn the offender to death. Pike. —Hist. of Crime in England, 49-51.

205

A correspondent of “The London Times” writes from Rome that he has not heard a single doubt expressed as to the paternity of the Countess Lambertini, and the line adopted by the Antonelli heirs tacitly confirms it. They strenuously oppose the production of any of the evidence the plaintiff has offered. They object to the depositions of the witnesses being heard and tested, and they have declared their intention of impugning as forgeries the documentary proofs tendered. These documents consist of some letters written by Antonietta Marconi to the Archpriest Vendetta, and particularly one dated April 1, 1857, wherein, asking him to prepare a draught of a letter to the Cardinal, she says that “Giacomo” does not send her money, although he knows that he has a daughter to support, and that Loretina is a cause of great expense. “Write to him forcibly,” she says, “or I shall do something disagreeable.” The extent of the scandal in Rome does not consist so much in the fact of a Cardinal in Antonelli’s position having had one or more children, as in the law-suit which has brought all the intimate details connected with the affair before the public. Antonelli was to all intents and purposes a layman, filling one of those civil departments of an ecclesiastical temporal Government to qualify for which it was indispensably requisite to assume the ecclesiastical habit. He accepted early in life those obligations without which no career would have been open to him, and, like many others, he regarded them as mere matters of form, for under the imperturbable mask of the ecclesiastical diplomat beat a heart filled with the warmest domestic affections and instincts; and how strong those feelings were in him was fully demonstrated in his will, and is clearly shown in every incident of the story now revealed.

Dame Gervasi has been subjected to a rigid cross-examination by the counsel of the brothers Antonelli. The proceedings were conducted with closed doors, but a Roman correspondent of “The Daily News” seems in some manner to have wormed out the essential facts. When the mysterious “foreign young lady” went to lodge at Dame Gervasi’s, Cardinal Antonelli – so the gossip runs – paid several visits to his protege. “I remember,” says the Dame, “that when I went to open the door to them I held in my hand a bowl of beef tea, which I was taking to the patient. Dr. Lucchini was the first to enter, and I soon recognized the second visitor to be Cardinal Antonelli, who wore a long redingote and a tall hat. He took the bowl, which I held in my hand. ‘This is for the patient,’ he said inquiringly, but before I had time to reply he had swallowed part of its contents.” Dame Gervasi then proceeded to relate how Dr. Lucchini left the Cardinal alone with the foreign young lady. The witness put her ear to the keyhole, and heard distinctly the sound of kisses alternating, with sobs between the two. His Eminence, to console the patient, told her he had taken every precaution against the matter becoming known. СКАЧАТЬ