On liberty of worship

[By liberty of worship there is understood today, on the part of private individuals, the faculty of embracing any form of worship whatever, among dissident and opposed ones, and even of rejecting them all alike; but on the part of the state, the right of publicly professing no religion, and of attributing the same value to all forms of worship, or at least to many, and of conceding them the same rights.

I say: Liberty of worship is altogether to be reprobated.

Proof. 1° from the unhappy and never sufficiently deplorable outcome of this system, namely that through the use of such liberty men are cast outside the way of salvation. For,

That the Catholic faith alone is true, alone salvific, alone imposed by divine law upon all and each man, together with the obligations and duties which flow from it, and that it shines marked with notes of credibility so splendid that its divinity cannot be doubted, no one using reason will sincerely deny. Moreover, liberty or equality of worship evidently sets itself against so excellent and necessary a good. Through it indeed, as Pius IX testifies in the Encyclical of 9 November 1846, there is thrust into Catholic kingdoms « that horrible system, most repugnant even to the natural light of reason itself, of indifference towards any religion whatsoever, which, every distinction between truth and error being taken away, holds that men can attain eternal salvation in the worship of any religion. » But this indifference casts man outside the way of salvation. Therefore.

Proof. 2° from the bond by which society is bound to God. This Leo XIII expounds most beautifully in the encyclical letter Immortale Dei: « Nature and reason, he says, which command every individual to worship God holily and religiously, because we are in his power and, having proceeded from him, must return to him, bind by the same law civil society. For men joined together in common society are no less under the power of God than individuals; nor does society owe less grace to God than individuals, by whose author it coalesced, by whose nod it is preserved, by whose benefit it has received the innumerable abundance of goods with which it abounds. Wherefore, just as no one is permitted to neglect his own duties towards God, and it is the greatest of duties to embrace religion in mind and morals, not that which each one may prefer, but that which God has commanded, and which by certain and by no means doubtful signs is established to be the one true religion among all: in the same way states cannot without crime conduct themselves as if God in no way existed, or cast aside the care of religion as something foreign and of no profit, or take up indifferently out of several kinds whichever they please; and they must altogether adopt in worshipping God that manner and mode by which God himself has shown that he wills to be worshipped. » But liberty of worship breaks this bond of society towards God. Therefore.

Proof. 3° from the ultimate end of civil society. If indeed its proximate end is to provide for the temporal goods and felicity of its members, its ultimate end is the same which was appointed by God for rational creatures, namely that individual men attain eternal salvation.

The same Pontiff proves this in the same place thus: « Holy must the name of God be held among princes, and it must be placed among their chiefest duties to embrace religion with favor, to guard it with benevolence, to shield it with authority and the sanction of laws, and to institute or decree nothing contrary to its welfare. This they owe also to the citizens over whom they preside. For we are born and received into being for a certain supreme and ultimate good, towards which all counsels are to be referred, placed in the heavens beyond this frailty and brevity of life. But since upon this depends the felicity of men, everywhere complete and perfect, therefore to attain the end mentioned is of such great concern to each one that nothing can be of greater concern. Civil society, therefore, born for the common utility, in safeguarding the prosperity of the republic must consult citizens in such a way that, by obtaining and acquiring that supreme and unchangeable good which they spontaneously desire, not only should no disadvantage ever accrue, but every opportunity possible should be brought forward. Of these the chiefest is that care be given to religion, to be preserved holy and inviolate, whose offices join man to God. » But liberty of worship subverts this end. Therefore.

Proof. 4° from the condemnation repeatedly inflicted upon this doctrine by the supreme Pontiffs.

1° Pius VI, in the epistle addressed to Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld and the other prelates of France, on 10 March 1791, exclaims: « What more insane thing could be devised than to establish such equality and liberty among all [forms of worship]? »

2° Leo XIII commemorates the doctrinal judgment delivered against liberty of worship by Gregory XVI, sanctioning it, in the above-praised Encyclical: « Thus Gregory XVI, by the encyclical letter beginning Mirari vos, of 15 August in the year 1832, struck down with great weight of judgment those things which were then being preached: that no choice need be employed in divine worship; that it belongs integrally to each one to judge of religion as he prefers; that each one's conscience alone is his judge. »

3° There was related above the judgment of Pius IX, by which he calls that system « horrible », and « repugnant in the highest degree even to the natural light of reason itself ».

4° The same Leo XIII, in the same place, equates the principle of the equality and liberty of worship with indifferentism and atheism: « To think concerning religion, he says, that there is no difference between dissimilar and contrary forms, this plainly has this outcome, to refuse to approve any by judgment, to refuse any by use. But this, if it differs from atheism by name, differs nothing in reality. For those who are persuaded that God exists, provided they wish to be consistent and not utterly absurd, necessarily understand that the customary forms in divine worship, so great is their difference, and their dissimilarity and conflict even about the greatest matters, cannot all equally be probable, equally good, equally acceptable to God. »

5° This system is condemned most expressly in the Syllabus of the principal errors of our age, whose value and authority the same Leo XIII expresses thus, in the same place: « Pius IX, as opportunity offered himself, marked several of the false opinions which had begun to prevail most widely, and afterwards ordered the same to be gathered into one collection, so that, namely, amid so great a flood of errors Catholic men might have what they might follow without offense. » Further, in the Syllabus, among the errors which are referred to the liberalism of today, the three following propositions are enumerated and noted as condemned: LXXVII: « In this age of ours it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion be held as the one religion of the state, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship whatsoever. » Alloc. Nemo vestrum, 26 July 1853. — LXXVIII: « Hence it has been laudably provided by law in some regions bearing the Catholic name, that it shall be lawful for men immigrating thither to hold the public exercise of their own respective form of worship. » Alloc. Acerbissimum, 27 September 1852. — LXXIX: « Moreover, it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship, and the full power given to all of manifesting any opinions and thoughts openly and publicly, conduce to the corrupting of the morals and minds of peoples more easily, and to the spreading abroad of the pestilence of indifferentism. » Alloc. Nunquam fore, 15 December 1856. Which proposition is related by Leo XIII as condemned among the notes with which the Encyclical Immortale Dei is adorned.

Hence resolve:

1° A Catholic prince or legislator is bound to impede the free exercise of the worship of sects by all the means he can.

The truth of this conclusion is clear, both from the preceding arguments and authorities, and from this reason, namely that, if it is not permitted to the legislator to indulge lesser vices, much less can he favor those which universally pervert minds, corrupt morals, undermine the very foundations of the republic, and moreover, which is the gravest of evils, turn subjects away from their ultimate end, that is, from the attainment of eternal felicity.

2° But since in human affairs it is not permitted to pursue a good except insofar as the circumstances of things allow, if greater evils ought to arise from the violent suppression of an unhappily introduced liberty, it can be tolerated by the public authority, provided it be restrained within due limits, until it can be wholly removed without grave danger. Thus is to be understood what Pius VI wrote in the above-praised epistle: « Let us consider the difference which intervenes between men who have always been outside the bosom of the Church, such as infidels and Jews, and between those who subjected themselves to the Church herself through the sacrament of baptism received. For the former ought not to be constrained to the profession of Catholic obedience; but on the contrary the latter are to be compelled, » supposing indeed that good ought to prevail over evil. And the same Leo XIII says without limitation in the Encyclical Immortale Dei: « Nor does a just cause arise, he says, for anyone to accuse the Church, either of being confined more than is right in lenity and facility, or of being hostile to that liberty which is genuine and legitimate. In truth, if the Church judges that it is not licit for the various kinds of divine worship to exist by the same right as the true religion, she does not therefore condemn those moderators of commonwealths who, for the sake of attaining some great good or of prohibiting some evil, patiently suffer by custom and usage that those forms each have place in the state. And she is accustomed to guard this also most greatly, that no one be compelled unwillingly to embrace the Catholic faith, because, as Augustine wisely warns, Tract. XXVI in Ioann., n. 2, « Man cannot believe unless he wills. »

This the Angelic Doctor likewise teaches and excellently demonstrates, this q. 10, a. 11, c.: « Human government, he says, is derived from divine government, and ought to imitate it. God, however, although he is omnipotent and supremely good, nevertheless permits certain evils to come to pass in the universe, which he could prevent, lest, those being removed, greater goods should be taken away, or even worse evils should follow. Thus therefore in human government those who preside rightly tolerate certain evils, lest certain goods be impeded, or even lest worse evils be incurred, as Augustine says in book II de Ordine, cap. 4, num 2: « Remove the prostitutes from human affairs, and you will confound everything » with lusts. Thus therefore, although infidels sin in their rites, they can be tolerated, either on account of some good which proceeds from them, or on account of some evil which is avoided. From the fact, however, that the Jews observe their rites, in which of old the truth of the faith which we hold was prefigured, this good proceeds, that we have testimony of our faith from enemies, and that there is represented to us as it were in figure that which we believe: and therefore they are tolerated in their rites. But the rites of other infidels, who bring no truth or utility, are not to be tolerated in any degree, except perhaps to avoid some evil, namely to avoid the scandal or discord which could proceed from this, or the impediment to the salvation of those who, thus tolerated, are gradually converted to the faith. For this reason the Church sometimes tolerated the rites of heretics and pagans, when the multitude of infidels was great. » That which is said here of the Jews is confirmed by example; for the Roman Pontiffs have always, on account of the reasons here set forth, tolerated them in the city of Rome and have even protected them with their protection.]