Conclusion

Summary : Frontispiece of the manifesto of the Marnix Committee.—M. Payot’s criticism: Christianity has failed as a religion of love.—Absurdity of deciding on imperfect examination.—The benefits of every good institution on earth must be weighed against accidental evils.—Blessings conferred by the Christian religion.— If the teachings of Christianity were better obeyed, many murders would be prevented in modern society.— Christianity is a religion of love, for it has made men love one another.—Religion alone can do this.—As a religion of love, it must be victorious.—Duties of Catholics : to set an example of charity and all Christian virtues ; to draw men by the teaching of steadfast, intelligent, and enlightened faith; to multiply initiatives for the multitude.—The hopes of Leo XIII.

The Marnix Committee for the Diffusion of Ideas of Justice and Liberty¹ issues manifestoes pompously entitled Against Intolerance. On the title-page is reproduced the famous picture of Debat-Ponsan, Christ on the Mount. This represents several Crusaders, an Inquisitor, a Pope, and three Kings of France,² surveying a pile of dead bodies lying at their feet. Most of the bodies are naked, but some clothed and recognizable—De Coligny, a shepherd of the Cévennes, and perhaps John Huss. Behind, on the hill, stands Christ, His features wearing an expression of meekness and resignation, His hands hanging down as if in sadness and despair. Below is the legend : “ And I commanded you to love one another, as I have loved you.” M. Payot says more plainly : “ Christianity has failed as a religion of love.”

¹ As far as we know, this Committee has never defended any but Jews and Protestants.

² Francis I., Charles IX., and Louis XIV.

To represent in this manner, without comment, soldiers and their fallen enemies, judges and the criminals they have condemned, to display the sword without saying anything of the provocation or the threats which have necessitated its use, to point to its victims without counting those whom it has protected and saved, to charge it with accidental abuses without mentioning its benefits—this is the way to foment discord and hatred, but by calumny. In this way we might lay the responsibility for countless murders and assassinations on the noblest and most necessary institutions, and charge infinite misfortune and suffering to the family and property.

Man has always two voices speaking within him, persuading him to good or evil. Opposed as they are to each other, they divide humanity into two hostile armies. Thus law and authority cause insurrections ; marriage produces adulteries ; property excites the cupidity of the thief ; human life offers a temptation to the assassin ; the mention of God and religion irritates the impious and the proud. Some unruly rebel, some enemy of all that is good, will rise against every kind of order and authority ; and the more essential the good, the more seriously does its assailant disturb the peace of society. But is it fair to judge of an institution by the dis-orders caused by its adversaries ? Is it reasonable even to make it responsible for the abuses committed by its defenders ? Can we lay to the charge of religion proceedings in which it had no part, or number among its victims those criminals who would have been condemned under any penal code in the world ? And, above all, do not the benefits which flow from religion as from their natural source more than counterbalance occasional evils ? For one war declared on account of religion, how many treaties of peace has religion brought about ? for one outburst of fanaticism, how many reconciliations ? for one act of injustice, how many reparations ? for one person placed under restraint, how many have been set free ? This is not the place to describe all that the Church has done for the pacification and civilization of the pagan world, the barbarian world, the savage world, nor all the benefits of the Church’s intervention in favour of slaves, of women, and of children. The reverence, and protection, and love that Christianity has secured for children alone should be enough to wipe out from the minds of sensible men the remembrance of punishments and struggles in which faith has been concerned, and make them proclaim the inestimable value of the religion of the Cross.

Let us not dispute the value of those services by sharing the opinions or believing the lies of those who attribute the softening of manners to irresistible evolution or necessary progress. What becomes of rights in the present day in societies which have lost the faith ? What shall we say of the abominable practices introduced to prevent the birth of children—foeticide and artificial sterility—which not only exist, but have become fashionable, and have found apologists and defenders ? An official census shows that eight hundred thousand children are born alive in France every year ; and friends of the atheist Republic calculate that miscarriages are more numerous than births! Thus, in a single year and in a single country the number of innocent victims of theoretical or practical irreligion is ten times greater than the number of heretics ever sent to the stake on account of religion. It is true that the murders of those little beings, who cannot even complain, are committed in secret, and therefore make no sensation; but is the fact any less deplorable ? And when we see the cruel and sanguinary instincts that are developed with unbelief, and the deeds of violence that increasing selfishness¹ leads men to perpetrate, sometimes on savages who cannot defend themselves, sometimes on honest people who stand in the way of their passion; we may well ask ourselves whether a civilization which has filled Paris, the City of Light, with Apaches will go on long without some terrible bloodshed. Napoleon said of nations without religion : “ They are not to be governed by ordinary means ; the only way of dealing with them is by a charge of grape-shot.”²

¹ “ The melancholy results of the neutral education which is now being introduced are only too visible. Unscrupulous greed and selfishness are its bitter fruits. It becomes difficult to induce citizens to care for anything but their own selfish material interests ” (Picard, in the Chronique of Sunday, June 4, 1911.)

² Quoted by M. Louis Ollivier in the French Chamber on April 12, 1905, in the discussion of the law of Separation of Church and State.

Has the Catholic religion failed as a religion of love ? If you would know, ask if it has made men love one another ; and what an eloquent answer will you receive in its name from the innumerable heroes of charity, who form and lead what has been recently called “ the square battalion of sacrifice and devotion ”;¹ from the Sisters in charge of its lazarets, its hospitals, its orphanages, and its old men’s homes ; from its missionaries, who have at times been the authorized peace-makers between hostile nations, and whose whole life is one long act of self-sacrificing love ! The Catholic religion might answer you by pointing to its penal justice itself, the salutary influence of which we have described ; it might answer you by all its saints and those very men who were conspicuous for their zeal against heresy. Even Lea admits that cruelty to heretics was sometimes accompanied in the same minds by an infinite love for men.²

¹ Henri de Lavedan, in his discourse on the rewards for virtue (French Academy, December 7, 1911).

² Op. cit., p. 239.

Let us remember this, that all the repressive action of the Church is justifiable only if it proceeds from love for men. Fanaticism and bitterness may sometimes have been accidentally mixed with it, as a result of human weakness ; but, unlike other forms of religion, Christianity forbids us to hate, and only permits us to punish in order to save—to save, if possible, those who are punished ; to save at least those who would otherwise be corrupted by them.

Christianity has not failed as a religion of love ; it has made men love. Nay, more: religion alone can produce real love, for how can love be produced by negation or scepticism ? How should the seeds of generosity and love be sown by an unbelief which directs all its aspirations and all its desires to those visible goods for which men quarrel and fight ? “ Priest, how I hate you !” “ And how I love you !” This little dialogue, which took place in the street between a priest and a rabid Socialist, summarizes the sentiments inspired by a faith which is called “ intolerant,” and a free-thought which prides itself on its tolerance.

Christianity has not failed as a religion of love: as a religion of love it is destined to triumph.

When the true religion cannot rely on the secular power or on any purely human support, it still retains in charity its great power of expansion and conversion ; and our first duty as Catholics is to secure for that power its fullest development, and at the same time to practise generous and sincere tolerance in private life. Let us declare ourselves opposed, on the one hand, to that overweening erudition which magnifies its flimsiest conjectures into irrefutable arguments against religion ; and, on the other hand, to that narrow-minded orthodoxy which, by exaggerating the purport of authoritative definitions and explanations of the truth, throws suspicion on the loyalty of others. Let us not make of religion an obstacle to serious and honest work; but, while we refuse to listen to pretentious charlatanism, let us give free scope to real science, Let a delicate consideration for all acquired rights and a scrupulous fidelity to all conventions show that the very principles of our religion engender a sincere, practical tolerance, and that we need not sacrifice a single truth for fear of offending any conscience.

Let us do our best to bring men nearer to us ; let us give them what they need—a clear and honest statement of our principles, without either boasting or diffidence ; conduct in accordance with the lofty rules of our faith, so that in their intercourse with us they may confidently seek rest for their minds and their hearts. Let scrupulous veracity in our words, strict justice in our actions, and considerate kindness to all,¹ show what moral vigour and nobility religion gives to men; and thus let our intelligent and enlightened faith dissipate the prejudices of ignorance.

¹ Gentleness, prudence, and patience “ were the only weapons of Christianity in its first days ; they should be the only weapons of Christianity under trial” (Letter of Lamartine, 1829, to M. De Marcellus at Rome. See Maréchal, Lamennais et Lamartine, p. 177).

The unique position of the Catholic Church must strike every thinking person. That Church stands alone, to excite the jealousy of every despotism, to withstand the attack of every heresy. Notwithstanding their almost infinite diversity, all forms of impiety are united in the endeavour to bring about the downfall of the Catholic hierarchy, and so of religious society. They are all united against what they call “ clericalism.” Dogma irritates them less than authority in religion.

All sects are united for the attack upon Catholic unity. The civilized world has been tending, not since yesterday only, but for a long time, to separate into two divisions—the Church and anti-Church. The latter is the common name of all heresies, all schisms, and all apostasies. The oldest heresiarchs discussed dogma only to find a pretext for rebellion ; the Councils only assembled to cement the Church built upon Peter by Jesus Christ. Opponents of every class, deceived by intellectual illusions and dazzled by the prospect of innovations, have had one cry against the Church, which has re-echoed from age to age, from Donatism to Catharism, from Catharism to the Reformation, from the Reformation to the Revolution, from the Revolution to Anarchy. But this unity shows another common character of all these revolts against the Church’s authority: their positive elements have been absorbed in the progress of the theandric work ; the revolts themselves have ended in utter ruin. The same thing happens always : when man gives up God, he finds only nothingness.

This constant opposition to the Church will strike all men, at least those who preserve the elements of moral vigour and sanity ; for when they examine the claims of the Church they cannot but feel that attraction which is so powerful at a time when so many men are foundering in a sea of doubt; the attraction of that supernatural certitude which the Church alone is able to give without interfering with the work of science. Man has need of both reason and faith, of movement and equilibrium; and that religion is true which gives him faith and equilibrium, which invites him to movement, and leads him to God.

The special dangers of the people, on whom our Lord looked with such loving pity, call for the zealous efforts of prudent and well-instructed teachers. Everywhere, we may say, the civil Government, even when it is not actively hostile, allows a free hand to all doctrinal attacks upon faith and morals. We are further removed from the Middle Ages by the opinions that find favour than by the centuries that have intervened ; and we can no longer count on the silent preaching of the Christs and Madonnas at the corners of our streets, nor on the calls to prayer that echoed of old, even in the dead of night, nor on official care to save men from seduction. The images and statues that meet the eyes of poor and rich alike, as they leave their homes, are full of indecent suggestiveness. Newspapers and other publications are offered for sale whose very titles are sometimes filthy or blasphemous ; and the worst of it all is that calumny is added to the insult—calumny against dogmas, so distorted as to be unrecognizable ; calumny against persons, with circumstantial details invented to make it more readily believed.¹

¹ For instance, a charge is made against a priest; no name is given, but an alleged photograph of the incriminated priest is produced. No one can be recognized, and so refutation is made impossible.

The men who are deceived by these things are our brothers, and it is our duty to give them, by the vigour of our initiative, the constancy of our efforts, and the development of our generosity, the support, the encouragement, and the protection, which the law refuses them.

If the general situation has its shadows, yet it offers to the man of faith a magnificent work, worthy of his best efforts—the work of bringing about the victory of religion by the only weapons which liberty allows. The work is both Divine and human —Divine by grace, without which no man can come to Jesus Christ; human by the labour which that grace generally demands, and to which it gives inspiration.

Let us give ourselves wholly to the accomplishment of this great purpose; let us be persuaded that in the present crisis lukewarmness is almost as bad as irreligion. Let our faith refuse no light, let our hearts be open to every virtue, let our hands be ready for any good work. Two futures are entrusted to us—that of the civilized world and that of worlds that are still barbarian.

Weary of their unhappiness, tired of being the sport of false hopes and the victims of selfish and ambitious leaders, men will turn to the truth they have so long refused to acknowledge ;¹ they will consider it with a calm and unprejudiced attention ; and they will be surprised to find so near them in the Church what they have so vainly and so laboriously sought for outside.

¹ “ We have not found in the Republic either work, or peace, or justice, or the security we counted on finding there ; we will return to the Church.” M. Colly, a Socialist Deputy, thus interprets the sentiments of many French railway employés (French Chamber : debate on the reinstatement of railway workers, 1911).

Who are we, it may be asked, to use such language as this ? It is not ours ; it is the language which came eighteen years ago from the heart of an illustrious and venerable Pontiff—a heart always full of generous ideas and desires. This is what Leo XIII. said and prophesied in his memorable Apostolic Letter to the Princes and people of the whole world. He, too, longed for a social and political restoration of all things in Christ, and in the contemplation of that sublime prospect he wrote those burning words of prayer and hope with which this work shall be concluded :

“ With these thoughts in Our mind and ardent yearnings in Our heart, We see from afar what would be the new order of things that would arise from the earth, and nothing could be sweeter to Us than the contemplation of the benefits that would flow from it. It can hardly be imagined what immediate and rapid progress would be made all over the earth in all manner of greatness and prosperity, with the establishment of tranquillity and peace, the promotion of studies, the founding and the multiplying on Christian lines, according to Our directions, of associations for the cultivators of the soil, for workmen and tradesmen, through whose agency rapacious usury would be put down and a large field opened for useful labours.

“ And these abundant benefits would not be confined within the limits of civilized nations, but, like an overcharged river, would flow far and wide. It must be remembered, as We observed at the outset, that an immense number of races have been waiting all through the long ages to receive the light of truth and civilization. Most certainly the counsels of God with regard to the eternal salvation of peoples are far removed above the understanding of man ; yet, if miserable superstition still prevails in so many parts of the world, the blame must be attributed in no small measure to religious dissensions. For, as far as it is given to human reason to judge from the nature of events, this seems, without doubt, to be the mission assigned by God to Europe, to go on by degrees carrying Christian civilization to every portion of the earth. The beginnings and first growth of this great work which sprang from the labours of former centuries were rapidly receiving large developments, when all of a sudden the discord of the sixteenth century broke out. Christendom was torn with quarrels and dissensions, Europe exhausted with contests and wars, and the sacred missions felt the baneful influence of the times. While the causes of dissensions still remain, what wonder is it that so large a portion of mankind is held enthralled with barbarous customs and insane rites ? “ Let us one and all, then, for the sake of the common welfare, labour with equal assiduity to restore the ancient concord. In order to bring about this concord, and spread abroad the benefits of the Christian revelation, the present is the most seasonable time, for never before have the sentiments of human brotherhood penetrated so deeply into the souls of men, and never in any age has man been seen to seek out his fellow-men more eagerly, in order to know them better and to help them. Immense tracts of land and sea are traversed with incredible rapidity, and thus extraordinary advantages are offered, not only for commerce and scientific investigations, but also for the propagation of the word of God, from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same.

“ We are well aware of the long labours involved in the restoration of that order of things which We desire ; and it may be that there are those who consider that We are far too sanguine, and look for things that are rather to be wished for than expected. But We unhesitatingly place all Our hope and confidence in the Saviour of mankind, Jesus Christ, well remembering what great things have been achieved in times past by the folly of the Cross and its preaching, to the astonishment and confusion of the wisdom of the world.”¹

¹ Letter Præclara Gratulationis, June 10, 1894.