Mediaeval Thinking: The Catholic Church and the Modern Mind

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE MODERN MIND

I

MANY thoughtful men, both lay and clerical, within the Church are convinced that there is some basic flaw in the mode and character of Catholic religious teaching. The Catholic Church professes to be the sole medium of salvation divinely established upon earth. She claims to be the official representative of Christ, naming the Roman Pontiff Christ’s vicar on earth. She is known to her adherents as a divine society, perfect in power and authority, the custodian of revelation and of all other means intended by God for the sanctification of mankind. She concedes to no other cult or religion the prerogative of saving souls. She teaches that all men should become her members to be saved. Pope Pius IX condemned this proposition: ‘Every man is free to embrace and profess the religion which his reason leads him to think the true religion.’ The doctrine ‘Without the Church there is no salvation’ has been frequently proclaimed. There is, of course, a reasonable theological explanation of this attitude, viewed from the standpoint of Catholic principles.

One sole phase of this teaching concerns us here. By her own profession the Catholic Church assumes responsibility for the world’s morality and the sanctification of mankind. Is the Church fulfilling this grave duty to humanity? Let us face the facts unflinchingly. Are Catholics distinguished from other religionists by their virtues? Are they more honorable in politics, more honest in business, more scrupulous in their morals than their fellow citizens? It were preposterous to make this claim. The fact is that not long since a zealous priest conducted a press controversy in which he strove to prove that Catholics have not more than their numerical proportion of criminals in our penal institutions. In extenuation of this flagrant fact the author maintained that the criminal reared in the faith simply proved by his crime that he had been unfaithful to his early teachings. Hence, he would have us believe, the large number of Catholic criminals in no wise reflects upon the Church. Yet someone must be responsible for the imperfect moral training of the criminal.

Many are strikingly smug in this regard. In the face of prevalent moral evil, they point to the beauty and sanctity of Catholic doctrine. Yet these holy and beautiful teachings have no consistent value save when expressed in terms of holy and beautiful lives. There are undoubtedly in the country five or six millions of foreignborn Catholics who have abandoned the Church and religion. Are the authorities striving to correct this condition? Ask them about it. They will, if they are reckless enough to express their feelings, say, Let the Pope look after the million or two Italians who have lost the faith in this country. They will tell you that European Catholics are not sufficiently instructed in the doctrines of the faith. Ask them, then, how many American Catholics, educated in Catholic schools and colleges, fall away from the faith each year. They have no record of this leakage. On the other hand, there is a list of converts assiduously kept and published annually.

Copyright 1928, The Atlantic Monthly Company

Self-delusion is pathetic in its relation to the individual and tragic when it entails such consequences to the human race. The fact — hard as it is to admit — is that the Catholic Church has never sought to develop intelligent faith. The Church has never encouraged religious thought in the individual Catholic. She demands abject intellectual submission to her teachings. Alleged explanations of doctrine are nothing else than controversial arguments. These too are to be accepted in the humility of obedience due to authority. The intellectual coercion practised in the Church to-day is just as debasing to human dignity as was the physical coercion which the Church practised in the Middle Ages.

Heresy-hunting has been a mania in the Church for many centuries. While she possessed political power, regulations covering heresy were common. In 1229 the Cardinal Legate of Rome published, among others, these ordinances: ‘The house in which a heretic has been discovered shall be torn down and the goods confiscated. . . . Laymen should not possess the Old Testament and the New Testament; they shall have only the Psalter, the Breviary and the book of feasts of the Blessed Virgin; furthermore, those books (the Old and New Testaments) shall not be translated into the language of the country. ... He who is accused of heresy or simply suspected shall not be permitted to practise medicine. . . . Parishioners, especially the husband and wife of each house, shall go to church on Sundays and feasts and assist at the sermon as well as at the whole divine service. . . . Those who fail, without sufficient reason, shall pay a fine of twelve pence of Tours, of which half shall go to the civil lord and half to the priest or the church.’

Another list of regulations published in 1254 contains the following: ‘The bishops shall establish inquisitors in each parish (of their diocese), that is, a cleric and a layman whose duty it shall be to seek out, with care, the heretics and denounce them as promptly as possible to the bishop. . . . For each heretic that they shall deliver and make prisoner they shall receive a silver coin. . . . If possible, this money is to be collected from the goods of the heretic. . . . Whoever permits a heretic to dwell on his property, shall lose that property. . . . The bodies of those who die in heresy shall be exhumed and burned.’

These are but a few casual examples of the ecclesiastical ordinances which prevailed in the Middle Ages. The people practised their religion through fear of fines and punishment. They were ever haunted by the dread of being dragged before the Inquisition, where they often had little hope of proving their innocence. An ordinance promulgated by the Archbishop of Tours in 1253 reads: ‘He who has been cited before the bishop or the inquisitors and refuses to appear, but remains obstinate in the excommunication which he has thereby incurred, shall be condemned as a heretic even though no proof can be adduced against him.’ It is easy to conceive the kind of faith that was engendered in the hearts of the people by these methods.

Yet the same general ecclesiastical policy prevails to-day. Of course the Church no longer has power to fine, imprison, or condemn to death those who are recreant in faith or practice. Now the Church is limited to spiritual and moral punishments. He who to-day is suspected of heresy is but morally tortured. The Holy Office of the Inquisition can but excommunicate him or put his writings on the Index, and thereby disgrace him among his coreligionists.

Not long since an American bishop was called to Rome because he had protested against applying to the Roman Curia for permission to grant dispensations and subsequently reporting the granted dispensations to Rome. (Incidentally, the fees given in return for the dispensations are split with Curia officials according to the requisitions.) The Pope received the American bishop kindly, but suggested that he resign within a year. Nevertheless, the day before his departure from Rome he was cited by the Cardinal Vicar and a document outlining his resignation was put before him. He was told that he must either sign on the moment or appear before the Holy Office to answer for his orthodoxy. He signed. Suspension or excommunication is often worse than death for a selfrespecting priest or bishop. Similarly, to have a book placed on the Index is generally, for the Catholic writer, to suffer moral death in the sphere of ecclesiastical writing.

Every book on religion or related topics written by Catholics must be submitted to the diocesan bishop for approval. Yet this approval does not insure the writer against the condemnation of the Holy Office and the placing of his work on the Index. True research is therefore impossible with the Catholic author. He must begin with his conclusion. Nor, in all his work, may he ever safely lose sight of this conclusion. In other words, he knows before he begins his studies the deductions which he will have to make to be orthodox. This is particularly true in the sphere of Scriptural study. The student of this subject walks on particularly thin ice. A year or two ago the Abbé Brassac of Paris met a sad fate. His Biblical work has been known for two generations throughout the world, and his texts were used in three or four score of seminaries. Like a thunderbolt the condemnation came. All his books, including some unpublished manuscripts, were put on the Index by the Holy Office.

The people are ruled with the same rigor. It is not uncommon to find bishops in this country denying the sacraments to parents who refuse to send their children to a parochial school. Those who fail to confess their sins to the priest at least once a year are thereby excommunicated, and are not to be accorded Christian burial if they die unshriven. Those who join the Masons or other forbidden societies such as the Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias are excommunicated. This rigid spirit is particularly manifest in the laws regarding marriage, especially since the promulgation of the new marriage laws in 1918. Those who go before a civil magistrate or a non-Catholic clergyman to be married are denied the sacraments and their marriage is declared null and void. The marriage of a Catholic with a Protestant or unbeliever is considered null and void, and declared to be sinful, unless it was contracted, by ecclesiastical dispensation, before the parish priest and two witnesses. The nonCatholic party who marries a Catholic party must make a written agreement, signed by witnesses, that all the children of the union shall be reared in the Catholic faith, even though the Catholic party should die while the children are young.

The same mediæval abhorrence for heresy still prevails. It is a mortal sin — a sin sufficient to send a soul to Hell — to attend Protestant religious services, though at weddings and funerals the offense is commonly overlooked. It is forbidden under pain of excommunication to read books and pamphlets on religious topics written by non-Catholics. The dead body of a non-Catholic husband or wife, even though the marriage was contracted according to the prescriptions of the Church, may never be buried beside that of the Catholic party in a consecrated Catholic cemetery. If such burial were to take place in consecrated ground, the cemetery would be desecrated and would have to be reconsecrated. It is not permitted to offer public prayers in a Catholic church for departed non-Catholics, even though they be fathers or mothers of devout members.

The people are taught to abhor heresy as a grave sin. In fact, sin and eternal damnation are constantly impressed upon their minds to make them fear the avenging God whom they worship. It is a mortal sin to miss Mass on Sunday or holydays. It is a mortal sin willfully to eat meat on Friday or other days of abstinence. To break the fast on a fast day is a mortal sin. One Moral Theologian says: ’To take four ounces more than the amount permitted for the evening collation breaks the fast.’ It is a mortal sin to receive Communion after knowingly taking drink or food. These and a thousand other mortal sins are propounded in Moral Theology.

II

It is a repressive system, without the constructive elements that appeal to enlightened minds. Indeed, the modern mind is becoming ever more enlightened, all scoffing by ecclesiastics to the contrary notwithstanding. It is common for Catholics to point to the greatness of the Middle Ages. Such works as The Thirteenth Century, the Greatest of Centuries propagate the idea. Yet the rest of the world, taking its cue from history, calls those centuries the Dark Ages. Dark indeed they were, dark in the gloom of popular ignorance. Religious instruction was practically unknown for several centuries. The people were herded into the Church like so many cattle. From the fifth to the fifteenth century there is to be found no single text intended for the religious instruction of the people. In all those centuries there is no ecclesiastical legislation which demands of ordinary folk more knowledge of religion than the Our Father and the Apostles’ Creed.

For a thousand years popularized dogmatism was considered unnecessary. It was only after the Reformation and after the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century that dogmatic teaching was generally introduced for the Catholic laity. At that time the Catechism was invented ‘to offset the heresies that are fast spreading throughout Europe,’ as is explained in the preface of the Roman Catechism. According to one American Catholic educator, the Church has been on the defensive for nearly four centuries. Her popular religious instruction is, for the most part, polemical in character. The people are taught definitions and arguments intended primarily as means of confounding heretics. Popular religious works are usually compiled in the same spirit.

There is little in this sort of teaching which will appeal to the modern mind which has learned to think for itself. Some good men of the writer’s acquaintance are prone to ridicule the intellectualism of to-day. They are undoubtedly sincere, for they have in mind the academic ideas of bygone ages. But modern thought is based, not upon pure academic training, but upon human experience. Even the simplest minds of to-day are enabled to know something of the race and its conditions in all parts of the world. Modern inventions have made this possible. The human race began its progressive career, began to find itself, as soon as the intellectual revolutionists had broken the shackles of traditionalism from the human mind.

In our day it is no longer sufficient to cite the greatness of the past as standards of human thought and achievement. To-day men have lifted their faces to the sun and are peering, with their mind’s eye, into the yet undiscovered glory of the future. This is true not only in the sphere of science, education, and social relations, but also in that of religion. The Catholic Church has no sympathy with this spirit. From the Catholic point of view, religious development is unthinkable. The Book of divine revelation closed, indeed, with the death of Saint John, the Apostle. There is no difficulty in that fact. But it is of vital import to consider that the book of Catholic theological thought was closed several centuries ago. For seven hundred years there has been no progress in the field of Catholic Theology. The conclusions formed and enunciated by the Scholastics form the body of religious teaching delivered both to the clergy and to the laity of our day. No new religious experience is possible. The saints of long ago are proposed to the people as the models of their spiritual lives.

Spirituality in the Catholic Church is largely a matter of routine and formalism. Spiritual writers warn the fervents against practices that are not approved by competent authority. Assiduous attendance at divine services, zealous frequentation of the sacraments, tireless devotion in the repetition of ready-made prayers, daily examination of conscience according to the formularies prescribed — these are basic practices of the spiritual life. Thus salvation becomes a matter of control by authority. In fact, salvation in the Catholic Church might be looked upon as an official proceeding. Little is required on the part of the individual save faithful observance of ecclesiastical ordinances. He is most devout and saintly when he is most a child reposing complacently on the bosom of Mother Church.

But the modern mind is no longer satisfied with this infantile state of blessedness. Men have grown up, intellectually. They are embarrassed when they are forced to feed on the pap of intellectual traditionalism. They feel the movement of new powers within their veins. They long for personal religious experience, experience not set down in books, experience not preached at them in theological terms from pulpits.

The modern religious mind has no case against the Gospel of Christ. Most men of to-day, if they had never been antagonized by church organizations, would be inclined to adopt the sweet philosophy of Christ. Most Christians, of whatsoever denomination, would find it easy to accept the doctrines that prevailed in the first three centuries of the Church. Those simple teachings are all contained in that profession of Christian faith known as the Apostles’ Creed. The form used in Rome for many centuries is the following: ‘I believe in God the Father Almighty; and in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate and was buried, the third day he arose from the dead, he ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Church, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh.’

How far afield has the Church gone from this simple statement of truth! How different from this concise outline of Christian doctrine are the theological systems of to-day!

Theology is called the elaboration of Christ’s teaching. But Christ’s teaching was vital, dynamic. It outlined in simple phrases and examples a beautiful philosophy of life. Theology, on the other hand, is a speculative science which belongs to the academic sphere. It is the rationalistic development of Christian doctrine. It is built upon the framework of pagan philosophy. It has served rather to confuse than to clarify the human mind on the problems of divine truth. It has precipitated the world into a confusion of Christian religions. It has been the occasion, for long centuries, of enmities and bitterness. It prepared the materials for that barbarous institution known as the Inquisition, through which thousands of innocent victims were cast into dungeons, torn limb from limb, or burned at the stake. It set the stage for the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It has made the civilized world a battle ground of religious hatred and bigotry.

Why speculate upon the divine attributes according to the syllogistic method of Aristotle when we have God’s own image and His glorious handiwork before us? The great open book of nature portrays God’s love and bounty in such terms that all may read and understand. In its beauteous pages there are no obscure passages. There is no heresy possible in that great religious revelation. Modern man, in his new-found intellectual freedom, is just beginning to discover the treasures with which God has filled the universe. Perhaps some future generation will find that the earth itself is the Garden of Eden, lost by man’s ignorance, and restored by scientific research to be again a paradise of delights for the human race.

III

Theology contains no treatise on man. He is but a pawn in the scheme of overorganized religions. Yet in him we have, as Genesis avers, God’s own image and likeness. Man is a noble, a godlike creature, made to rule the forces and the powers of earth. ‘And He said: Let us make man to our image and likeness; and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth.’ By implication theological religion fails to recognize this nobility and this sovereign character in man. Though he is fashioned after divinity itself, he is taught that he is an abject creature fit only to cringe before the very God whom he resembles. Though he possesses intellectual powers that are the same, in kind, as those of God Himself, in speculating about his Creator he is not permitted to use them.

If, therefore, the human mind and heart are but replicas of God’s love and intellect, why should we not seek therein to know God? If God’s intellect is the infinite prototype of man’s finite intellect, both must necessarily love the same truth and both must love it by nature. How glorious, then, should be the quest of truth, both for the individual and for the race. Man on earth is set upon a great adventure, seeking to find and to enjoy as much truth as he may. Instead of trying to determine, by philosophical procedure, the meaning of God’s designs, why should we not study the characteristics of the human mind? If the human intellect is a counterpart of God’s intellect, it must needs reveal to us in its workings the basic trends of the divine mind.

God’s image is chiefly in the human soul, says the Catechism. Hence our love must necessarily have the same general qualities as God’s love. To understand God’s love, then, it is perhaps necessary only to study the nobler elements of human love. How can man sin in his love? True, in his ignorance, he may love unworthy objects. But willfully and maliciously to love evil as evil is just as impossible for his will as it is for his intellect deliberately and perversely to choose error as error. Man, by his nature, can choose nothing else than the good and the true. If he choose evil he must do so under the guise of good. If he choose error he must do so under the guise of truth. Ignorance, then, is the only real evil, the basis of all human misery.

It will be a great day for humanity when the religious organizations consistently and earnestly set about the task of dispelling ignorance from the human mind. The aim of all religious movements should be the perfection of human life. The scope of religious effort should be extended so as to embrace the whole man. It is not fair to teach men purity of soul without at least teaching them to take a bath occasionally. Christian perfection is described as an elusive quality known as supernatural virtue. In its heroic degree it is attainable only at the price of killing all mere human impulses not absolutely necessary to sustain life. A mediæval saint, Joseph Labré, sought to increase his sanctity by collecting vermin and putting them on his body. In his pious zeal he is said not to have bathed throughout his whole life. Let Christian perfection come to mean human perfection. It will then extend to the mind, the heart, the body, the eyes, the teeth, the hands and feet. A man is not perfect when he is suffering from the effects of an abused stomach. Will not men honor God by learning to take food properly? Will it not be a glorious form of worship to develop the intellect and the other powers of the soul, made after the model of God’s own powers?

In short, let the churches burn their theologies at the stake and begin their work over on the basis of human life and happiness. Man was created for happiness. Let us, then, have a world religion of joy and gladness. Let all the moral forces of the human race unite to dispel the ignorance which destroys human happiness. Let us have a Christlike teaching which will enable men to taste the fullness of human life and happiness. We have a noble philosophy upon which to base this teaching. It is the philosophy contained in Christ’s Gospel.

Christ did not develop His philosophy. He simply applied it to the lives of the simple folk who dwelt in Galilee. Yet it contains the elements upon which the process of human perfection should be based.

This process of perfecting human life undoubtedly was His aim. It was to be developed adown the ages until those godlike qualities in man should become more and more like unto those of His own divine nature. ‘Be ye therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect. ’ When emissaries came from John the Baptist to inquire about His identity and His teaching, He said simply: ‘Go and relate to John, what you have heard and seen. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor have the Gospel preached to them.’ He Himself announced His mission clearly. ‘I am come,’ He said, ‘that they may have life and may have it more abundantly.’ He came to teach men to perfect their lives. He saw the nobility of man, saw the divine sovereignty within him, saying, ‘The kingdom of God is within you.’

God shall be king in the midst of those godlike powers which He has created in man. This kingdom in the human soul shall be a place of peace, joy, happiness, and love. ‘Peace to men of good will,’ the angels sang at His coming. At the end of His earthly stay He said to His disciples, ‘These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be filled.’

Christ’s eight rules for happiness are, when rightly understood, in accord with the conclusions of modern psychological research. It is now an accepted principle of psychotherapy that those who are moved by uncontrollable quest for wealth, those who are hard and bitter, those who are depressed, those who are cruel, degenerate in morals, quarrelsome, or resentful, are not pathologically normal. Christ, in His Sermon on the Mount, gave the eight rules for a good, normal life. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are they that mourn. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the clean of heart. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice’s sake.’

These are the general rules of man’s inner kingdom. The one great principle upon which human life is to be perfected is that of love. All Christ’s teaching, all the teachings of the prophets and the law, are summed up in that dual law of love: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’

This is the basic law of Christianity, the lost art of religious organizations to-day. The followers of Christ were not to be known by their knowledge of doctrine, or by their routine of worship, but by the simple token of love for humanity. ‘By this,’ declares Christ, ‘shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.’

The Apostles caught this spirit. They grasped the sublimity of that noble teaching. The Christian life was to be a life filled with human love. It is through love alone that men truly live. All the bitterness and hatreds and resentments among men are a sort of death. Saint John expresses it thus: ‘We know that we have passed from death to life (we have begun to live) because we love the brethren. He that loveth not, abideth in death.’ Love was the only Apostolic Theology. ‘Dearly beloved, let us love one another, for charity is of God. And everyone that loveth, is born of God, and knoweth God.’ According to Saint Paul, ‘Love (not dogma) is the fulfilling of the law.’ ‘He that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law.’

IV

This beautiful teaching of love, which is the soul of the Christian religion, has become a dead letter. It is not even deemed worthy of a place in the Catechism. Charity has been debauched. It has been converted into an organized system in which the giver is honored and the receiver is stigmatized. We all pity those who become objects of charity, in the modern sense. But Christlike charity ennobles both those who give and those who receive, because it is true love for humanity. Had true Christian charity prevailed among Christians, heresy-hunting, bigotry, religious hatred, the Inquisition, religious wars, and many other evils would have been impossible to the followers of Christ.

Had the Church avoided the intellectual pride of theological speculation, Christ’s teaching of love might not have been obscured among Christians. Had men not delved with arrogant vanity into the mysteries of God, Christianity might have remained a brotherhood united by the bond of love.

It is sad to think of the cruelty practised by the followers of our meek Redeemer. It is taken as quite natural even by writers of to-day. In the history of the Crusades, for instance, it is said, ‘These holy wars were essentially a papal enterprise.’ The capture of Jerusalem is described thus: ‘After a general procession which the crusaders made barefooted around the city . . . the attack began. Next day the Christians entered Jerusalem from all sides and slew its inhabitants, regardless of age or sex. . . . The Christian states formed . . . the kingdom of Jerusalem . . . subordinate to the authority of the pope. . . . Through rich and frequent donations the clergy became the largest property holders in the kingdom; they also received from the crusaders important estates situated in Europe. . . . Thus, during the first half of the twelfth century the Christian states of the East were completely organized, and even eclipsed in wealth and prosperity most of the western states.’

The same writer describes the taking of Constantinople: ‘By a treaty concluded in March 1204, between the Venetians and the crusading chiefs, it was prearranged to share the spoils of the Greek Empire. On 12 April, 1204, Constantinople was carried by storm, and the next day the ruthless plunder of its churches and palaces was begun. The masterpieces of antiquity, piled up in public places and in the Hippodrome, were utterly destroyed. Clerics, and knights, in their eagerness to acquire famous and priceless relics, took part in the sack of churches . . . and most of the churches of the West were enriched with ornaments stripped from those of Constantinople. ... At the news of these extraordinary events, in which he had no hand, (Pope) Innocent III bowed as in submission to the designs of Providence and, in the interests of Christendom, determined to make the best of the new conquest.’

These passages are cited, not to depict past evils in the Church, but to show the present attitude toward those evils. They are taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia (Vol. IV, pp. 547-550), a work of the highest authority among American Catholics. The author of this article, ‘Crusades,’ seems to see in all this slaughter nothing contrary to the spirit of Christ, who said, ‘Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you . . . that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven.’

The writer quoted is typical of most Catholic writers. Instead of repudiating the cruelty, sacking, and pillage which he is describing, he complacently outlines the benefits derived from the Crusades. He proceeds (p. 556): ‘Essentially the work of the popes, these Holy Wars (sic) first of all helped to strengthen pontifical authority ... as early as the end of the twelfth century, the development of general culture in the West was the direct result of these Holy Wars. . . . At a still later date, it was the spirit of the true crusader that animated Christopher Columbus when he undertook his perilous voyage to the then unknown America.’ Yet, Christ had said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’

Concerning the burning of John Hus as a heretic, the same work says simply, ‘At Constance he was tried, condemned, and burned at the stake, 6 July, 1415.’ (Vol. VII, p. 585) In the same manner this high authority treats the subject of the Inquisition. The writer first shows that the killing of heretics was, in the first five centuries of the Church, considered as opposed to the spirit of Christianity. He disclaims any influence of Pope Innocent III in the drafting of the rescript for Lombardy by Frederick II, the first law in which death by fire is contemplated. Yet he says that this edict ‘was adopted into ecclesiastical criminal law in 1231, and was soon applied at Rome. It was then that the Inquisition of the Middle Ages came into being.’ He has this to say, in extenuation, that the torture of heretics was not authorized until twenty years later. It was introduced by the bull of Innocent IV, May 15, 1252, which was confirmed by Alexander IV, November 30, 1259, and by Clement IV, November 3, 1265. Yet the writer says, ‘On the whole the Inquisition was humanely conducted.’ (Vol. VIII, p. 33)

Of the Spanish Inquisition he says, ‘Its excesses were largely due to the fact that in its administration civil purposes overshadowed ecclesiastical.’ Yet Pope Innocent IV in a bull says, ‘ When those adjudged guilty of heresy have been given up to the civil power by the bishop or his representative, or the Inquisition, the podestà, or chief magistrate of the city, shall take them at once, and shall, within five days at the most, execute the laws made against them.’ Moreover, he directs that this bull and the corresponding regulations of Frederick II, quoted above, be entered in every city among the municipal statutes under pain of excommunication, which was also visited on those who failed to execute both the papal and the imperial decrees.

‘Nor could any doubt remain,’ continues the author in the Catholic Encyclopedia, ‘as to what civil regulations were meant, for the passages which ordered the burning of impenitent heretics were inserted in the papal decretals from the imperial constitutions. The aforesaid bull remained thenceforth a fundamental document of the Inquisition, renewed or reënforced by several popes, Alexander IV (1254-61), Clement IV (1265-68), Nicholas IV (1288-92), Boniface VIII (1294-1303), and others. The civil authorities, therefore, were enjoined by the popes, under pain of excommunication, to execute the legal sentences that condemned impenitent heretics to the stake. It is to be noted that excommunication itself was no trifle, for, if the person excommunicated did not free himself from excommunication within a year, he was held by the legislation of that period to be a heretic, and incurred all the penalties that affected heresy.’

In the end, the zealous writer accuses non-Catholic writers of bigotry in condemning the Inquisition.

V

It would be undignified and unworthy indeed to touch upon these scandals without an impelling motive. It would be immoral to cite these unsavory passages simply to besmirch the Church. But why should men of our time champion the bloodthirsty Christians of a blighted age? How much more noble it were to repudiate the spirit that prompted those evils and their kind. There might still be hope that the Church would promote human welfare, in a progressive way, if those eager defenders were to expend their energies in an attempt to rehabilitate the spirit of brotherly love which forms the basic principle of Christ’s doctrine.

If the popes of the Middle Ages were cruel, if their minions were barbarous, it was because they had forgotten those pregnant words of Christ: ‘ I say to you not to resist evil: But if one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other: And if a man will contend with thee in judgment and take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him.’ The spirit of the Middle Ages still prevails in the Church. The passion for orthodoxy which prompted those mediæval bulls still burns in Rome and throughout the Church. If the Church ever again came into political power, how could we be sure that physical punishment for heresy would not be revived, since the theology of to-day is the theology of the thirteenth century?

No jot or tittle of that teaching has been changed. In fact, the late Pope Benedict XV — of recent memory — decreed that theology in all the seminaries of the world should be taught according to the mind of that great thirteenth-century monk, Saint Thomas. Moreover, no pope has since repealed the mediæval legislation that prescribed corporal punishment for heresy. Conditions have changed in these later centuries. Yet the doctrine proclaiming the union of Church and State remains intact. Pius IX condemned this proposition: ‘The Church should be separated from the state and the state from the Church.’ (Hurter, Dogmatic Theology, vol. I, p. 240) If the governments of the world were Catholic to-day, undoubtedly the popes would still seek to control their policies. For it is taught in all our seminaries that ‘ the Church is a perfect society, distinct from civil society and far superior to it.’ (Ibid.) It was upon these principles, and upon the force of excommunication, that the popes for a thousand years based their right to dominate the governments of Europe. Nor will these aspirations be abandoned until the devoted and thoughtful members of the Church demand that there be a return to the simplicity of the Gospel.

As long as men are willing to be dominated there will always be found those who are ready to dominate them. This seems to be particularly true in the sphere of religion. Naturally it is difficult to institute a movement within the Catholic Church. As soon as Rome senses a trend of thought that is not in complete harmony with tradition, she fulminates her excommunication. With one fell blow she transfers the incipient movement from within to without. It was thus Rome dealt with such modernists as Loisy and Fogazzaro.

Were it not for this exquisite power, the Protestant Reformation might have taken place within the Church. Had this happened, the world to-day might have been blessed with a united Christendom. But Protestantism committed suicide when it left its paternal doorstep to wander into the wilderness of religious thought, when it entered upon a long journey without due preparation. All its traditions were Catholic, all its ideas were engendered in mediæval minds. Hence it is not strange that it aped the old tyranny which it had cast off. It was the religious sovietism of the sixteenth century. The movement was based upon the desire to return to the simplicity of the Gospel — wherefore Protestant sects are called the Evangelical churches.

Unfortunately no one knew how to reintroduce evangelical simplicity. Luther and his associates had all been trained in the old school. Christ’s philosophy of love did not prevail in that age. Quite naturally, then, they drifted back to doctrinalism. It became a creed, while striving to become the simple religion of Christ. Yet it became a creed without the great defensive weapon of excommunication. When doctrinal dissensions arose, they were free to run their course. In due time a new creed was born. Needless to remark how prolific was that Protestant mother church.

In our day the unchurched see little difference between the Protestant and Catholic systems of religion. Both are dogmatic. Both seek to impose their theological conclusions upon the people. The door of religion is, therefore, closed to men of thought and individuality. There are not many intelligent men, it would seem, who desire to form a new religious creed, to discover unknown basic truths in religion. But intelligent men have largely come to look with a certain disdain upon the religious organizations of to-day. They are loath to believe that the last word has been spoken on religious thought and experience. They are becoming more and more unwilling to be mere imitators of old ideas and ancient piety, though they might, under more favorable conditions, love the truths delivered to the ancients. This is particularly true in relation to the Catholic Church.

In a world of progress, the Church is reactionary. Her protagonists still cling to the icons of the past. But at least she is a great organization. She has the faculty of making her members feel that they are the salt of the earth. They are taught to believe that they alone are on the true way of salvation. Indeed, salvation is made easy for them, if we overlook the high cost of churches and schools and their maintenance. In fact, contrary to repute, the Catholic has an easier and more comfortable way to travel than others who seek salvation. In a doctrinal way, he need but memorize the contents of a penny Catechism. His religious worship is likewise prepared and conducted for him. He need not worry much about his venial sins, for the priest is always ready to take them away from his soul, enjoining upon him for penance, perhaps, the recitation of the rosary once or twice. All is formalism.

Nevertheless, the uninitiated should not judge individual Catholics too harshly. They are the victims of a system. They love their religion as they love life, if they be devout. They believe that the Catholic Church is the old, mother Church, the Church established by Christ, the Church over which Saint Peter was the first pope. Yet, many know that something, to them unfathomable, is radically wrong with the system. Let each one of us who loves the Church think and strive as best he may to mend it.

(The End)