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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
A
MONTHLY MAGAZINE
OF
GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
--------------
VOL. XXVI.
OCTOBER, 1877, TO MARCH, 1878.
--------------
NEW YORK:
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY
COMPANY,
9 Barclay Street.
---
1878.
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----------------------------
Copyrighted by
I. T. HECKER,
1878.
----------------------------
THE NATION PRESS, 27 ROSE STREET, NEW YORK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS.
A Final Philosophy, 610
A Glance at the Indian Question, 195
A Great Bishop, 625
A Legend of Dieppe, 264
A Ramble after the Waits, 485
A Silent Courtship, 39
A Sweet Revenge, 179, 384
Among the Translators, 309, 732
Africa, Religion on the East Coast of, 411
Catholic Circles for Working-men in France, 529
Charles Lever at Home, 203
Christianity as an Historical Religion, 434, 653
Church of England, Confession in the, 590
Compostella, St. James of, 163
Confession in the Church of England, 590
Criminals and their Treatment, 56
Descent of Man, The, 496
Dieppe, A Legend of, 264
Dr. Draper and Evolution, 774
Evolution, Dr. Draper and, 774
Fortifications of Rome, _Civiltà Cattolica_ on 403
the,
Free-Religionists, The, 145
French Home Life, 759
Froude on the “Revival of Romanism,” 289
Froude on the Decline of Protestantism, 470
German Element in the United States, 372
Hedge-Poets, The Irish, 406
Holy Cave of Manresa, The, 821
How Steenwykerwold was Saved, 547
Indian Policy, our New, and Religious Liberty, 90
Indian Question, A Glance at the, 195
Industrial Crisis, Character of the Present, 122
Ireland in 1878, 721
Irish Hedge-Poets, The, 406
Isles of Lérins, The, 685
Italy, The Outlook in, 1
Jamaica, Religion in, 69
Lérins, The Isles of, 685
Lever at Home, 203
Man, The Descent of, 496
Manresa, The Holy Cave of, 821
Marguerite, 73
Marquette, Father James, Death of, and Discovery 267
of his Remains,
Michael the Sombre, 599, 791
Mickey Casey’s Christmas Dinner-Party, 512
Mont St. Michel, The Last Pilgrimage to, 128
Mormonism, The Two Prophets of, 227
Mystery of the Old Organ, 356
Organ, The Mystery of the Old, 356
Our New Indian Policy and Religious Liberty, 90
Papal Elections, 537, 811
Philosophy, A Final, 610
Pilgrimage, The Last, to Mont St. Michel, 128
Pius the Ninth, 846
Polemics and Irenics in Scholastic Philosophy, 337
Preachers on the Rampage, 700
Protestantism, Froude on the Decline of, 470
Protestant Episcopal Convention and Congress, 395
Religion in Jamaica, 69
Religion on the East Coast of Africa, 411
Roc Amadour, 23
Romanism, Froude on the Revival of, 289
Rome, The _Civiltà Cattolica_ on the 403
Fortifications of,
Science, The God of “Advanced,” 251
Scholastic Philosophy, Recent Polemics and Irenics 337
in,
St. Hedwige, 108
St. James of Compostella, 163
The Character of the Present Industrial Crisis, 122
The God of “Advanced” Science, 251
The Home-Rule Candidate, 669, 742
The Late Dr. T. W. Marshall, 806
The Little Chapel at Monamullin, 213, 322
The Old Stone Jug, 638
The Two Prophets of Mormonism, 227
United States, The German Element in the, 372
Waits, A Ramble after the, 485
Wolf-Tower, The, 449
Working-men in France, Catholic Circles for, 529
Year of Our Lord 1877, The, 560
Footnotes 860
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POETRY.
A Child-Beggar, 683
After Castel-Fidardo, 789
A Little Sermon, 713
A Mountain Friend, 21
At the Church-Door, 382
Between the Years, 433
Blessed Virgin, The, 731
Brother and Sister, 652
Ceadmon the Cow-Herd, 577
Faber, To F. W., 305
In Retreat, 699
Order, 212
Outside St. Peter’s, 756
Smoke-Bound, 161
Sonnet, 405
The Bells, 88
The River’s Voice, 535
“There was no Room for Them in the Inn,” 668
To the Wood-Thrush, 250
Tota Pulchra, 355
Witch-Hazel, To the, 447
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
A Life of Pius IX. down to the Episcopal Jubilee, 135
Almanac, Catholic Family, 572
Almanac and Treasury of Facts for the year 1878, 860
Ancient History, 432
Annals of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, 144
Antar and Zara, 431
Bible of Humanity, The, 143
Bibliotheca Symbolica Ecclesiæ Universalis, 284
Blanche Carey, 140
Catacombs, A Visit to the Roman, 859
Catechism of Christian Doctrine, 137
Catholic Parents’ Friend, The, 144
Charles Sprague, Poetical and Prose Writings of, 143
Christianity, The Beginnings of, 425
De Deo Creante, 426
Eternal Years, The, 575
Evidences of Religion, 572
God the Teacher of Mankind, 137
Grammar-School Speller and Definer, The, 139
Human Eye, Is the, Changing its form under the 860
Influences of Modern Education?
Iza, 575
Jack, 143
Knowledge of Mary, 715
Letters of Rev. James Maher, D.D., 141
Life of Marie Lataste, 134
Life of Pope Pius IX., A Popular, 135
Lotos-Flowers, 573
Marie Lataste, The Life of, 134
Mary, The Knowledge of, 715
Materialism, 859
McGee’s Illustrated Weekly, 143
Mirror of True Womanhood, 719
Miscellanies, 281
Missa de Beata Maria, 139
Modern Philosophy, 428
Mongrelism, 142
Monotheism, 571
Morning Offices of Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, and 858
Good Friday,
Nicholas Minturn, 575
Records of a Quiet Life, 859
Recueil de Lectures, 288
Repertorium Oratoris Sacri, 574
Roman Catacombs, A Visit to the, 858
Sadlier’s Elementary History of the U.S., 432
School Hygiene, Report upon, 136
Shakspeare’s Home, 719
Specialists and Specialties in Medicine, 142
Standard Arithmetic. No. I., 287
Standard Arithmetic. No. II., 288
Sunday-School Teacher’s Manual, 575
Suppression of the Society of Jesus in the 429
Portuguese Dominions, History of the,
Surly Tim, 574
The Beginnings of Christianity, 425
The Fall of Rora, 431
The Life of Pope Pius IX., 135
Vesper Hymn-Book, The New, 573
What Catholics Do Not Believe, 719
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXVI., No. 151.—OCTOBER, 1877.
THE OUTLOOK IN ITALY.
I.—WHAT IS THE MEANING OF RECENT EVENTS IN ITALY?
The revolutionary movement in Italy headed by Victor Emanuel has, step
by step, trampled under foot every principle of religion, morality, and
justice that stood between it and its goal. No pretext of the welfare of
a people, even when based on truth, can ever make perfidy and treachery
lawful, or furnish a covering of texture thick enough to hide from
intelligent and upright minds so long and black a list of misdeeds as
the Piedmontese subjugation of Southern Italy contains. “All iniquity of
nations is execrable.” What is more, the catalogue of the crimes of this
revolution is by no means filled, and, what is worse, the future
forebodes others which, in their enormity, will cast those of its
beginning into the shade. That the natural desire for unity among the
Italian people might have been realized by proper and just means, had
the religious, intelligent, and influential classes exerted themselves
as they were in duty bound to do, there is little room for reasonable
doubt. For it would be an unpleasant thing to admit that civilized
society, after the action of nineteen centuries of Christianity, could
find no way to satisfy a legitimate aspiration, except by a process
involving the violation and subversion of those principles of justice,
right, and religion for the maintenance and security of which human
society is organized and established. It is indeed strange to see the
Latin races, which accepted so thoroughly and for so long a period the
true Christian faith, now everywhere subject to violent and
revolutionary changes in their political condition. How is this to be
reconciled with the fact that Christianity, in response to the primitive
instincts of human nature, and in consonance with the laws which govern
the whole universe, aims at, and actually brings about when followed,
the greatest happiness of man upon earth while securing his perfect
bliss hereafter? For so runs the promise of the divine Founder of
Christianity: “A hundred-fold more in this life, and in the world to
come life everlasting.”
What has beguiled so large a number of the people of Italy, once so
profoundly Catholic, that now they should take up the false principles
of revolution, should accept a pseudo-science, and unite with secret
atheistical societies? How has it come to pass that a people who poured
out their blood as freely as water in testimony and defence of the
Catholic religion, whose history has given innumerable examples of the
highest form of Christian heroism in ages past, now follows willingly,
or at least submits tamely, to the dictation of leaders who are animated
with hatred to the Catholic Church, and are bent on the extermination of
the Christian faith, and with it of all religion?
Only those who can read in the seeds of time can tell whether such signs
as these are to be interpreted as signifying the beginning of the
apostasy of the Latin races from Christianity and the disintegration and
ruin of Latin nations, or whether these events are to be looked upon as
evidence of a latent capacity and a youthful but ill-regulated strength
pointing out a transition to a new and better order of things in the
future.
Judging from the antecedents of the men placed in political power by
recent elections in Italy, and their destructive course of legislation,
the former supposition, confining our thoughts to the immediate present,
appears to be the more likely. It is not, therefore, a matter of
surprise that Catholics of an active faith and a deep sense of personal
responsibility feel uneasy at seeing things go from bad to worse in
nations which they have been accustomed to look upon as pre-eminently
Catholic. Nor is it in human nature for men of energetic wills and
sincere feelings of patriotism to content themselves when they see the
demagogues of liberty and the conspirators of atheistical secret
societies coming to the front and aiming at the destruction of all that
makes a country dear to honest men. Nowhere does the Catholic Church
teach that the love of one’s country is antagonistic to the love of God;
nor does the light of her faith allure to an ignoble repose, or her
spirit render her members slaves or cowards.
Serious-minded men, before going into action, are wont to examine anew
their first principles, in order to find out whether these be well
grounded, clearly defined, and firm, and also whether there may not be
some flaw in the deductions which they have been accustomed to draw from
them. An examination of this kind is a healthy and invigorating
exercise, and not to be feared when one has in his favor truth and
honesty.
Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1877.
II.—THE UNITY OF ITALY.
The idea of unity responds to one of the noblest aspirations of the
soul, and wherever it exists free from all compulsion it gives birth to
just hopes of true greatness. Would that the cry for unity were heard
from the hearts of the inhabitants of the whole earth, and that the
inward struggle which reigns in men’s bosoms, and the outward discord
which prevails between man and man, between nations and nations, and
between races and races, had for ever passed away!
“When will the hundred summers die,
And thought and time be born again,
And newer knowledge, drawing nigh,
Bring truth that sways the hearts of men?”
Unity is the essence of the Godhead and the animating principle of God’s
church; and wherever her spirit penetrates, there the natural desire for
unity implanted in the human heart is intensified and universalized, and
man seeks to give to it an adequate embodiment in every sphere of his
activity. It was this natural instinct for unity guided by the genius of
Catholicity that formed the scattered tribes of Europe of former days
into nations, uniting them in a grand universal republic which was
properly called Christendom. Who knows but, as there reigned, by the
action of an overruling Providence, a political unity in the ancient
world which paved the way for the introduction of Christianity, that so
there may be in preparation a more perfect political unity of peoples
and nations in the modern world to open the way for the universal
triumph of Christianity?
But there is a wide difference between recognizing that political unity
is favorable to the strength and greatness of nations and the spread and
victory of Christianity, and the acceptance of the errors of a class of
its promoters, the approval of their injustice, or a compromise with
their crimes.
“When devils will their blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows.”
The actual question, therefore, is not concerning the union of the
Italian people in one nation, or whether their present unity will be
lasting, or revoked, or by internal weakness be dissolved, or shaped in
some way for the better. But the actual and pressing question is, How
can Italy be withdrawn from the designing men who have managed to get
control over her political government under the cloak of Italian unity,
and who are plainly leading her on towards a precipice like that of the
French Revolution of 1789, to be followed by another of even more
atrocious notoriety—that of 1871? He must be blind to the sure but
stealthy march of events who does not see that, under the control of the
present party at the head of the legislative power, Italy is rapidly
approaching such a catastrophe. A few thousand frenzied men held and
tyrannized over France in 1789; a greater number in Italy—which, like
all Europe, is worm-eaten by secret societies—are only waiting for the
spark to produce a more destructive explosion, when the character of
their leaders and the more inflammable materials they have to work upon
are considered.
There is running through all things, both good and evil, an
unconquerable law of logic. What is liberalism on Sunday becomes license
on Monday, revolutionism on Tuesday, internationalism on Wednesday,
socialism on Thursday, communism on Friday, and anarchy on Saturday. He
who only sees the battered stones made by the cannon fired against its
walls when the Piedmontese soldiers entered into Rome by Porta Pia, sees
naught. There are more notable signs than these to read for him who
knows how to decipher them. In the invasion and seizure of the temporal
principality of the head of Christ’s church, which had stood for
centuries as the keystone of the Christian commonwealth, the
independence of nations was overthrown, international law trampled under
foot, and the sacred rights of religion sacrilegiously violated. It was
then—let those who have ears to hear listen—that rights consecrated
through long ages, and recognized by 200,000,000 of Catholics to-day,
were broken in upon by the Piedmontese army; and yet men are found to
wonder that the violation of these rights by the Italian revolutionary
party should fire with indignation the souls of the faithful in all
lands. But revolution will take its course; and so sure as the
Piedmontese entered by Porta Pia into Rome and took possession, and held
it until the present hour, so sure is it that the conspirators of the
secret international societies will in turn get possession of Rome and
do their fell work in the Eternal City. “They that sow wind, shall reap
the whirlwind.”
Who foresaw, or anticipated, or even dreamed of the atrocities of the
Commune in Paris of 1871? What happened at Paris in the reign of the
Commune will pale in wickedness before the reign of the
internationalists in Rome. As Paris represents the theatre of
worldliness, so Rome is the visible sanctuary of religion. _Corruptio
optimi pessima._
Is there a man so simple or so ignorant of the temper and designs of the
conspirators against civilized society in Europe, as well as in our own
free country, who fancies that these desperate men will shrink from
shaping their acts in accordance with their ulterior aims?
No one who witnessed the reception of Garibaldi in Rome in the winter of
1875 can doubt as to who holds the place of leader among the most
numerous class of the population of Italy. The views of this man and the
party to which he belongs are no secret. “The fall of the Commune,” he
wrote in June, 1873, “is a misfortune for the whole universe and a
defeat for ever to be regretted.... I belong to the internationals, and
I declare that if I should see arise a society of demons having for its
object to combat sovereigns and priests, I would enroll myself in their
ranks.” It is only the well-officered, strictly disciplined, and large
army of Victor Emanuel that hinders Garibaldi from hoisting the red flag
of the Commune in Rome and declaring an agrarian republic in Italy. But
how long will the Italian army, with the present radicals at the head of
affairs, remain intact and free from demoralization?
“The heights infected, vales below
Will soon with plague be rife.”
The army is drawn from a population which the internationalists have
penetrated and inoculated with their errors and designs, and their
emissaries have been discovered tampering and fraternizing with the
troops.
Who can tell how near is the hour when St. Peter’s will be officially
declared the pantheon of red-republican Italy, and the statue of
Garibaldi will be placed on the high altar where now stands the image of
the Crucified God-Man? This will not be the end but the prelude to the
final act of the present impending tragedy, when the black flag will be
unfurled and the palaces of Rome, with St. Peter’s and the Vatican, and
all their records of the past and centuries of heaped-up treasures of
art, will be reduced by petroleum and dynamite to a shapeless heap of
ruins. To those who can tell a hawk from a handsaw this is the hidden
animus and the logical sequence of the entrance of the Piedmontese army
into Rome. This is the real reading of the hand-writing on the walls of
Porta Pia:
“Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return To plague the
inventor. This even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of
our poisoned chalice To our own lips.”
But is there not a sufficient number of conservatives in the present
national party of Italy to stop the men now at the head of affairs
before they reach their ultimate designs? Perhaps so; it would be
pleasant to believe this. But the present aspect of affairs gives but
little hope of this being true. These conservatives, who did not, or
could not, or would not stop the spoliation of the property of the
church and the trampling upon her sacred rights; these conservatives,
who did not take measures to hinder the Italian radicals from possessing
themselves of the legislative power of the present government and
pursuing their criminal course—these are not the men to build one’s
hopes upon in stemming the tide that is now sweeping Italy to her
destruction. The dictates of common sense teach us to look to some other
quarter for hopes of success.
III.—THE MISSION OF THE LATIN RACE.
How much of the present condition of the Latin peoples, politically,
commercially, or socially considered, can be satisfactorily explained or
accounted for on the score of climate, or on that of their
characteristics as a race, or of the stage of their historical
development, or of the change made in the channels of commerce in
consequence of new discoveries, it is not our purpose to stop here to
examine or attempt to estimate and decide. One declaration we have no
hesitation in making at the outset, and that is: If the Latin nations
are not in all respects at the present moment equal to others, it is due
to one or more of the above-enumerated causes, and not owing, as some
partisans and infidels would have the world believe, to the doctrines of
their religious faith.
The Catholic Church affirms the natural order, upholds the value of
human reason, and asserts the natural rights of man. Her doctrines teach
that reason is at the basis of revelation, that human nature is the
groundwork of divine grace, and that the aim of Christianity is not the
repression or obliteration of the capacities and instincts of man, but
their elevation, expansion, and deification.
The Catholic Church not only affirms the natural order, but affirms the
natural order as divine. For she has ever held the Creator of the
universe, of man, and the Author of revelation as one, and therefore
welcomed cheerfully whatever was found to be true, good, and beautiful
among all the different races, peoples, nations, and tribes of mankind.
It is for this reason that she has merited from those who only see
antagonism between God and man, between nature and grace, between
revelation and science—who believe that “the heathen were devil-begotten
and God-forsaken,” and “this world a howling wilderness”—the charge of
being superstitious, idolatrous, and pagan.
The special mission of the people of Israel by no manner of means sets
aside the idea of the directing care of divine Providence and the
mission of other branches of the family of mankind. The heathens,
so-called, were under, and are still under, the divine dispensation
given to the patriarch Noe; and so that they live up to the light thus
received, they are, if in good faith, in the way of salvation. The
written law given by divine inspiration to Moses was the same as the
unwritten law given to Noe and the patriarchs, and the patriarchal
dispensation was the same as was received from God by Adam. There is no
one rational being ever born of the human race who is not in some sort
in the covenanted graces of God. It is the glory of the Catholic Church
that she exists from the beginning, and embraces in her fold all the
members of the human race; and of her alone it can be said with truth
that she is Catholic—that is, universal both in time and space:
_replevit orbem terrarum_.
Affirming the natural order and upholding it as divine, the Catholic
Church did not hesitate to recognize the Roman Empire and the
established governments of the world under paganism, and to inculcate
the duty, “Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s.” Hence she
willingly accepted alliance with the Roman state when Constantine became
a Christian, and approved, but with important ameliorations, the Roman
code of laws; and of every form of government, whether monarchic or
democratic, established among the Gentile nations of the past or by
non-Christian peoples of the present, she acknowledges and maintains the
divine right.
The great theologians of the church, after having eliminated the errors
and supplied the deficiencies of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle,
accepted and employed their systems, and the labors of these “immortal
heathens” have contributed no little to the glory of Christianity. It is
to the labor of Christian monks that the world is indebted for what it
possesses of the writings of the genius of the “heathen” poets,
moralists, and other authors. It was the church’s custom to purify the
heathen temples by her blessing, and transform their noble buildings,
without altering their structure, into Christian temples. It was in the
bosom of the Catholic populations of Italy that the revival of classical
literature and art took its rise in modern Europe. Notwithstanding the
extravagance of some of its votaries, which called forth the righteous
indignation and condemnation of Savonarola, its refining influence,
combined with the wealth due to industry and commerce, elevated the
Italian cities to a height of civilization that has not been surpassed,
if equalled, by the foremost nations of our day. When the ships of Spain
covered every sea with commerce, and its activity broke through the
confines of the known world and discovered, by the guiding genius of
Columbus, a new continent; when it was said of Spain that the sun never
set upon its realms; when Spain was most productive of great warriors,
great statesmen, great artists, and great saints, it was then, and
precisely because of it, that Spain was most profoundly and devoutly
Catholic.
All the joys that spring from the highest intellectual and artistic
culture, the happiness derived from man’s domestic and social
affections, the gratification of the senses in the contemplation of the
beauty of all creation, and the pleasure drawn from the fruits of
industry and commerce—all these, when pure, are not only consistent
with, but form a part of, the life and worship of the Catholic faith.
The very last accusation for an intelligent man to make against the
Catholic Church is that she teaches a “non-human” religion.
No political government, at least in modern times, has ventured to rely
so far upon the natural ability of man to govern himself as that of the
republic of the United States. It may be said that the government of
this republic is founded upon man’s natural capacity to govern himself
as a primary truth or maxim. It assumes the dignity of human nature,
presupposes the value of man’s reason, and affirms his natural and
inalienable rights.
These were declarations of no new truths, for they spring from right
reason and the primitive instincts of human nature, and belong,
therefore, to that natural order which had ever been asserted and
defended by the great theologians and general councils of the Catholic
Church. These truths underlie every form of political government founded
in Catholic ages, correspond to the instincts of the people, and were
only opposed by despots, Protestant theologians, and the erroneous
doctrines concerning the natural order brought into vogue by the
so-called Reformation.
Our American institutions, in the first place, we owe to God, who made
us what we are, and in the next place to the Catholic Church, which
maintained the natural order, man’s ability in that order, and his free
will. Under God the founders of our institutions owed nothing to
Englishmen or Dutchmen as Protestants, but owed all to the self-evident
truths of reason, to man’s native instincts of liberty, to the noble
traditions of the human race upheld by God’s church and strengthened by
the conviction of these truths; their heroic bravery and their stout
arms did the rest.
This is why Catholics from the beginning took an integral part in the
foundation and permanent success of our republic. Among the most
distinguished names attached to the document which first declared our
national independence and affirmed the principles which underlie our
institutions will be found one of the most intelligent, consistent, and
fervent members of the Catholic Church. The priest who was first
elevated to the episcopate of the Catholic hierarchy in the United
States took an active part in its early struggles, and was the intimate
friend of Benjamin Franklin and an associate of his on a mission to
engage the Canadians to join in our efforts for independence.
The patriotism of Catholics will not suffer in comparison with their
fellow-countrymen, as is witnessed by the public address of General
Washington at Philadelphia immediately after the close of the war with
England. And when they now come to our shores from other countries, it
matters not what may have been the form of their native governments,
they are at once at home and breathe freely the air of liberty.
Sincere Catholics are among our foremost patriotic citizens, and,
whatever may befall our country, they will not be found among those who
would divide her into factions, or who would contract her liberties, or
seek to change the popular institutions inherited from our heroic
forefathers. Catholic Americans have so learned their religion as to
find in it a faithful ally and a firm support of both political and
civil liberty.
Nowhere, on the other hand, does the Catholic Church reckon among her
members more faithful, more fervent, and more devoted children than in
the citizens of our republic. Everywhere the Catholic Church appears at
the present moment under a cloud; there is only one spot in her horizon
where there breaks through a bright ray of hope of a better future, and
that is in the direction of our free and youthful country. What better
test and proof of the Catholic Church’s sanction of the entire natural
order can be asked than her unexampled prosperity in the American
republic of the United States?
If the Latin peoples are backward in things relating to their political
or material or social prosperity, or in any other respect, in the
natural order, this is not to be laid to the charge of the Catholic
faith. If the races are not wanting to her, the church will never be
wanting to the races.
The force which is at work in the actual turmoil in Italy we are firmly
convinced will renew the Catholic faith, and open up to its people—let
us hope without their passing through a catastrophe feared by many, and
not without grounds—a new and better future.
IV.—THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
They are blind to the lesson which every page of the history of the
Catholic Church teaches who indulge in the fancy that the Christ laden
and guided bark of Peter will not ride safely through the present
world-wide, threatening storm. As the fierce beating of the storm
against the majestic oak fixes its roots more firmly in the soil and
strengthens and expands its limbs, so by the attacks of calumny the
militant church of Christ is made better known, by persecution she is
strengthened, and the attempts at her overthrow prepare the way for new
and more glorious triumphs.
The pages of history point out in other centuries dangers to the
existence of the church equal to those of the present crisis, through
which she passed with safety and renewed strength. A master-pen in
word-painting has given a picture of one of those critical periods, all
the more striking as the events which it portrays are within the memory
of men still living, and also because the writer is famed for anything
rather than Catholic leanings. “It is not strange,” he says, “that in
the year 1799 even sagacious observers should have thought that at
length the hour of the Church of Rome was come, an infidel power
ascendant, the pope dying in captivity, the most illustrious prelates of
France living in a foreign country on Protestant alms, the noblest
edifices which the munificence of former ages have consecrated to the
worship of God turned into temples of victory, or into banqueting houses
for political societies, or into theophilanthropic chapels. Such signs
might well be supposed to indicate the approaching end of that long
domination. But the end was not yet. Again doomed to death, the
milk-white hind was still fated not to die. Even before the funeral
rites had been performed over the ashes of Pius VI. a great reaction had
commenced, which, after the lapse of more than forty years, appears to
be still in progress. Anarchy had had its day. A new order of things
rose out of the confusion, new dynasties, new laws, new titles, and
amidst them emerged the ancient religion. The Arabs have a fable that
the Great Pyramid was built by antediluvian kings, and alone, of all the
works of men, bore the weight of the Flood. Such as this was the fate of
the Papacy: it had been buried under the great inundation, but its deep
foundations had remained unshaken; and when the waters had abated it
appeared alone amid the ruins of a world which had passed away. The
republic of Holland was gone, the empire of Germany, and the great
Council of Venice, and the old Helvetian League, and the house of
Bourbon, and the parliaments and aristocracy of France. Europe was full
of young creations—a French Empire, a kingdom of Italy, a Confederation
of the Rhine. Nor had the late events affected only territorial limits
and political institutions. The distribution of property, the
composition and spirit of society, had, through great part of Catholic
Europe, undergone a complete change. _But the unchangeable church was
still there._”[1]
Three centuries of protests against the idea of the church and of her
divine authority have served to bring the question of the necessity of
the church and the claims of her authority squarely before the minds of
all men who think on religious subjects. So general was the belief in
them before the rise of Protestantism that theological works, even the
_Sum_ of St. Thomas, did not contain what is now never omitted by
theological writers: the “Tractatus de Ecclesia.” The violent protests
of heresy, joined with the persecutions of the despotic power of the
state, have ended in showing more clearly the divine institution of the
church, and proving more conclusively her divine authority.
“In poison there is physic.”
The idea of the church is a divine conception, and the existence of the
church is a divine creation. The church as a divine idea lies hid in
God, and was an essential part of his preconceived plan in the creation
of the universe. Hence the error of those who consider the church as the
creation of “an assembly of individual Christian believers”; or as the
product of the state, as in Prussia, Russia, England, and other
countries; or as the effort of a race, as Dean Milman maintains in his
_History of Latin Christianity_; or as “the conscious organization of
the moral and intellectual forces and resources of humanity for a higher
life than that which the state requires.” Hence also the failure of all
church-builders and inventors of new religions from the earliest ages
down to the Luthers, Calvins, Henry VIIIs., Wesleys, Charles Foxes,
Mother Ann Lees, Joe Smiths, Döllingers, and Loysons, _et hoc genus
omne_. Poor weak-minded men! had they the slightest idea of what the
church of God is, or had they not become blind to it, they would sooner
pretend to create a new universe than invent a new religion or start a
new church. The human is impotent to create the divine.
Christ alone could replace the Jewish Church by his own, and that
because he was God. And this substitution was accomplished, not by the
way of a revolutionary protest, but in the fulfilment of the types and
figures of the Jewish Church and the realization of its divine
prophecies and promises. The ideal church and the historical church
which have existed upon earth from Adam until Noe, and from Noe until
Moses, and from Moses until Christ, and from Christ until now, which is
the actual Catholic Church, are divine in their idea, are divine in
their institution, are divine in their action, and their continuity is
one and unbroken. The church can suffer no breaks without annihilation.
God created man in his own image and likeness, and supplied from the
instant of his creation all the means required for man to become one
with himself. This was the end for which God called man into existence.
This commerce and union between God and man, with the means needed to
elevate man to this intercourse and to perpetuate and perfect these
relations in an organic form, constitutes the church of God.
The great and unspeakable love of God for man led God, in the fulness of
time, to become man, in order to make the elevation of man to union with
himself easier and more perfect. To this end the God-Man, while upon
earth, declared to his apostle Peter: “I will build my church, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
This places beyond all doubt or dispute the fact that Christ built a
church, and therefore its institution was divine. Moreover, it is clear
by these words, not that his church should be free from the attacks of
every species of error and wickedness which lead to hell—they rather
imply the contrary—but that these attacks should never prevail against
her, corrupt, overcome, or destroy her.
He added: “Lo! I am with you always, even to the consummation of the
world!” This promise connects Christ’s presence with his church
inseparably and perpetually. Hence once the church, always the church.
The whole world may go to wreck and ruin sooner than Christ will desert
his church. “Heaven and earth shall pass, but my words shall not pass.”
Let, then, attacks come from any quarter, let revolutions shake the
foundations of the world and conspirators overthrow human society, let
anarchy reign and her foes fancy her destruction—the Catholic Church
will stand with perfect faith upon this divine _Magna Charta_ of her
Founder as upon an adamantine rock.
Before Christ’s ascension he appointed the rulers in his church; he gave
“some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other
some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the
ministry, for the edifying the body of Christ.” He commanded them to
tarry in Jerusalem until they should receive the Holy Ghost. When the
days of Pentecost were accomplished, the Holy Ghost descended upon them
visibly, “and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.” That was the
moment when the divine institution of the church was completed, and then
began her divine action upon men and society that never was to cease
while the world lasts. The past dispensations of God were all fulfilled
in Christ, and his church, which was to embrace all mankind in her fold
and guide humanity to its divine destination, was divinely established.
It is quite natural that those races which, by God’s providence, have
been intimately connected with the church from her cradle should be
inclined to think that the church is confined to their keeping and is
inseparable from their existence. Christianity and the church are
undoubtedly affected in their development by the peculiarities of the
races through which they are transmitted, and it is natural that they
should accentuate those truths and bring to the front those features of
organization which commend themselves most to the genius, instincts, and
wants of certain races. This is only stating a general law held as a
maxim among philosophers: _Whatever is received, is received according
to the form of the recipient_. Thus, the contact of the church with the
intellectual gifts of the Greeks was the providential occasion of the
explicit development and dogmatic definition of the sublimest mysteries
of the Christian revelation. And through her connection with the Latins,
whose genius runs in the direction of organization and law, the church
perfected her hierarchy and brought forth those regulations necessary to
her existence and well-being known under the name of “Canon Law.”
The objective point of Christianity, the church of Christ, is to embrace
in her fold all mankind; but she is, in her origin, essence, and
institution, independent of any human being, or race of men, or state,
or nation.
The Italians, the Spaniards, the French, or any other nation or nations,
may renounce the faith and abandon the church, as England and several
nations did in the religious revolution of the sixteenth century, yet
the church exists and is none the less really and essentially Catholic.
The church has existed in all her divinity without including any one
nationality or race, and, if it please God, can do so again. The sun
would give forth its light the same though there were no objects within
the reach of its rays, as when they are reflected from nature and
display all their hidden beauty; so the divinity of the Catholic Church
would exist in all its reality and power the same though there were no
Christians to manifest it by their saintly lives, as at some future day
when, after the victory over her enemies, she will unite in one the
whole human race, and all her hidden glory will be displayed.
This law also holds good and is applicable to her visible head, the
supreme pastor of the faithful. The pope, as pope, was no less the
father of the faithful and exercised his jurisdiction when driven into
the Catacombs, or violently taken by a despot and imprisoned at
Fontainebleau, or, as at present, forced by the action of a desperate
faction of Italians into retirement in the Vatican, than when his
independence and authority were recognized and sustained by the armies
of the Emperor Constantine or defended by the sword of Charlemagne, the
crowned emperor of Christendom.
“The pope,” to adopt the words of Pius IX., “will always be the pope, no
matter where he may be, in his state as he was, to-day in the Vatican,
perhaps one day in prison.”
The perpetuity of the Catholic Church is placed above and beyond all
dangers from any human or Satanic conspiracies or attacks in that
Divinity which is inherently incorporated with her existence, and in
that invincible strength of conviction which this divine Presence
imparts to the souls of all her faithful children. It is this indwelling
divine Presence of the Holy Spirit from the day of Pentecost which
teaches and governs in her hierarchy, is communicated sacramentally to
her members, and animates and pervades, in so far as not restricted by
human defects, the whole church. Hawthorne caught a glimpse of this
divine internal principle of life of the Catholic Church and embodied it
in the following passage: “If there were,” he says, “but angels to work
the Catholic Church instead of the very different class of engineers who
now manage its cranks and safety-valves, the system would soon vindicate
the dignity and holiness of its origin.”[2] This statement put in plain
English would run thus: The Catholic Church is the church of God
actualized upon earth so far as this is possible, human nature being
what it is. The indwelling divine Presence is the key to the Catholic
position, and they who cannot perceive and appreciate this, whatever may
be their grasp of intellect or the extent of their knowledge, will find
themselves baffled in attempting to explain her existence and history;
their solution, whatever that may be, will tax the faculty of credulity
of intelligent men beyond endurance; and at the end of all their efforts
for her overthrow these words from her Founder will always stare them in
the face: “Non prævalebunt”—“the gates of hell shall not prevail against
her.” If this language be not understood, perhaps it may be in its
poetical translation:
“The milk-white hind was fated not to die.”
The radical party now in power in Italy may succeed in ruining their
glorious country, but they may rest assured that this does not include,
as her foes foolishly and stupidly imagine in every turn of her eventful
history, the ruin of the Catholic Church. “What God has made will never
be overturned by the hand of man.”
V.—THE SYLLABUS.
One of the principal offices of the Catholic Church is to witness,
guard, and interpret the revealed truths, written and unwritten, which
was imposed upon her by Christ when he said: “Go and teach all nations
whatsoever I have commanded you.” This duty she has fulfilled from age
to age, in spite of every hindrance and in face of all dangers, with
uncompromising firmness and unswerving fidelity, principally by the
action of her chief bishop, whom Christ charged to “feed his sheep and
lambs” and “to confirm his brethren.” This Supreme Pastor, in watching
over the sheep of Christ’s flock, has never failed to feed them with the
truths of Christ, and, lest they should be led astray, he has pointed
out and condemned the errors against these truths one by one as they
arose.
Whatever some critics may have to say as to the form in which the
Syllabus has been cast, or as to the technical language employed in its
composition, this document nevertheless is all that it purports to
be,—an authoritative and explicit condemnation of the most dangerous and
subversive errors of our epoch.
“That last,
Blown from our Zion of the Seven Hills,
Was no uncertain blast!”
Were the Syllabus the product of the private cogitations of an Italian
citizen named John Mary Mastai Ferretti, promulgated and imposed upon
the unwilling consciences of Catholics by his personal authority,
Catholics would indeed have reason to resist and complain. But the
violent opposition, the hostility and hatred, that the Syllabus has
excited among so many non-Catholics and leading minds is a cause of no
little surprise.
“What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?”
Suppose things were as they dream them to be, the attitude of that
venerable Pontiff in the Vatican, powerless to do physical harm to any
one, even if he would, standing up in the sole strength of his
convictions, and, in spite of the clamors of fanatics, the rage of
conspirators, and the threats of the prime ministers of powerful
empires, proclaiming to them and the world that what they hold to be
truth is a lie, what they maintain to be right is wrong, and what they
desire as good is evil—this presents the most august and sublime figure
the nineteenth century has witnessed. O noble old man! well dost thou
merit to be placed among the great men of the holy church, and as chief
pastor to be ranked on the pages of her history in the list of her
heroic and saintly pontiffs, with her Leos and Gregories.
But read the Syllabus—and few of its opponents have done this; take the
trouble to understand rightly what you have read—and fewer still have
taken this pains—and if you have not lost sight of the prime truths of
reason, and have any faith left in the revealed truths of Christianity,
you must at least assent to its principal decisions and approve of its
censures. For its condemnations are chiefly aimed against pantheism,
atheism, materialism, internationalism, communism—these and similar
errors subversive of man’s dignity, society, civilization, Christianity,
and all religion. What boots it that these distinctive errors are
cloaked with the high-sounding and popular catch-words, “intellectual
culture,” “liberty of thought,” “modern civilization,” etc., etc.? They
are none the less errors, and all the more dangerous on account of their
attractive disguise.
The opposition of those who are not internationalists and atheists to
the condemnation and censures contained in the Syllabus, can be
explained, putting it in the mildest form, on the ground of their lack
of the sense of the divine authority of the church and its office, and
the misapprehension or misinterpretation in great part of its language.
For at bottom the Syllabus is nothing else than the Christian thesis of
the nineteenth century, as against its antithesis set up by modern
sophists and conspirators, who openly put forth their programme as in
religion atheism, in morals free-love, in philosophy materialism, in the
state absolute democracy, in society common property.
This, then, is the significance and the cause of the rage which it has
called forth: the Supreme Pastor of Christ’s flock, with his vigilant
eye, has detected the plots of those who would overthrow the family,
society, and all religion, and, conscious of the high obligations of his
charge, would not in silence take his repose, but dared, in protection
of his fold, to cry aloud and use his teeth upon these human wolves, and
thus warn the faithful and the whole world of their impending danger.
This is the secret of the outcry against the Syllabus and Pius IX.
Herein is the _Quare fremuerunt gentes_. But does not the Syllabus
declare that there can be no reconciliation between the Catholic Church
and modern civilization? O blind and slow of heart! do you not know that
modern civilization is the outcome of the Catholic Church? What was the
answer of Christ to Satan when he offered to him “all the kingdoms of
the world and the glory of them”? “Begone, Satan!” Which means, What you
offer is already mine, and not yours to give; away, hypocrite and
deceiver! So to-day, when the declared enemies of Christian civilization
come in disguise to the Catholic Church and insist upon her
reconciliation with modern civilization, she replies with Christ:
Begone, Satan; modern civilization is the product of the Catholic
Church, and not yours, and not under your protection or jurisdiction;
away, hypocrites and conspirators!