If the church is entitled to put its hands in the pockets of individuals
to further its own purposes, tax exemption is a cowardly subterfuge;
and the honorable way would be to announce openly the abrogation of
religious liberty and democracy, as proven incompatible with the higher
truth, and to require every individual, as a lawful tributary of
the church, to contribute directly to its support. If the church has
rightful authority over us all, the sooner we know it the better. Let
us then cease to prate of freedom, and bow our necks meekly to the yoke.
Let it be distinctly recognized that the priests are absolute masters,
and that we of the common herd have no human rights but the duty simply
of passive submission. In such a reversion to the Dark Ages, there
would at least be the merit that we should at last have done with
the miserable hypocrisy which pays lip-service to democracy, while
insidiously making the state the tool of ecclesiastical influences. We
should know the worst, and could choose whether to submit or to raise
the banner of open revolt against an undisguised enemy and usurping
despot.
As this happens to be the twentieth century, and as the pet dream of
the Vatican that in some way the world may be brought to return to the
degradation and servitude of the tenth century is one fortunately
doomed to disappointment, few beyond an occasional Spanish Jesuit or an
irresponsible Billy Sunday will regard the foregoing program as possible
or desirable of realization. No matter how untrue we may be to our
democratic ideals, we know in our inmost minds and hearts that the
progress and well-being of humanity depend on their realization. We
do not propose to take a single step backward into the darkness of the
past, or to forfeit any of the liberties already won through centuries
of struggle. It is too late in the world's history to dispute the right
of private conscience. All that is necessary is to realize how far
that right actually extends, and not to be cheated by a remnant of
reactionary tradition. This being true, tax exemption is at once doomed
in the court of enlightened morality, since we unite in rejecting its
logical implications. If priesthood has no lawful power over our private
actions, it has no right to claim a subsidy at our expense. What it
may not do directly, it has no right to do indirectly. If we may not
be compelled to a full support of the church, it is nothing short
of larceny to require us to render even a partial assistance to its
propaganda. We ask no discrimination against it, but simply that it be
required to exercise its functions at its own cost, supported by the
voluntary contributions of those, and those only, who believe in its
doctrines and its methods, and who desire to help it. This is simply
common honesty, to which the church, as the professed exponent of the
higher ethics, should be the first to give its enthusiastic adhesion.