His Dealings With Protestants And Prayers For Union.
The kindly feelings Father Ignatius always showed for Protestants laid
him open to the charge of a want of appreciation for the blessings of
faith, or of not hating heresy as saints have hated it. Although his
whole life and actions amply refute either conclusion, some of the
incidents of this period of his life bring out his conduct in this
respect in its real character.
He tried to extend the benefit or plea of invincible ignorance as
widely as possible. He laboured and reasoned, with a warmth unusual to
him, to remove the notion some Catholics have, that the majority of
Protestants know they are wrong, but from some unworthy motive will
not give up their errors. His proofs of the position he chose to take
here were not certainly the most convincing, for his stock argument
was to quote himself. It did of course occur to him that its point
could be retorted by the fact of his becoming a Catholic for his _bona
fides_; but he took up the argument then by saying we were therefore
to hope for the conversion of England. His idea of England's apostasy
was mainly this: that the body of the people had been swindled out of
their religion by the machinations of a few crafty, unprincipled
statesmen, at the time of the Reformation. A system of misrepresentation
and false colouring of Catholic doctrines and practices was invented
and handed down from generation to generation, which impregnated the
minds of children with the notion that Catholicity and absurdity were
one and the same thing. From this point of view did he look at the
millions who groped in the {388} darkness of error, blaspheming the
doctrines of Jesus Christ, and imagining they were thereby doing Him a
service. He took then the side of pity, which always inclines one to
the lessening of faults.
He lamented nothing more than the loss of faith in England, and he
thought that a harsh, iron way of dealing with Englishmen would close
their hearts against grace altogether. This led him to use the mildest
terms he could find,--nay, the most respectful,--in speaking of
Protestants. He would never call them "heretics," nor their ministers
"parsons." "Separated from the Church," "Church of England people,"
"Dissenters," "Clergymen," were his usual terms, and he would often
also speak of them as "our separated brethren."
This twofold aspect of his bearing towards Protestants certainly
proceeded alike from charity and zeal. It was a common remark with
him, that we ought not to suppose people bad and evil-disposed unless
we are certain of it, neither should we hurt their feelings by
opprobrious epithets. And if we intend to do them any good we should
be the more cautious still as to our thoughts and words. He used to
sigh when he had done speaking of the state of religion in England,
but he would immediately start up as if from a reverie and say, "Shall
we not do something to save our poor countrymen?" So far was he from
sympathizing with the mildest form of error, that even in scholastic
questions he would always take the safer side. In his love for the
heretic, therefore, no one could ever find the least sympathy with the
heresy; or if he called the error a polite name, it was only to gain
admission to the heart it was corroding, in order to be allowed to
pluck it out. If we take into account his great love for souls, it
will seem wonderful that he did not burst out at times into
indignation against what destroyed so many; but we must remember that
such a thing as fierce outbursts of any kind were most unsuitable to
his spirit. His love would make him try to eliminate from those who
had died external to the Church, all the formal heresy he possibly
could; and he felt special delight in the fact that the Catholic
Church forbids us to judge the {389} damnation of any particular
individual as certain. But then let us think for a moment of what he
did to uproot heresy. He spoke, he wrote, he preached, he toiled for
thirty years incessantly almost for this single object. Any one that
weighs this well will be far from judging that he had the least
sympathy with error. His kindliness, therefore, for Protestants, and
his belief that the vast majority of them were in good faith, so far
from making him sit down at ease and enjoy his own faith, and not
bestir himself unless Protestants thrust themselves upon him to claim
admission into the fold, produced directly the opposite effect. Their
not being so bad as was generally imagined, buoyed his hope in their
speedy recovery; their being so near the truth, as he charitably
supposed, made him strain every nerve to compel them to come across
the barrier that separated them from him.
One of the means he adopted for reuniting Protestants to the Catholic
Church laid him open to another serious charge, which was, if
possible, more groundless than the last. In January, 1850, he began to
go about and call upon Protestants of every description--ministers of
church and state nobles and plebeians. His object was to get them all
to pray for unity. To state plainly his way of action, it was
this:--He intended to ask all Protestants "to pray for unity in the
truth, wherever God knows it to be." This, he said, was of course to
pray for conversion to Catholicism unknown to themselves; it was
taking the enemy by stratagem in his own camp. Objections were made in
different quarters against the proposition. Some said it was not
acting fairly and candidly; he then used to qualify it by telling them
that he knew very well the truth lay in the Catholic Church alone, and
so did every Catholic, and that if any Protestant asked him he would
plainly tell him so. Others then said, Protestants would be all
praying for proselytes to their own persuasions, for they were all in
good faith, and thought themselves in the truth. These and sundry
other objections were made to this mode of proceeding; it was looked
upon with suspicion, as savouring too much of communication with
heretics, and he never got a {390} superior to approve of it, neither
was it condemned. So it remained to the last an agitated question,
which none of us would enter into, and which himself adopted with a
kind of tentative adhesion. There was nothing wrong, certainly, in
getting Protestants to pray for unity; but then, "unity in the truth,
where God knew it to exist," was a very indefinite thing to propose to
them. Questions might be raised which could only be answered in one
way. What kind of unity? External or internal, or both? "Where does
God know the truth to exist? Must we all put ourselves in a Cartesian
doubt for a starting-point? And so on. The only answer could be--The
Catholic Church. And might he not as well ask them to pray for that at
once? Father Ignatius was not at all obstinate in sticking to this
proposal as a theory he might reduce to practice, it came up at times
in his conversation, and was dropped as easily.
The mistake it led to was, however, rather serious: it was supposed
that Father Ignatius looked favourably on, if he did not entirely
coincide with, a society called "The Association for Promoting the
Unity of Christendom," designated by the letters A.P.U.C. With this
society Father Ignatius never had anything to do; he detested its
principles, although he hoped it would do good in its way. He wished
it to be confined to Protestants. One leading principle of the
A.P.U.C. was certainly somewhat akin to some of Father Ignatius's
dreams--conversions _en masse_; but his notions and those of the
Association were widely different. They were for coming over in a
great, respectable body, whose size and standing would deserve to
receive great concessions in the way of discipline, as the condition
of their surrender. Father Ignatius was for an unconditional
submission of each individual, and could not allow any one to wait at
the door of the Church for a companion to enter with him. The _en
masse_ of Father Ignatius was no more nor less, then, than this: that
the people of England should throw off their prejudices and begin in a
body to examine candidly the grounds of the Catholic faith. He was
glad that the Association existed, because it carried out so much of
his wishes; but it {391} went too far for him, and in a prohibited
line, when it asked for Catholic prayers and sacrifices, and for
Catholic members. He never, therefore, gave his name to it, though
often and repeatedly solicited to do so. His greatest friend was
publicly known to be a member of the Association, and much as he loved
and honoured him, Father Ignatius had no hesitation in saying of him,
_in hoc non laudo_. Even so late as the year '63 or '64, he received a
bundle of their official papers, with a private letter from the
secretary and a number of the _Union Review_; he was seen to scan them
over, and then throw them into the fire. About the year '50 or '51,
when he was always going about asking for prayers for unity, after the
new idea that struck him, an incident occurred to bear out what is
here said. He happened to be speaking with a roomful of Protestant
clergymen on this very subject. They listened to him very attentively,
raised objections, had them answered, and finally agreed to the
justness of his proposals. They agreed, moreover, to kneel down then
and pray together for unity, and asked Father Ignatius to join them.
He refused at once. They pressed him on every side, and said, among
other things, that he ought to set them this example. He jumped up
with indignation, and said, in a manner quite unusual to him, "I'd
rather be torn in pieces by forty thousand mad dogs than say a prayer
with you." He hereupon left the room, and became more cautious for the
future as to how and when he asked them to pray for unity. The reason
of this abrupt proceeding was the law that forbids all Catholics to
communicate with heretics in divine things. Joint prayer, of course,
is against this law.
It is singular that, though he has left behind his thoughts drawn out
in full upon all the ideas he took up from time to time about the
conversion of heretics and the sanctification of Catholics, there is
nothing left among his papers upon this project. We may conclude from
this, as well as what has been said above, that while he looked upon
the Unionists with kindness, he never adopted their principles; and
such of his notions as seemed congenial to theirs will be {392} found,
on examination, to be totally different. This it was necessary to
remark, as many very well informed Catholics thought poor Father
Ignatius came under the censure of the Inquisition, _in re_ A.P.U.C.
It was quite a mistake, and he should have endorsed that censure
himself, if he lived, and freely as he avoided what drew it down
before he died.
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