The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance is an anti-Catholic pamphlet written by British politician William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...

 in November 1874.

Outrage about papal infallibility

Gladstone was outraged at the Vatican Council

First Vatican Council

The First Vatican Council was convoked by Pope Pius IX on 29 June 1868, after a period of planning and preparation that began on 6 December 1864. This twentieth ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, held three centuries after the Council of Trent, opened on 8 December 1869 and adjourned...

's decree of papal infallibility

Papal infallibility

Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, by action of the Holy Spirit, the Pope is preserved from even the possibility of error when in his official capacity he solemnly declares or promulgates to the universal Church a dogmatic teaching on faith or morals...

 and set about to refute it. The pamphlet sold 150,000 copies by the end of 1874.

Church and State

Gladstone claimed that this decree had placed British Catholics in a dilemma over their loyalty to the Crown and their loyalty to the Pope

Pope

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

. He urged British Catholics to reject papal infallibility as they had opposed the Spanish Armada

Spanish Armada

This article refers to the Battle of Gravelines, for the modern navy of Spain, see Spanish NavyThe Spanish Armada was the Spanish fleet that sailed against England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1588, with the intention of overthrowing Elizabeth I of England to stop English...

 of 1588.

Rule of law against despotism

He described the Catholic Church as "an Asian monarchy: nothing but one giddy height of despotism, and one dead level of religious subservience". He further claimed that the Pope wanted to destroy the rule of law

Rule of law

The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...

 and replace it with arbitrary tyranny, and then to hide these "crimes against liberty beneath a suffocating cloud of incense".

Later pamphlet in 1875

In February 1875, Gladstone published a second anti-catholic

Anti-Catholicism

Anti-Catholicism is a generic term for discrimination, hostility or prejudice directed against Catholicism, and especially against the Catholic Church, its clergy or its adherents...

 pamphlet which was a defence of his earlier pamphlet and a reply to his critics, entitled Vaticanism: an Answer to Reproofs and Replies.

Letter to the Duke of Norfolk

Newman's Letter to the Duke of Norfolk

Letter to the Duke of Norfolk

Letter to the Duke of Norfolk is a book written in 1875 by the blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman. Consisting of about 150 pages, it was meant as a response to Protestant-Catholic polemics that had emerged in the era of the First Vatican Council. In the book, Newman comments on the injustice of...

was meant as a response to Gladstone's claim that Catholics have no mental freedom.

Immortale Dei

Immortale Dei is an 1885 encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on Church-State relations, and specifically on the topic of civil allegiance, which is defined as a duty of loyalty and obedience which a person owes to the State of which he is a citizen.