I.

CARDINAL MANNING has stated the claims of the Roman Catholic Church with

great clearness, and apparently without reserve. The age, position and

learning of this man give a certain weight to his words, apart from

their worth. He represents the oldest of the Christian churches. The

questions involved are among the most important that can engage the

human mind. No one having the slightest regard for that superb thing

known as intellectual honesty, will avoid the issues tendered, or seek

in any way to gain a victory over truth.

Without candor, discussion, in the highest sense, is impossible.

All have the same interest, whether they know it or not, in the

establishment of facts. All have the same to gain, the same to lose. He

loads the dice against himself who scores a point against the right.

Absolute honesty is to the intellectual perception what light is to the

eyes. Prejudice and passion cloud the mind. In each disputant should be

blended the advocate and judge.

In this spirit, having in view only the ascertainment of the truth, let

us examine the arguments, or rather the statements and conclusions, of

Cardinal Manning.

The proposition is that "The church itself, by its marvelous

propagation, its eminent sanctity, its inexhaustible fruitfulness in all

good things, its catholic unity and invincible stability, is a vast and

perpetual motive of credibility, and an irrefragable witness of its own

divine legation."

The reasons given as supporting this proposition are:

That the Catholic Church interpenetrates all the nations of the

civilized world; that it is extranational and independent in a

supernational unity; that it is the same in every place; that it speaks

all languages in the civilized world; that it is obedient to one head;

that as many as seven hundred bishops have knelt before the pope; that

pilgrims from all nations have brought gifts to Rome, and that all these

things set forth in the most self-evident way the unity and universality

of the Roman Church.

It is also asserted that "men see the Head of the Church year by year

speaking to the nations of the world, treating with Empires, Republics

and Governments;" that "there is no other man on earth that can so bear

himself," and that "neither from Canterbury nor from Constantinople can

such a voice go forth to which rulers and people listen."

It is also claimed that the Catholic Church has enlightened and purified

the world; that it has given us the peace and purity of domestic life;

that it has destroyed idolatry and demonology; that it gave us a body of

law from a higher source than man; that it has produced the civilization

of Christendom; that the popes were the greatest of statesmen and

rulers; that celibacy is better than marriage, and that the revolutions

and reformations of the last three hundred years have been destructive

and calamitous.

We will examine these assertions as well as some others.

No one will dispute that the Catholic Church is the best witness of its

own existence. The same is true of every thing that exists--of every

church, great and small, of every man, and of every insect.

But it is contended that the marvelous growth or propagation of the

church is evidence of its divine origin. Can it be said that success is

supernatural? All success in this world is relative. Majorities are not

necessarily right. If anything is known--if anything can be known--we

are sure that very large bodies of men have frequently been wrong. We

believe in what is called the progress of mankind. Progress, for

the most part, consists in finding new truths and getting rid of old

errors--that is to say, getting nearer and nearer in harmony with

the facts of nature, seeing with greater clearness the conditions of

well-being.

There is no nation in which a majority leads the way. In the progress of

mankind, the few have been the nearest right. There have been centuries

in which the light seemed to emanate only from a handful of men, while

the rest of the world was enveloped in darkness. Some great man leads

the way--he becomes the morning star, the prophet of a coming day.

Afterward, many millions accept his views. But there are still heights

above and beyond; there are other pioneers, and the old day, in

comparison with the new, becomes a night. So, we cannot say that success

demonstrates either divine origin or supernatural aid.

We know, if we know anything, that wisdom has often been trampled

beneath the feet of the multitude. We know that the torch of science has

been blown out by the breath of the hydra-headed. We know that the whole

intellectual heaven has been darkened again and again. The truth or

falsity of a proposition cannot be determined by ascertaining the number

of those who assert, or of those who deny.

If the marvelous propagation of the Catholic Church proves its divine

origin, what shall we say of the marvelous propagation of Mohammedanism?

Nothing can be clearer than that Christianity arose out of the ruins

of the Roman Empire--that is to say, the ruins of Paganism. And it is

equally clear that Mohammedanism arose out of the wreck and ruin of

Catholicism.

After Mohammed came upon the stage, "Christianity was forever expelled

from its most glorious seats--from Palestine, the scene of its most

sacred recollections; from Asia Minor, that of its first churches; from

Egypt, whence issued the great doctrine of Trinitarian Orthodoxy, and

from Carthage, who imposed her belief on Europe." Before that time "the

ecclesiastical chiefs of Rome, of Constantinople, and of Alexandria

were engaged in a desperate struggle for supremacy, carrying out their

purposes by weapons and in ways revolting to the conscience of man.

Bishops were concerned in assassinations, poisonings, adulteries,

blindings, riots, treasons, civil war. Patriarchs and primates were

excommunicating and anathematizing one another in their rivalries

for earthly power--bribing eunuchs with gold and courtesans and royal

females with concessions of episcopal love. Among legions of monks who

carried terror into the imperial armies and riot into the great cities

arose hideous clamors for theological dogmas, but never a voice for

intellectual liberty or the outraged rights of man.

"Under these circumstances, amid these atrocities and crimes, Mohammed

arose, and raised his own nation from Fetichism, the adoration of

the meteoric stone, and from the basest idol worship, and irrevocably

wrenched from Christianity more than half--and that by far the

best half--of her possessions, since it included the Holy Land, the

birth-place of the Christian faith, and Africa, which had imparted to

it its Latin form; and now, after a lapse of more than a thousand

years that continent, and a very large part of Asia, remain permanently

attached to the Arabian doctrine."

It may be interesting in this connection to say that the Mohammedan now

proves the divine mission of his apostle by appealing to the marvelous

propagation of the faith. If the argument is good in the mouth of a

Catholic, is it not good in the mouth of a Moslem? Let us see if it is

not better.

According to Cardinal Manning, the Catholic Church triumphed only over

the institutions of men--triumphed only over religions that had been

established by men,--by wicked and ignorant men. But Mohammed triumphed

not only over the religions of men, but over the religion of God.

This ignorant driver of camels, this poor, unknown, unlettered boy,

unassisted by God, unenlightened by supernatural means, drove the armies

of the true cross before him as the winter's storm drives withered

leaves. At his name, priests, bishops, and cardinals fled with white

faces--popes trembled, and the armies of God, fighting for the true

faith, were conquered on a thousand fields.

If the success of a church proves its divinity, and after that another

church arises and defeats the first, what does that prove?

Let us put this question in a milder form: Suppose the second church

lives and flourishes in spite of the first, what does that prove?

As a matter of fact, however, no church rises with everything against

it. Something is favorable to it, or it could not exist. If it succeeds

and grows, it is absolutely certain that the conditions are favorable.

If it spreads rapidly, it simply shows that the conditions are

exceedingly favorable, and that the forces in opposition are weak and

easily overcome.

Here, in my own country, within a few years, has arisen a new religion.

Its foundations were laid in an intelligent community, having had

the advantages of what is known as modern civilization. Yet this new

faith--founded on the grossest absurdities, as gross as we find in the

Scriptures--in spite of all opposition began to grow, and kept growing.

It was subjected to persecution, and the persecution increased its

strength. It was driven from State to State by the believers in

universal love, until it left what was called civilization, crossed the

wide plains, and took up its abode on the shores of the Great Salt

Lake. It continued to grow. Its founder, as he declared, had frequent

conversations with God, and received directions from that source.

Hundreds of miracles were performed--multitudes upon the desert were

miraculously fed--the sick were cured--the dead were raised, and the

Mormon Church continued to grow, until now, less than half a century

after the death of its founder, there are several hundred thousand

believers in the new faith.

Do you think that men enough could join this church to prove the truth

of its creed?

Joseph Smith said that he found certain golden plates that had been

buried for many generations, and upon these plates, in some unknown

language, had been engraved this new revelation, and I think he insisted

that by the use of miraculous mirrors this language was translated.

If there should be Mormon bishops in all the countries of the world,

eighteen hundred years from now, do you think a cardinal of that faith

could prove the truth of the golden plates simply by the fact that the

faith had spread and that seven hundred bishops had knelt before the

head of that church?

It seems to me that a "supernatural" religion--that is to say, a

religion that is claimed to have been divinely founded and to be

authenticated by miracles, is much easier to establish among an ignorant

people than any other--and the more ignorant the people, the easier

such a religion could be established. The reason for this is plain.

All ignorant tribes, all savage men, believe in the miraculous, in the

supernatural. The conception of uniformity, of what may be called the

eternal consistency of nature, is an idea far above their comprehension.

They are forced to think in accordance with their minds, and as a

consequence they account for all phenomena by the acts of superior

beings--that is to say, by the supernatural. In other words, that

religion having most in common with the savage, having most that was

satisfactory to his mind, or to his lack of mind, would stand the best

chance of success.

It is probably safe to say that at one time, or during one phase of the

development of man, everything was miraculous. After a time, the mind

slowly developing, certain phenomena, always happening under like

conditions, were called "natural," and none suspected any special

interference. The domain of the miraculous grew less and less--the

domain of the natural larger; that is to say, the common became the

natural, but the uncommon was still regarded as the miraculous.

The rising and setting of the sun ceased to excite the wonder of

mankind--there was no miracle about that; but an eclipse of the sun was

miraculous. Men did not then know that eclipses are periodical, that

they happen with the same certainty that the sun rises. It took many

observations through many generations to arrive at this conclusion.

Ordinary rains became "natural," floods remained "miraculous."

But it can all be summed up in this: The average man regards the common

as natural, the uncommon as supernatural. The educated man--and by that

I mean the developed man--is satisfied that all phenomena are natural,

and that the supernatural does not and can not exist.

As a rule, an individual is egotistic in the proportion that he lacks

intelligence. The same is true of nations and races. The barbarian is

egotistic enough to suppose that an Infinite Being is constantly doing

something, or failing to do something, on his account. But as man rises

in the scale of civilization, as he becomes really great, he comes to

the conclusion that nothing in Nature happens on his account--that he is

hardly great enough to disturb the motions of the planets.

Let us make an application of this: To me, the success of Mormonism

is no evidence of its truth, because it has succeeded only with the

superstitious. It has been recruited from communities brutalized by

other forms of superstition. To me, the success of Mohammed does not

tend to show that he was right--for the reason that he triumphed only

over the ignorant, over the superstitious. The same is true of the

Catholic Church. Its seeds were planted in darkness. It was accepted by

the credulous, by men incapable of reasoning upon such questions. It

did not, it has not, it can not triumph over the intellectual world. To

count its many millions does not tend to prove the truth of its creed.

On the contrary, a creed that delights the credulous gives evidence

against itself.

Questions of fact or philosophy cannot be settled simply by numbers.

There was a time when the Copernican system of astronomy had but few

supporters--the multitude being on the other side. There was a time when

the rotation of the earth was not believed by the majority.

Let us press this idea further. There was a time when Christianity was

not in the majority, anywhere. Let us suppose that the first Christian

missionary had met a prelate of the Pagan faith, and suppose this

prelate had used against the Christian missionary the Cardinal's

argument--how could the missionary have answered if the Cardinal's

argument is good?

But, after all, is the success of the Catholic Church a marvel? If this

church is of divine origin, if it has been under the especial care,

protection and guidance of an Infinite Being, is not its failure

far more wonderful than its success? For eighteen centuries it has

persecuted and preached, and the salvation of the world is still remote.

This is the result, and it may be asked whether it is worth while to try

to convert the world to Catholicism.

Are Catholics better than Protestants? Are they nearer honest, nearer

just, more charitable? Are Catholic nations better than Protestant?

Do the Catholic nations move in the van of progress? Within their

jurisdiction are life, liberty and property safer than anywhere else? Is

Spain the first nation of the world?

Let me ask another question: Are Catholics or Protestants better than

Freethinkers? Has the Catholic Church produced a greater man than

Humboldt? Has the Protestant produced a greater than Darwin? Was not

Emerson, so far as purity of life is concerned, the equal of any true

believer? Was Pius IX., or any other vicar of Christ, superior to

Abraham Lincoln?

But it is claimed that the Catholic Church is universal, and that its

universality demonstrates its divine origin.

According to the Bible, the apostles were ordered to go into all the

world and preach the gospel--yet not one of them, nor one of their

converts at any time, nor one of the vicars of God, for fifteen hundred

years afterward, knew of the existence of the Western Hemisphere. During

all that time, can it be said that the Catholic Church was universal? At

the close of the fifteenth century, there was one-half of the world in

which the Catholic faith had never been preached, and in the other half

not one person in ten had ever heard of it, and of those who had heard

of it, not one in ten believed it. Certainly the Catholic Church was not

then universal.

Is it universal now? What impression has Catholicism made upon the many

millions of China, of Japan, of India, of Africa? Can it truthfully be

said that the Catholic Church is now universal? When any church becomes

universal, it will be the only church. There cannot be two universal

churches, neither can there be one universal church and any other.

The Cardinal next tries to prove that the Catholic Church is divine,

"by its eminent sanctity and its inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good

things."

And here let me admit that there are many millions of good

Catholics--that is, of good men and women who are Catholics. It is

unnecessary to charge universal dishonesty or hypocrisy, for the reason

that this would be only a kind of personality. Many thousands of heroes

have died in defence of the faith, and millions of Catholics have killed

and been killed for the sake of their religion.

And here it may be well enough to say that martyrdom does not even tend

to prove the truth of a religion. The man who dies in flames, standing

by what he believes to be true, establishes, not the truth of what he

believes, but his sincerity.

Without calling in question the intentions of the Catholic Church, we

can ascertain whether it has been "inexhaustibly fruitful in all good

things," and whether it has been "eminent for its sanctity."

In the first place, nothing can be better than goodness. Nothing is more

sacred, or can be more sacred, than the wellbeing of man. All things

that tend to increase or preserve the happiness of the human race are

good--that is to say, they are sacred. All things that tend to the

destruction of man's well-being, that tend to his unhappiness, are bad,

no matter by whom they are taught or done.

It is perfectly certain that the Catholic Church has taught, and still

teaches, that intellectual liberty is dangerous--that it should not

be allowed. It was driven to take this position because it had taken

another. It taught, and still teaches, that a certain belief is

necessary to salvation. It has always known that investigation and

inquiry led, or might lead, to doubt; that doubt leads, or may lead,

to heresy, and that heresy leads to hell. In other words, the Catholic

Church has something more important than this world, more important than

the well-being of man here. It regards this life as an opportunity for

joining that church, for accepting that creed, and for the saving of

your soul.

If the Catholic Church is right in its premises, it is right in its

conclusion. If it is necessary to believe the Catholic creed in order

to obtain eternal joy, then, of course, nothing else in this world is,

comparatively speaking, of the slightest importance. Consequently,

the Catholic Church has been, and still is, the enemy of intellectual

freedom, of investigation, of inquiry--in other words, the enemy of

progress in secular things.

The result of this was an effort to compel all men to accept the belief

necessary to salvation. This effort naturally divided itself into

persuasion and persecution.

It will be admitted that the good man is kind, merciful, charitable,

forgiving and just. A church must be judged by the same standard. Has

the church been merciful? Has it been "fruitful in the good things"

of justice, charity and forgiveness? Can a good man, believing a good

doctrine, persecute for opinion's sake? If the church imprisons a man

for the expression of an honest opinion, is it not certain, either that

the doctrine of the church is wrong, or that the church is bad? Both

cannot be good. "Sanctity" without goodness is impossible. Thousands of

"saints" have been the most malicious of the human race. If the history

of the world proves anything, it proves that the Catholic Church was for

many centuries the most merciless institution that ever existed among

men. I cannot believe that the instruments of persecution were made and

used by the eminently good; neither can I believe that honest people

were imprisoned, tortured, and burned at the stake by a church that was

"inexhaustibly fruitful in all good things."

And let me say here that I have no Protestant prejudices against

Catholicism, and have no Catholic prejudices against Protestantism.

I regard all religions either without prejudice or with the same

prejudice. They were all, according to my belief, devised by men, and

all have for a foundation ignorance of this world and fear of the next.

All the Gods have been made by men. They are all equally powerful and

equally useless. I like some of them better than I do others, for the

same reason that I admire some characters in fiction more than I do

others. I prefer Miranda to Caliban, but have not the slightest idea

that either of them existed. So I prefer Jupiter to Jehovah, although

perfectly satisfied that both are myths. I believe myself to be in a

frame of mind to justly and fairly consider the claims of different

religions, believing as I do that all are wrong, and admitting as I do

that there is some good in all.

When one speaks of the "inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things"

of the Catholic Church, we remember the horrors and atrocities of the

Inquisition--the rewards offered by the Roman Church for the capture and

murder of honest men. We remember the Dominican Order, the members of

which, upheld by the vicar of Christ, pursued the heretics like sleuth

hounds, through many centuries.

The church, "inexhaustible in fruitfulness in all good things," not only

imprisoned and branded and burned the living, but violated the dead. It

robbed graves, to the end that it might convict corpses of heresy--to

the end that it might take from widows their portions and from orphans

their patrimony.

We remember the millions in the darkness of dungeons--the millions who

perished by the sword--the vast multitudes destroyed in flames--those

who were flayed alive--those who were blinded--those whose tongues were

cut out--those into whose ears were poured molten lead--those whose eyes

were deprived of their lids--those who were tortured and tormented in

every way by which pain could be inflicted and human nature overcome.

And we remember, too, the exultant cry of the church over the bodies

of her victims: "Their bodies were burned here, but their souls are now

tortured in hell."

We remember that the church, by treachery, bribery, perjury, and the

commission of every possible crime, got possession and control of

Christendom, and we know the use that was made of this power--that it

was used to brutalize, degrade, stupefy, and "sanctify" the children

of men. We know also that the vicars of Christ were persecutors for

opinion's sake--that they sought to destroy the liberty of thought

through fear--that they endeavored to make every brain a bastile in

which the mind should be a convict--that they endeavored to make every

tongue a prisoner, watched by a familiar of the Inquisition--and that

they threatened punishment here, imprisonment here, burnings here, and,

in the name of their God, eternal imprisonment and eternal burnings

hereafter.

We know, too, that the Catholic Church was, during all the years of

its power, the enemy of every science. It preferred magic to medicine,

relics to remedies, priests to physicians. It thought more of

astrologers than of astronomers. It hated geologists--it persecuted

the chemist, and imprisoned the naturalist, and opposed every discovery

calculated to improve the condition of mankind.

It is impossible to forget the persecutions of the Cathari, the

Albigenses, the Waldenses, the Hussites, the Huguenots, and of every

sect that had the courage to think just a little for itself. Think of

a woman--the mother of a family--taken from her children and burned, on

account of her view as to the three natures of Jesus Christ. Think of

the Catholic Church,--an institution with a Divine Founder, presided

over by the agent of God--punishing a woman for giving a cup of cold

water to a fellow-being who had been anathematized. Think of this

church, "fruitful in all good things," launching its curse at an honest

man--not only cursing him from the crown of his head to the soles of

his feet with a fiendish particularity, but having at the same time the

impudence to call on God, and the Holy Ghost, and Jesus Christ, and the

Virgin Mary, to join in the curse; and to curse him not only here, but

forever hereafter--calling upon all the saints and upon all the redeemed

to join in a hallelujah of curses, so that earth and heaven should

reverberate with countless curses launched at a human being simply for

having expressed an honest thought.

This church, so "fruitful in all good things," invented crimes that

it might punish. This church tried men for a "suspicion of

heresy"--imprisoned them for the vice of being suspected--stripped them

of all they had on earth and allowed them to rot in dungeons, because

they were guilty of the crime of having been suspected. This was a part

of the Canon Law.

It is too late to talk about the "invincible stability" of the Catholic

Church.

It was not invincible in the seventh, in the eighth, or in the ninth

centuries. It was not invincible in Germany in Luther's day. It was not

invincible in the Low Countries. It was not invincible in Scotland, or

in England. It was not invincible in France. It is not invincible in

Italy, It is not supreme in any intellectual centre of the world. It

does not triumph in Paris, or Berlin; it is not dominant in London,

in England; neither is it triumphant in the United States. It has not

within its fold the philosophers, the statesmen, and the thinkers, who

are the leaders of the human race.

It is claimed that Catholicism "interpenetrates all the nations of the

civilized world," and that "in some it holds the whole nation in its

unity."

I suppose the Catholic Church is more powerful in Spain than in any

other nation. The history of this nation demonstrates the result of

Catholic supremacy, the result of an acknowledgment by a people that a

certain religion is too sacred to be examined.

Without attempting in an article of this character to point out the many

causes that contributed to the adoption of Catholicism by the Spanish

people, it is enough to say that Spain, of all nations, has been and is

the most thoroughly Catholic, and the most thoroughly interpenetrated

and dominated by the spirit of the Church of Rome.

Spain used the sword of the church. In the name of religion it

endeavored to conquer the Infidel world. It drove from its territory

the Moors, not because they were bad, not because they were idle and

dishonest, but because they were Infidels. It expelled the Jews,

not because they were ignorant or vicious, but because they were

unbelievers. It drove out the Moriscoes, and deliberately made outcasts

of the intelligent, the industrious, the honest and the useful, because

they were not Catholics. It leaped like a wild beast upon the Low

Countries, for the destruction of Protestantism. It covered the seas

with its fleets, to destroy the intellectual liberty of man. And

not only so--it established the Inquisition within its borders. It

imprisoned the honest, it burned the noble, and succeeded after many

years of devotion to the true faith, in destroying the industry, the

intelligence, the usefulness, the genius, the nobility and the wealth

of a nation. It became a wreck, a jest of the conquered, and excited the

pity of its former victims.

In this period of degradation, the Catholic Church held "the whole

nation in its unity."

At last Spain began to deviate from the path of the church It made a

treaty with an Infidel power. In 1782 it became humble enough, and wise

enough, to be friends with Turkey. It made treaties with Tripoli and

Algiers and the Barbary States. It had become too poor to ransom the

prisoners taken by these powers. It began to appreciate the fact that it

could neither conquer nor convert the world by the sword.

Spain has progressed in the arts and sciences, in all that tends to

enrich and ennoble a nation, in the precise proportion that she has lost

faith in the Catholic Church. This may be said of every other nation in

Christendom. Torquemada is dead; Castelar is alive. The dungeons of the

Inquisition are empty, and a little light has penetrated the clouds and

mists--not much, but a little. Spain is not yet clothed and in her

right mind. A few years ago the cholera visited Madrid and other cities.

Physicians were mobbed. Processions of saints carried the host through

the streets for the purpose of staying the plague. The streets were not

cleaned; the sewers were filled. Filth and faith, old partners, reigned

supreme. The church, "eminent for its sanctity," stood in the light and

cast its shadow on the ignorant and the prostrate. The church, in its

"inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things," allowed its children

to perish through ignorance, and used the diseases it had produced as an

instrumentality to further enslave its votaries and its victims.

No one will deny that many of its priests exhibited heroism of the

highest order in visiting the sick and administering what are called the

consolations of religion to the dying, and in burying the dead. It is

necessary neither to deny or disparage the self-denial and goodness of

these men. But their religion did more than all other causes to produce

the very evils that called for the exhibition of self-denial and

heroism. One scientist in control of Madrid could have prevented the

plague. In such cases, cleanliness is far better than "godliness;"

science is superior to superstition; drainage much better than

divinity; therapeutics more excellent than theology. Goodness is not

enough--intelligence is necessary. Faith is not sufficient, creeds are

helpless, and prayers fruitless.

It is admitted that the Catholic Church exists in many nations; that it

is dominated, at least in a great degree, by the Bishop of Rome--that it

is international in that sense, and that in that sense it has what may

be called a "supernational unity." The same, however, is true of the

Masonic fraternity. It exists in many nations, but it is not a

national body. It is in the same sense extranational, in the same sense

international, and has in the same sense a supernational unity. So the

same may be said of other societies. This, however, does not tend to

prove that anything supernational is supernatural.

It is also admitted that in faith, worship, ceremonial, discipline and

government, the Catholic Church is substantially the same wherever

it exists. This establishes the unity, but not the divinity, of the

institution.

The church that does not allow investigation, that teaches that all

doubts are wicked, attains unity through tyranny, that is, monotony by

repression. Wherever man has had something like freedom, differences

have appeared, heresies have taken root, and the divisions have become

permanent--new sects have been born and the Catholic Church has been

weakened. The boast of unity is the confession of tyranny.

It is insisted that the unity of the church substantiates its claim to

divine origin. This is asserted over and over again, in many ways; and

yet in the Cardinal's article is found this strange mingling of boast

and confession: "Was it only by the human power of man that the unity,

external and internal, which for fourteen hundred years had been

supreme, was once more restored in the Council of Constance, never to be

broken again?"

By this it is admitted that the internal and external unity of the

Catholic Church had been broken, and that it required more than human

power to restore it. Then the boast is made that it will never be broken

again. Yet it is asserted that the internal and external unity of the

Catholic Church is the great fact that demonstrates its divine origin.

Now, if this internal and external unity was broken, and remained broken

for years, there was an interval during which the church had no internal

or external unity, and during which the evidence of divine origin

failed. The unity was broken in spite of the Divine Founder. This is

admitted by the use of the word "again." The unbroken unity of the

church is asserted, and upon this assertion is based the claim of divine

origin; it is then admitted that the unity was broken. The argument is

then shifted, and the claim is made that it required more than human

power to restore the internal and external unity of the church, and that

the restoration, not the unity, is proof of the divine origin. Is there

any contradiction beyond this?

Let us state the case in another way. Let us suppose that a man has a

sword which he claims was made by God, stating that the reason he knows

that God made the sword is that it never had been and never could be

broken. Now, if it was afterwards ascertained that it had been broken,

and the owner admitted that it had been, what would be thought of him

if he then took the ground that it had been welded, and that the welding

was the evidence that it was of divine origin?

A prophecy is then indulged in, to the effect that the internal and

external unity of the church can never be broken again. It is admitted

that it was broken--it is asserted that it was divinely restored--and

then it is declared that it is never to be broken again. No reason is

given for this prophecy; it must be born of the facts already stated.

Put in a form to be easily understood, it is this:

We know that the unity of the church can never be broken, because the

church is of divine origin.

We know that it was broken; but this does not weaken the argument,

because it was restored by God, and it has not been broken since.

Therefore, it never can be broken again.

It is stated that the Catholic Church is immutable, and that its

immutability establishes its claim to divine origin. Was it immutable

when its unity, internal and external, was broken? Was it precisely the

same after its unity was broken that it was before? Was it precisely the

same after its unity was divinely restored that it was while broken?

Was it universal while it was without unity? Which of the fragments was

universal--which was immutable?

The fact that the Catholic Church is obedient to the pope, establishes,

not the supernatural origin of the church, but the mental slavery of its

members. It establishes the fact that it is a successful organization;

that it is cunningly devised; that it destroys the mental independence,

and that whoever absolutely submits to its authority loses the jewel of

his soul.

The fact that Catholics are to a great extent obedient to the pope,

establishes nothing except the thoroughness of the organization.

How was the Roman empire formed? By what means did that Great Power

hold in bondage the then known world? How is it that a despotism is

established? How is it that the few enslave the many? How is it that

the nobility live on the labor of peasants? The answer is in one word,

Organization. The organized few triumph over the unorganized many.

The few hold the sword and the purse. The unorganized are overcome in

detail--terrorized, brutalized, robbed, conquered.

We must remember that when Christianity was established the world

was ignorant, credulous and cruel. The gospel with its idea of

forgiveness--with its heaven and hell--was suited to the barbarians

among whom it was preached. Let it be understood, once for all, that

Christ had but little to do with Christianity. The people became

convinced--being ignorant, stupid and credulous--that the church held

the keys of heaven and hell. The foundation for the most terrible mental

tyranny that has existed among men was in this way laid. The Catholic

Church enslaved to the extent of its power. It resorted to every

possible form of fraud; it perverted every good instinct of the human

heart; it rewarded every vice; it resorted to every artifice that

ingenuity could devise, to reach the highest round of power. It tortured

the accused to make them confess; it tortured witnesses to compel the

commission of perjury; it tortured children for the purpose of making

them convict their parents; it compelled men to establish their own

innocence; it imprisoned without limit; it had the malicious patience to

wait; it left the accused without trial, and left them in dungeons until

released by death. There is no crime that the Catholic Church did not

commit,--no cruelty that it did not practice,--no form of treachery that

it did not reward, and no virtue that it did not persecute. It was

the greatest and most powerful enemy of human rights. It did all that

organization, cunning, piety, self-denial, heroism, treachery, zeal and

brute force could do to enslave the children of men. It was the enemy of

intelligence, the assassin of liberty, and the destroyer of progress. It

loaded the noble with chains and the infamous with honors. In one hand

it carried the alms dish, in the other a dagger. It argued with the

sword, persuaded with poison, and convinced with the fagot.

It is impossible to see how the divine origin of a church can be

established by showing that hundreds of bishops have visited the pope.

Does the fact that millions of the faithful visit Mecca establish the

truth of the Koran? Is it a scene for congratulation when the bishops

of thirty nations kneel before a man? Is it not humiliating to know that

man is willing to kneel at the feet of man? Could a noble man demand, or

joyfully receive, the humiliation of his fellows?

As a rule, arrogance and humility go together. He who in power compels

his fellow-man to kneel, will himself kneel when weak. The tyrant is a

cringer in power; a cringer is a tyrant out of power. Great men stand

face to face. They meet on equal terms. The cardinal who kneels in the

presence of the pope, wants the bishop to kneel in his presence; and the

bishop who kneels demands that the priest shall kneel to him; and the

priest who kneels demands that they in lower orders shall kneel; and

all, from pope to the lowest--that is to say, from pope to exorcist,

from pope to the one in charge of the bones of saints--all demand that

the people, the laymen, those upon whom they live, shall kneel to them.

The man of free and noble spirit will not kneel. Courage has no knees.

Fear kneels, or falls upon its ashen face.

The Cardinal insists that the pope is the vicar of Christ, and that

all popes have been. What is a vicar of Christ? He is a substitute in

office. He stands in the place, or occupies the position in relation

to the church, in relation to the world, that Jesus Christ would occupy

were he the pope at Rome. In other words, he takes Christ's place; so

that, according to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, Jesus Christ

himself is present in the person of the pope.

We all know that a good man may employ a bad agent. A good king might

leave his realm and put in his place a tyrant and a wretch. The good

man and the good king cannot certainly know what manner of man the

agent is--what kind of person the vicar is--consequently the bad may be

chosen. But if the king appointed a bad vicar, knowing him to be bad,

knowing that he would oppress the people, knowing that he would imprison

and burn the noble and generous, what excuse can be imagined for such a

king?

Now, if the church is of divine origin, and if each pope is the vicar of

Jesus Christ, he must have been chosen by Jesus Christ; and when he was

chosen, Christ must have known exactly what his vicar would do. Can we

believe that an infinitely wise and good Being would choose immoral,

dishonest, ignorant, malicious, heartless, fiendish, and inhuman vicars?

The Cardinal admits that "the history of Christianity is the history

of the church, and that the history of the church is the history of the

Pontiffs," and he then declares that "the greatest statesmen and rulers

that the world has ever seen are the Popes of Rome."

Let me call attention to a few passages in Draper's "History of the

Intellectual Development of Europe."

"Constantine was one of the vicars of Christ. Afterwards, Stephen IV.

was chosen. The eyes of Constantine were then put out by Stephen, acting

in Christ's place. The tongue of the Bishop Theodorus was amputated

by the man who had been substituted for God. This bishop was left in a

dungeon to perish of thirst. Pope Leo III. was seized in the street and

forced into a church, where the nephews of Pope Adrian attempted to

put out his eyes and cut off his tongue. His successor, Stephen V., was

driven ignominiously from Rome. His successor, Paschal I., was accused

of blinding and murdering two ecclesiastics in the Lateran Palace.

John VIII., unable to resist the Mohammedans, was compelled to pay them

tribute.

"At this time, the Bishop of Naples was in secret alliance with the

Mohammedans, and they divided with this Catholic bishop the plunder they

collected from other Catholics. This bishop was excommunicated by the

pope; afterwards he gave him absolution because he betrayed the chief

Mohammedans, and assassinated others. There was an ecclesiastical

conspiracy to murder the pope, and some of the treasures of the church

were seized, and the gate of St. Pancrazia was opened with false keys

to admit the Saracens. Formosus, who had been engaged in these

transactions, who had been excommunicated as a conspirator for the

murder of Pope John, was himself elected pope in 891. Boniface VI.

was his successor. He had been deposed from the diaconate and from the

priesthood for his immoral and lewd life. Stephen VII. was the next

pope, and he had the dead body of Formosus taken from the grave, clothed

in papal habiliments, propped up in a chair and tried before a Council.

The corpse was found guilty, three fingers were cut off and the body

cast into the Tiber. Afterwards Stephen VII., this Vicar of Christ, was

thrown into prison and strangled.

"From 896 to 900, five popes were consecrated. Leo V., in less than two

months after he became pope, was cast into prison by Christopher, one of

his chaplains. This Christopher usurped his place, and in a little while

was expelled from Rome by Sergius III., who became pope in 905. This

pope lived in criminal intercourse with the celebrated Theodora, who

with her daughters Marozia and Theodora, both prostitutes, exercised an

extraordinary control over him. The love of Theodora was also shared by

John X. She gave him the Archbishopric of Revenna, and made him pope in

915. The daughter of Theodora overthrew this pope. She surprised him in

the Lateran Palace. His brother, Peter, was killed; the pope was thrown

into prison, where he was afterward murdered. Afterward, this Marozia,

daughter of Theodora, made her own son pope, John XI. Many affirmed that

Pope Sergius was his father, but his mother inclined to attribute him to

her husband Alberic, whose brother Guido she afterward married. Another

of her sons, Alberic, jealous of his brother John, the pope, cast him

and their mother into prison. Alberic's son was then elected pope as

John XII.

"John was nineteen years old when he became the vicar of Christ. His

reign was characterized by the most shocking immoralities, so that the

Emperor Otho I. was compelled by the German clergy to interfere. He was

tried. It appeared that John had received bribes for the consecration

of bishops; that he had ordained one who was only ten years old; that

he was charged with incest, and with so many adulteries that the Lateran

Palace had become a brothel. He put out the eyes of one ecclesiastic;

he maimed another--both dying in consequence of their injuries. He was

given to drunkenness and to gambling. He was deposed at last, and Leo

VII. elected in his stead. Subsequently he got the upper hand. He seized

his antagonists; he cut off the hand of one, the nose, the finger, and

the tongue of others. His life was eventually brought to an end by the

vengeance of a man whose wife he had seduced."

And yet, I admit that the most infamous popes, the most heartless and

fiendish bishops, friars, and priests were models of mercy, charity,

and justice when compared with the orthodox God--with the God they

worshiped. These popes, these bishops, these priests could persecute

only for a few years--they could burn only for a few moments--but their

God threatened to imprison and burn forever; and their God is as much

worse than they were, as hell is worse than the Inquisition.

"John XIII. was strangled in prison. Boniface VII. imprisoned Benedict

VII., and starved him to death. John XIV. was secretly put to death in

the dungeons of the castle of St. Angelo. The corpse of Boniface was

dragged by the populace through the streets."

It must be remembered that the popes were assassinated by

Catholics--murdered by the faithful--that one vicar of Christ strangled

another vicar of Christ, and that these men were "the greatest rulers

and the greatest statesmen of the earth."

"Pope John XVI. was seized, his eyes put out, his nose cut off, his

tongue torn from his mouth, and he was sent through the streets mounted

on an ass, with his face to the tail. Benedict IX., a boy of less than

twelve years of age, was raised to the apostolic throne. One of his

successors, Victor III., declared that the life of Benedict was so

shameful, so foul, so execrable, that he shuddered to describe it. He

ruled like a captain of banditti. The people, unable to bear longer his

adulteries, his homicides and his abominations, rose against him, and

in despair of maintaining his position, he put up the papacy to auction,

and it was bought by a presbyter named John, who became Gregory VI., in

the year of grace 1045. Well may we ask, Were these the vicegerents of

God upon earth--these, who had truly reached that goal beyond which the

last effort of human wickedness cannot pass?"

It may be sufficient to say that there is no crime that man can commit

that has not been committed by the vicars of Christ. They have inflicted

every possible torture, violated every natural right. Greater monsters

the human race has not produced.

Among the "some two hundred and fifty-eight" Vicars of Christ there were

probably some good men. This would have happened even if the intention

had been to get all bad men, for the reason that man reaches perfection

neither in good nor in evil; but if they were selected by Christ

himself, if they were selected by a church with a divine origin and

under divine guidance, then there is no way to account for the selection

of a bad one. If one hypocrite was duly elected pope--one murderer,

one strangler, one starver--this demonstrates that all the popes were

selected by men, and by men only, and that the claim of divine guidance

is born of zeal and uttered without knowledge.

But who were the vicars of Christ? How many have there been? Cardinal

Manning himself does not know. He is not sure. He says: "Starting from

St. Peter to Leo XIII., there have been some two hundred and fifty-eight

Pontiffs claiming to be recognized by the whole Catholic unity as

successors of St. Peter and Vicars of Jesus Christ." Why did he use the

word "some"? Why "claiming"? Does he not positively know? Is it possible

that the present Vicar of Christ is not certain as to the number of his

predecessors? Is he infallible in faith and fallible in fact?

Robert G. Ingersoll.