UNITY IN FAITH NOT ADVERSE TO POLITICAL LIBERTY.
The supposed incompatibility of unity in faith with political liberty
is an invention of the irreligious philosophy of the last century.
Whatever political opinions be adopted, it is of extreme importance
that we be on our guard against such a doctrine. We must not forget
that the Catholic religion occupies a sphere far above all forms of
government--she does not reject from her bosom either the citizen
of the United States, or the inhabitant of Russia, but embraces all
men with equal tenderness, commanding all to obey the legitimate
governments of their respective countries. She considers them all as
children of the same father, participators in the same redemption,
heirs to the same glory. It is very important to bear in mind that
irreligion allies itself to liberty or to despotism, according as
its interests incline; lavish of its applause when an infuriated
populace are burning temples and massacring the ministers of the
altar, it is ever ready to flatter monarchs, to exaggerate their
power beyond measure, whenever they win its favor by despoiling the
clergy, subverting discipline, and insulting the Pope. Caring little
what instruments it employs, provided it accomplishes its work, it
is royalist when in a position to sway the minds of kings, to expel
the Jesuits from France, from Spain, from Portugal, to pursue them to
the four quarters of the globe without allowing them either respite
or repose; liberal in the midst of popular assemblies that exact
sacrilegious oaths from the clergy, and send into exile or to the
scaffold the ministers of religion who remain faithful to their duty.
The man who cannot see that what I have advanced is strictly true,
must have forgotten history, and paid little attention to very recent
occurrences. With religion and morality, all forms of government are
good; without them, none can be good. An absolute monarch, imbued
with religious ideas, surrounded by counsellors of sound doctrines,
and reigning over a people amongst whom the same doctrines prevail,
may make his subjects happy, and will be sure to do so as far as
circumstances of time and place permit. A wicked monarch, or one
surrounded by wicked counsellors, will do mischief in proportion to
the extent of his powers; he will be even more to be dreaded than
revolution itself, because better able to arrange his plans, and to
carry them out more rapidly, with fewer obstacles, a greater appearance
of legality, more pretensions to public utility, and consequently
with more certainty of success and of permanent results. Revolutions
have undoubtedly done great injury to the Church; but persecuting
monarchs have done equally as much. A freak of Henry VIII. established
Protestantism in England; the cupidity of certain other princes
produced a like result in the nations of the north; and in our own
days, a decree of the Autocrat of Russia drives millions of souls into
schism. It follows that an unmixed monarchy, if it be not religious, is
not desirable; for irreligion, immoral in its nature, naturally tends
to injustice, and consequently to tyranny. If irreligion be seated
on an absolute throne, or if she hold possession of the mind of its
occupant, her powers are unlimited; and, for my part, I know nothing
more horrible than the omnipotence of wickedness.
In recent times, European democracy has signalized itself lamentably
by its attacks upon religion; a circumstance which, far from favoring
its cause, has injured it extremely. We can indeed form an idea of a
government more or less free, when society is virtuous, moral, and
religious; but not when these conditions are wanting. In the latter
case, the only form of government that remains is despotism, the rule
of force, for force alone can govern men who are without conscience
and without God. If we attentively consider the points of difference
between the revolution of the United States and that of France, we
shall find that one of the principal points of difference consists
in this, that the American revolution was essentially democratic,
that of France essentially impious. In the manifestos by which the
former was inaugurated, the name of God, of Providence, is every where
seen; the men engaged in the perilous enterprise of shaking off the
yoke of Great Britain, far from blaspheming the Almighty, invoke his
assistance, convinced that the cause of independence was the cause of
reason and of justice. The French began by deifying the leaders of
irreligion, overthrowing altars, watering with the blood of priests the
temples, the streets, and the scaffolds--the only emblem of revolution
recognized by the people is Atheism hand in hand with liberty. This
folly has borne its fruits--it communicated its fatal contagion to
other revolutions in recent times--the new order of things has been
inaugurated with sacrilegious crimes; and the proclamation of the
rights of man was begun by the profanation of the temples of Him from
whom all rights emanate.
Modern demagogues, it is true, have only imitated their predecessors
the Protestants, the Hussites, the Albigenses; with this difference,
however, that in our days irreligion has manifested itself openly, side
by side with its companion, the democracy of blood and baseness; whilst
the democracy of former times was allied with sectarian fanaticism.
The dissolving doctrines of Protestantism rendered a stronger power
necessary, precipitated the overthrow of ancient liberties, and obliged
authority to hold itself continually on the alert, and ready to strike.
When the influence of Catholicity had been enfeebled, the void had to
be filled up by a system of espionage and force. Do not forget this,
you who make war upon religion in the name of liberty; do not forget
that like causes produce like effects. Where moral influences do not
exist, their absence must be supplied by physical force: if you take
from the people the sweet yoke of religion, you leave governments no
other resource than the vigilance of police, and the force of bayonets.
Reflect, and choose. Before the advent of Protestantism, European
civilization, under the ægis of the Catholic religion, was evidently
tending towards that general harmony, the absence of which has
rendered necessary an excessive employment of force. Unity of faith
disappeared, opening the way to an unrestrained liberty of opinion and
religious discord; the influence of the clergy was in some countries
destroyed, in others weakened: thus was the equilibrium between
different classes put an end to, and the class naturally destined
to fill the office of mediator rendered powerless. By abridging the
power of the Popes, both people and governments were let loose from
that gentle curb which restrained without oppressing, and corrected
without degrading; kings and people were arrayed against each other,
without any body of men possessed of authority to interpose between
them in case of a conflict; without a single judge, who, the friend
of both parties, and disinterested in the quarrel, might have settled
their differences with impartiality, governments began to place their
reliance upon standing armies, and the people upon insurrections.
And it is of no avail to allege that in countries where Catholicity
prevailed, a political phenomenon arose similar to that which we
observe in Protestant nations; for I maintain that amongst Catholics
themselves events did not follow the course which they naturally would
have followed, had not the fatal Reformation intervened. To attain
its complete development, European civilization required the unity
from which it had sprung; it could not by any other means establish
harmony amongst the diverse elements which it sheltered in its bosom.
Its homogeneity was gone the moment unity of faith disappeared. From
that hour no nation could adequately effect its organization without
taking into account, not only its own internal wants, but also the
principles that prevailed in other countries, against the influence of
which it had to be on its guard. Do you suppose, for instance, that the
policy of the Spanish government, constituted as it was the protector
of Catholicity against powerful Protestant nations, was not powerfully
influenced by the peculiar and very dangerous position of the country?
I think I have shown that the Church has never been opposed to the
legitimate development of any form of government; that she has taken
them all under her protection, and consequently that to assert that she
is the enemy of popular institutions is a calumny. I have also placed
it equally beyond a doubt, that the sects hostile to the Catholic
Church, by encouraging a democracy either irreligious or blinded
by fanaticism, so far from aiding in the establishment of just and
rational liberty, have, in fact, left the people no alternative between
unbridled licentiousness and unrestrained despotism. The lesson thus
furnished by history is confirmed by experience; and the future will
serve only to corroborate its truth. The more religious and moral men
are, the more deserving they are of liberty; for they have then less
need of external restraints, having a most powerful one in their own
consciences. An irreligious and immoral people stand in need of some
authority to keep them in order, otherwise they will be constantly
abusing their rights, and will consequently deserve to lose them. St.
Augustine perfectly understood these truths, and explains briefly and
beautifully the conditions necessary for all forms of government. The
holy Doctor shows that popular forms are good where the people are
moral and conscientious; where they are corrupt, they require either an
oligarchy or an unmixed monarchy.
I have no doubt that an interesting passage, in the form of a dialogue,
that we meet with in his first book on Free Will, chap. vi., will be
read with pleasure.
"_Augustine._ You would not maintain, for instance, that men or people
are so constituted by nature as to be absolutely eternal, and subject
neither to destruction nor change?--_Evodius._ Who can doubt that they
are changeable, and subject to the influence of time?--_Augustine._
If the people are serious and temperate; and if, moreover, they have
such a concern for the public good that each one would prefer the
public interest to his own, _is it not true that it would be advisable
to enact that such a people should choose their own authorities the
administration of their affairs?_--_Evodius._ Certainly.--_Augustine._
But, in case these same people become so corrupt that _the citizens
prefer their own to the public good; if they sell their votes; if,
corrupted by ambitious men, they intrust the government of the state
to men as criminal and corrupt as themselves_; is it not true that,
in such a case, if there be amongst them a man of integrity, and
possessing sufficient power for the purpose, he will do well to take
from these people the power of conferring honors, and concentrate it
in the hands of a small number of upright men, or even in the hands of
one man?--_Evodius._ Undoubtedly.--_Augustine._ Yet, since these laws
appear very much opposed to each other, the one granting the people the
right of conferring honors, the other depriving them of that right;
since, moreover, they cannot both be in force at once, _are we to
affirm that one of these laws is unjust, or that it should not have
been enacted?_--_Evodius._ By no means."[D]
[D] _Aug._ Quid ipsi homines et populi, ejusne generis rerum sunt,
ut interire mutarive non possint, æternique omnino sint?--_Evod._
Mutabile plane atque tempori obnoxium hoc genus esse quis
dubitet?--_Aug._ Ergo, si populus sit bene moderatus et gravis,
communisque utilitatis diligentissimus custos, in quo unusquisque
minoris rem privatam quam publicam pendat, nonne recte lex fertur, qua
huic ipsi populo liceat creare sibi magistratus, per quos sua res, id
est publica, administretur?--_Evod._ Recte prorsus.--_Aug._ Porro, si
paulatim depravatus idem populus rem privatam reipublicæ præferat,
atque habeat venale suffragium, corruptusque ab eis qui honores
amant, regimen in se flagitiosis consceleratisque committat, nonne
item recte, si quis tunc extiterit vir bonus, qui plurimum possit,
adimat huic populo potestatem dandi honores, et in paucorum bonorum
vel etiam unius redigat arbitrium?--_Evod._ Et id recte.--_Aug._ Cum
ergo duæ istæ leges ita sibi videantur esse contrariæ, ut una earum
honorum dandorum populo tribuat potestatem, auferat altera, et cum
ista secunda ita lata sit, ut nullo modo ambæ in una civitate simul
esse possint, num dicemus aliquam earum injustam esse et ferri minime
debuisse?--_Evod._ Nullo modo.
The whole question is here comprised in a few words: Can monarchy,
aristocracy, and democracy, be one and all legitimate and proper? Yes.
By what considerations are we to be guided in our decision as to which
of these forms is legitimate and proper in any given case? By the
consideration of existing rights, and of the condition of the people
to whom such form is to be applied. Can a form once good become bad?
Certainly it may; for all human things are subject to change. These
reflections, as solid as they are simple, will prevent all excessive
enthusiasm in favor of any particular form of government. This is not
a mere question of theory, but one of prudence also. Now, prudence
does not decide before having attentively considered and weighed all
circumstances. But there is one predominant idea in this doctrine of
St. Augustine: this idea I have already indicated, viz. that great
virtue and disinterestedness are required under a free government.
Those who are laboring to establish political liberty on the ruins of
all religious belief would do well to reflect upon the words of the
illustrious doctor.
How would you have people exercise extensive rights, if you disqualify
them by perverting their ideas and corrupting their morals? You say
that under representative forms of government reason and justice
are secured by means of elections; and yet you labor to banish this
reason and justice from the bosom of that society in which you talk of
securing them. You sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind; instead of
models of wisdom and prudence, you offer the people scandalous scenes.
Do not say that we are condemning the age, and that it progresses
in spite of us: we reject nothing that is good; but perversity and
corruption we must reprobate. The age progresses--true; but neither
you nor we know whither. Catholics know one thing--a thing which it
needs not a prophet to tell, viz. that a good social condition cannot
be formed out of bad men; that immoral men are bad; that where there
is no religion, morality cannot take root. Firm in our faith, we shall
leave you to try, if you choose, a thousand forms of government, to
apply your palliatives to your own social patient, to impose upon
him with deceitful words; his frequent convulsions--his continued
restlessness--are evidences of your incapacity; and well is it for your
patient that he still feels this anxiety: it is a sure sign that you
have not entirely succeeded in securing his confidence. If ever you do
secure it--if ever he fall asleep quietly in your arms--"all flesh will
then have corrupted its way;" and it may also be feared lest God should
resolve to sweep man from the face of the earth.