From these preliminary remarks, it will be seen that those who charge
the Catholic Church with being opposed to progress, must mean _material_
progress; that is, a larger knowledge of the laws of the physical
universe, and a wider diffusion and application of the various arts and
contrivances which minister to the comforts and conveniences of man's
earthly existence, leaving out of account altogether the moral and
spiritual advancement of humanity.
To all such it will be enough to observe: the Catholic Church is not
opposed to progress in the material order of things. She places no
hindrance to the exercise of man's inventive faculties. But above and
beyond the highest material progress, above and beyond railroads and
telegraphs, steam-engines, and cannons and iron-clads, she places the
moral and spiritual progress of the human race. She will never cease to
maintain that though railroads and telegraphs girdle the earth a hundred
times over, and the telephones penetrate into every private dwelling;
though the sails of a nation's commerce whiten every sea, and the face
of the land be covered with the most varied and prosperous
industries--man will be none the happier, society none the more peaceful
and durable when not leavened by the spirit of Christian truth and
Christian morality. At every new invention men cry aloud in tones of
triumph: See how humanity is advancing; see what victories mind is daily
gaining over matter; and dazzled by the splendor of their progress in
the material order of things, come to think that therein lies the end of
their existence, the supreme aim of all human exertion. To all such the
church simply observes: Labor and strive to make what progress you can
in art and science, in commerce and industry, in every department of
human enterprise and activity: and when you have travelled over the
whole field, have exhausted all your resources, and reached the farthest
limits of your power, I say to you: You have not progressed far enough.
A far nobler and higher ideal is yours. You are born to be a child of
God, to bring out into utmost clearness and distinctness the likeness of
God that is stamped on your soul, and develop into the full-grown man,
"to the measure of the stature and the fulness of Christ." Thus, as
regards the higher order of progress, the Catholic Church is in advance
of her age. "Excelsior" is the motto emblazoned on her flag.
It is no difficult task for the mere theorist to sketch out, in the
domain of religion or politics, systems ideally perfect, serenely
ignoring in their application such disturbing elements as the vices and
frailties incident to a fallen humanity. But the practical man of
affairs who has to deal, not with abstractions, but with the concrete
realities of life, soon, alas! perceives that such a dazzling formula,
for example, as that of the French republicans, "Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity," can be realized on earth by revolutionizing, not only
political institutions, but the very nature of man himself. Humanity is
a mere empty abstraction, except in so far as we conceive it as composed
of individuals. Society is a mere aggregate of individuals. Except to
your modern prophet, it is difficult to conceive how there can be
progress in society without progress among the individuals who go to
compose that society.
Each individual may be viewed, under a threefold aspect: in his
relations to himself, to the family, and to the society of which he is a
member. Now all progress which deserves the name must make for the
well-being and advancement of the individual in these threefold
relations of life.
This the Catholic Church claims to do. On the first page of the
catechism which she places in the hands of the little child is a
decisive, authoritative answer to the heart-piercing cry of modern
doubt: "Whence, and great heavens, whither?" She exhorts to the practice
of those virtues which alone beget true peace and contentment of
mind--to temperance, purity, honesty, self-control, love of God and our
neighbor. She claims, furthermore, to be the sole depository and
dispenser of these spiritual aids, without which the practice of these
virtues is impossible, and without which man can never attain the end of
his existence.
The church has blest and sanctified the family relation as the
fundamental element in the structure of human society. She is the only
institution now in the world which upholds the unity and indissolubility
of the marriage tie. She has uplifted woman from the mire of degradation
into which paganism had dragged her, has made her the equal, instead of
being the slave of man. She counsels mutual love, trust and fidelity, as
between husband and wife, and reminds them of their common
responsibility in training their offspring in the ways of truth and
virtue. She exhorts children to the duties of love, reverence, obedience
towards their parents.
She tells the citizen that he owes a strict, conscientious obedience to
the laws of the realm, a willing allegiance to the lawfully constituted
government under which he lives. She reminds rulers that they have no
power except in so far as it has been given to them from above; that
they are responsible to the Most High for the use they make of that
power; that their authority must be exercised in a spirit of justice,
moderation, and regard for the interests of those over whom they are
placed; and that, finally, in the sight of God, they are of no more
account than the lowliest of their subjects.
This doctrine of the equality of men before God is the fruitful
principle which flung forth into the seed-field of time has developed
into the kindred doctrine which asserts the equality of all men before
the law. The assertion and application of this principle it was which
enabled the Church to abolish slavery in Europe, not indeed by the
effusion of blood and treasure, but by the calm, winning influence of
her persuasiveness and her example. In truth, it may be said that the
history of the Catholic Church is the history of human progress on
earth. From the day when she stepped down from the little chamber in
Jerusalem into the public squares of the city, and took society by the
hand to lift it out of the corruption into which paganism had dragged
it, dates the first step in the true progress of human society.